Offering

Saturday night is the hardest part of my week. No matter how well-prepared I am for Sunday, I always get nervous on Saturday night. Sunday is just such a huge day. And until the sermon has left my mouth, until the last "Amen" is spoken, the anxiety doesn't fade. Even when every word of the sermon is typed in front of you, even when all the prayers are written down, you don't know what will happen. You never know when the Holy Spirit will show up and change the game plan. It's a dangerous business.

I guest preached this morning at a friend's church. I find guest preaching even more anxiety-producing than preaching in my own congregation. In your own church, there's always next week if the sermon goes over like a lead balloon. In your own church, you can predict whether your joke will get a laugh, and you can count on the grace of, "We know her, maybe this wasn't her best week, but we've seen her gifts other times." As a guest preacher, though, you just don't know. The order of service and the worship patterns are all a little different. And you don't have that home-court advantage.

I couldn't really tell how this morning went. It wasn't bad. My jokes at least got some smiles and a little tittering. But I wanted so badly to take good care of my friend's congregation in her absence, and I don't know how I did with that. I mean, I trust that the Holy Spirit worked and will continue to work through the worship we shared this morning, I just hope I didn't hinder it too much.

There is, of course, nothing I can do about it now. The worship is over, the echoes of the sermon have faded from the room. So I sip my coffee, take deep breaths, and let it go. At least until next Saturday...

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Dear Me

Dear Future Me,

You probably don't remember me very well. I'm you... thirty years ago. I'm you when you were new to ministry. I'm the old you, the one who was so excited about God and the church's potential to make disciples and change the world that people told her to stop being so naive and idealistic. I'm writing to you so that you will remember what being me felt like. This is a preemptive letter. You see, I have seen what pastors can become.

At conferences and events, I meet pastors who have, through years of ministry, allowed their hearts to be hardened. They greet new ideas with cynicism, and respond by saying, "Been there, seen that fail." They sit in the back of conference rooms muttering that new ideas are a waste of time and telling young people to, "Grow up." I know how they get that way. After two years of ministry, I know this is difficult work. This vocation requires dedication, time, energy, patience, and passion. It can take the life out of you. It can leave you, at the end of the day, tired and grumpy and burned out. People in churches can be short-sighted and whiney and hurtful and, sometimes, outright crazy. As a pastor, you get yelled at, harangued, tricked, annoyed, and overburdened. You see the depths of human hatred and brokenness, you see evil and pain and darkness that most people never glimpse. And it's tempting to give up hope, to become defensive, to put your hand to the plow and slog through, bent over by carrying the weight of all of that in your heart. You know from experience that, as Ecclesiastes says, "There's nothing new under the sun."

I want to remind you, though, that we aren't working just with things that are under the sun. You're doing kingdom work, divine work; and God always creating, always bringing a new thing. I know you're going to forget that, as you go through years of the week-to-week work of leading worship and attending committee meetings and being part of the Church's work in the world. You're going to see conference initiatives come and go, the annual leadership-book-of-the-year appear and fade, churches grow and churches die, and you're going to lose sight of the huge, cosmic work that God is doing. Don't.

Jesus took a ragtag group of people from Galilee, taught them for three years, gave them the power of the Holy Spirit, and sent them out to spread the gospel and transform the world. Two thousand years later, their work is still being carried out in us. You have the privilege of being a part of that, you have the gift of the Spirit to help you, how can you allow yourself to lose hope?

Sure, the church is flawed, but it's also the consecrated vehicle for spreading the gospel, so it's way too important to abandon. People are hurtful and broken, yes, but they are also beautiful. For every complaint brought by one person, there is a theological insight brought by another. For every fruitless committee meeting, there is a moment of effective ministry. For all of the evil and distortion brought by sin, there is the beauty of God's image in creation and the recovery of that beauty through God's sanctifying grace. For every instance of hurtfulness, there is a display of the love of God extended through the children of God. So don't become cynical; God is at work in this place, and your cynicism slams a door where grace could be entering your ministry.

A few practical tips:

• Put down the leadership book for a minute and pick up the Bible. Put down the commentary and pick up a poem.
• Listen to children. Listen to youth. Listen to young adults. Take their ideas seriously and take their insights to heart. They know what they're talking about.
• You're still learning, so keep asking questions.
• Seek real healing and let go of the pain. Don't carry it around or you'll become defensive and bitter.
• Call your friends and not just the people at your church.
• Take long walks. Sit in the sunshine. Dance with the breeze.
• Ministry is your vocation, it's not your whole identity.
• You got into this because you love God and you love people. If either of those is no longer true, get out.
• Feel things.
• Pray to discern where to go next, and don't worry about the size of the church, the prestige of the appointment, or the salary that comes with it.
• If you have a staff, earn their respect and trust and let them exercise their gifts. Manage them well, and remember that God has given them gifts and vision that you may not have.
• Play.
• Sing loudly and often.
• Make (and keep!) appointments at the Church of the Holy Comforter.

