The Elephant in my Brain

Preaching is a strange animal. It's a big, fuzzy hybrid created by the breeding of the unidentifiable mutt that is my creativity, energy, and intellect with the pedigree Holy Spirit. Perhaps that's why, when someone makes a positive comment about a sermon I've preached, I feel a little like I do when someone tells me that my dog is adorable: I say "Thank you", but it's awkward because I know that I'm not really responsible for what's good about this. I'm very thankful for that hybrid aspect of preaching. It's the only thing that keeps me writing liturgy and standing in pulpits. It's only by the power of the Spirit that I have the confidence to stand up and talk to people, to think that the words coming out of my mouth have value and relevance to the people who will hear them. Please don't misunderstand: I'm nervous every Sunday when I stand up to speak in worship. But I've learned that I can trust the Holy Spirit to show up there, and that helps me get through the anxiety.

That is why, when I'm asked to speak in a totally different context that I get very, very nervous. I don't have the same assurance that God will show up and fill in the gaps. I'm afraid I'll be standing there, in front of a room full of people, with nothing interesting or valuable to say.

That's what I'm afraid will happen this week. Several months ago, I was invited to teach a workshop on worship at an event for our provisional members. (For those of you outside the denominational box I live in, that's pastors who are serving churches but haven't totally finished the ordination process yet.) I was shocked and humbled by the invitation. Of all the pastors in the conference who could have been asked to teach, I was on the short list. I don't feel like I'm necessarily qualified for this honor and responsibility, but I immediately accepted. There are very few things I like better than talking about worship and theology, and this is the perfect opportunity to talk about worship with knowledgeable folks, so it is right up my alley.

Except, of course, that it is public speaking that isn't preaching. And that makes me nervous. I've been pondering what I'll say for weeks now. I've gone through possible presentation formats with my friends and my fiance. I've plotted out an outline for the presentation, then reworked it. I even went into a panic and overplanned possible activities on the off-chance that all of the participants absolutely refuse to take part in the discussion and leave me stuck.

I really, really want this to go well. I want it to go well so I don't look foolish. But, more than that, I want it to go well because provisional members are important and so is worship. These are people just starting their ministry, who will be leading worship in churches for years, probably decades into the future. These are people who have experience and are trying to learn to be even more effective and fruitful in their ministries. I remember--not long ago--when I was a provisional member; I went to these events hoping to learn and leave with helpful strategies and lessons. I don't want to let these provisional members down. And I don't want to let their congregations down. What they learn (or don't learn) will be reflected in the worshiping communities they serve. This is a HUGE responsibility. And I wonder how on earth the powers-that-be selected me to undertake it. Me, a pastor with only 4 years of experience in a church, who just 18 months ago was sitting right where they're sitting now as a provisional candidate--who thought this was a good idea?

While I know that the Holy Spirit will be just as present in this event as she is in the pulpit at my church, this isn't preaching. It feels like a different animal, something wilder, with more mutt and less pedigree. And I'm just praying that it doesn't maul me or bore the class to sleep. That prayer goes something like, "God, please show up and help me out here! Amen."

Finally Found What I'm Looking For

Five years ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Middle East. I spent three weeks traveling through Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, and Greece with seminary students and some really awesome laity. While we were in Jerusalem, we had the opportunity to do a little shopping in the markets. Several of us went to a little store with lovely hand-embroidered textile products, where we found stoles for sale. I purchased two stoles, one for the pastor of my home church, and one for myself. It was a bit of a gamble, purchasing a stole for myself before I'd even finished seminary, but I decided there would be no better place to get a stole than in the place where Christianity began.

I took the stole back to Atlanta with me. But as I began writing my commissioning papers, I started getting anxious. It's an arduous process, and many candidates get delayed or even removed entirely. I was worried, and the stole seemed like too much pressure. I was afraid I'd never get to wear it. So I hid it from myself. I stashed it in a box and put it out of my mind.

I passed my provisional interviews, moved to Virginia, and started serving a church. As a provisional elder, though, I did not have the authority to wear a stole. For three years, I led worship in a plain robe. After three years of ministry, I was finally eligible to apply for ordination. I wrote another set of papers, survived round of interviews, and was recommended for ordination. I was ecstatic, and I knew I'd finally get to wear the stole from Jerusalem. Except, I couldn't find it.

I am, apparently, very good at hiding things from myself. I searched everywhere in my apartment. I had my parents search my room at their house. For months, I couldn't find it. I got ordained and had the opportunity to wear stoles for each liturgical season: Green for ordinary time, purple for Lent, white and gold for Christmas. But each communion Sunday, I would think of that Jerusalem stole. I would wonder where I'd put it and wish I could wear it. After almost nine months, I gave up the search.

Then, this week, several of my friends passed their ordination interviews. I spent this evening celebrating with one of them. When I got home, I had an epiphany. I remembered one last place where the stole might be. I looked in a closet, in a box within a box, and THERE IT WAS! Apparently, the stole was waiting for my friends to be approved for ordination.

So this Sunday, FINALLY, after five years of waiting, I'll get to wear my Jerusalem stole. I'll preside at the table wearing my much-anticipated white communion stole. And I must say, I'm pretty excited about that.

Getting Causey

"You just sound cute when you get causey." - Adam's Rib

From time to time, I get a bee in my bonnet about a political issue. I have been known to sign petitions, write to my congressional representatives, and even call my state representatives. Often, my feelings on these issues arise from my faith.

