Tag Archives: church

The Way

As a seminary student, I remember discussing with classmates how long a pastor should serve a congregation. The lore was that a pastor’s call should conclude around seven years, seven being a number that reflects completion in the Bible.

Growing up, one of my pastors practiced the seven-year model. My Methodist colleagues are often transferred at the seven-year mark. If God created everything and even rested within seven days, seven years as a pastor in the same congregation should do it. Marcus and I entered this life of pastor/teacher expecting to move if not every seven years than at least every so often.

And yet, here I am in the same congregation for 17 years, long past not only one seven-year mark but two. Perhaps this is on my mind because it was 18 years ago, around this time of year, when Marcus and I travelled from our home in the Twin Cities to Dickinson to interview. I interviewed at a congregation that astoundingly had called only two senior pastors within a stretch of 50 years. They had completely rebelled against the unwritten seven-year rule! Who were these people?!?

Any long-term pastor can tell you the gift of a long-term call is that relationships grow deeper, which can serve to further a congregation’s mission to follow Christ. You become more aware of someone’s quiet gifts and someone else’s profound wisdom. You learn who has a genuine desire to learn or to serve in Jesus’ name. You have the privilege of entering into multiple generations of a family’s life and proclaim God’s hope through Christ.

On the flipside, the goodbyes get harder as the relationships grow deeper. You must witness more people join the communion of saints, people you have grown to love as you serve alongside them. It becomes like watching the introduction to a television show. The intro moves you through the years to give you a flashback of all that has happened in the lives of the characters. This way, by the time the episode begins, the characters are more familiar.

Being a pastor for a long time is like that. God brings new staff members to a congregation, yet you are the one who has lived through much of the introduction.

  • You can see the group of people who once gathered for coffee before worship on Sunday mornings. Now, they are no longer living, or no longer able to come to the church building to worship. Their absence is felt each week.
  • You can see that group of people who served in leadership roles. Their wisdom continues to be beneficial, but you have to know who they are.
  • You can hear the sounds of worship that both changed and stayed the same from one generation to the next. You endured some of the trials and tribulations through the changes and the sameness; you felt the impact on the community of faith; you have lost enough sleep over the years to know what is at stake.

How long should a pastor serve a congregation? Like perhaps any question in the universe that relates to relationships, the answer is less important than the question.

The question is not how long, but how now?

This question is not reserved for pastors. How does a pastor, a deacon, a lay person, a young person, an old person, a new person, a seasoned person, serve a congregation now? What difference does it make that God gathered these people at this time for this community of faith, which ever community it might be?

The answer is less important the question, the question is less a question than a prayer.

Lord, you are the way, the truth, and the life. Guide our feet, you who are the way. Instill in us wisdom, you who are the truth. Renew us by your grace, you who are life. Amen.

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

Hey, Don’t You Live Up There?

One Wednesday night at St. John is an adventure story. Within three hours, there is an intensity to the volume of delightful, multi-generational conversation, mishaps, tears and giggles. I love how this gathering reflects life as it truly is: imperfect.

Luther described a theology of the cross as God meeting us not in the positive, perfect moments, but in the thick of life. Call a thing what it is, Luther instructed. And so, we call our lives what they are: hurried and haggard at times, each day our best effort and nothing more. Christ did not die for our sins because we have our lives together, but because we do not.

I love Wednesday nights because this is what we live out – a theology not based on rewards for how well we are living, but a theology that solidly trusts in God’s grace through Christ. This gift of grace is enough. You do not need to do more, try harder, or get better.

Where you live, with your weariness and wondering, is exactly where God meets you. In the adventure story of Wednesday nights, we live out our imperfect lives fully trusting in God’s perfect grace.

The number of stories manifested on a single Wednesday night could fill a book, that is, if you could be on all three floors and in every corner of the building at the same time. Since I cannot, I can only report this small chapter.

I sat behind a young, conversational kiddo at worship. I was doing my best to listen to Christina preach, but my worship neighbor has not yet perfected the art of whispering.

“Hey, what’s your name?” she wanted to know.

“Lisa,” I whispered quietly, dropping a hint.

She gave me a hard look and then threw a glance toward the front of the church where Christina was speaking.

“Hey, don’t you live up there?”

“What?” I whispered, trying to set an example and failing.

“Don’t you live? Up there? Why aren’t you up there?”

Oh, I realized! She thinks my home is the chancel. That I make my bed beside the altar and eat bread and wine for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That I had left my home up front to sit in the back of the church.

She accepted my whispered answer, that it wasn’t my turn to be “up there,” and the night went on. During Communion distribution, she had one more thing to say to me, as she paged through the heavy hymnal.

“I like this book,” she announced. “And this is my church.”

There she was in a community of people who astound me each week. Parents and grandparents who have decided that passing along the Christian faith is worth the work of getting a young family to church, which can be a great deal of work. Many of these parents wear their fatigue on their faces, their time at church a brief intermission from running between kids’ activities.

