Tag Archives: connection

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

There is Crying in the Bible

There is no crying in baseball…although I would not mind if Yankee fans shed a few tears tonight. Otherwise, there is no crying in baseball, but there is indeed crying in the Bible.

Jesus cried in John 11 at the death of Lazarus. In the Greek, the word for weeping describes tears falling down Jesus’ face. He cried (a different Greek word) out to the Father to awaken Lazarus from the dead, and God the Father did. Other times, Jesus cried out to God for justice, or comfort. Some of his cries shed tears while other cries were heard and heeded by God the Father.

Jesus cried. It is what humans do. Overcome by joy or sorrow, our faces leak, as Bob Maloogalooga, one of my favorite movie characters observed. When the psalmist wrote that you are intricately made, perhaps he also had in mind the well of your emotions. Crying, Jesus taught us, is a human response to life.

Back in 1 Kings, there is crying. The prophet Elijah was sent to a widow. He asked her to help him and later he helped her. She had a young son who was ill to the point that “there was no breath left in him.” (1 Kings 17:17).

She blamed Elijah. “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!”

Elijah asked for the boy, laid him down and cried out to the Lord. “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”

This reminds me of a prayer Will Willimon cried out to God. Just before entering a hospital room where a young boy was gravely ill, where despair held everyone captive, and hope was absent. He cried out to God, “Don’t you make me go in there and lie for you!”

Cries speak the depth of who we are. They pull from the corners of our most honest self, the corners we mostly leave untouched.

Cries connect you with the God who hears them, as both Elijah and Jesus show you. There is crying in the Bible. There is crying in life.

There is no cry that goes unheard by God, who became a human who cries, who tenderly gathers up your cries and holds them for you.

Even the potential cries of Yankee fans, God will hear them. At least I think so. Some things I do not know.

What prayer might you cry out to God?

Photo by Christian Gunn 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

A Birthday is Big

Birthdays shmirthdays, some might say. But not me! I love the gift of a birthday. Adding another year to a person’s age is nothing short of a miracle.

Walking with people in their faith, I witness both the joys and the trickiness of adding another year. It might mean one more year without that beloved person whom you miss. Or one more year moving through the deep waters of depression. It might mean one more year unemployed or less physically able.

I remember hearing a mom explain to her little kids that each year we get older we move one year closer to death which is one year closer to heaven. I think it was meant to be encouraging, but yikes!

A birthday, however, is a way to keep us honest. This life on earth will end. None of us gets out alive. Each day is precious just as you are precious in God’s sight.

Today my husband adds one more year to his age. Who better to remind him of his mortality than his wife/pastor!

A birthday is an invitation for each of us to wonder.

How might the fragility of this life shape your decisions? Are you doing the work you feel called to do? Are you using God’s precious gift of time to connect with your beloved people? Are you hanging out with Jesus each day?

The best part of birthdays, of course, is not the mortality wondering but the cake. Or the pie. Or whatever it is that marks the occasion. It is a sweet gift to add that extra year.

Photo by Christopher Martyn on Unsplash

Another Word for Dysfunction

When families gather, each person plays his or her part. There is the wild and crazy one, the organized and orderly one, and the peacemaker in between. Throw in the matriarch and patriarch, the family member who keeps his or her distance, and the perpetually embittered and you may have a complete cast of characters for any family.

If you think your family is uniquely dysfunctional, open the curtain to see an audience of all the other uniquely dysfunctional families, which is to say, all families. At least God was consistent in creating families the same!

In the Christian faith, another word for dysfunction is brokenness. All families are broken because all humans are broken. We are, each of us, an assortment of broken pieces reset each day by the gluey grace of God. We are not perfect clay jars, but by God’s grace we are “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair.” (2 Corinthians 4:8) Humans and their families are broken and beloved clay jars through and through.

Being part of a family is unavoidable. A family member can move away but cannot move on. The relationship system in which we grew up, even if not for an entire childhood, even if we never again see those family members, will forever shape who we are.

Look around your family. Who is among the cast of characters? What part do you play? What are your starring and supporting roles?

If you have harsh words for the cast, or if there are scenes you play in your mind on repeat that portray you as victim, perhaps you do this: take yourself to a thrift store, find an old jar, take it home, wrap it in a towel, and break it into a few pieces with a rubber mallet. You can leave the jar in pieces, but if you put it back together, you witness the daily work of the potter. We are afflicted but not crushed. Each piece has its place, like a character with its own part to play. Each piece is valuable, but not on its own.

Your broken family, your broken self, is never beyond repair for the potter and the potter’s gluey grace.

