I've received a lot of positive response from my recent post about pastors standing in the surf of change.  NEXT Church reblogged it the following week, and a number of pastor friends have told me they're sharing it with their sessions.  So I've decided to do more of these posts over the next few months.  If future-of-the-church musings are not your thing, I'm sure I'll slide in a music critique or cute family anecdote post.  But this is what's front and center in my mind and in my life right now, and I'd love it if you'd engage it with me.

Oh, and we'll call this little series Standing In The Surf, in deference to the initial post and because I really dig the beach. 

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Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. - Romans 12:2

It's a Thursday afternoon and I'm leading music for the Montreat Middle School Conference at Maryville College (which, if you didn't already know, is a pretty amazing little Presbyterian school you should check out).  As part of leading music, I'm also heading up the voluntary conference choir, preparing a few tunes for Sunday worship.  I confess to being a bit uncertain about the latter.  Songleading is right up my alley, but conducting a choir is not.  It feels like something that requires formal music training, of which I have frighteningly little.  Alas, the cliff was there, and I chose to jump.  And gravity is irreversible.

So here we are at our first rehearsal and I'm both thrilled and overwhelmed at what I find: a cacophony of mature and pre-pubescent voices that don't fit neatly in soprano/alto/tenor/bass categories.  I take a different approach.  I have them sing the parts of the song one-by-one; and then invite them to group themselves according to which part they feel fits them best.  One part is slightly off the beat; the other is more set in the rhythm, and the last is an all-out arena rock "whoaa!"  Thankfully, this plan seems to work, and everyone is singing their parts just fine, and it's sounding pretty good…..

And then I hear something else - something different, something that doesn't fit the plan.  I motion the choir to keep singing while I listen harder.  It is someone in the "whoa" group.  I keep listening....and then I figure it out: it's this little girl on the first row, right in front of me.  Blue eyes, pony tail.  Sixth grade, tops.  She is singing the "whoa" just fine, but in a new harmony; a third up from the one I taught. I hadn't instructed her to sing this.  She's doing it on her own, and it sounds incredible.

I look down at her; and as soon as she sees me doing this, she clams up and immediately goes back to singing the part as prescribed.  Interesting, how her instinct was to interpret my glance as disapproval. When we finish a few bars later, I lean down and ask her if she was the one singing the different part.  Reluctantly, she says yes.  And I tell her to keep singing it because it is awesome; because it is her shining through, because she took something I had given her and made it even better.  Those blue eyes beam.  We sing it an extra time just to re-experience the beauty of it.

I had actually forgotten about the whole thing until something in Derrick's sermon that evening triggered it and got me thinking about the ongoing challenge of change and growth in today's church.  We all have a place and a purpose in the body of Christ - kind of like a choir, really.  Like Paul's great words in the 12th chapter of First Corinthians, we have gifts and skills; we have mouths and eyes and ears and limbs and the like. 

But it's curious how the church has addressed this over the years.  I think of the typical "time and talent" sheet churches hand out.  Ear?  Sure, I can be an ear.  The church needs a nose?  I'll sign on for that.  And so on.  It's nice, but it's also mighty confining.  I mean, think about it: Here's a list of things we've done before, things we've always done; and we need you to do them again.  Because that's what we do in the church: we do what's always been done.  So sign up for something that's on this list.  You get to choose which part you want to sing, but we get to make the parts up.

But what about the blue-eyed, pony-tailed sixth grader who has a part to sing that nobody's heard before?  What about the church member who has a gift to share that's nowhere to be found on the time and talent sheet? 

What about them? The truth is that most of the time they won't do a thing - they'll just conform.  And that's a problem.  A big one.  We're big on conforming in the church, even if we claim not to be.  Without realizing it, we send out a vibe that says, "We love the idea of growth and change, but we're not so hot on actually growing and changing."  We toss around new ideas that never find their way out of a session meeting or committee; we claim to want to move into the future but can't get over the grief involved in letting go of the past; we say we want the church to attract new people but are content with telling them to come to us, rather than going out and meeting them where they are. 