This morning my fiance called to remind me that the vote about Uranium mining is coming up in a committee in the Virginia Senate. So I looked up my Senator's contact information and dialed his phone number. I was ready to give him a piece of my mind. I planned to say something like this:

I am a clergyperson from your district, and I ardently oppose lifting the ban on Uranium mining. I believe that God created the world and gave us the responsibility of caring for it. Mining uranium would be exploiting the gift of creation in a destructive and dangerous way. It would harm God's creation irreparably. In addition, Uranium mining cannot be done safely in an area with the sort of humidity we have in Virginia. It would be dangerous not only to those who work in the mining industry, but also for nearby residents. It could harm innocent people. We already have enough uranium for this nation's use for many years to come, so lifting the ban is not about balancing needs versus risks, it is about profit, pure and simple. No amount of money is worth endangering this number of people or risking this sort of catastrophic damage to God's creation.

Moreover, United Methodists from across the Commonwealth oppose Uranium mining. We passed a resolution at our Annual Conference in June to continue our opposition of this hazardous practice. So, as a citizen, as a representative of the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church, and as a person of faith, I ask you to oppose this bill.

After just one ring, an aid answered my call. She took down my contact information, then asked what I wished to say to the Senator. I said, "I want to tell him to oppose the Senate Bill on Uranium mining."

She replied, "You know that's his bill. Senator Watkins wrote and sponsored the bill."

Suddenly the synapses fired the connection in my brain: the Watkins Bill. Senator John Watkins. Oops.

I replied, "I still think it's a terrible idea."

The aid said, "I'll let him know. Thanks for calling."

I didn't get into my big speech. Frankly, I don't think it would have done much good. A Senator can't very well go around sponsoring bills and then opposing them. I suspect that the aid I spoke with will have a lovely time laughing about my call with her coworkers. I suspect my actions will have no impact on the vote at all.

Still, I feel good about calling. I am pleased that I could put together a theological and political argument on an issue. I'm proud that my Annual Conference has taken a stand on the issue. And I'm hoping that today, the committee will, as expected, vote down the bill, continuing the ban and protecting our region and its people.

The Prophetic Voice

God created us to live in community, in relationships with people who love us, who challenge us, who hold us accountable. I am never more sure of that fact than when I work on sermons with one of my friends.

First, a confession: As a pastor, I tend to allow myself to get busy or distracted all week long, and I often find myself on Friday morning in a coffee shop trying to mix up a sermon with less preparation and less organization than the task requires. It's like going to the refrigerator at 6:00pm and pulling out whatever ingredients I can find, then trying to put together a healthy meal from whatever is in there. Thanks to the Holy Spirit, this occasionally works, but the sermons are a bit slapdash, and this gives the congregation and the worship less respect and attention than it deserves. The sermons start sounding too similar to one another, they start to reflect my own biases and laziness WAY more than any sermon ever should.

This is why, as a preacher, I need community. I need accountability. I need this friend. Because she will force me to work harder, to wrestle, to really engage with the text not only from my perspective but through the eyes of the many diverse folks in the pews. She pushes, prods, and pokes holes in what seem like brilliant ideas. She challenges easy theologies. She shakes metaphors and illustrations to see if they can withstand the reality of people's lived experience. She will not let me get away with easy answers. She is the prophetic voice that calls me, and often our whole congregation, to account for our words and our actions. It's uncomfortable, it's difficult, but it is often what I need most.

If not for this friend, my sermons would often be finished a little earlier. But they would also be weaker. They would be straw-man sermons that could not hold up to the scrutiny of real people living in the real world.

All of us need these prophetic voices. We need someone who will tell us, with love, that we need to look again at who we are, what we say, and how we live. We need someone who has the courage to speak up and who cares about us enough to help us be better. Individuals, churches, communities, nations need these voices: they wake us from our lethargy and hypocrisy and call us to do better.

Today, even though my sermon is far from finished, I am thankful for a friend who cares enough about me, about this congregation, to challenge me. And I wish there were more people in the world with the courage and care to be prophetic.

Up in Smoke

It's gone. Those were the only words I could come up with when, on Tuesday, I discovered that my home church in Ohio had burned to the ground. All I could think of were the things that had been lost: the site of so many memories, the items that held so much tradition, the sacred space that had been almost my home for the first seventeen years of my life had disappeared in a matter of hours.

Anamnesis

I remember so many important moments in that church. The pews were the site of so many naps, so much coloring, so many childhood hours spent doing everything except paying attention. I went to Vacation Bible School in that church, eating snacks and playing games in the Fellowship Hall. I remember countless potlucks, Kiwanis Pancake Suppers, and Rotary Spaghetti Dinners, gathering around tables with community members of all ages. The classrooms were where I learned the Lord's Prayer, where I became acquainted with the books of the Bible, where I had Girl Scout meetings and MYF gatherings. I remember painting walls and pulling up carpets as training for mission trips. I played in the nursery for years, and can still picture the furniture and toys that had filled that room.

I used to go exploring through the church while my mom counted the offering. My sister and I discovered that, if you used the right pair of safety scissors, you could pick the lock and climb up to the bell tower. We figured out how to get into the organ pipe storage rooms, we crawled under pews and climbed secret back staircases. We uncovered the long-forgotten chair lift and we knew all of the best hiding places for Sardines.

But the Sanctuary... the Sanctuary was my favorite space. It always struck me as the place where God lived: a holy space, but a comfortable one, too. Over my 17 years there, I sat in just about every spot in that room, from the front-center pew as an acolyte to the back corner of the balcony as a youth. I remember going to children's time on the chancel steps and playing trumpet in the choir loft on Easter Sunday. The lectern there was the first place I ever read Scripture in public. I was baptized and confirmed in that Sanctuary, and I stood before the altar there to give the benediction just after I first announced that I was discerning a call to ministry. I learned to play the organ there, while bats flew laps around the ceiling above me.

For seventeen years, that church building was my second home. It was familiar enough to walk in the dark; I knew every inch of the space, every smell, every shadow was as well-known to me as my own reflection. When I moved away to go to school, and then to take my first job, the church was always one of my first stops on my return. I longed to get back into my home church, back among my church family.