Inside you somewhere is me. That means that, somewhere inside you, is the person who loves to blow bubbles, quote movies, and laugh at bad puns. Somewhere inside you is the person who saw so much potential and hope in local churches that it concerned the Establishment. In your heart is the person who loves Christ and the Church so much that she moved halfway across the country to a place where she knew no one just because she believed she was called to be there. Remember me, and don't let me down.

Be me, but wiser, stronger, deeper, and more loving. Talk to strangers, play with matches, and set the world on fire with the flame of the Spirit.

Love,

Me (2011)

Characteristics of the Church of the Future

At a conference I attended this week, we were invited to imagine the "Church of the Future". I know this isn't what they meant, but this is what my friends and I came up with:

1) Holograph Pastor: Even though the pastor is present in the building, he or she will speak from hidden in a back room while a giant holograph of the pastor is projected instead. This arrangement, much like the Wizard of Oz, will make preaching much more impressive and powerful.

2) Robot Ushers: Instead of members in suits distinguished by special nametags, robots will serve as ushers. They can use Inspector Gadget-like extending arms to pass the offering plates down the rows. And if people are slow in retrieving items from their purses or wallets, the robots can just keep holding the plates in front of them until they make a contribution.

3) Youth Spring Break Mission Trip... TO MARS: Our youth can take spreading the good news that Jesus is the savior of the universe to a whole new level. All we need to do is put some ceramic tiles on the outside of the church bus to help absorb the heat of reentry.

4) Fellowship Meals of Dehydrated "Space Food": Forget potlucks, the Church of the Future will have meals that could be served in the International Space Station. It's nourishing AND it will never go bad in the church fridge.

5) Small Groups via Skype: Physical presence and even proximity aren't important as long as you have a computer. You can discuss Scripture with your peers from the comfort of your own home. And, as long as your webcam is angled properly, you don't even have to wear pants.

6) Adapting Jeremiah: We will talk about beating our lightsabers into plowshares.

7) Worship Music: Amy Grant and Chris Tomlin will be considered "Traditional". "Contemporary" will refer to music from 2015... and will still be old.

8) Summer Fun: Church ice cream socials will serve Dip'n Dots.

9) Outreach: The "other" really will be alien.

This was our flight of fancy in the midst of conference meetings. What ideas would you add?

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Miraculous

From time to time, when I'm caught up in the minutaie of everyday church life, I lose track of the bigger picture. I get bogged down in the little stuff and forget how beautiful the wider view can be. The last few weeks, though, have reminded me of just how miraculous the body of Christ is.

In a world that is increasingly divided, the church is one of the few places where people who are radically different from one another come together by choice and love each other without regard to the lines that usually separate us. It's not like school or the DMV, where we have no choice but to occupy the same space with people who are different from each other. In the church we choose to be together. In the church, at least when the church is what it should be, young people and older folks know and care for one another instead of allowing generational squabbles and communication problems to halt the conversation. Democrats and Republicans break bread together. Business and school rivals claim a common identity. And all of us gather, trying to make sense of our lives and help each other through.

It's countercultural and a bit counterintuitive, but God brings us all together. And in order for the whole thing to work, we have to work together; we have to talk to each other and give of ourselves. The miracle is that, by the grace of God, we actually do.

This was made manifest for me over the past few weeks in my congregation. Holy week worship requires a ton of people's time and effort. People of all ages, with all different gifts, came out of the woodwork to arrange flowers and altars, to gather items for multisensory worship, to play music and sing, to usher, acolyte, and greet people, and all out of a desire to glorify God and celebrate Christ's resurrection.

When Holy Week came to a close, we were all exhausted, staff and members alike. Still, when tragedy struck on Easter Monday, the will to serve overcame the weariness. The same folks who had worked so hard to put together worship for Holy Week came together again to put their love into action, enveloping those who were grieving. Again, details were arranged, tasks taken on with quiet dedication, and the congregation reached out with a loving embrace. I found myself marveling at the beautiful way God was at work through the body of Christ, even in the midst of incomprehensible sorrow.

There are those who hold out little hope for the church, who believe we will succumb to the conflict and divisiveness that seem to be destroying the Church. But in weeks like this, when I see even a glimmer of what God can do through the Church, my hope is renewed. The church is like an old hammer. It may be ugly and a little rusty, it may not look like it's sturdy enough to finish the building. But in the hands of the master carpenter, it can build strong and beautiful things.

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If You Really Think About It

We are in the middle of Holy Week, the absolute busiest time of year for pastors. Don't get me wrong, Christmas is really busy, but Holy Week is worse because it's a marathon. Holy Week starts with Palm/Passion Sunday, then plods on through the relentless stretch of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday/Easter Vigil, Easter Sunrise, and Easter. With all of the sermons to write and worship to plan and bulletins to put together, we pastors are harried and stressed. And I don't know for sure about my peers, but I risk losing sight of the meaning behind all the work.