I'm so thankful that girl didn't conform to my choir.  I'm glad she sang her own harmony and made the song much more beautiful than I ever could.  And you know why it worked?  It worked because she wasn't just singing something crazy and contradictory.  She was paying attention to and listening to the voices around her, adding hew new voice in the mix in a way that complemented theirs.  This wasn't an individual excursion, it was a communal affair.  As it should be with the church.

Sounds funny to say, but we all need to be blue-eyed, pony-tailed sixth graders.  Finding our voice in the church and letting it shine.  Taking that "time and talent" sheet and writing a space at the bottom that says, "OTHER."  Sensing the opportunity to take something that's good and make it even better.  And then just doing it.  Doing it whether we're given permission to our not.  Doing it even when other voices within (and even out) are telling us to clam up; don't do anything crazy; just play the game, just sing the part, just conform. 

The question for leaders in the church, then, is this: how do we equip our membership to not only think outside of the box but act out of it as well?  How do we help people find their own unique voice in the mission of kingdom-building and sing their own part loud and proud? How do we give permission for people to dream up what is next for the church?

I think the key lies in preaching, teaching, and cultivating conversations about precisely the need for people to dream up what hasn't been created yet.  I think it lies in giving them permission, as many times as needed, to not only latch onto the "new thing" God is doing in their midst (thank you, Isaiah), but to help them be aware that there is a new thing.  And I think when they actually do sing something new, we need to resist the instinct to bring them back into compliance.  Instead, we ought to recognize how beautiful it really is, and celebrate that with them; and then equip and encourage them to keep doing it.

The church of today and tomorrow will grow only if we choose to sing a part that hasn't been created yet. 

That's what a blue-eyed, pony-tailed sixth grader taught me today. I wonder what she can teach you.

The last time I sent out a blog post announcement about a new album release of mine, it was over two years ago.  That album, Let Go, came fresh out of my sabbatical that previous summer.  I treat every album as if it's my last for a few reasons: they cost a lot of money, take up a lot of time, and I never take for granted how long the musical muse decides they're going to stick around.

Today I'm happy to announce, if I'm counting right, the release of my sixth project!  Made To Sing Together (you can listen & download below) is comprised of songs I've written and recorded over the years specifically for retreats and conferences I've led music for. While most of these have appeared on previous projects, the leadoff tune, "Stones Come Rollin' Down," was written for the Montreat Middle School Conference, taking place this very week.  It also includes a number of youth from my church singing with me, which was a pretty cool experience, as I shared in this previous blog post.

Writing these conference theme songs is a whole different beast from typical songwriting ventures.  It can be a bit of a challenge writing in a select pocket of theme and scripture; the never-ending search for that killer hook or words for the last stanza that have to be "singable" not just for you but for everyone else.  In the end, though, when you're standing in front of 300 or 600 or 1000 folks, there eventually comes a point when you step away from the mic and they all keep singing; and that's when you know that the song has become as much theirs at it is yours.  Which is a truly amazing and humbling thing.

I'm focusing on Bandcamp as the primary source of distribution for this project.  Maybe someday I'll add iTunes/Amazon/Spotify, but I like Bandcamp for the ease of downloading and the fact that it embeds the artwork and lyrics directly into the mp3.  Plus it'll allow me to add other songs in the future - and hopefully I'll be leading music for more retreats and conferences and will need to write more theme songs.

Maybe these tunes will take you back to a retreat or conference you attended that I had the pleasure of leading music for, or maybe they'll lead you to form new experiences and memories.  Either way, I hope you'll enjoy them.  After all, they were written for you.

Thanks for listening, thanks for downloading, thanks for sharing!

It's around 11am, and our family is at the beach. It rained the first few days here, but now the sun is shining bright and the place is packed.  We've carved out a few square feet of sand for our two folding chairs.  We won't need much room, though, because the majority of the Lindsleys will be out in the water, out in the waves. I've always loved the body surfing/boogie-boarding thing, and I'm proud to have passed that same love on to my sons.

It's different being out there as a father, though.  It's a bit of a juggling act between satisfying your own desires to enjoy the waves while owning up to your parental obligations.   I have to shelve my desire to plunge headfirst into the oncoming wave to make sure my kids are safe.  And "safe" in the ocean is always a tricky thing - that huge wave that doesn't materialize until its right on you, undercurrents and rip currents, and all the unforeseen marine life that - as I've had personal experience with - can cause, ahem, severe complications.

