by tashmcgill | Nov 29, 2014 | Church, Mind, Spirituality
I recently celebrated my birthday with a backyard bash for friends and family. And because I think it’s always important to add moments of emotion and poignancy to an event – I asked a few dear friends to share a few words.
They captured almost every facet of who I am with their words and memories; it was sweet and it made me glad. Without weddings, funerals and birthday parties we would rarely have the opportunity to review the world’s opinion of us.
There was one phrase that stood out in particular: “What I love about Tash is that she manages to be a person of deep faith without being a weirdo”, or words to that effect.
Confession: the words made me nervous for a moment. It was a diverse crowd filled with work colleagues, old friends, friends from the bar and clients. And while I don’t try to hide my spirituality any more than I try to thrust it upon people; there were a lot of people there I’d never ‘fessed up to my faith in front of.
Unwittingly I’ve stumbled on one of my greatest insecurities. I’m afraid of being alienated from people I genuinely care about because my spirituality is misunderstood or inaccessible to people.
One of the most poignant reminders was a conversation at my local bar. I couldn’t tell a lie so I had to ‘fess up to being a person of faith with a couple of regulars as the topic of conversation turned to all things spiritual. I watched the walls of defense slide into place as the conversation turned and the casual easiness of our camaraderie fell away. It wasn’t anything I’d said or done, but the risk it posed. Sometimes our history has done too good a job of shaping the myth.
My fear is that when people have experienced personally or witnessed from afar, a singular or communal failure on the behalf of traditional or even modern Christianity, it creates unnecessary distance and wariness between us. Mistrust and unease are the by-product of those experiences, often rightly so. I don’t really care so much about evangelism (that’s an inside word). I don’t care about converting you or anyone to faith. I really don’t. I care about people having the freedom to engage with their own spirituality, discover meaningful truth and communities of expression that support that. A steady, life-long, flexible engagement with spirituality. None of that is about conversion, yet so often that seems to be the greatest fear people have, thus my greatest fear is that people will assume that’s what my goal is.
My goal is simple: he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
“Ask me, what is the most important thing and I will tell you, it is people, it is people, it is people.”
My fear is that I will be robbed of relationship with you because of other people’s bad history.
Still – this is not a story about my sense of loss or alienation. This is a story about coming out spiritual, defining what I mean when I say it. I’m not religious; if religious means living by prescribed belief and without ongoing engagement of my intellect. It does mean the applied force of my humanity and intentional engagement with the earth, the air and the heavens. It means engaging with other human beings and listening, looking to the universe in all her signs and wonders. Yes, I believe in God. I am open to how that is expressed.
A non-Traditional Spirituality
I spend a lot of time with people and in places that ‘good Christians’ aren’t expected to be found. I don’t regularly behave in a way that people might expect or demand. I’ve regularly got myself in trouble with organised faith communities for not holding to the party line. The trouble is – when you don’t fit easily into the Church’s idea of faith and you don’t fit easily into the world’s perception either… well, that can be a difficult path to walk.
I have found enormous comfort in the spiritual rituals of our ancestors; both Maori and European. I have found meaning in the faith of my Muslim, Buddhist, Baha’i friends. I have found centering and powerful emotional connection through yoga as much as through boxing. I believe that the world is full of signs to point us on the way. We came to define coincidence and serendipity by experiencing and describing those circumstances. The world is full of signs – from the tui that sings in the trees outside my window no matter where I sleep to the reminder of the ongoing rebirth and rejuvenation of creation that happens constantly beneath our feet while we talk about the demise of the planet.
I believe there is no greater way to discuss or describe music and the arts than to engage the part of the human soul that reaches outside of itself to a higher or deeper expression. I have seen a birth. I believe in a creative power in the universe. Even if our engagement with that creative power is no more than to acknowledge the mystery of it, to resign ourselves to not understanding the complexities of the world in which we live – I would rather that, than to cast aside the possibility.
I am smart. I know church history. I am learning and engage with broader faith practices than simply the Judeo-Christian traditions. I know, better than many but less than my scholarly friends, the critical errors of church polity that have caused so much friction and fracture within communities that should only thrive in serving a wider society. That’s probably why I’ve been so afraid of losing the opportunity to connect and engage with people if I wear my spirituality on my sleeve.