Intercessions

I always assumed that I'd be able to go back. And it was always my church home. When I went to college, that seemed a temporary relocation, and I always came home to my church. My seminary days were the same. When I moved to take my first church appointment, I knew the churches I served would never be my home. As a pastor, I'm a member of an Annual Conference, not a congregation. But in my heart, I never left. That big sandstone building was my sacred space, and the people within it were my family.

That is, until Wednesday. On Wednesday, that sacred space disappeared. In a matter of hours, flames destroyed all of those familiar items, all of the rooms I once wandered, until all that was left was a sandstone shell. After the fire, the pictures showed what looked like a ruined medieval castle with stone walls crumbling around a pile of ash and unrecognizable detritus.

I was devastated. I have grieved as though for a beloved friend. For that church building was a friend, in a way. It was a place that saw me through struggles and joys, the constant that allowed me to change and grow within it. There have been tears, and there will certainly be more as the days and weeks go on. There is a loss, not only of the past, but of the future. I will now never be able to be married in that place. I now no longer have the option of presiding at that table in the stole of an ordained elder. And that is difficult for me to accept.

Doxology

But I am trying to give thanks, as well. I am trying to thank God for the gift that the building has been for me and for so many others in the congregation and the community.

I give thanks for those who, more than a century ago, gave funds and support for the building of a church. I give thanks for their vision, and for the way God worked through them to provide for generations to come.

I give thanks for a solid sandstone frame that withstood years of frigid winds, torrential storms, blizzards, and steamy summers, sheltering those within as they weathered physical, political, emotional, and spiritual storms.

I give thanks for old, stained carpets crossed by hundreds of feet as worshipers came forward to pray, to receive ashes, to be washed in baptismal waters, to be fed at the communion table, to light candles, and to sing God's praises.

I give thanks for carefully carved pews, worn smooth by countless hands and backsides, that supported worshipers of all ages and backgrounds. I also give thanks for pew cushions, added later, that made that support so much more comfortable.

I give thanks for dog-eared books, Bibles, and hymnals, from which generations of faithful, questioning, and doubting folks read words of theology, history, and praise.

I give thanks for paraments, altar cloths, and banners that displayed the liturgical year so that we could understand it.

I give thanks for stained glass windows with pictures of Bible stories and names of long-forgotten donors, windows that showed that the Light of Christ can be colorful and energizing.

I give thanks for the baptismal font, capped with a dove, which sat always in the chancel reminding us of the Holy Spirit's presence in our worship and, through baptism, in our lives.

I give thanks for the altar table, where so many holy feasts were blessed by Christ's presence and shared by God's people.

I give thanks for chipped dishes over which holy conversations were held and upon which delicious meals were served.

I give thanks for wrinkled choir robes and sheet music, from which songs of praise poured to praise and lift our souls to our Creator.

I give thanks for items now forgotten, and for a building that housed a century of activities both sacred and ordinary, people in all stages of saintliness and sinfulness, and moments of tradition and transformation. I give thanks for what the building that housed Ada First United Methodist Church was.

But I know that a church is not a building. I know that, even without that beautiful building to house their activities, the church will go on. They will heal. They will find hope. They will rebuild. They will thrive. They will grow. Through God's grace, they will continue to be the faithful, fruitful community I have known them to be. They will journey on with the guidance of the Spirit, and they will be in my prayers, as they always have been.

Newsletters from Home

I believe that all church newsletters carry a drop of grace within them. We who work in the church often bemoan their deadlines and complain about the necessity of writing a column and preparing articles and fitting all the pieces together. But there is something beautiful in the way a church newsletter can gather the flotsam and jetsam of our life together in community.

Today I went to my mailbox and found that my copy of "The Sower" had arrived. "The Sower" is the newsletter from my home church, and to me, it's like getting a letter from an old friend. My heart still catches a little when I see on the back cover my own name with "Rev." in front of it. That title is used for me often, but there is something more powerful about being recognized as a pastor by the people who raised me and taught me to love the church.

"The Sower" is an ordinary church newsletter. It announces upcoming meetings and chronicles the events in the lives of church members. It includes wedding announcements and reports from the trustees, thank you notes and schedules of events. It even gives a list of members' birthdays for the month. But in each of those things, I see grace. The announcements and birthday lists invite all who read it to be a part of this common life, to share their joys and burdens and to care for one another. The finance and trustees reports show what we can do when we work together. Between lines of ordinary text, I read, "There is love here: love for each other and love for God. This is the love that we share lived out."

Perhaps I see that most especially in "The Sower" because it reflects the life of my home congregation. It records the ongoing adventures of a community that is dear to my heart. These are, after all, the people who embraced me from my childhood. This newsletter tells a tiny bit of the stories of the people who taught me The Lord's Prayer and sang along as I stumbled my way through hymns on the piano. These are the people who asked me, week in and week out, about how school was going, who checked in on me when I went away, who sent cookies to me every one of my seven years of higher education. So when I read the church newsletter, I see their faces, I celebrate with their joys, and I mourn with their losses.

Theirs is not a perfect church. There is no such thing as a perfect church. Churches are, after all, made up of ordinary, broken people. But there is a beauty and a grace in this and every church as God draws diverse and imperfect people together and weaves us into one body. There is a power in people loving God, loving one another, and reaching out in love to a hurting world. That is what the church is. And in this newsletter, I glimpse the church.

I don't always see that. Usually when I look at church newsletters, I see them with a critical eye. I am used to going over the newsletter of the church I serve with an editor's eye and a red pen. Perhaps that is why this particular newsletter spoke to my heart so deeply. You see, this June issue of "The Sower" contains the last column by our current pastor, Wayne. And his column was powerful for me, not just because of his beautiful words, but because of the person I know who wrote them.

