Assignment | Why Is This Going On? | Reflective Question

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What is going on?

It was the largest gathering at the church in a while. The head Deacon's younger sister had passed away unexpectedly and at a young age as well. The Head Deaconess and her husband were the only regular attending members of the church so all of her family had genealogical ties to the church but did not attend regularly. I volunteered to chaperone the event as all church events require board member presence to supervise the use of facilities. As part of the daily responsibilities I was asked to supervise the kitchen and buffet so family could focus on each other. The Deacons cousin was present in the kitchen as well and to defer power I entered and asked "who is running the line today?" He immediately said "You are". When the Deacon came through she was sure to introduce us formally to each other and commented how we were both in food service and how her nephew is a chef. Throughout the feeding I attempted to graciously but effectively check in with everyone volunteering but many of the family I did not know personally. Towards the end of service I began plating large pans of food for the church members I knew would not wait in line but instead return to their neighboring houses and I could bring them food later. The Deacon's nephew asked "Is all that food for you?" And I jokingly said "Yes." After the family visited and began breaking things down I took a private meeting with a member of the board in the office. Afterwards with the family almost completely cleaned up I exited the office and noticed all the food that had been packed up was gone. I reflected upon the earlier encounter with the nephew and recognized my error. I told the Deacon on Sunday how the food was intended for the members who wouldn't go through the food line. At the meeting later that morning she joked about how next time I should mark the trays of food cause if you leave food out around Hawaiians it will definitely always get eaten.

Why is this going on?

Hawaiian culture is deeply rooted in the sacredness of food. For centuries prior to the arrival of western influence Kanaka Maoli operated under a strict social structure called the 'Ai Kapu or Food Restrictions. But the 'Ai Kapu governed all ways of life because food was more than something you just ate, it was the living embodiment of our ancestral gods. Women and men ate separately and there were specific food that you didn't eat during certain times of the year and other food women couldn't eat at all. 

The Head Deacon's nephew was undoubtedly the "guy" running the show. The Deaconess was the head of her family but her nephew "the chef" was the one who had labored day and night to prepare food for his 'Ohana. 

Ancient culture also defers to a significantly complex social class system where Kahunas are placed in a higher role than makaainana the common class. The presence of Jesus has equalized all of that especially within the congregational context where modern Kahus are seen less as authoritative sources of power and more as support systems designed to adjust themselves to the needs of what is in front of them. 

The nephew held traditional protocols in my first question as I entered the kitchen. I had asked "who is running the line?" His response in saying "You are." Shows respect to my role in the church as one of the pastors. 

I had taken notice at one point during the feeding that he had selected foods he had reserved for more senior members of the family that as they came through the line he would step back into the kitchen to get them something special. Also when he asked me "is all that food for you?" I missed the opportunity to connect more deeply and share that I was separating it for other church members I knew wouldn't stay for the lunch reception but instead disrespected his inquiry by immediately dismissing it as jest. 

When exiting the office and recognizing that the pans of food had been removed I immediately recognized the error in my approach. I also was not present for the period of time to help in the clean-up because I got pulled into a meeting. All of these contributing encounters with an extended member of the primary church members showed an arrogance on my part that I was moving too quickly through an operation instead of discerning carefully and with wisdom and grace to the collection of guests at the church. And especially to the Deacon's nephew who inadvertently taught me an incredibly important lesson about humility and communication.

I talked this over with my grandmother and she was very excited about me coming back to the church, even though she was not attending due to her dementia and her not being able to leave home without panic attacks.

I returned to the church the Sunday after my dad's service and was welcomed with open arms by everyone except my aunt. She made some sly comments about me running away from God and not being a good Christian. I did my best to overlook her comments and the people standing around began to try and correct her but that just made her mad.

After a few weeks some of the congregation began to reach out to me to get involved in some of the ministries and I chose to become the Hospitality Captain. When the pastor announced this at the Church Council meeting my aunt looked at me and said, "you don't need to be doing anything at this church, when it all comes crumbling down your name gone be in it also and you don't want that". I told her boldly, "I am here to worship the Lord and if this is what He would have me do than this is what I will do". Soon after I became faithful and the members began to see that I was taking my role and my spiritual journey serious, they began to confide in me. One said, " your aunt is a whole lot of trouble", another said, " Why is she some mean & nasty", and another "She just pure evil and you need to talk with her". After hearing this over and over and over I began speaking to her, asking her how her day was, asking what she got from the sermon and attempting to make small conversation and her remarks were, leave me alone, you gone learn befriending people down here and just pure negative comments. I have now stopped talking with her and even in church not speaking to her because I resigned myself from dealing with negative spirits and that included her.

Her oldest sister passed away on Friday past and I had to call and tell her after not speaking in or out of church in over a month. I decided that I would be used by God to make a mend and that I would not hold all of this against her, and to reserve my feelings so that I don't get hurt anymore.

And now that I have read this lesson of In Living Color, I am looking forward to better understanding the question of "Why is this going on in for person given her history and her psychology. 