I’ve been struggling for years to walk the line – not to deny my spirituality but also to run a mile from becoming a proclamation-based, traditional Evangelical. The core of my fear is my dislike of traditional evangelism. I am actively engaged in the exploration of what faith means in this world. My challenge, is to be honest about how little I like to publicly own my faith, despite the enormous amount of time I spend with people who don’t have connection with traditional Churches or spiritual contexts. In the darkest of nights, I’ve questioned whether in fact, I am a fraud.
There is much about the historic and the modern Church that disappoints me. But I will not quit it, for transformation is only made possible from the midst of her. I will not quit. I wrestle, argue, get frustrated as much, if not more than those who hate the Church. But I won’t give up on it, because the idea of a community of people committed to the same values of serving humanity should be the most successful humanitarian work on the planet.
I work really hard to not be a spiritual weirdo. To be grounded, relatable and approachable while still exploring and expressing my own spiritual beliefs and journey. Those beliefs are prone to change from time to time, but my values largely are not.
“Feed them, clothe them, love my sheep.”
It’s a paraphrase of a conversation between the prophet known as Jesus and one of his most passionate (and at times, hapless) followers, Peter the fisherman, and those three verbs are practical expressions of the values I hold most dear – people, hospitality, love, generosity and nurture. That’s what I’ll value the rest of my life, regardless of how my spiritual beliefs and expression may change.
So what do you think? Is my fear ungrounded? My insecurities for nothing? I promise, I’m not what you’d expect – but only you know what that is.
by tashmcgill | Oct 21, 2014 | Church, Culture & Ideas, Leadership, Spirituality
My commitment to my community was questioned the other day. People wondering whether or not I was ‘all-in’ were finding it tough to entrust me with some influential positions. It was diplomatically posed: if you’re not here (present) with us, how do we know if you’re really with us (committed)? The exact phrase was ‘people have the sense that if you’re not doing something here, you’re not always around’. The subtext: how much of you being here is about us, and how much is about you?
Right across society, it’s usually those who demonstrate their commitment and loyalty that earn the right to be influential. Our commitment to being present is a show of loyalty. Particularly in churches, there are lots of ways you can be involved, but you have to be ‘all-in’ in order to have influence. But what does ‘all-in’ really mean?
It’s how we test Ambition. People want to know how much you’ll give before you want or need to get something back. Most people want influence and power. In the church, that looks like positions of authority, which usually come with microphones.
Think about it. People who demonstrate how ‘all in’ they are, tend to wind up in influential positions. We’ve created a culture where you have to earn your way into those positions; for lots of reasons.
Good reasons
- If you’re going to be endorsed or giving a position of influence, you’ve to got to be trustworthy
- We don’t want you to influence in an unwise direction
Bad reasons
- Those with influence don’t always like to share
- People don’t like to be outshone or overshadowed
- To maintain the chain of command
- No chief wants to give influence to anyone who might not be loyal
We create systems to ensure that trustworthy people make it through the hoops and untrustworthy people fall out. The trouble is, it’s easy to abuse those systems to make sure that only people who’ve proven their loyalty sufficiently make it through. But loyal to what? You ask me if I’m all-in, but what do you want me to be all-in to?
What does ‘all-in’ really mean?
I’m all-in to the purpose of making a good change. I was raised to make a difference and I take it pretty seriously. I’m all-in to being the best I can be, in the place where I’m likely to make the most difference. And often, I don’t find those places inside the Church. For lots of reasons.
Here are 5 times I was All-In
- I was preparing to take teenagers to Eastercamp instead of the church prayer event.
- I was at the 21st of a young person who’s like family instead of church conference.
- I went from the Maundy Thursday service to the corner bar and talked about the meaning of Passover with friends
- I helped a single mum and her 4 small kids move house instead of being at church that weekend.
- I had a house full of teenagers watching movies and making food, instead of being at Sunday night church.