I remember when Wayne first arrived in our congregation. I had really liked his predecessor, and, as a grumpy junionr high student, I was not ready to welcome someone new. I resented him before he even opened his mouth to preach his first sermon at our church. But Wayne disarmed me with his warm smile and subtle humor. His sermons told stories, wove poetry, and drew together the stories of our community with the events of the world and the narratives of Scripture. I got to know him better over mud and hammers on mission trips. Moreover, Wayne's notes of encouragement mailed to my home, words of wisdom over coffee, and engagement in the life of our small town taught me to understand the intersection of faith and life in new ways. When I came home from college and told Wayne that I had discerned a call to ministry, he responded with joy and an offer of guidance. For all the years after, Wayne and his wife, Fern, lived out that offer. They helped me get connected with the larger church and introduced me to the idea of Annual Conference. They followed up with me to see how the long journey through "the process" was going. They offered suggestions for books to read and courses to take. And when I shared with them my struggles with my home conference and my call to move to a different conference, they supported my decision wholeheartedly.

But the greatest gift Wayne and Fern gave me was their example of ministry with grace, passion, and longevity. They loved the church and community and showed their love through relationships with people and engagement in our structures. They encouraged small, incremental changes in the life of the church that, over more than a decade, yielded powerful new ministries and greater inclusivity. They are not perfect, but for a decade they have loved and striven to show the presence of Christ to our little community. I hope that through my years of ministry I may do the same. I hope that, forty years from now, I will be able to have the same joy and gratitude for the privilege of ministry and the beauty of the church that they show now as they retire.

I rejoiced in the example Wayne and Fern have provided and in the beauty of the church as I read "The Sower" this morning, and particularly as these beautiful words from Wayne's column sank into my heart:
"The gretest rewards of life have been to have been trusted with the vulnerability of persons' lives. You have blessed me with participation in your births and baptisms, your weddings, your divorces, your grievings, your graduations, your retirements; your confessions and your daily mundane lives. At their best, these have been a rehearsal of the trust persons had with wounded lives as they met Jesus. I have been rewarded in seeing the joy you took in the joy and well-being of others; and in seeing your sharing a journey in the valley of the shadows of life. I have been rewarded to see you persist with graceful spirit and effort in stressful, even hostile, situations. This is a sign of Christ's resurrection in you."

Wayne's words remind me, church newsletters remind me: In the church we journey together in grace toward the glory of God. Soli Deo Gloria indeed!

Our Christmas Concert on Sunday included the song "Hope for Resolution." It's a beautiful piece that combines a Zulu song with "Of the Father's Love Begotten", which was written to celebrate the end of apartheid in South Africa.

As I sat in the Sanctuary watching our choirs sing this piece, the faces of our choir members blurred with my memories of Robben Island and the informal settlements around Cape Town. I remembered the Zulu and Xhosa songs that the members of the Methodist Church I attended in South Africa sang so passionately and joyfully. I loved hearing our adult and youth choirs in Virginia singing a song of hope in Zulu with huge smiles on their faces, while our children's choir sang the credal words of "Of the Father's Love Begotten". And for the first few moments, I thought of the huge steps forward that have been made in South Africa, and the hope for further advancement there.

But as the song went on, I began to think about the places where conflict, violence, and inequality still oppress people. I thought of the slums and the hungry children I saw in South Africa, Peru, and Brazil. I thought of the growing threat of violence in Cote D'Ivoire and in Korea. It hurts my heart to think that we still kill each other, still think one race or gender is better than another, still sit idly by while people barely survive lives of hunger, need, and poverty.

I suppose that's why the arranger mixed the Zulu song with "Of the Father's Love Begotten." The hymn emphasizes the great love in the gift of God-with-us. It's not just God that is among us, it's God's love come to life in our world. That's the greatest source of hope imaginable. What other force, what other gift could transform the world? Now, the world has not yet been transformed completely. We only see glimmers of that hope come to life. But those hints of light, like the end of apartheid, remind us of God's love at work in the world.

What I'm Going to Say

Tomorrow I'm preaching. I love preaching. It also makes me nervous. Even when I'm confident that I'm bringing a powerful word from God, even when I think the sermon has illustrations that will connect with people where they are, I get nervous. But I'm never more nervous than the night before I bring a difficult word.

I think sermons are like food. There are cake and ice cream sermons: sermons that are encouraging and heart-warming. There are steak sermons: words that are difficult to dig into, usually with deep theological points that you have to chew on for awhile. There are vegetable sermons, words that are important for people to hear, that speak to their hearts and circumstances, but which are a little easier to chew on than steak. I mostly preach vegetable sermons, and I like it that way. But the sermons that make me most nervous are the brussels sprouts sermons. These are difficult words. Things we need, healthy things to hear, they're easy to chew, but they're not pleasant to digest. We need to hear them, though.

When I was little, my parents required me to eat a little bit of all the foods I didn't like. They called these small portions, "No, thank you helpings." The sermon I'm reaching tomorrow is, I fear, a No-Thank-You helping of brussels sprouts. It's a Word that I need to hear, and that the congregation needs to hear. It's the Word God has laid on my heart this week as I've wrestled with the lectionary passages. But it's not an easy Word, or a pleasant message to hear.

Tomorrow I'm going to stand in the pulpit and hand out brussels sprouts. I know its healthiest for all of us, but I feel a little like my parents must've felt at the kitchen table as I whined and complained and made faces until the awful green vegetables on my plate had gotten cold and rubbery. I believe that this is the right thing to do, but I'm not looking forward to the response.

I just hope no one brings their rotten tomatoes to worship.

