Sarcastic Lutheran

A pastoral letter to House for All Sinners and Saints

 

Dear Church,  

A couple of months ago a Lutheran campus ministry pastor contacted me.  He wanted to bring a group of 10 college students to HFASS this week which I assured him, would be no problem.  Then I get a call from him last week indicating that they are combining their trip with another campus ministry group and there would actually be 20 now.  I hemmed an hawed until finally saying that I’d prefer if they split up as a group…there are some other cool churches to check out in Denver; maybe 10 could go to The Wilderness at the cathedral.  As you all know, we get a lot of what I call “church tourism”; people wanting to come see what we do but who aren’t looking to join because they are either visiting from out of town or are members at other churches.  Obviously we are use to this and actually welcome it unless it overwhelms us and totally changes what we are doing.   Then yesterday I find out that there is a youth group from Iowa who is also planning as part of their service trip to come and visit HFASS this week. And there are 28 of them. Are you kidding me? I thought.  At some point the observer changes what is being observed, you know? I love that people are so interested in our funky little church but it feel like we are zoo animals if there are more of them than us.  I mean, if that many people came we’d have to take down the prayer labyrinth, and I’m not even sure we have that many extra chairs.  Plus, I’m not even there this week.  Matthew is covering for me.  

But… then I thought shit.  Is radical hospitality about saying “please join us…that is if we aren’t inconvenienced and we don’t have to change anything from the way we like it”?  So I want you to know that I have repented from my original impulse to protect and preserve HFASS so that all the people who really belong there won’t feel uncomfortable or inconvenienced. It’s not our tent.  It’s God’s tent. (http://tinyurl.com/y8heo4v )  

So this Sunday yes, we won’t be able to have the prayer labyrinth and maybe there won’t be enough chairs and maybe it won’t feel just the way we like it and we’ll need extra cookies and communion bread. And yes, we will have to change what we do. But I ask that you embrace this holy interruption.  Show up.  Meet these people.  Worship with the assembly. Gather around a bigger table than we have ever had.  You never know when you may be entertaining angels.  

It’s an honor to be your pastor.  

Grace,

Nadia

Why are there so few solo church planters who are women?

Church planting is it's own weird thing.  It takes a certain personality to think you might, just might, be able to (with tons of help from God) start a church from scratch.  There is a somewhat particular constellation of personality traits needed for such a task.  These traits may allow one to be suited for church planting but be horribly ill suited for many other things...let's not pretend otherwise.  So at the risk of sounding like I'm indulging in self-flattery let me attempt to list some of these traits.

a church planter usually is:

self-motivated

creative

charismatic

independent

connecting

can inspire others to do stuff

responsive and adaptive

someone who can hold a vision of what's possible

OK I'm sure there are other things but these come to mind at 6:30a this morning. 

Are these characteristics simply found in more men than women?  Maybe...but if so then why?  And if not then why aren't more women doing what I do?  I bet there are 30-40 church plants of all different ilks in Denver and I am the only solo female church planter I know here.

Here are some reasons I thought of:

*Obviously some Christian traditions don't allow women to be pastors

*There are a lot of women who are married with children who don't have the kind of family and spousal support that I have in my life. (2 of the 3 other solo church planters I know are single women)

*Thinking back to my youth group and other co-ed groups from when i was a teen, it seemed like the really funny charismatic people whose plans and ideas other people got on board with were all male. Young women are not as likely to be rewarded for being that kind of person.

What percentage of solo church planters you know are women?

What factors have I not considered?