Thursday, July 13, 2023
Good morning.
Let’s see … where to begin. It’s been yet another bizarre month.
There is the indictment in the case of the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump.
That would be our former President who’s accused of willfully withholding national-defense information, making false statements and conspiring to obstruct justice, mostly from the comfy confines of his palatial Club Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Thirty-seven counts in all. It is a criminal case, meaning he could go to jail if convicted (imagine the headline there: “Orange man bad wears orange”).
Reality is pretty strange these days, isn’t it? That’s my headline for today’s July installment of O’Bservations.
As your dutiful observer and examiner of the news, I have (sadly) looked over the evidence against Trump and read many commentaries on both the Left and the Right about the case. And setting aside all the histrionics and hyperbole, it’s clear (to me at least) that the case against our 45th President is strong.
But that reality hasn’t dented his fundraising. On the contrary, the indictment grew his campaign coffers significantly. Trump pulled in $35 million in the second quarter, double what he raised the quarter before. It looks like Republican donors are, in fact, rallying behind him.
It sets up the possibility that if found guilty at trial, and if the presumptive Republican nominee were actually returned to the White House – there’s a lot of ifs there, I know – he could pardon himself as his first executive action.
Ponder that for a moment. Talk about strange. If you think things are bizarre now, it could get a magnitude stranger shortly after noon on Jan. 20, 2025.
On a lighter note, perhaps the most bizarre news item I spied in the past month was the proposed cage match between two titans of tech, Elon Musk, age 52, and Mark Zuckerberg, 39.
The screenshot above is taken from an embedded Wall Street Journal video available here.
The video colorfully explains the background on the Musk-Zuckerberg rivalry. There really does appear to be bad blood between the two tech titans.
The Musk-Zuck match “would be the biggest fight ever in the history of the world,” UFC promoter Dana White announced, who claims they actually do intend to fight. (For those unacquainted, the UFC stands for Ultimate Fighting Championship, the mixed martial-arts matches held in Las Vegas.)
“I’m up for a cage match if he is lol,” Musk tweeted.
“Send me location,” Zuckerberg replied menacingly.
“If this is for real, I’ll do it,” Musk volleyed back.
The Twitter/Tesla/Space X kingpin then acknowledged he is not exactly match-ready, tweeting: “I have this great move that I call ‘The Walrus,’ where I just lie on top of my opponent and do nothing.” He may not beat the younger and more fit Zuckerberg, but he’s definitely funnier.
Jason Gay, the Wall Street Journal’s sports columnist par excellence, who seldom lacks for perspective on all things bizarre and humorous in the sporting world, was almost speechless … almost.
“ … it shouldn’t happen, it makes no sense,” he sputtered in this column, “— but what makes sense anymore in this strange, mad world?”
Talk about hitting the nail on the head. Nicely played and observed, Jason. You’re the WSJ’s funniest writer (not much of a competition there).
We do, indeed, live in a strange, mad world.
There is a tendency to think that the strangeness and madness of this world is always beyond our borders and not within our vicinity.
It’s what happens elsewhere, never here. But I have learned since Covid to expect the unexpected, even in your own hometown.
Here’s one example of this. Mt. Lebanon is inarguably a nice place to live. People move here for the schools. I know we did, in 1989.
Even as recently as five years ago, this reputation was still valid. But that was before Covid hit and the strangeness fog started to roll in.
If I had asked a random sampling of 100 people five years ago if our highly esteemed school district would condone abuse of the first graders under its care, I doubt a single person among the hundred would have said, “Yes that could happen.” Yet it has happened.
As regular readers of this report know, the specific issue under dispute is now the subject of a federal lawsuit filed against the district. The suit alleges that a teacher was permitted to vigorously and repeatedly impose her beliefs about sensitive transgender topics to first-grade students over the objections of their parents.
As bad as that is, the more heinous part is that in its attempts to get the suit dismissed, attorneys for the district have argued TWICE that the plaintiff parents (three courageous moms) have no rights whatsoever to protest this situation.