Car Shopping

I don't want to buy a car. There are no cars on the market that I really like, no cars that I look at and say, "Oooh, I want to drive THAT!" And I haven't been looking and considering cars much because, let's face it, I wasn't planning to need one. I really liked Emma and was planning to spend the next ten years with her. But, thanks to circumstances beyond my control, Emma is no longer in my life. And I found myself today forced to look for a car.

The problem is that I didn't really know what I wanted. I was frustrated with the idea of car shopping, especially when I didn't have any idea where to begin. What I really wanted was to have Emma back. That was when I realized: the next best thing to having Emma back is getting a car that's very similar to Emma.

It was a bit strange, but after a day of car shopping, I recognize in myself the same sort of behavior that drives most pastors crazy in our churches: I'm resistant to change. I would have liked the change, I think, if I had been planning on it and preparing for it. If it had been my idea and I had chosen to go car shopping, I probably would have eagerly tried new things. But I was very comfortable with the car I had, and when I suddenly found myself forced into a change, all I wanted was a return to my concept of normal.

Now that I've been in that position, I have a better understanding of congregations' reluctance to change. People need to feel ownership and control over a change before they're going to eagerly participate in it. If what you know is comfortable, if you didn't want a change and didn't choose that change, you'll probably resist it, and you'll seek out the option that is most like what you knew before.

Sometimes circumstances necessitate a change, though. You can't keep driving a car when it has been totaled. You can't keep living the same ministry model when it is no longer effective. You have to be willing to make changes, even when they're uncomfortable, even if you really liked the way things were. Otherwise you'll never get anywhere.

God's Patience

"Are you kidding? Any second now he's gonna look at me and go, 'Ha. Yeah, right, you're so not worth this.'" - Toula Portokalos, "My Big, Fat Greek Wedding"

Sometimes I wonder what God is thinking. After centuries, millennia even, God still reaches out to stubborn, oblivious humans. God called to us through great leaders like Abraham and Jacob and Moses. God called to us through the prophets. God became human to live among us in order to reach out to us. God nudges us each day through the proddings of the Holy Spirit. And our response to almost every one of those attempts has been rejection or apathy or feeble, short-lived action. We've killed God's prophets, murdered God incarnate, and consistently ignored the work of the Spirit. And yet, God keeps reaching out.

God must have infinite patience. If it were me, I'd given up on humanity long ago and simply wiped out all of creation. Even in our best attempts, we often muck things up. Families, which God has given us to provide the support and love and relationship we so desperately need, frequently become centers of conflict and pain rather than nurture and care. Even churches, we who have answered the call and accepted the responsibility for carrying out God's will for the world by sharing our faith and working for God's kingdom, often become apathetic and ineffective.

Yet God keeps trying. God keeps calling and redeeming and trying to shape us into what we have been created to be. God keeps trying to mold our hearts, shape our families, and inspire our churches. I hope that we will someday have the wisdom and strength to listen and obey, because we certainly aren't there yet.

Advent Again?

Ready or not, here it comes! Advent is upon us (again) and I just don't feel prepared. Which, I suppose, is ironic. But here I am, unprepared for the season of preparation.

Last year, I tried to keep focused on the joy of Advent by taking pictures of something each day that brought me joy. This year, since the season snuck up on me, I didn't think to take a picture today. And, while I could grab my camera and snap a shot of Charlie chewing on a toy, I want to try something different this year.
This year, I'm going to write instead. Since I feel unprepared for Advent and Christmas, I'm going to process my thoughts in writing, here on my blog. Every day.

Today, since Advent is a season of penance, we started worship with a prayer of confession. I love participating in the confession and pardon in a congregation. I love it because we, as a congregation, need it so badly.

As a congregation, we're a big family. And as anyone who spent Thanksgiving with family will tell you, families always have conflict, we're always a little dysfunctional. With many people and many personalities, we'll always end up disagreeing at times, and those disagreements will sometimes hurt us. So, in our congregations we always need to be forgiving each other and receiving forgiveness. We need to be practicing saying, "You are forgiven," and we need to hear week in and week out that WE are forgiven. As people who believe in a merciful God, and who are called to likewise forgive, we need to be practicing grace.

And I think this is perhaps most important for clergy. We work closely with the people in our churches, and in our leadership we sometimes ruffle feathers. We disappoint them sometimes, and other times they disappoint us. So, there is a certain beauty to saying, as a pastor, "In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven," and looking into the eyes of your members as they assure you, "In the name of Jesus Christ, YOU are forgiven."

In this season of Advent, as we prepare to welcome our Savior, we need to be practicing mercy. And as we prepare for visits with our families, we need to be practicing grace. Tonight, I'm praying to be better at both.

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Wrapped in Community

I spent a good part of this afternoon sorting out prayer shawls to send to the youth from the church I serve who will be starting college this fall. I wrote liturgy and double-checked names because this is an important ministry. Women from the church have spent months making prayer shawls with these particular students in mind. Smooth hands and gnarled hands and able hands and arthritic hands have passed over the yarn and knotted it into patterns, into rectangles that will wrap around the shoulders of our students. We hope that, as they wrap the shawls around them, they'll remember the people from our church who are praying for them, and remember that God is with them even when those people, and all the dear, familiar things they're used to, are not.

Congregation members occasionally inform me that I need a prayer shawl from this church. They say this, not because I appear to be in need of consolation, but because I'm usually wrapped in a blanket when I'm at work. I tend to be cold most of the time and my air conditioned office feels like an icebox to me, so I often throw a blanket around my shoulders while I'm sitting at my computer or going to meetings. But I'm particular about the blanket I use. A prayer shawl from this church would be fine, too, but it doesn't have the same meaning.