Photo by Content Pixie on Unsplash

Measurement Inspector

Today is a 17th birthday at our house – the season of passing through the last step toward independence. In other words, there is a chance my grocery bill may be bearable in the foreseeable future!

Even this far into the wilderness of parenting, it is impossible to remember the millions of moments now filed away as history. The scoop after scoop of sand in the sandbox, so many pushes on the swing, reading words, watching games, thousands of “goodnights” to end the day. And later, negotiating responsibilities, sitting fearfully in the passenger seat beside them, witnessing the changes impacted by friendships. And more changes amid the ever-changing teenager’s ever-changing interests and tastes.

The image of parenting that sticks with me today takes me back to the sandbox, sitting beside the kid and his plastic shovel as he loads sand into a plastic bucket. He will scoop and scoop, then carry the bucket across the sandbox and dump it out, then go back and repeat. If he scoops too much into his bucket, it will be too heavy to carry. Too light and he will get bored going back and forth the extra times.

Parenting, perhaps, has something to do with hanging around enough to encourage him to fill the bucket, but not too much. It is scooping responsibilities into his life just enough for him to carry, not so heavy to be crushing.

You can only know how much a kid can carry by challenging them and by getting to know them, which in itself is an endless job. Kids change and thus they require the constant effort of getting to know them. They deserve your willingness to do this, as they, too, continue to get to know their own selves.

The kids I love to visit with are the ones whose parents refuse to do the talking for them. These parents sit back and watch their kid practice conversation, stumbling at times, yet finding their way into their lives, into their own selves. These are tiny scoops of sand filling a manageable bucket.

And what an incredible, formidable gift to oversee the measurements of sand one year at a time.

Photo by Todd Gallant on Unsplash

Faith and Online Shopping

Over the weekend, with a gallon of paint and some help from Amazon, I updated one of my kiddos’ bedrooms. It had been a while. A bright orange wall is cool when you’re five, but ten years later it’s just obnoxious.

I had so much fun! I gave this kiddo four color options, washed an absurd amount of laundry in order to actually get to each wall, and listened to the Twins win while feeling quite victorious myself.

Bedroom updates are a quick click away with two-day-ish delivery in these parts of the world. And quick is ideal. We are busy people, shuffling from one busy day to the next. Who has time to go into a store and touch the fabric and look closely at the colors? Who has time to read a care tag to see where the item was made and look into whether the human beings making the item were treated fairly? Why bother when Amazon is so quick?

I questioned my own Amazon usage while listening to a Tsh Oxenreider podcast episode called “Making Things.” She makes a great argument for the importance of creating rather than going into autopilot and buying something new, even though it’s faster.

She also said something that was common practice perhaps before online shopping: When something breaks, try to fix it instead of immediately replacing it. I remembered this when the end of my old, small Pampered Chef spatula kept sliding off yesterday. “I’ll buy a new one,” I said to Marcus. “Or you could just glue it,” he suggested. He hadn’t even listened to the podcast! Anointed with super glue, the broken spatula has been made whole again, which required less time than scrolling and clicking.

The book “Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire” also has me reflecting on my online shopping practices. Quick clicks often leave no time to consider whose hands did the work of creating. Were those hands treated well? Were they hands that belong to a child? What was the cost of my quick (often cheap) click?

I appreciate the efficiency of online shopping, as well as the variety. I do not want to live without it.

This would take time, but what if shopping also became a way to practice your faith?

  • Pray for the creators of what you wear and use.
  • Dig deeper for more ethical or fair trade options.

These ideas require slowing down, an un-American suggestion. And these ideas might limit your options, also un-American. However, you might remember there is a human being on the other end of each and every thing you consume, and God has an opinion about that.

Before I rushed ahead and ordered cool wall hangings for my kid’s room, I realized I was carelessly clicking. Chances are I could make something cheaper, although probably not as cool. I would just need to slow down and think about it first, which I am.

Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash

Easter Gathering

Are you ready? The time is near. Soon, you may be seated at a table beside the very family member you have been avoiding! Holiday gatherings can be tricky, don’t you think?

It is completely normal to feel some angst before a family gathering. Each and every family has its own history of not-so-beautiful moments. There are encounters we would do differently a second time around, or old grudges we cannot seem to let go.

This year, your table might be missing the matriarch who helped keep the peace, or the old uncle who made everyone laugh. What do these missing pieces mean for your gathering?

Instead of dreading the family gathering, let’s reframe it.

It is important to remember that every relationship is based on two parts. You are one part and your family is the other. Or maybe there is one family member in particular who drives you nuts, in which case, you are one part and the drive-you-nuts person is the other. Remember, your functioning also shapes the relationship. Blaming the other person for being annoying is unhelpful.

