Rose Uchem and missiology

A recent interview on the Sophia Network begins this way:

My name is Rose Uchem and I am from Nigeria.

I am a missionary and a senior lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka where I teach post-graduate and undergraduate courses in Christian Religious Education as well as Comparative and International Education. Before I got my present position in the university, I was involved in the training of missionaries; first with my order (Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary) for seven years and later with a male order, training seminarians (future priests) applying gender-sensitive perspectives at the Spiritan International School of Theology, Attakwu-Enugu for eight years.

I also set up an NGO called IFENDU which addresses issues of women’s human identity and seeks to create the necessary awareness on women‘s assigned subordinate status and to change this to that of equal partnership with men. It has special consultative status with the UN, and in the capacity of executive director of IFENDU, I create awareness on gender, culture and religion through workshops, seminars, conferences at national and international levels

I am currently in Oxford as a ‘Missiologist in Residence’ for a period of three months at the invitation of the Church Mission Society. While in Oxford I will give lectures and seminars with a focus on cross-cutting gender issues in mission both to CMS staff and to other centres for theological programmes.

Read the rest of this intriguing interview on the Sophia website

Boys don't cry and other lies we tell men....

In an excellent article on the Sojourners site, Catholic priest, Richard Rohr, looks at the way the inner life of men is hugely neglected in modern culture - with disastrous results.
Here are some extracts - but please read the whole article, which is full of wisdom.

Take a typical woman, educated or uneducated, of most any race or ethnicity, and give her this agenda: “You are not to have any close friends or confidants; you are to avoid any show of need, weakness, or tender human intimacy; you may not touch other women without very good reason; you may not cry; you are not encouraged to trust your inner guidance, but only outer authorities and “big” people; and you are to judge yourself by your roles, titles, car, house, money, and successes. People are either in your tribe, or they are a competitive threat—or of no interest!” Then tell her, “This is what it feels like to be a male, most of the time.” Maleness can be a very lonely and self-defeating world.

I know I am walking on sacred ground here, but I am going to say it: The church often does not really encourage an inner life. It substitutes belief systems and belonging systems and moral systems for interior journeys toward God. As a result the outer behavior is pretty weak as well. I would be willing to argue this position at the highest levels of Catholic hierarchy, Protestant scripture interpretation, or fundamentalist mental gymnastics.

In fact, the reason that such external hierarchy, simplistic and dualistic readings of scripture, and heady fundamentalism exist at all is primarily because of the male unwillingness to feel, to suffer, to lose, and to stand in the place of the outsider with even basic empathy. Which, of course, is exactly where Jesus stood and suffered, “even to accepting death, yes death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). How do we dare to worship a “loser” and yet so idealize winning?

If our churches do not find ways to validate, encourage, structure, and teach men an inner life—as opposed to mere belief systems, belonging systems, and moral systems, which the Olympics do much better!—I am not sure what the church’s reason for continued existence might be. We are failing the test with one half of the species, which means we are failing for the other half too. Organized religion is not doing its inherent job of transforming people at any deep level.

A rift between the males in church?

Circuitously - in other words, via the sustain-if-able kiwi blog - I came across a piece by a blogger I'd never discovered before, but will definitely be keeping an eye on: Richard Beck, on his blog, Experimental Theology.

The piece is entitled: Thoughts on Mark Driscoll...while I'm knitting, and looks at whether educated men in churches tend to dismiss, or lose track of, the guys who are 'blue collar'. There's a video of Driscoll doing his usual in-your-face thing about what the church isn't doing right - and, as Beck says, he's mostly right on this. However Beck has more to say on the subject, and he's right too. Here's a quote from it.

Most church leaders are highly educated. This means that most church leaders are culturally divorced from the average NASCAR [National Association for Stock Car Racing] fan. The very group Driscoll is targeting.

But here is the very important point about all this. A lot of the reaction to Driscoll isn't even about gender. We are actually talking about the little discussed fissure running through many churches: Education.

I see this everyday in my own church. The educated teach, preach, and have the public leadership roles. The uneducated are marginalized. Worse, if you are an uneducated male, you are force-fed those feminine metaphors. Educated males, being chickified, don't mind or even notice the feminine metaphors. But Joe Six Pack notices the metaphors. All this creates a disjoint in the church. Two groups of males who find each other alien and weird. So when Joe Six Pack wants to start a Wild at Heart study the chickified church leader just blinks uncomprehendingly. Or, if you are me, turns back to his knitting...

I've added the word, chickified, both my spellchecker and my personal vocabulary. Read the rest of Beck - and watch out that you don't get distracted by a host of other pieces he's written, such as those on Calvin and Hobbes, or one on 'pants.'

Inside the World of Executive Pastors

Inside the World of Executive Pastors a (January) 2009 survey by Leadership Network.

This is an intriguing survey. It included respondents from 41 US States, as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, (unfortunately, it’s not possible to differentiate the Australasian responses). Executive pastors are also known as Administrators, Directors, or Chiefs of Staff.

At first glance it seems to be talking about a world that is a long way from the NZ scene, but a quick skim down the pages soon shows up evidence that what’s happening here is what’s happening elsewhere. ‘Feeling emotionally drained and overwhelmed are the two top stressors regularly felt by executive pastors,” for example. Nevertheless, most of them felt happy in their role. However, the bigger the church, the more time executive pastors spend on administration. 'For some, this is a definite drawback: “I don’t feel very pastoral,” wrote one respondent. “I want to touch people more. I want to impact the world.”'

The report also says:
While most people in the pews are familiar with the roles and duties of a teaching pastor or a worship pastor, executive pastors are a relatively new addition to contemporary church culture. Often seen only infrequently in a weekly worship setting, the executive pastor role is one that is still misunderstood amongst many church members—and for that matter, even among other church staff.

Who are executive pastors? For starters, they’re not necessarily male. In fact, 11% of survey responders were female. While that number is likely somewhat higher than the national norm since female executive pastors were specifically sought out for the survey, it’s still an interesting finding—especially given that 100% of survey respondents indicated their senior pastor was male.