What makes it even more of a challenge is the difference between my two boys.  My oldest shares my tendency to throw himself into something with reckless abandon.  I want to go out to the big waves, he tells me.   We can't, the lifeguard says there are rip currents out there, I answer.  What does he know, he's way back there in the lifeguard chair!  And so it goes.  My younger son, though, is much more tentative.  Or "smart," as his mother would say.  He may want to follow his Dad and older brother, but for him, the threat overrides the potential thrill.  But he's not going to sit up in the beach chair, either.  So in his mind he's determined the parameters of how far he'll go into the surf, and he's not about to exceed it. 

It's a lot to manage.  In fact, it actually feels a lot like being a pastor.

The waves of change are swirling around the church in a big way these days, and in many ways it's been going on for years.  Much of this change - all of it, perhaps - has come from the outside: civil rights movement, women's liberation, postmodernism, gay marriage and stances on homosexuality, the equalizing of the human experience via mass technology and social media.  I could go on and on.

The point is, the church is facing change whether we like it or not. And we differ greatly on how we respond to and cultivate that change, even within a single congregation.

Some folks are like my older son, feeling the urge to plunge head-first into the waves of change.  Why delay the inevitable?  Things like the emergent church, contemporary worship, congregations that look and feel more like coffee houses, and even NEXTChurch in my denomination are all signs that some recognize the wave is coming - so why not go and meet it?  We know we can't "change the change" any more than my son or I can alter the direction of the wave that's heading straight for us - as my friend and fellow songster David Lamotte sings, "The water's gonna win."  As does change.  Why fight something that is going to happen with you or without you?

Hold on, say people like my younger son.  For these, change - like the waves - are not just a sign of something different, but the essence of the difference itself.  And the very fact that "it" can't be stopped elicits fear - or, as writer Diana Butler Bass suggests in her recent book, grief over the loss of what was familiar and comfortable.  There are degrees to this category of folks.  Some remain stubbornly on the shore, plopped down in the beach chair and observing the change from a safe distance.  Others, like my younger son, may wade in the surf, but only up to a point.  They engage change in the church with conditions and qualifiers: contemporary music... but only at the early service.  Women in positions of leadership... but not the lead pastor.  Acceptance of gays and lesbians for church membership... but not for ordination.

And there's the pastor in the middle of it all.  They're standing in the surf, calling out to one group of folks to come back, not so fast, wait up for everyone else.  And they're calling out to others: come on in, it's not so bad, you'll be alright.  They're well aware of the threats that can be seen - all those undercurrents and rip currents swirling around them - as well as the threats no one can see yet.  They're trying to care for people and help them meet their needs, while also caring for the church and meeting God's needs.

Like I said, a lot to manage.

I got to thinking about this while scanning my Facebook feed this morning and coming upon this from The 70 Sent Project:

The church is a paradoxical mixture between the desire to transform a world that clings to old forms and prejudices, and the desire to find stability and peace in a world that is changing too rapidly. Often this paradox is found within the same person.  The role of the church leader is to stand in the middle of this paradox, facilitating the flow of the Holy Spirit between the transforming and stabilizing impulses. (emphasis mine)

That's the huge task facing pastors and all church leaders in today's church: not trying to be everything to everyone, a common misconception (and the cause of clergy burnout for anyone who tries it).  No, the task of those in ministry in the 21st century is trying to bring everyone together into some sense of cohesion and mission when people are different (thanks be to God for that, by the way) and when people respond to change differently.  That along with facing the fact that the change, like that big wave, is coming.  In fact, in a sense it's already here.

It's a challenge, to be sure. But it's also a wonderful opportunity and privilege, to stand there.  Change means that God is in the midst of doing some pretty amazing stuff. Here's hoping that, wherever we are standing in the surf - right at the breaking point or a little further up shore - that we all eventually get swept up in the wave of God's change together.

In other words, time to get our sea legs under us.

I could've bought this in the chain bookstore I wandered into on a Saturday afternoon for a mere $27.50 plus tax, thus serving as a constant reminder of a very important distinction I need to be reminded of on a regular basis.

Instead, I decided to just take a picture of it and post it on my blog for free.

After all, you can't put a price tag on a message like this: