In 'therapy': Itineracy makes it easier for us to move on Eric Van Meter, Apr 15, 2008
Eric Van Meter
By Eric Van Meter Special Contributor
Editor’s note: This is the fourth in an occasional series. See parts one, two and three in our News Archive.
“Tell me about how you live together,” my imaginary therapist says.
“I suppose like any relationship,” I say. “Good days and bad.”
She holds up her hand. “I’m not asking how it feels to live with your church. What I want to know is how you live. What are your patterns of behavior? How do you divide up chores? Little things like that can tell me a lot about your relationship.”
I wait a moment to answer her. Ever since I’ve started these imaginary counseling sessions between me and the United Methodist Church, I’ve become more and more wary of our therapist. For someone who’s a figment of my imagination, she seems to take my church’s side more often than I’d like.
But this time she’s making sense. Take away the angst and frustration that I so often feel toward the UMC, and what is our life together really like? She poises her pen over her notepad.
“The cat goes hungry a lot,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. I take that as a signal to continue.
In my real-life marriage (which thankfully has not yet devolved into triage therapy, imaginary or otherwise), I live with my wife, our two boys and a hateful, neurotic cat named Sam.
As a feline, Sam is a failure. She can’t catch birds or mice or much of anything else for that matter. Her very survival depends on someone else putting food in her dish. That someone could be me, my wife or our eldest son.
Therein lies the problem. Because none of us has the full responsibility of feeding Sam, she doesn’t always get fed.
I see the empty dish and remember how late I am for work. My wife notices it while she’s taking our 2-year-old to the potty and tells our 4-year-old to fill the dish. He gets wrapped up playing with toy dinosaurs and forgets. That night, while brushing my teeth, I notice the empty dish again and remind myself to fill it in the morning.
Lest I invite hate mail from cat lovers, I want to assure you that Sam is a perfectly healthy and marginally happy cat. It’s just that every now and then, she skips a meal.
That’s nobody’s fault and everybody’s fault.
Itineracy—in practice, if not in theory—fosters the same culture of shared-and-shirked responsibility. Superintendents, pastors and local congregations all share the responsibility for the formation of Christian disciples. Most of these folks are decent, committed people who love the Lord and want to serve faithfully.
But they’re distracted, constantly preoccupied with the short-term commitments our practice of itineracy encourages.
Congregations learn not to get too attached to a pastor. Pastors learn not to invest too much in a congregation. It’s tough to grow deep, Christ-filled relationships when the next move is always looming, when today’s problems will belong to somebody else tomorrow.
In truth, there are countless pastors who give themselves fully to whatever people they serve, and numerous congregations that take seriously their task of Christian living in their local contexts. But these faithful disciple-makers accomplish their task in spite of, not because of, itineracy’s contribution to the increasing transience of the American experience.
“Wait a minute,” my therapist says. “You’re complaining about something that’s part of your church’s genetic makeup. Itineracy is one of Methodism’s defining qualities.”
“Right.”
“Shouldn’t you have considered your views on this process before you committed to this relationship?”
“Maybe,” I say. “But I was in love, remember? Besides, I’m not suggesting that itineracy itself is bad. It enables aspects of a pastor-people relationship that aren’t possible otherwise.”
“For example?”
“The congregation doesn’t have to worry that it will be without a pastor, for one. And the pastor can speak difficult truths to congregations without worrying that he or she will be voted out at the next board meeting.”
She takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t see the problem, then.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “You’re not the only one.”
Not everybody believes that the current itineracy system is broken, and I doubt many would identify it as one of our most significant issues. For most, it’s an unappetizing yet acceptable part of the Methodist diet, akin to bran flakes or asparagus.
But itineracy is more than a side dish. It’s a central component of United Methodist culture, one that so deeply colors our perception of the world that we forget to question it.
Every spring, in clergy meetings across the U.S. (I can’t speak for our brothers and sisters outside our borders), pastors gossip about appointments. Who is up for a change, based on congregational strife or length of tenure? Whose retirement will set off a chain of moves? Which of the previous year’s appointments turned out to be a mistake?
As a wise older friend once told me, no one can gossip quite like junior-high girls or Methodist preachers.
Notice what we are not talking about when we get together: commitment, faithfulness, struggles, concerns. We visit about these things in private from time to time, but never too publicly, lest something we say be used to determine our next appointment.
You get the idea.
However itineracy may have functioned in the world that birthed Methodism, it no longer makes sense to pump even more uncertainty into communities constantly on edge. There must be a better way.
But what?
“Ah!” My therapist claps her hands together as though we’ve had a breakthrough. “Longer tenures. You and your church agree on that much at least.”
“I suppose,” I answer. “But my church seems to rely on our bishops and superintendents to make that happen. That only goes so far, though. I think the primary responsibility for long-term commitment lies with individual pastors and congregations.”
She squints at me through her thick lenses. “Meaning?”
“Meaning that when we find a good match, we need to commit to sticking with it—particularly we pastors. We’ve got to fight off the temptation to run from our troubles or pursue career advancement.”
My therapist looks on in shock, her mouth working open and closed like a beached carp. “You can’t do that. You can’t just decide not to itinerate.”
“I’m not suggesting that we drop out,” I say. “At least not altogether. But I think pastors and congregations alike need to be more intentional about working together and more disciplined when they’re tempted to break apart.”
“That’s not the way it works. You agreed to serve according to the wisdom of the bishop and cabinet.”
“Then they need to be more disciplined, too,” I say. “Listen, all I want to do is make sure that we as pastors concentrate on feeding our sheep. We can’t do that if we’re always in search of a better flock.”
The timer on her desk chimes. She lets out a breath, obviously relieved that the session has ended. I don’t know what problem she’ll have to deal with in her next client, but at least she gets to untangle from my issues.
It’s always easier to just move on.
The Rev. Van Meter is campus minister for the Wesley Foundation at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Ark. The full text of this piece is available at Eric's blog. Discussion questions
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