And TWICE now, Senior U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti has said to the district, “You are wrong.” Once again, on May 31, she denied their petition for dismissal.
The district’s “position that parents have no constitutional rights after their children cross the threshold of the schoolhouse door,” Judge Conti writes in her latest opinion, “… is contrary to Supreme Court and Third Circuit Court of Appeals precedent.”
By the same token, on another subject of intensely local interest in this very church (it feels strange writing those words): I’m confident not a single person who attended Rick Wolling’s retirement banquet five years ago this October at St. Clair Country Club could have possibly predicted what has occurred these past few months at Beverly Heights. I know I could not have predicted it. Yet it has happened.
For the balance of this report, I’d like to turn my gaze inward on our beloved church, as I don my journalist’s cap and humbly attempt to explain the inexplicable. We do, indeed, live in strange times.
I am, admittedly, not a neutral party in what I am writing about today. Louise and I have attended Beverly Heights for 30 years; longer than most but far shorter than some others. Three of our four grandchildren were baptized in this church.
Four members of my immediate family (me, Louise and daughters Erin Westgate and Cara Webster) have worked for the church under Pastor Nate’s leadership (five, actually, including my son-in-law Scott Westgate, if you count contract work). Louise has worked in the BH Christian Preschool downstairs for 29 of the 30 years we have attended.
“Sounds like nepotism,” a cynic might say.
I don’t think so. Like the NYPD in the television show Blue Bloods (must-see TV in our household), BHPC is our “family business” (as New York City Police Commissioner Frank Reagan calls the NYPD on the show), with one tweak. I think of BHPC as our “family calling.”
We work here because we have been providentially called to this place, to use our gifts in service to this community and for the one Who called us. While that may sound lofty, it’s what I believe. Pastors Nate Devlin and Rick Wolling before him, taught me to believe it – and live it.
Many of the high-level societal impacts from Covid have been well documented. It increased distrust of institutions, especially science and the news media, polls show, and further diminished respect for authority. It caused a huge spike in adolescent mortality, from drug overdoses, homicides, auto accidents and suicide. It caused parents to pull their children out of public schools in massive numbers.
I’m no sociologist, but I have noted, too, changes in how people behave since Covid.
Folks are more abrupt, angry and dismissive of those they disagree with. They’re more inclined to walk away from friendships and terminate long-term loyalties.
Even among believers, it has become increasingly difficult to find common ground these days. God’s truth is immutable, but our perception of His truth is also greatly influenced by our own bias, which can be distorted by sin. And when people disagree, we can vilify those with whom we differ. I am guilty of that, and I’ve seen it in others as well, especially amid this dispute.
We think people in the church should be immune to such conflict, or at least able to overcome it, but sadly the church sometimes is the scene of bad behavior. People get “bunkered.” We dig deeper as positions harden and bombs start flying. We say and do things we’d never say or do in normal circumstances. It hurts more when this sort of conflict arises in the church (let’s not bring up the subject of masks ever again, please!).
From a personal perspective, I have found the last three years to be the most challenging I can recall in 44 years of professional work, dating back to my first reporting job in 1979. As this is not my first rodeo, I have seen more than my share of conflict over that 44-year span. Far more than I care to recall. (According to this just released Barna study, 65% of pastors now report feeling lonely or isolated, up from 42% in 2015.)
My job at Beverly Heights these past few years is eased by serving the Lord (and this community) and working with truly great colleagues.
Folks, the people who work for BH are the finest group I have ever been associated with. Each person contributes uniquely to the whole and we blend in a way that I often marvel over. Their grit is also noteworthy, as I have learned time and again over the past year. It’s grit that would impress John Wayne. Their commitment to Jesus is also inspirational. They are a source of constant encouragement to me.
And they work for you because of one man: Nate Devlin. He recruited all but two of us, and built us into a rock-solid, unified team whose loyalty is where it should be: on Jesus Christ.