I am moving onward in my thinking and ready to explore even deeper.

Multigenerational and multicultural crisis with a combination of an older generation and a younger generation. The Elderly are set in their ways, following all the rules and regulations, and resisting change. A church culture with all the traditions and unique history of the church. On the other hand is the younger generation, full of spunk and fight. Have all these ideas in changing the church culture to suit themselves for personal satisfaction, without ever knowing or examining the church history. The elderly are trying to save the church, while the younger are trying to change it. The crisis is when there is no settled minister or pastor in the church. Luckily, there were safeguards in place so many of the changes they had planned couldn't take place. Sadly, some elderly left the church, and told me, "Always tell the truth." At times, I was overwhelmed and didn't want to get involved in their shenanigans, and I turned in my resignation as the President/Moderator on the church. That didnʻt work well with the Lord. He told me to stay in the fight. It was hard when family is involved. The following month, the church held an election of officers. Later, I found out the President position was still vacant, so I accepted my old position. The Lord did His handywork after that. 

First came the stay-at-home order for the COVID Event. But that wasn't enough. Next, came the evacuation order due to the impending lava flow. From the church, I can still see the red glow from the fires nearby. Majority of our church members moved out, some lost their homes. When church started up again, we lost two family members, leaving us with four church members. The church was reborn under God. The Holy Spirit has total control of our church now, a community based, multicultural congregation with compassion and the absence of the abuse of power. The church survived a steeplejack attack. What saddens me is thinking back on all the other churches that didn't survive this type of attack. Some are closed, and some changed their religion.

Blessings, Frank Mulec

I am sharing something that I’m actually still dealing with. My coworker and best friend of 11 years decided to betray me over the years. I thought we were best friends and that our friendship could survive anything because we had been through so much together. This included her long, hard journey with battling cancer. 

Moving forward, she decided that as her boss to take legal action against me and make allegations that were the furthest from the truth. Let me also put this in as a part of the context she is a spiritual believer was by my side when I bought my first inaugural message and just almost a year ago we did a girls road trip from Houston, Texas back to Oakland, California.

So you can imagine how devastate I have been when I found out she teamed up with a couple other terminated employees to file legal complaints against me. I believe that all of this was going on because she had several other crisis in her life that she was dealing with. One was her brother two a health scare three mental health issues along with being lonely. We have had several conversations before we got to the point we’re at regarding how she felt abandoned. So once she returned to work from being out on disability, she felt one person that should’ve been there for her, which was me was not. But I was there, reaching out the whole time she was off from work, not getting in response. I don’t want to get any more detail, but I believe I do know why her response to me was in such a harsh manner. Once it became a legal manner, I looked back, and I realize that a part of her issue was abandonment. And over the years as she lost friends, she would have very negative and hateful responses to them. She was not up for giving person. A part of her issue with me was I was her best friend and because she was no longer at work and when she came back, she felt I had abandoned our friendship. But the whole time she was gone, I was praying for her  sending check-in text messages or a voicemail to her phone.On Our road trip back from Houston she wanted to go to Sedona Arizona so we went.We talked about God, friendship, relationships, not being judgmental. The bottom line is she is mentally and emotionally overwhelmed.

One point I would like to make is the affected it has on me. I have been unable to trust anyone especially since I’m the executive director of a program that works with marginalized people in the community’s.But I remember in the world of God how he says fear not I am with you. I must say that I still pray for her in spite of what she’s going through.. in all actuality I believe there is some things I could’ve done differently and been more sensitive too on a road trip but I truly believe spell chili over the last few years. I have been encouraging to her.

Week 2 pastoral care reflection: “Why is this going on”

I am going to speak on a very familiar and common situation many churches are facing today.  We are constantly trying to figure out why the youth members of our churches continue to decline.  Why is this going on? Well, from my experience, there are many factors which collectively continue to play major roles in this decline. 

Historically, youth in their energy and passion have always played a major role in the desire for change.  Their intrinsic need to do different also plays into meaning different often meaning better.  Eve is enticed by the serpent to become something better than what she was already given.  The concerns of our youth and elders, as I experienced, are intrinsic to the different generational views prompted by things such as experience, socially, religiously(maturity), and personally. 

Sociologically, we live in a world where, inside or outside of our faith, others often try to subtly entice us to do it their way.  We are faced with questions such as Is your church taking care of you?  How can we make worship and church activities better?  What I feel they are saying is I am not getting what I need?  This is not to state that your church is doing something wrong, but it does say we are not fulfilling the cries of our youth in ways they see things.  On the other side,  the older Generation is beginning to settle down on changes and is more concerned with sustaining and passing on what they believe is the correct way. 