The blanket that I keep in my office, that I wear when I'm cold, is one that bears the name of my hometown and the names and pictures of many of its churches. I choose to keep it in my office to remind me that, on the tough days when I'm tired and frustrated and feeling alone, not only is God with me but there are people far away who are wrapping me and my ministry in prayer. The blanket has pictures of the many churches where I attended Vacation Bible School, where I learned memory verses and did crafts and saw the dedication of lay people in helping form the faith of children. It has the names of the churches with whom I went on mission trips, whose volunteers climbed under houses and into ditches alongside me to be examples of servant leadership.

Most of all, the blanket has the name and picture of my home church, the place where I was most formed in the faith. It's the place where I learned hymns and creeds, prayers and theology. It's the place where I discovered the joy of being in mission and experienced what the love in the body of Christ should be like. It wasn't, and isn't, a perfect church. But the people of that congregation did a great job of teaching and shaping me as a person of faith. And though the blanket didn't come from their hands, it reminds me of all the gifts they've given me. That simple blanket provides not only physical warmth, but spiritual reassurance.

I got a Facebook friend request yesterday from one of my childhood Sunday School teachers. I hadn't heard from her in probably a decade, but I was jubilant about the contact. This gives me the opportunity to tell her that all of those Sunday mornings putting up with my know-it-all talking and encouraging me to put characters on the felt board and telling Bible stories really made a difference to me. It's my chance to tell her that she's one of the examples I draw upon when I work with children in my ministry. I doubt that she knew, when she listened to that seven year old girl with dimples talking, that her work would inspire and shape ministry almost twenty years later. But it has.

I wish I could find a way to impress that message upon the people in the church I now serve. But how can I tell them that the way they greet and teach and love the congregation's children today could affect Christ's mission in the world several decades later? How do I help people to see that their work doesn't just enable ministry today and this year, but has an impact for years to come? If that message came through clearly, I think churches might not have quite the problems with recruiting volunteers and leaders that we often face.

Just Keep Swimming...

Holy Exertion, Wholly Exhausted
Holy Week is only seven days long. Eight, if you count Palm Sunday. But for church staffs, it seems much, much longer. The church I serve, for example, had ten services in those eight days. I would never even think of comparing our experience to Christ's, but in terms of scheduling, there are some similarities, at least in the rhythms of darkness, work, and celebration.

Palm Sunday is a big day. It's a day of celebrating. We have parades with palms and an Easter egg hunt, everyone is excited. And the staff is happy. But we know that there is still a long way to go. In the back of my mind through all that celebration was, "This is just the beginning. Everything seems OK now, but the insanity is coming..."

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday seem quiet, but they aren't. You're working constantly, but things are relatively calm. At the same time, the tension is building. Monday is calm--nailing down the last details of the orders of service and finishing the bulletins. Tuesday is a little more strained: getting ahead on visitation so that you're not overwhelmed at the end of the week, trying to figure out exactly who's doing what for the services and, in my case anyway, working on Powerpoints for the upcoming services. On Wednesday, I began to really absorb the fact that we were looking at seven services in the next four days. That was when I started getting nervous.

If Monday-Wednesday was the calm before the storm, Thursday was when the winds started picking up. It was the first of the four days of intense worship services and, while it was contemplative, I could feel the stress coming to a head. The Holy Thursday worship was beautiful, but as soon as it was over, as soon as we had finished communion and stripped the altar, I started worrying about how Good Friday would come together.

On Friday full panic set in. I spent the morning and afternoon wrestling with my theology of the resurrection, attempting to write a sermon for the Easter Vigil. I rushed to the church to put the final touches on the liturgy and sacred space for the Good Friday service. Ironically, the Good Friday service was probably my favorite worship of all of the Holy Week services. We did a riff on the Veneration of the Cross, and it simultaneously emphasized our role in Christ's suffering and our call to social justice. We involved tactile experience, poetry, Scripture, music, and visual images to bring the crucifixion to life. I felt moved and strangely exhilarated afterward.

Saturday broke the pattern of my journey paralleling Christ's. On Saturday, at least according to Protestant tradition, Christ was dead in the tomb. I would think that would have been restful. My Saturday, on the other hand, was a little crazy. I spent the whole day writing liturgy and putting final touches on the Easter Vigil for the evening.

Sunday was just plain exhausting. The church had four worship services. I attended all of them and helped lead three of the four. I enjoyed the worship and it was wonderful to see so many people gathered to celebrate the resurrection. But by the end of the last service, I was completely worn out. Christ arose, and all I wanted to do was go to sleep.

Never-Ending Story

"Treading water to keep from sinking,
'Cause I'm not one for reaching..." - Jars of Clay

Sometimes in ministry, I think we all feel like we're just treading water, trying to keep moving just to keep from falling behind. Each week you're preparing to lead worship, writing sermons and liturgy, creating bulletins, visiting in hospitals, and running meetings. Through liturgical seasons things ebb and flow, but the Sundays keep coming and the meetings keep appearing on the calendar. This is a marked difference from school. When you're in school, everything builds toward midterms and finals, but once the semester ends, you get a break. But in the church, there are no breaks. Things build up to Christmas and Easter, and other major liturgical seasons and holidays, but a week or less after those big days, you're facing another Sunday; you have to prepare another sermon, another worship service. This rhythm has been called the relentless return of the Sunday, but I'm just beginning to understand what this feels like. Two months ago, I started a new service and I began preaching once a month. And it didn't seem too bad at first, but after dealing with the insanity of Holy Week, the fact that there's a Sunday coming in another three days is driving me a little crazy.