I don’t spend much time actively pursuing the pulpit. I’ll never turn it down, but I don’t intend to chase it. I’d rather have my life and actions speak of meaning and purpose. Because I love to communicate, I relish the opportunity to share my observations and conversations with others. I’ll spend my time engaging in meaningful conversation, always prepared to do my bit for the Church, but I won’t be there for the sake of being there, if my sense of purpose is beckoning me somewhere else.
Here’s the truth – there are hundreds of people in the pews every Sunday, Thursday and Friday who will give their all to the Church at the cost of places where they could be more meaningful. Church services are often club sessions for people who feel comfort from being with the like-minded to be encouraged, affirmed, you name it. It’s a good thing. But it shouldn’t be the ultimate expression of our faith.
In fact, I’d go so far to say that the goodness I want to bring to the earth, has little to do with my church affliation and much more to do with the fulfilment of my identity as a whole person. I’d hate for anyone who has known me to reduce my actions on this earth to “well, that’s what those Church folks do.” Because there are not that many church people living how I live or doing what I do.
I spend my time pursuing people. People at my dinner table, people in the important stages of their lives, people in trouble, people in the world and sometimes people in the pews.
- The Church encouraged me to be in the world, making a difference. So I’m out there.
- The Church taught me that it’s important to serve. I did dozens of tests to figure out my gifts. I’ve been made to serve, so working is both giving back and fulfilment of all I was taught to be.
- Busyness is also an answer to loneliness. Being present with nothing to do highlights my loneliness in ways that don’t help me. Doing something meaningful with my presence is good for me.
I’m all-in. Are you?
by tashmcgill | Oct 15, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Mind, Spirituality
The greatest churches I have been to, I’ve never crossed the threshold of. I couldn’t give you directions to them, or tell you ahead of time.
I’ve simply found myself in the midst of them as they have risen around me. Great cathedrals of human expression… Songs of triumph, hope and victory, psalms of despair and suffering shared through the rhythms of shared humanity that seem to rose up from the earth.
I know one thing to be true: genuine spirituality of any form is both individual and shared. Both elements are required for authenticity. A genuine internal engagement and shared common experience.
That raw spirituality, the ruach Elohim, the wai rua that rises when humanity reaches outside of it’s current self and toward something other… That is where I have been to church, rarely on a Sunday.
In a swathe of human diversity, in dark halls devoted to melody, in moving picture shows seated next to strangers..In concert halls, food halls and markets where plates are shared and passed. Where sight, sound, smell, taste and touch are swamped in sensory experience.
These are the great churches of my generation.
Too often, contemporary spiritual or religious practice has stripped “church” down to programmes and attendence, formalised patterns of reverence and expression. There is beauty and wonder in it, yes. But before we had liturgy, before we had structure, before we had church doors and pews – humanity has had stories, songs and music. We’ve sung our blues, our joys and our sufferings. We share language of human experience this way, we share language of divine encounters this way.
It is no surprise that music festivals draw out thousands, or that Burning Man encourages something in the soul that yearns for a gritty spirituality. These gatherings evoke the primal in us.
We ought to rid ourselves of any flimsy thread of cleanliness or tidiness between spirituality and humanity. It’s all dirt and grit and messiness, and we’re the better for it. We ought to rid ourselves of the straightlined pews more often when seeking genuine spiritual encounters.
When we loose ourselves into the dust or rhythm of a dance we learn as we go along – we realign to the balance of humanity and divinity in Creation. We ought to do it more often and at every chance.
So go to concerts, play live music. Buy a drum and bang it with your bare feet toes down in the grass. Breathe. Connect. Go to church.
by tashmcgill | May 30, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Leadership, Spirituality, Strategy
“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, there, depending on unreasonable people.” – George Bernard Shaw.
While it looks good at first glance; often a leader too willing to compromise becomes the person that no-one takes joy in following. The ground is too murky, too unsteady and constantly moving. To be reasonable means to you are open and willing to compromise – which is an excellent attribute in marriage but must be applied sparingly in leadership.
Sometimes those that truly make a difference are the ones who refuse to budge – whether that’s about reforming ideas that are inefficient and stodgy, looking for fresh innovations or simply refusing to follow the crowd. The ones who refuse to ‘do what’s always been done’ when the times are changing and culture requires a critical new response.