Because my worship neighbor’s family almost never misses worship, this little girl may not be proficient at whispering, but she is wise enough to know St. John is her church.

The adventure book would capture other moments: grandparents teaching grandkids how to hold their hands for Communion; single parents who visit with their kiddos over supper with no cell phone in sight; a cook who lets nothing get in the way of her dedication to the ministry of the Wednesday night meal; kids who woke up that morning and announced to their moms that they can’t wait to eat at church; ordinary people who extraordinarily teach, mentor, sing, wash tables, bring dessert…

We do none of this perfectly. Perfect is not the goal, not the requirement, indeed not even a helpful aspiration. Perfect is the love of God, who also does not live “up there,” but here, among us, now and always.

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

The Holy Spirit is Like a Toddler

If you have been in a room with a toddler for eight seconds, you have heard the words, “Watch me!” The toddler, amazed at every single thing he or she can do, is full of invitations.

“Watch me!” as I wiggle my fingers.

“Watch me!” as I pick up a spoon.

“Watch me!” as I attempt a failed but spirited somersault.

“Watch me!”

In exhaustion from all the watching, you turn away. It is a mere second but in that blink of an eye you miss it you. You miss the miraculous moment. Your center of attention shifts and you do not witness the hilarious attempt at gymnastics.

Life with a toddler means missing many of these moments. There is simply too much action to watch it all. With an abundance to do and scroll and text and engage online, we get caught in the world wide web of distraction.

The Holy Spirit is a like a toddler.

“Watch me!” the Spirit beckons, as it burrows about in our lives.

“Watch me!” the Spirit calls, as it points you in a faithful direction.

“Watch me!” the Spirit whispers, enfolding you with Christ’s love.

“Watch me!” the Spirit shouts to the church, while we are busy doing churchy things that have to do with budgets, buildings and volunteer management.

Blessedly, the Holy Spirit remains as persistent as the toddler. If you miss the first somersault, chances are you will see another one if you wait ten seconds. Miracles abound.

However, would you ponder what it is that shifts your attention from the Spirit’s work in your life? What distracts you? How might you pay better attention to your life with God? How might you actually focus when the Spirit bellows out, “Watch me!”

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

Watch Out, Neighbor

In “Big Daddy,” the 1999 comedy with Adam Sandler, there is a scene in which Sandler’s 32-year-old character and a five-year-old boy he’s caring for go to a park. In classic 1990’s Sandler fashion, the two roll in laughter when they toss sticks on a path and watch the oncoming rollerbladers trip and fall.

Throughout the movie, Sandler’s character matures. Later, he and the boy go back to that very spot with a sign warning rollerbladers not to trip.

Everyone trips, even those of us too clumsy to put on rollerblades! We all trip and then furtively glance around hoping we’re the only one who noticed. Unless we’re under the age of four, tripping is embarrassing, and tiny band-aids tend not to make it all better.

We would rather not trip, and as Sandler’s matured character portrays, we would rather our neighbor not trip, either. Perhaps this movie line was inspired by the Apostle Paul, minus the rollerblades.

Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother or sister. 

Romans 14:13

Chapter 14 of Romans calls people who follow Jesus to warn others not to trip. Jesus followers are charged with the responsibility to pick up the sticks on the path and keep an eye out for oncoming neighbors who may be vulnerable to a fall.

Paul had tough words for people who had already begun to follow Christ and were getting in the way of new followers’ faith. The already-followers were creating stumbling blocks for those who were new to the Christian faith by instituting old laws related to food and drink. Jesus’ death had changed the importance of those laws. Instead of watching your neighbor trip, Paul offered:

Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbringing.

Romans 14:19

In order for the Christian faith to grow, Christians had to stop getting in their own way with judgement and rules that had been overshadowed by Jesus’ death. The cross Christ died on had become the path on which all are welcome. The further down the path we go, the better we need to be at watching out for the followers around us; the more determined we must be to pursue peace and mutual upbringing.

I suspect this is an important reminder in a time when the Christian faith has failed to pick up the stumbling blocks and lovingly clear the path for our neighbor to follow Jesus. As Christians, we are charged with the enormous responsibility of meeting each and every neighbor with mercy and not judgement, to clear the path particularly for the neighbor whom you may not like – perhaps because it is the neighbor whom you do not understand.

Together, let us clear the path for the person who will enter the church for the first time in a long time, or who will log onto worship because it feels safer to join from home. Christians, let us pursue peace and mutually build one another up. Is someone missing from worship? What stumbling blocks have gotten in the way of that person’s faith? You might be the very one to clear the path and invite them back.

Everyone trips. By the love of Jesus Christ through you, everyone has a way back up.

Photo by Alexas_Fotos on Unsplash