On the other hand, it's a great reminder that these holidays are not ends in themselves. Christmas is just the beginning of the gospel story. Easter is a triumph, yes, but also the initiation of a new challenge: the church is to go out in mission to the world to proclaim the truth of the risen Christ. We can't just say, "Christ is risen, that's the end." We have to say, "Christ is risen, now let's go tell the world!" And that is demonstrated by the arrival of another Sunday. The work continues, the mission continues, the worship continues. We are Easter people. Easter isn't just a day, it's a way of living. Holy Week is a journey, but also a part of the larger narrative, the ever-cycling story we relive each year. Let the story continue.

Writing Process

I tried to start writing my sermon in my office yesterday afternoon. But my office simply isn't conducive to liturgical writing. So I gave up, finished my work for the day, and went home to try there. Then my writing process looked like this:

Day 1:
Cook dinner
Eat dinner while watching NCIS
Clean up while watching a second episode of NCIS
Write about a page
Get stuck on next idea
Call Dad and spend an hour trying to figure out where the sermon is going. While talking to him, realize that this sermon strongly resembles a smushing together of two sermons I've already preached. Come to conclusion that I only really have three sermons and I riff on those same three themes in every sermon I write. Lament that conclusion aloud while Dad attempts to reassure me. Have a brilliant idea for the sermon. Hang up with Dad.
Try to put brilliant idea on paper and decide that it's not brilliant after all.
Get frustrated.
Have glass of ice water to calm down.
Watch Coach Carter in hopes of giving brain a "rest" that will enable better writing.
Get tired and decide to go to bed and face the sermon in the morning.

Day 2:
Get onto computer to start sermon
Spend half an hour looking at weather sites and determining whether I can travel for my evening plans.
Call sister to discuss driving conditions. Decide to cancel evening plans.
Call partner for evening plans, apologize for canceling. Further lament sermon problems to her.
Re-read page of sermon written yesterday. Hate it.
Decide to re-fuel before attempting re-write. Have breakfast.
While putting breakfast dishes away, remember that there are loads of laundry in the washer and dryer.
Move loads, fold laundry.
Shower and dress.
Sit down to computer to re-write sermon.
Get distracted by facebook and e-mail, spend 30 minutes keeping up with every person I've ever met.
Notice that weather is worsening, decide to get groceries in case I get snowed in
Go to store. Realize I left wallet at home.
Go home. Get wallet. Return to store. Buy groceries.
Put groceries away.
Re-read half-sermon again. Still dislike it, but after 30 minutes of staring at document still can't figure out how to fix it.
Decide that I need to get into writing mode coffee-shop-style.
Go to Starbucks to get coffee.
Relocate laptop to dining room, arrange books and coffee.
Drink coffee while checking e-mail and facebook again.
Write three alternate thesis statements for the sermon.
Decide to return to slightly-altered original thesis.
Move loads of laundry again.
Stare at screen impotently for another fifteen minutes
Decide to read a chapter of the Cloister Walk for inspiration
Instead of getting inspired, I get further discouraged by the comparison between Norris' brilliance and my own inability to write.
Receive phone call from county school system (which seems to think I have a child in school here...?) informing me that all weekend activities are cancelled.
Figure the odds that worship will be cancelled on Sunday. Conclude that it is unlikely and that I must actually write this sermon.
Try "warm-up" writing on blog. End up listing useless activities instead.
After 36 hours, still no sermon.
EPIC FAIL.

This month I start preaching every week instead of once a month. It could be much more challenging than I originally thought...

Lay Off My Shoes

I have never claimed to be a typical woman. I do not always play by the gender rules, and I don't usually buy into the stereotypes. In fact, I sometimes consciously buck the expectations just because I can. But the shoe thing... the shoe thing is a gender norm that I truly do not understand.

Women are supposed to be fascinated with shoes. We're supposed to love shopping for shoes, wearing shoes, admiring shoes... they're a part of fashion that's supposed to be our weakness. And I just don't get it. I know, I know, PB is going to be appalled, but it's true. I simply do not understand what all the fuss is about.

Clothes I get. Clothes can really affect the way you look; colors can bring out your eyes or skin tone. Different styles and tailoring can flatter your figure or make you look taller or thinner. Those things I understand. I can understand the necessity of taking fashion into account when choosing clothes. But shoes? I just do not understand. Aside from the fact that heels make your legs look better if you're wearing a skirt, and the fact that your shoes need to match the rest of your outfit or you look sloppy and careless, I don't understand the need for stylish/uncomfortable shoes.

My priorities in shoes are comfort and practicality. As long as they don't clash with what I'm wearing, as long as they're the proper level of casual, professional, or formal, the rest doesn't matter much. I can recognize that certain shoes are cuter than others, but if cute shoes are uncomfortable, I don't see how they're worth wearing.

For example: I hate when my feet are cold and wet. So, while I recognize that my snow boots are not cute, I still wear them because they keep my feet warm, dry, and cozy. And while pointy-toed stilettos may be cute, I can't walk in them, and they're not comfortable, so I definitely won't be buying or wearing them.

To me this seems self-explanatory. My feet are more important to me than style, and falling down looks much worse than wearing flats. But this is not clear to other people. It's not that I'm on some holier-than-thou rant here. I'm not saying that fashion is completely unimportant or that being serious about my work somehow renders appearance beneath my notice. It's just that I hate being uncomfortable, and I can't afford to be falling down all the time or taking nine years to walk from my office to the copy room. There are certain sacrifices that I'm simply not willing to make for the sake of appearance.

One of my friends and fellow staff members is constantly ribbing me for a pair of black shoes that I own. I get that they're not stylish. They're square-toed sort of loafers. But they're incredibly comfortable. And, perhaps the most important thing about them, especially for leading worship on Sundays, is that they don't make any noise. They have some sort of rubber composite soles (again, I know, not attractive) but they don't make distracting clacking sounds when I walk around the wood-floored chancel. I have enough to be thinking about when I'm leading worship. I don't need to be worrying about how to walk just-so to keep from making too much noise when I'm walking from the pews to the lectern. So, until I find some cute, comfortable, silent shoes to replace the "hideous" shoes I have, I'm going to keep wearing them.