It requires a lot to stand your ground and be unreasonable – unable to be reasoned into another position. That means unable to be rolled in an argument. It’s not being stubborn for the sake of it, it’s having a strong rationale that’s so well-reasoned it will not be unreasoned!
Let me pitch it to you another way. Society looks for leaders who are ‘relevant’, or in other words – someone they feel will have influence. It’s easy to attribute credibility because they have the appearance of being relevant.. ie: they use the right gadgets, have the right lingo, use the ‘relevant’ and ‘leading’ systems.
But actually – a true and unreasonable leader is the one who is constantly defining what is relevant by their own innovation and process, then questioning the value of relevance regardless. An entirely other way of thinking.
Don’t be caught by the job description that too aptly words what kind of leadership they are looking for. That’s not leadership – it’s someone to lead in the manner an organization is already accustomed to. Innovation won’t happen there.
Be unreasonable.. and find new ways, fresh ways, your own ways of doing things.. and you’re on your way to being a leader.
This week’s Leadership blurb was inspired by thoughts about relevance and leaders, how we are judged or awarded credibility. The centric thought came from a quote supplied by Jill Shaw’s blog Conversations@Intersections.
These posts were originally broadcast in a radio series, in 2009. If you are interested in talking more about leadership or you’d like me to speak with your team about maximizing their leadership skills – just get in touch.
by tashmcgill | Apr 26, 2014 | Community, Culture & Ideas, Spirituality, Youth Work
You talk to your young people (the way you used to talk to me).
I spent this last Easter weekend at a Baptist Eastercamp, with 5000 young people, leaders and volunteers. It was a bit of a returning for me. About 6 years ago, you would have found me behind the scenes and on stage, running the programme and writing all sorts of creative experiences for young people.
At writing school, they try and train you to make your point up front, then produce your evidence summarised with a convincing conclusion. They also tell you not to begin sentences with the word ‘but’.
But today, I need to give you the supporting evidence before I make my point, so you have the opportunity to understand why it matters. So you have the chance to know why I can say it, must say it and say it with conviction of honesty, love and hope.
6 years ago, we parted ways from each other, that Eastercamp and I. About 6 months after that, I moved away from my formal connection with the Baptist church. So going back to that place where I have poured sweat, blood and plenty of tears – well, it was a big deal. It was like returning home and returning to the scene of the crime all at once. They were tumultuous days then, they still echo now in the peaceful times.
Here are some things you might want to know:
- I went back because the young people I work with now, in a different spiritual community really wanted to go, so their needs came first
- I have plenty of dear friends who continue to serve and volunteer with that event and do an amazing job. I admire them and love them deeply.
- I’m no longer part of the Baptist church, but I am connected deeply to dozens, even hundreds of youth workers & youth volunteers, young people grown up and young people still growing. I’m as invested in that community as I ever was. As I ever was.
- The event was good. Reconciliation is a process of years and it’s ongoing.
But this is my open letter to the Baptist church in New Zealand. As one of your born and bred. You trained me, you were my home for many years. I fought you and you fought me, and now I’m happy not to fight about it. But I will fight for you.
Here’s what I love about you, Baptists.
Here’s what I love about the Baptist church in New Zealand, and why when people ask, I still describe my way of following Jesus as being bred in the Baptist tradition. Which, for me, means ‘freedom of conscience’, the ability and invitation for every believer to participate in governance, theological practice and missional engagement. The tradition I grew up in was full of pioneers, ground-breakers, boundary pushers, people who engaged at the edges of society and innovated.
Baptists, please learn to love your boundary pushers again. Don’t fool yourselves that ‘inclusive’ doesn’t also apply to a line of political correctness that easily draws us away from provocative truth. Those who push the boundaries are diving into new territories of what truth looks like in today’s emerging reality.
Learn to love your provocateurs again. Don’t settle for talking to young people about sexuality in a way that gives them all the responsibility and none of the tools. I was horrified when my amazing friends, who worked so hard on the programming, had to swap out a movie choice. Somehow, no one complained about showing The Hunger Games (where children are forced to slaughter each other in a dystopian future) but it was unacceptable to show Captain Phillips, a movie that highlights the plight of Somali pirates in a cycle of economic oppression and slavery.