Our reading touched on a very important aspect concerning the church of yesterday and the relationship between the church and the pastor.  The relationship is changing due to many things that have transpired in the last decade.  The emergence of technology(powerful but dangerous) when not respected.  Then again, pastors do not hold the power and authority they once had.  Our reading touched on the social, community, civil, and religious attitudes that today have undermined this relationship.  Pastors no longer have that unquestionable respect across the board as they did in prior generations.  Our reading gave us a great perspective on being caregivers, which moves us closer to a greater tomorrow.  Why is this going on? Our God is a God of change; He is always making things anew!  

Wow, I wrote my response before I logged on to this discussion, and I'm struck by how many of us are reflecting on the loss of children and youth in our faith communities. So here's my addition to the growing conversation. :)

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I decided to try the process described in the Doehring Chapter to explore the issue that I identified in week one: Our church had a thriving children and youth ministry prior to the pandemic, and we have almost entirely lost these age groups in the past six years. I had this conversation with my two young adult children, which of course is a different experience that working with folks outside my close family circle, but I hope that practicing this approach will help me apply it more broadly.

I won’t share the verbatim because that feels like a breech of their privacy (although they both told me I could share what we discussed). Instead I’ll share my reflections on what I learned about possible “why’s.” One idea that both of them shared was that once the physical, in-person connection of being in community at church was lost during the pandemic, it seemed like too much work to bring it back. They did not find zoom-based enactments of their youth group to be meaningful. Even once we were in person again, many of the things that drew them to youth group, like shared meals and church overnights, were deeply curtailed for a long time. There was no returning to “how things were,” and in some ways it was easier to deal with this loss by staying away.

My younger child, who was in middle school during the pandemic, said several things that made me reflect on how the pandemic years for a youth of her age meant that they went through some of the critical, formative years of moving to a more mature faith in isolation. Zoom-based confirmation was the last time she was involved in our church other than as an occasional guest musician. I wonder if she did not see any power or purpose in collective practice of faith when it could be taken away so quickly. And she truly hated online everything during this time. Church was just one more obligation that she dropped as soon as I stopped trying to force her participation.

My older child was (and is) more deeply connected to our faith and to our church in particular for several reasons, but one of them may have been that by the time of the pandemic, he was a high schooler and had a strong group of church friends who stayed connected (and sometimes even met up stealthily in person, I learned). He saw his faith community as a source of connection during a difficult time. But he left for college just as we were returning to in-person gathering, and as a now 22 year old, he is not an active part of a faith community. He thinks of his upbringing in the church positively, but he seems to have packed it away as part of his childhood, at least for now.

Another thing that came up was the rise of Christian Nationalism and how this claiming of Christianity as a rationale for hatred and oppression has impacted my daughter, especially. Despite our church being deeply progressive and trying to live out a message of welcome, she does not want to be associated with “Christian” in this current context. This gave me pause because I had somehow convinced myself that our local church community and my raising them within this interpretation of the message of Jesus would “win out” in my children’s conceptualization of the Christian faith. But for my daughter, at least, this is not what has happened. She said she could not imagine inviting someone who was not already part of the church to participate out of fear that she be judged as “one of those” people. As a gay woman, she is particularly attuned to the hypocricy of messages that constrain the love of God, but I suspect many other young people wrestle with these radically conflicting interpretations of Christianity.

I don’t think I got to a definitive “why” in this conversation, but it makes me want to talk to more of the young people who once made up our youth group, both the few who are still active in our church and those who have stepped away. It also makes me wonder about the assumptions underlying our church’s desire to re-grow our children and youth ministries. Who are we trying to serve, and why? Whose ideas are (or should) guide our efforts? And how can we invite young people into a community of faith that is welcoming, affirming, and challenging during a time when there is so much portrayal in the media and in public life of Christianity as a tool of hate?

Wk. 2 – Why Is This Going On?

Exploring Osmer’s second task, "Why is this going on?”, requires examining the historical and contextual layers behind our congregation's missing 20-to-30-something demographic. While our active core, ages 35 to 80+, enjoys wonderful music and good preaching, structural and historical shifts help explain this generational gap.

Contextually and historically, the church has experienced significant leadership turnover, welcoming three different ministers over the past decade. Frequent pastoral changes can disrupt institutional momentum, stall long-term vision, and make it difficult to sustain targeted ministries for younger demographics. Compounding this, a large portion of our core membership has deep roots, having belonged to the church for over 15 years. While this longevity provides wonderful stability and loyalty, it can inadvertently foster insular patterns and well-established cultural rhythms that feel difficult for newcomers, especially transient young adults to penetrate.

Sociologically, this aligns with broader generational trends where twenty and thirty somethings navigate economic precarity and a growing disconnection from traditional religious institutions. Emotionally, the intersection of rapid pastoral transitions and a long-tenured core create an underlying hesitancy. Older members carry quiet grief and anxiety about the future, while young adults outside our doors perceive a tight-knit community anchored in the past rather than fluidly engaging in the present.

Uncovering “why” this situation exists reveals that the missing younger generation is not simply due to a lack of hospitality, but stems from the compounding effects of leadership transitions, deeply entrenched community habits, and broader cultural shifts. Understanding these root dynamics is essential for faithful adaptation.