Weekly Blog

Tips, Tricks, Skills, Spirituality and Wisdom

Teresa McBean 2/12/18 Teresa McBean 2/12/18

Banishment

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;mso-para-margin:0in;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:115%;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ansi-language:EN;}

Over the hours that this team sweated large and small stuff related to the recovery ministry woes they faced, they had to face a hard truth: relationships are conditional. Yes, yes, love is unconditional. But healthy relationships have conditions. This doesn’t sit well with our desires to be merciful and gracious. Mainly I think because we have failed to fully develop our own deep and wide understanding of the concepts of grace and mercy. But also because let’s face it - love is yummy. Limits are sometimes challenging to accept. One afternoon we looked at two passages of scripture that dealt with banishment: 2 Samuel 14:14 and Deuteronomy 30:4. We also hopped over to Jeremiah 29 and considered what God asked the Israelites to do while living as slaves in Babylon. (Lest we forget, they were experiencing a GIANT timeout/banishment as a result of their own stubborn resistance to God.) Here’s what we noticed:

No wonder Paul was ragging on the Corinthians! They were proud of the "restoration" but missing the point of what restoration truly is. Yes, God is ALWAYS finding ways for banished people to find their way back home. Banishment isn’t intended to be punishment so much as it is a tool for restoration. True restoration could not happen for the Corinthians without a "time out" to show the community that they were valuable enough to protect.
Banishment is sometimes necessary. In this church's situation, they had to at least determine (see how they are progressing through the stages of change?!?) if it was the tool they needed to use in their particular situation.
Even in the midst of suffering, God’s people are given a way to move through the suffering. They accomplish this by keeping a rigorous eye on thriving. Thriving is described in Jeremiah 29 as suffering AND continuing the work of building community. Sometimes building community means protecting community.

Part of our contemplation as a working team involved calming down and remembering our core values; next, we made a conscious choice to live by them. This required us to practice making amends. The guy who muttered the “too much estrogen” comment had to make amends not only to the female he poked, but he had to deal with the larger issue of gender bias. The team then had to identify how their core values would change the way they were processing. This took FOREVER! They worked for several meetings just on how to have crucial conversations without decreasing safety in the room. They had to learn about active listening. Look, it’s possible to get really old and never acquire these skills. But this team was willing and ready to learn. This posture of humility helped them when the time came to analyze the failure of the staff person that caused all this mess to begin with. Having had their own shortcomings exposed at times during this process, they were a gentler, kinder crew when they got back to tackling the original issue at hand. Are there skills that you lack that you need to go acquire before you can expect to see the fruits of your transformational labors?

Teresa McBean 2/11/18 Teresa McBean 2/11/18

What's our part?

Everyone has heard that there is sexual immorality among you. This is a type of immorality that isn’t even heard of among the Gentiles - a man is having sex with his father’s wife! And you’re proud of yourselves instead of being so upset that the one who did this thing is expelled from your community. 1 Corinthians 5:1-2

After much rumination and no small amount of people whipping out their seminary teachings, we finally got around to this: and you’re proud of yourselves instead of being so upset that the one who did this thing is expelled from your community.

Here’s what we noticed:

Paul was presuming that the sexual immorality was bad, but he was finding problems in places other than this guy’s bedroom.
Paul is pointing out an attitude problem of those who weren't being appropriately discerning about protecting the community. They were proud of themselves for keeping someone in the community who was putting the community at risk. Yes, it's good to seek restoration wherever possible, but we also must be discerning about the well-being of the entire group.
Paul was inviting the Corinthian church (and we could invite the same of ourselves) to pause and contemplate.

Here are some things we might contemplate when considering banishment:

Are we more worried about our reputation or the restoration of one who needs restoring?
Is our discussion centered around our core values? Or are we driven by a fear to protect something - our ministry success? What’s our motivation driving our thinking on this subject?
What core values are we in danger of violating as we wrestle through this problem if we aren’t careful?
How do we sort through and resolve our competing core values? Which of our many core values are pertinent in this particular situation?
What wounds/blind spots/prides/prejudices are in play in this room that need acknowledgement?

There were more noticings and contemplations, but this provides a general framework for the discussion. These questions became so intriguing, so challenging, so engaging, that even the Senior Pastor tucked away his ipad and leaned forward into the discussion. Here’s a wild and crazy idea I want to posit for your pondering: It is possible, when we sidestep shame, to get very invigorated by the prospect of leaning into change and inviting God to transform us. It’s exciting! It’s in keeping with the humanity within us that bears the very image of God. I’d invite you to consider that shame may be hindering your own enthusiasm for your own work of recovery.

Teresa McBean 2/10/18 Teresa McBean 2/10/18

Shame is a Spiritual Antagonist

I don’t know how to keep shame from creeping into a room. Heck, I don’t even know how to keep shame from eating away at my heart. But because I personally have struggled with shame so much I have learned a few techniques that help me manage it, even as I work and wait for healing. Shame is going to make merry anytime we are trying to improve our conscious contact with God or become more decently human or love others or treat ourselves and others with respect. Shame is a condition many of us need to heal from AND learn to manage as we recover.