Or maybe I'll just train my congregation that the chancel area is "sacred ground", so I shouldn't wear any shoes there at all. Think it'll work?

I mean, really?!

I was a bit frazzled this morning. My senior pastor was out of town visiting family, and I was left in charge of Sunday morning worship. I had returned to town the previous afternoon after a few days away, and it wasn't until I awoke with a start at 3 a.m. that I remembered that I was presiding over communion this morning by myself for the first time. Our director of music was also on vacation, so I was trying to balance working with our music associate, preaching, remembering all the announcements, and presiding over communion with a musical setting I'd never done before. With all that in mind, I had put on my robe and I was hustling down the stairs toward the sanctuary ten minutes before the service when my eyes fell upon a visitor I recognized. There, in the area by the sanctuary, was my district superintendent. I almost fell down the rest of the stairs in my surprise. Of all the days he could have chosen for a surprise visit, he unknowingly chose the day I was running the show on my own, doing things I'd never done before, and preaching a sermon that I didn't particularly like, but had run out of time to fix.

I stood there for a second, almost waiting for colored bars to appear before my eyes and a voice to announce, "This is only a test. Had this been an actual visit of the district superintendent, you would have been warned ahead of time so you would not be flying by the seat of your pants." Since that did not occur, I regained my composure and addressed the D.S. with shocked bluntness, "What are you doing here?" That's right. I didn't say hello, or ask how his holidays had been, or greet him with poise, I asked a rather accusing question. (Dear self, if you get reappointed to a three-point-charge near Podunkville, you'll know it's your own fault!) From there on, things improved. His wife assured me, with her usual bubbly cheer, that I would be fine and that this wasn't an evaluation. I took a deep breath and tried to believe her, then went to lead the service.

In the end, the worship went relatively well. But I would simply like to ask that, in future, people not shock me into heart palpitations before 9 a.m.

I wish I could have captured this on film...

Today I was unable to get pictures of most of the things that made me smile.

For example, this morning the DCE and I attempted to go to church at 7:30 a.m. My car had other ideas, though. It got stuck in the ice/slush/mess in the parking lot, and refused to move in any direction. So there Amanda and I were: wading through the snow and slush in our church clothes, trying to push the car out. As annoyed as we were by the snow and ice, the cold slush in our shoes, and the frustrations of trying to get the car out in spite of the weather, the situation was hilarious. We found ourselves laughing out loud, and I wished we could get a picture of that moment. Finally a few of her neighbors helped us, and we managed to get the car out.

When we got to church, we had our usual two services and Sunday School, though the turnout was small. I also tried something in a worship service I had never attempted before: I preached a first-person narrative sermon. The text was the Magnificat, so I preached as Mary, explaining to Joseph about her pregnancy and her interaction with Elizabeth. I was really nervous about stepping away from the pulpit and doing something so different. But in the second service, it went really well. Several of the people who heard it said it was meaningful for them, and I really had fun trying something different. I wish I could have caught their facial reactions on film, but I couldn't exactly pull out my camera while I was preaching.

I got spoiled by having lunch out with friends from church, then I returned home to work on cleaning my apartment and finishing up Christmas preparations to get ready for my parents' visit. I was productive, but there weren't a lot of great moments to capture on film. But I did FINALLY hang up some of my pictures, so my walls are no longer bare.


This picture doesn't capture the best moments of my day, but it is something that made me smile.

Nativity

I didn't think to get out my camera today, though I had a great time shopping, joking around with co-workers, and attending a Christmas party for a group from church. But this evening, as I was relaxing in my living room, I looked up and saw my nativity. It was made by a member of my church in Atlanta, and it always makes me smile. The figures are woodburned into blocks of finished 2x4, which always makes me think of supplies from ASP. Plus, every time I look at it, I remember the fun I had with my friends from that church: singing in the choir, laughing at terrible puns, talking sports, and ministering to the people of the community.

Chapel Redefined

The Minister of Visitation and the Minister of Missions apparently bought ties for the mission team a few years ago. The ties, which feature outlines of the Blues Brothers and the words "On a Mission from God", are AWESOME. Since we liked them so much, the guys gave them to me and to our new Director of Christian Ed. So, we showed them off by wearing them to Home Depot today.



Then this evening, after lots of planning and sketching, after meetings with Trustees, fire marshals, building inspectors, and the emerging worship planning team, we finally rearranged the chapel. We had help from youth volunteers, members of the team, and a few brave adult volunteers. I couldn't get a good angle to get a picture of the whole room, but I got these that show some of the arrangement.

Stepping Up

I walked into the office this morning expecting an ordinary day. Then our office manager informed me that our church had become a disaster management center for the day. I had been told when I arrived that we are a Red Cross Disaster Center, that we take people in when crises occur and provide a place to stay, but I hadn't seen it in action before. I was amazed and extremely impressed.

The previous evening there had been a fire at a retirement community nearby. Many of the residents had to be evacuated and had nowhere to go for the night. The Red Cross contacted the coordinators at our church (trained and very dedicated lay members) who contacted our Facility Manager and Minister of Missions. Together, they made all the necessary arrangements for the displaced people to have beds and meals, they helped facilitate communication with families and arranging temporary placements for all of them. They worked with the Red Cross volunteers and employees to keep the situation under control. Church members and people from the community stepped up to offer whatever help they could. And as I watched all of this happen, as I watched people who had stayed up all night smile and minister to people as though they weren't exhausted, I was amazed. This is what the incarnation is all about.


Today, this ministry was what made me smile, and what made me proud to be a part of this faith community.