This Dec. 1 marks my fifth anniversary working for Nate. I have known him since he arrived here in 2004. Pastor Nate is a great boss and a better man. He challenges me and others in ways that reflect true Christian wisdom and love. I want that from my pastor, and I admire and respect him for it.
I also admire and respect his predecessor, Pastor Emeritus Rick Wolling. I was one of the speakers at Rick’s retirement banquet on Oct. 19, 2018. The article I wrote for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about him, which I read on that occasion (headline: “The heart of a shepherd”), was published in the PG two days later. The plaque of that article hangs on my office wall.
I recount all of the above because if I believed that the accusations against Pastor Nate were fair, balanced and accurate, I would have advocated for his removal.
But I have not. I haven’t for the same reason as the 11 elders on Session who courageously rose to his and our defense at the Congregational Meeting on June 11. I concur with their assessment as stated in the FAQs document released on June 26. “After investigating the charges and speaking with eyewitnesses,” the Session wrote, “the charge report was found to rely heavily on hearsay, biased testimony, and to be factually inaccurate and misleading.”
The standard Nate holds himself and others to, without exceptions or excuses, is fidelity to our biblical mandates. He is relentless on the authority Christ must have over us. The mission is not to please every person, as Nate reminds us when we gather as a staff. The mission is to be truthful to the gospel and to please the only judge Who counts: Christ.
This is not to say that Nate reaches that impossibly high bar. Only Christ does. Nate is a work in progress, as we all are. Our spiritual formation will not be complete until we reach heaven.
Which brings me to my next subject: Why has such turmoil befallen Beverly Heights?
The change in leadership was a significant challenge. Nate Devlin is not Rick Wolling. And, adding to the difficulty, the transition from Rick to Nate came shortly before Covid hit.
Leadership transitions are often problematic.
I know this to be true – I covered many of them back when I was a business reporter and newsroom editor. I wrote a book which predicted that the transition from the legendary CEO Jack Welch to his successor would be rocky. It was. So rocky that even mighty General Electric – once a pillar of American corporate capitalism – is now a shadow of its former self.
Transitions are not merely challenging in the corporate world. I recall sitting in the office of a prominent Pittsburgh non-profit more than a decade ago. The founder had asked me to discuss his succession planning. The advice I gave him was not particularly helpful, apparently, because within several years of his departure – and two unsuccessful successors later – the organization folded.
Even legendary pastors, like the late Charles Stanley who passed away earlier this year, encountered unbelievable opposition when he became senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Atlanta in 1971.
Though he ended up serving there for 49 years, Rev. Stanley was at first demonized by many. The congregation, which numbered 3,000 when he took over as senior pastor, fell to about 300 shortly thereafter. The conflict became so heated that one parishioner punched him in the jaw! Another jumped into the pulpit while he preached one Sunday morning, saying, “You people think you’ve come to hear a sermon. You’ve come to see a funeral.”
By God’s grace, Rev. Stanley escaped unscathed. This video provides vivid testimony of what happened during this turbulent time.
Rev. Andy Stanley, his son, recalls that the events of 1971 taught him that “the local church is worth suffering for. … Ultimately the consequences are in God’s hands.”
In our case, the transition from Rick to Nate, though not as tumultuous, had unique blessings but also unique challenges. It was a blessing that Rick had been our senior pastor for 33 years. But that blessing became a challenge when he retired.
The person who succeeded Rick was bound to have troubles, whoever that person was. This scholarly study found that “worship attendance typically drops about 15% when an effective pastor leaves and that this may also result in a drop in financial contributions.”
People forget, because most of us were not here then, but when Rick arrived in 1985, he had some rough times. Rick himself has publicly offered testimony on several occasions (including this podcast) that his early years here were so contentious and difficult, he almost quit.
But he didn’t. He refused to let his detractors force him out, despite the cruel things said about him. He’d made a commitment to God and he honored it. Sound familiar? His mentee, Nate, is doing the same. No surprises there. Rick mentored him well.
Why were they rough on Rick? Because change is hard. Transitions are difficult.