The aforementioned church staff was simply a family system of sorts that was experiencing a team shame attack. Before we could take meaningful action we had some work to do.

As I sat, listened and learned from their family fight, I identified the group at the precontemplation stage of change. There was no meaningful contemplation happening; they were ill-equipped in their whipped up stage to determine a direction and they certainly were NOT ready to proceed with action steps. In precontemplation, they were reacting to the crisis. These guys and gals were saying, thinking, feeling and proposing action steps that were more related to how they individually and collectively handled stress than anything more substantive and meaningful - like following their core values! This stuff happens to me all the time, so I could feel their pain.

I saw a glimmer of opportunity. Perhaps I could provide some much-needed calm. Of course, me being me, this would require divine intervention. But isn’t this where our hope always lies? In recovery, aren’t we always called to admit our powerlessness and unmanageable parts, come to believe that a power greater than us can restore us to sanity, and turn our will over to God’s care and control? Under duress, these were not the primary thoughts of the group. Maybe I could remind them that we had a God who was ready to help us.

So we looked at 1 Corinthians, and then I asked them a question: what do you see here? At first, all they saw was what their shame wanted them to see - sexual immorality was super bad and it got people banished. Look, this is true. But it is an incomplete version of the truth and does not get us to the heart of the issue. When we read a passage like this we're being dumped into the end of a story, and we miss the process. When we miss the process we overlook some important dynamics that lie beneath the story itself.

We have lots of contemplating to do before we just jump on the banishment bandwagon. Because the truth is, God has many tools dangling from his belt. Banishment is not the only option. Plus, it wasn’t the thing I was hoping they would notice.

To be continued….

Teresa McBean 2/9/18 Teresa McBean 2/9/18

Sneaky, Sneaky Shame

Everyone is quick to point out how much they hate being shamed but it rarely provides an automatic insight to help us not act as shamers. Shame is sneaky and shows up sporting a bunch of different looks. It can be kind of punky, aggressive and direct - attacks on others’ looks, character, ethnicity, etc. It can hide out in silence - when we fail to speak up against wrongdoing. It can really go stealth and try to mask itself as righteousness. It can go underground and manifest as a critical voice in our heads. It can develop strength and stamina for running and keep us from living our one wild and wonderful life. Shame has mad skills of disguise.

When the group met to discuss the problem with their recovery ministry shame was in play big time. The Senior Pastor looked serious and stern, but he was playing a game on his iPad. The Care Minister was extremely emotional, crying and sobbing when discussion arose about staff termination. The Missions Minister muttered that there was too much estrogen on display for the team to get much accomplished. And the content of the discussion? Wowser. Brutal. All of it. Every stitch of it was completely unproductive. Eventually people wore out or grew so frustrated that an uneasy silence emerged. Soon folks were stirring as if waking from a nap; catching sight of me and our team the Senior Pastor suggested without much enthusiasm, “I guess maybe you should offer a couple suggestions for us to consider.”

“Glad to.” I said. And I asked them to turn in their bibles to this: Everyone has heard that there is sexual immorality among you. This is a type of immorality that isn’t even heard of among the Gentiles - a man is having sex with his father’s wife! And you’re proud of yourselves instead of being so upset that the one who did this thing is expelled from your community. 1 Corinthians 5:1-2

Tomorrow I will continue the discussion on shame, but today do me a favor. Read these verses as if you’ve never seen them before and see what you notice.

Teresa McBean 2/8/18 Teresa McBean 2/8/18

Shame and Spiritual Abuse

Last week I had a consulting gig at a church that had a recovery ministry blow up in grand fashion. Lack of leadership accountability, no small doses of codependency and maybe, perhaps, possibly a tiny bit of grandiose thinking and arrogance on the part of the church team that swooped in to clean up the debacle was stymying the work of restoration. And I haven’t even gotten to the part of what actually went down within the recovery ministry that caused the crash and burn!

As I sat around the table listening to the various perspectives represented - the church staff, the recovery ministry team, the church’s human resources department and its legal team, man, I just wanted a good cup of coffee and some headphones. It was brutal. Mostly the conversation focused on the religious beliefs of the congregation that they felt the recovery ministry leadership had disrespected. They were mad. While all this conversation swirled, the lead pastor, sitting on my left played on his ipad. I was a bit envious and wished I too could pull up my solitaire game. Sometimes it is hard to stay present for suffering.

As the contention gathered steam I felt like I had acquired an invisibility cloak and was stuck in the middle of a family drama. Folks forgot that they were their to share their story with my team; they were too busy picking each other off with their verbal long rifles. I opened up my bible and reminded myself of another time when a church had to deal with sexual immorality…

Let’s talk banishment. To be continued….