Friday, January 3, 2020

I'm going to read this... with my lawyers present.

When I first found out my mother's former minister was writing a book about why he left the ministry, all I could think of was how many of his former parishioners would pull a Diana Ross watching Dreamgirls and have a lawyer present while reading through the volume.

However, what I found reading Beau Brown's No More Churches was that it's not some tawdry tell all, but more of an examination of why someone hears the call and then finds it leads them away from Church leadership. Because, while the church may have been founded by G-d, more often than not his Adversary has more to do with the politics that go into running the church, to paraphrase Stephen King.

Mr. Brown starts us with his first Youth Ministry job driving kids to a large church and finding that while the church is in need of young blood, the aging congregation seems to expect the youth to behave like the older congregants do, and both the youth and the elders seem to expect the minister to be held responsible for the behaviours and attitudes in relation to both sides.

We skip ahead into his ministry, with Seminary in Louisville (Presbyterian Church USA), and his rejection from Doctoral studies. We meet his wife Amber, and we see him through his first few congregations as both main minister and youth pastor. We hear of having to follow in the footsteps of of someone who walked on water, and how sometimes the predecessor is still in the congregation in another role. (Whether or not they actually were perfect isn't the point. Given I grew up in Mr. Brown's final congregation and went through 4 ministers, I can say that in my experience, congregations tend to give retiring leaders the full Mark Anthony treatment from Julius Caesar, wherein any bad they did is quickly forgotten and suddenly they're saints.) However, I don't think it's all that normal for one of the youths in the program to tell the new guy how terrible he is as compared to his predecessor, which indeed happens here. On the other hand, this may be common, and just unreported, as most ministers writing books tend to not be focusing on the personal. Indeed, as Mr. Brown talks about some of his interactions, most of the ministers he interacts with tend to believe in something to the effect that a minister should be seen and not heard. Unless they're preaching, and even then, only if they're preaching something so non-offensive as to not upset parishioners.

We get a joyful and and also painful chapter discussing the adoption of their twins. The support of the congregation, and the lack of support trying to actually adopt. We hear of learning that someone he respects isn't as great a person as he believed. We hear of in home meetings with people and the stories that come from that.

We get a chapter where Mr. Brown tells of his struggles with anxiety and depression, his institutionalization for a week, and how being open about it wound up biting him in the ass later on. We hear of how a vague FaceBook post started a very bad situation during an interview cycle, tying again into the idea that people of the cloth should not be allowed to express feelings.

And we wind up in his last placement, which is where I first met the author. And it's here I felt a bit like I'd opened Pandora's Box, since, while names are not named, I had enough context to figure out a few things.

We hear first about PC (USA)'s usual General Assembly vs Individual Congregations compromises, this time in regards to marriage equality, where in the GA said it's ok if individual churches want to perform same sex weddings, but no congregation would be forced to perform one. Which, like most pronouncements like this, made absolutely no one happy. As such, Mr. Brown brought up the idea of doing small group and congregational meetings on the subject. While I heard severely edited tales of this from my Mom, Mr. Brown presents the stories I hadn't heard, including the loss of the President of the Trustees and the near loss of one of the worship assistants over the discussion. (This is sad to me, particularly since one of those people mentioned [again, not by name, but context does tell you who they are if you've been to the church] has always been really nice to me and my husband. It makes me sad to know they feel/felt this way.)

We hear also of February 2019, and a sermon series on racism, and how one congregant got very upset by the very concept and while not seeing themselves as racist, still made a few comments that really kind of were. (This does fall into the whole category of as we advance, what once was considered a progressive attitude has become a less than progressive attitude as time goes on.)

And we hear about Mr. Brown discussing his own mental and emotional issues and how it did bite him in the ass here, before he got his with his own version of hearing G-d's call in a form that was designed to particularly annoy him. (In this case, a postive message with a Joel Olsteen cadence.)

While I, like many, was sad to see Mr. Brown leave my home town, I have a better picture of what happened after reading this. And I can't say as I blame him, because sometimes the only way to win is not to play the game.  And honestly, I do think there's a problem in thinking people of the cloth are somehow immune to being human, or are only valid if they are willing to stay within a mold created by those who are part of the congregation.

My only real problems with the book are the length (It's 122 pages) and a few formatting errors. Don't let that stop you.

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