Our current upheaval isn’t how things unfolded immediately following Rick’s departure. For the first year and a few months, after Nate became senior pastor on Nov. 1, 2018, I was surprised but pleased to see how little turmoil there was.
It was smooth sailing. Virtually no one departed. The waves I thought would come did not. Then when Covid hit early in 2020, it was like a tidal wave swept over us. This Lifeway study shows that we are not at all unique in that respect — church attendance since Covid is down 25%. Another article suggests that 15% of the congregation is always considering leaving a church now. Covid was the trigger that caused fence sitters to bolt. Just like it has permitted some to abandon relationships that were marginal to them, as I mentioned earlier.
“To be honest in our evaluation of what’s happening at Beverly Heights,” Rick Wolling said in this video conversation which aired 16 months ago, in March of 2022, “I think we have had a perfect storm.”
There was the impact of Covid, he noted. “But the other part is that we are three years into a pastoral change. I think that with every pastoral change there’s going to be gains and losses. When I was about to leave, I told Nate, ‘There are going to be people who will leave simply because there’s a change.’”
Rick’s observation was accurate then. But there was one more challenge on the horizon that wasn’t apparent 16 months ago. This third factor was the group of members who united last summer against Nate.
What was their motive, you might reasonably ask? Good question. They would say it was to save the church. I would say they refused to accept the will of Session (something elders agree to submit to as part of their ordination vows). In my opinion, they wanted greater influence and control over how the church is run.
In November, this group of three respected elders told Session that Pastor Nate was an abusive and dismissive bully who was unfit to lead our church, but, they said, we will leave the matter in the hands of Session. But, significantly, they did not do that. They refused to accept Session’s will. And so, with each passing month, the dissidents pushed harder. By March, they filed formal charges with the Presbytery against Nate. By May, they petitioned the Presbytery for Nate’s removal while rejecting mediation.
Session then decided it had to be transparent with the congregation. That’s when the dispute became public. But the meeting on June 11 raised this question for some who attended: Do I want to be part of a church in turmoil? Isn’t the church where I seek shelter from the storm, rather than being in the midst of one?
While some have left since the meeting, most people have stayed. Ironically, the situation seems very similar to another conflict that occurred here 20 years ago, but with one important difference. In 2003, a former associate pastor left Beverly Heights, taking a third of the congregation with him almost overnight.
Having experienced both conflicts, I’d say the difference is that this latest one has been a slow roll while the prior event was like a sudden downpour, then it was over. People then had one decision to make: Do I stay or do I go? Many were suddenly gone. It was almost as if they’d been raptured. This time, it’s been a slow drip, drip, drip of mistrust and division. Ripping the bandaid off slowly this time has surely been more difficult.
There’s another way of looking at the BH diaspora, however, then and now. Our church has been blessed historically with the special talents of many individuals. As people leave our church, it is painful. But as they disperse to other locations with their time, talent and treasure, we trust their many positives will be used elsewhere in the development of His kingdom, and that the grumbling will cease.
It is His kingdom, after all, not ours. We trust that His plans are perfect and carried out in our lives.
If you have read this far, bravo! I admire your stamina. I have gone on at length, however, because there’s no more important subject to understand right now in the life of Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church. I pray that I have added light and not heat. We’ve had far too much heat lately.
This report has focused on many negatives, so I’d like to end on a positive note and consider what is going well in our church. There’s plenty to report on. What a blessing it is to see how much God was able to achieve amid the strife of the past year! Frankly, I find it remarkable all He has done.
What follows is just a partial list of the things that occurred to me (with a big assist from Louise). In other words, consider this your annual report (saves me from having to write it again in September).
We just finished a marvelous Vacation Bible School program that loved on almost 100 children. God blessed us with good weather. About 100 volunteers (most of them kids and young adults from our midst) helped make the week memorable. Nadine Michalak did a terrific job in her first year overseeing all of the many VBS details, with a big assist from my daughters, Cara Webster and Erin Westgate.