I’m not arguing the merits of the film, I’m pointing out that you can’t embrace some justice issues (freedom from sex trafficking) and deny the reality of others; like gay marriage, refugee policies or economic reform. You can’t choose the sexy stuff and deny the messier truths. There’s no film rating on the real world.
Eastercamp is just a shopfront window. It’s an insight into who the Baptist church is and will continue to evolve too. Everything you’re doing is good, even great – but you need to keep following through. If you’re going to continue to encourage young people to become agents for justice and social change – please realize you’ll be part of the society they’ll end up changing. You better damn well ensure there’s room for them at the table.
You see, you can read Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outliers’, but it won’t make you a change agent. Reading it so you can talk about it, doesn’t make it real. Please don’t settle for the soundbite of philosophy that sounds good but doesn’t mean anything without hard yards and uncomfortable moments. It’s not enough to talk about social justice issues alongside the Gospel. We have to somehow engage with what an expression of these things will look like in our own lives. It requires some provocation to get there because real transformation of people, culture, churches and mission will always be more than a slogan that sounds good and an easy-fix of donation money to a cause.
The Baptist church, nor any church community, cannot thrive on Facebook likes, fundraising campaigns and easily digestible, dualistic snacks of the Gospel alongside justice issues. For more on this train of thought, please read the 2010 commentary by Malcolm Gladwell for The New Yorker, ‘Small Change‘. He argues that social media requires less motivation of those who participate.
Prophets and commentators
Societies need the prophets and commentators who cry out from the edges. Please be careful that you don’t lose too many of us. The way we think, often pushing and arguing with you will not ever be comfortable – but if you lose us all, you’ll begin to realize something’s missing. It’s part of your identity – to wrestle, to provoke, to engage.
The first Baptist church I went to as a young person was started by a group of rebellious 20-somethings. Don’t lose what it means to our history, to embrace the diversity and spectrum of who we have always been. Fight against the gravitation towards middle ground. Treasure the diversity at each end of your theological spectrum. That’s what has powered your ability to be accessible to such a broad range of New Zealanders and to wrestle with complexity in your missionality and governance.
In the last 20 years, the NZ Baptist church has bred and housed some amazing theologians, community leaders, creatives and philosophers. What I noticed last weekend was how they were missing from the shopfront. I saw lots of people excelling in their work – but they used to have prophets and provocateurs around them and beside them. They were the ones I called on, wrestled with and relied upon. Where have they gone?
Well, I know where I am. I still have the phone numbers, blogs, email addresses of many of those provocateurs. So I know where some of them are. It’s not our lack of fortitude that sees us finding other homes and places of respite, nor a lack of desire to engage. It’s that you don’t love us in the same way you used to.
It’s ok, I know (I’m) we’re hard work. We step on toes and speak out all the time. But it’s our role – we provoke, in order to give new ways of being and thinking a way to emerge.
You talk to your young people (the way you used to talk to me) and inspire them to take a stand. To be bold, inspired, challenging. But be careful what you wish for, because if you want us: the outliers, the goalpost changers, the innovators and boundary pushers – the ones our Baptist history was written on – you’ve got to follow through with what you’re asking us to be. We won’t be satisfied with ‘inclusive’ or politically correct, or safe. We’ll want to shape and change you, as well as the rest of the world.
You’re calling a generation of kids to be something you don’t know how to love yet. I know you want to love us, you’ve got to love us; sometimes we’re more Baptist than you.
by tashmcgill | Apr 7, 2014 | Church, Spirituality, Strategy
In my line of work, we call them the ‘pain points’. They are the often unspoken, yet overwhelming reasons why people don’t do something.
Whether it’s a simple online transaction, completing a survey, finishing an assignment or responding to email – everything from tasks of the daily grind to the really important, life-critical stuff (like visiting your dying grandmother), the reasons why we don’t get to it are usually because there’s a pain point somewhere.
At some point in the decision-making process, there’s a minute crisis point that causes such a level of discomfort or pain that we cannot continue past it. (more…)