I was particularly stressed getting ready for our Palm/Passion worship this year. We got really creative with the service, designing a sort of lessons-and-carols format of reading the passion story from Matthew interspersed with music and accompanied by different lay people bringing symbols of the story forward and placing them on the altar. The service required a lot of extra work and coordinating lining up the text and music, gathering the items, and organizing our lay folks, and by the time Sunday morning arrived, I was really on edge.

But after the 8:30 service, one of our choir members came up to me and said, "That was really powerful. I almost cried a couple of times because, if you really think about it, how can you not? I had to keep telling myself, don't think about it right now, not while you're singing." The comment, which was really positive feedback about the worship, left me feeling convicted. With all of the havoc of planning and leading the service, I hadn't really been thinking about the incredible power of the Scriptures we were reading, the beauty and sadness of the passion story.

At the 11:00 service I worked to focus, to really think about what I was reading and the meaning behind it. I allowed myself to be moved by the sorrow in the anthems, to let the weight of the cross sink into my soul. I was so lost in the experience that at one point I almost skipped one of the Scripture readings.

As a pastor, I live in the strange tension between fully engaging myself in worship and needing to maintain enough separation to be able to hold myself together. I can't be so moved by a Scripture or anthem or funeral that I become a blubbering mess in the chancel. On the other hand, I never want to be so disengaged as to miss the significance and power of the act of worship. The stress of high holy days tends to push me toward the latter of those two options, and I'm working to combat that. I think it starts, as all worship does, with really thinking about who God is and what God is doing. So that is where I'll strive to begin each service of this Holy Week. I'll let you know how it goes.

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Passing the Blame

I have decided that my gym owes my downstairs neighbors an apology.

You see, I have a membership at a 24-hour gym. So, this evening, after a delicious church spaghetti supper that left me as overstuffed as the pouffes in Prof. Trelawney's office, I decided to take my book to the gym and work off some of those extra calories. But when I arrived at the gym at 8:15, I discovered the doors locked. An employee inside mimed that they were closed, which I found baffling. Apparently, my 24-hour gym closes at 8:00pm on weekends? I do not understand how that works. And I find it frustrating.

At any rate, I then returned home full of energy. When I returned home, I was greeted by Charlie, who is perpetually full of energy. So, instead of working out at the gym, I spent half an hour wrestling with the Charlie-pup and riling him up to run giant circles around the dining room table and the coffee table in the living room. So, with a large, heavy dog galumphing laps around my apartment at 9:00pm, I feel bad for my downstairs neighbors. But, really, it's the gym's fault.

So my gym should apologize to my downstairs neighbors. In the meantime, I'm going to cuddle with my now-tired dog.

Full of It

I lead a full life.

My life is full of adventure. I've had opportunities to travel all over the place, and I continue to take advantage of every chance I get to see the world. I face challenges every day: trying to figure out what God is saying and then attempting to articulate it to my congregation, trying to be an instrument of transformation in the world, doing things each day that scare me a little.

My life is full of people. I'm surrounded by a congregation of characters. They are unique, fascinating people that I get to interact with every day. I'm surrounded by friends, kind, passionate people who make me laugh and think. I have a family that's incredibly loving and supportive, and it's growing all the time (welcome, Navah!)

My life is full. I have stuff to do 24/7. My schedule is busy, and my activities are fulfilling. It's just... it's not full of what I expected.

A few days ago, in a discussion about our future plans, I was describing to a friend the way I expect my career progression to go. She interjected the question, "When do you want to have kids?" I paused, then replied with a sinking heart, "Well, I doubt if I will. There are no guys on the horizon, so I'm not really even considering that in making my decision." It's the first time, I think, that I've actually admitted those thoughts out loud.

I never expected to reach my mid-twenties, still single, still with no plans for marriage and children. I had, without realizing it, really bought into the social expectations of marriage and kids. Every time I envisioned my future, thinking, "Ten years from now, I'll be... Five years from now I'll be..." I always imagined I'd be married. Always. As much as I denied it aloud, my internal expectation was always to have a family.

But now... it really doesn't look like that will happen. I mean, sure, people always say, "You'll meet the right guy someday," or "It just takes one," or "God has someone really special for you, you just haven't met him yet." But the thing is, I'm not sure that's true. Call me pessimistic, but I don't know that I'll ever marry, I don't know that I'll ever have a family of my own. And I have to decide: is that OK with me?

Last week I witnessed the birth of my new niece. I held her in my arms just a few minutes after her birth. I watched the tears of joy in my brother-in-law's eyes, I saw the delight on my sister's face as she saw her daughter for the first time. I didn't hear my biological clock ticking in my ears, I didn't long for a child of my own. But the next day, when I watched my sister and brother-in-law introducing their daughters to one another for the first time, when I saw them sharing joy as a family, part of me felt like I was missing something.

My life is full: full of adventure, full of people, full of activities. I have fulfilling work and fulfilling relationships. But is it enough? If this is all there ever is, if I have a full life and an empty apartment, is that enough? Is it OK if my life plan looks so very different from society's expectations, from even what I had envisioned for myself?

In John 10:10b, Jesus says, "I came that they might have life, and have it to the full." Is this the sort of fullness of life to which I'm called?