As you know, I’m very aware of the children’s programming at BH because of my family’s involvement in it this past year. So, my mind turns first to how our children are cared for during church and many of our programs. And the programs themselves: Pumpkin Patch in October, Birthday Party for Jesus and the Advent Family celebration in December, as well as the Resurrection Egg Hunt before Easter.
Then there’s the Wednesday Night Heights afterschool programming – with children’s choir and lessons for kids of all ages. And dinner prepared thanks to the culinary skills of Jen Tan, with a regular assist from her husband Kevin (in our newly renovated kitchen). Ask yourself: how many meals have you eaten in the past year that Jen prepared for you? I can easily count dozens.
And let’s not forget all the Sunday School that occurs each week for children, youth and adults. And the Fusion activities that invite the older kids to church on Sunday nights, as well as retreats and mission trips. Our kids (24 students and eight adults) are with Hosanna Ministries on the annual weeklong summer trip and service project as I write this.
How about the music at our church? Elissa Winkler leads the Adult Choir and the two children’s choirs, and has added a youth choir. She plans and prepares the music with the worship team each week. No small task.
And the schools. We continue to welcome about 90 children to our preschool classes on the C-level every day, September through May with a Summer Fun program running now. Many children from our surrounding neighborhoods are introduced to our Lord and to our church through the preschool. We have added the “Little Seedlings” program for very young children that runs concurrently with the preschool in the mornings.
And let’s not forget our BH Academy. After we added a Kindergarten for the 2021-22 school year while Covid was raging – and the public schools were conducting all instruction remotely – grades 1 through 6 were added last year. This year, the school will accommodate children through 7th grade. Every morning at 9:30 a.m., a Matins worship time is held in the sanctuary.
Please come and join us to see what the school is all about! You will be delighted. Attending Matins each morning has become the highlight of my day. It’s all about Jesus and molding the children of our congregation and our community into warriors for His kingdom! We will need strong leaders in the future to defend His kingdom (the threats to the church are real, as regular readers of this report know).
Then there are the missionaries and missions we support (including local enterprises such as PRISM and Living Stones). There is the playground (which is getting a significant facelift by early next year). Plus all of the normal activities in men’s and women’s ministries. (I am looking forward to the men’s canoe outing on Sept. 9 while Louise would rather eat and talk with women at the Summer Home Hospitality luncheon later this month.) And all that is going on maintaining and upgrading our building and grounds, ably orchestrated by Bob Kelley; the balancing of budgets by Katie Parrish; and the many administrative matters overseen by Amy Lucas.
And, most importantly, the work of pastoring the congregation. The preaching of His word. While Nate handles most of the duties there, two new preachers have been added in the past year: Peter Chace and Kyle Bennett, both of whom are pursuing ordination in our denomination.
Then all that’s done by the staff, elders and deacons to minister to the flock. So much to list and so much for which to give thanks to God.
I believe Christ is working in our church. How does our Lord work? Does He go back to the way things were done in the past? No, He plows forward. He builds. He roughs up institutions and people who’d rather stay where they were. Jesus does not let us be comfortable – rather, He’s always challenging us to move closer to Him. He pushes us onward and upward.
It reminds me of what our Session and senior pastor are doing.
Let me encourage you to lean in and follow God’s plan for us. Get involved. Volunteer in some capacity. Find your niche. The Lord will reward your service to His church. We hope you will join us.
I’ll close with the video below of our kids and adults on the Hosanna mission trip mentioned above. View it – it’s inspirational.
Todd Loizes, our newest elder, reports that the kids “were pleading with us” to close out the Sunday night service by singing Psalm 98, which they sang “with no song sheets.” It’s the same hymn we have been learning in four-part harmony this summer at the start of the worship service.
Oh, sing a new song to the Lord! Talk about something worth shouting about.
That’s my report for July. It’s been a tough month but a blessing, too. Yes, we want peace. But we can find assurance in knowing that Christ is bringing purity through fire. God builds as He burns. May God’s will be done.
I am taking a break from O’Bservations in August. You will hear from me again in September (God willing). Until then, may the Lord bless you and keep you. And all God’s people said, “Amen.”