For example, you might be praying not to be seated beside that family member who knows everything about everything, who would spend hours (days?) imparting all her knowledge. Instead of avoiding this person, ask yourself this:

  • Why does it bug you so much?
  • What is it about this person that brings out an annoyed side of you?
  • Could you try to care less, or stay more neutral through the one-sided conversation?

Do you see? It isn’t only the other person’s functioning, but also your reaction that impacts the relationship. Two parts make a relationship.

Instead of moving right to annoyed, see if you there is something you might actually learn from this “knowledgeable” dinner partner. Can you find one interesting tidbit, or appreciate the person’s passion for that one certain subject? Pretend you are a news reporter and contribute a few questions to the conversation. If you seem interested, people think you are.

Are you ready? Yes, you are. May the food and the company surprise you with goodness.

Photo by Stella de Smit on Unsplash

The Hidden Truth of People-Pleasing

I learned valuable life lessons from the sitcom “Cheers.” From Norm: find your group of people who notice when you are missing. From Sam: everyone’s story and everyone’s trouble deserve to be heard. From Woody: it’s okay to say ridiculous things! And from Diane: do not be a people-pleaser, which is life-long learning for me.

People-pleasing is prevalent among Midwestern women in particular. From our hard-working grandmothers, we learned to contribute and stay out of the way. Don’t create extra work for people. Be easy company to have around.

The lessons I learned from my family did not match Diane! Growing up, I wondered why this character was so hard to be around. Why did she say sharp words and when she could be more agreeable? She constantly upset her friends, demanded to be heard and disrupted the calm in the room. Diane was no people-pleaser.

Are you a people-pleaser?

“What would like for dinner” Marcus will ask on the weekends. “Whatever you make,” I reply.

“What can I help you with?” One staff member will ask another at church. “Oh, I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine,” we joke, gently turning down the offer.

Among siblings, one is often a people-pleaser. (Hello there, middle children!) When a parent explains, “I have one hard kid and one easy kid,” it is likely the “easy” kid is easy because the “hard” kid is hard. One sibling becomes more agreeable and people-pleasing as a response to the less agreeable sibling to keep the family calmer.

Beware if you have an ultra-agreeable child, partner or friend. Is there a way you might lovingly encourage that person to channel their inner-Diane and speak up? Or even better, model this practice yourself. The problem with people-pleasing is the way it hides the actual person and their actual thoughts, worries and ideas. The people-pleasing version of a person is an edited version.

Diane spoke sharp and honest words, even though they were not the words people wanted to hear. You knew where she stood and what she really believed, shaping her character on the show.

I’m not suggesting we should be carelessly honest with no consideration for others. However, try this:

  • Notice when you withhold your honest thoughts, ideas and worries because you do not want to upset someone. Then take it a step further. How might your own honesty lead to a better decision, or help the other person become more responsible, or bring you closer to a friend or partner?

This is risky, I know. It is easier to keep our actual thoughts, worries and ideas to ourselves. To be easy company. To be known as agreeable and not like an emboldened Diane. Yet I suspect God’s hope for the world is not a population of people-pleasers who avoid the hard conversations!

What is the cost of agreeable? The Holy Spirit’s wisdom goes unheard. Your unique perspective shaped by your unique life experiences is missed. The version of you that you present is milk-toast compared to the authentic you whom God created. Relationships get stuck. Work loses its excitement. What truly matters to you (and possibly even to God) goes unsaid.

Another lesson I learned from “Cheers” is that everything works out in a span of 30 minutes! Well, you can’t believe everything you learn from tv.

Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

A Parent’s Practice of Holding On & Letting Go: Part Three

In one of my favorite books, “An Altar in the World,” Barbara Brown Taylor points out how difficult it is to get lost. As long as there is a phone within reach, and there usually is, you know exactly where you are.

This is both comforting and…a bummer! Getting lost is a practice that can be traced back to Abraham and Sarah. Taylor suggests God’s only reason for choosing these two not-young people to create a nation was their willingness to enter a wilderness and get lost.

Getting lost can be a spiritual practice. When we cannot rely on Google Maps to guide us, we might be awakened to our need to rely on God to guide us.

This is the last post in this series. You are accompanying me through a season of getting lost. In this season of parenting, I am finding my way through a new wilderness. Earlier this week, we dropped off our oldest to begin basic training for the Army National Guard.

This particular wilderness looks like it does for anyone who has dropped off a kid college, except we have no contact with him until the Army says so. This is the intentional process – an abrupt entrance into the wilderness for him and for his parents.

While I shuffle my own way through the wilderness, so does my son. He is in a new place among new people all because he was willing to get lost. Getting lost is a formative process, and as Taylor describes it, leaving our established paths, we might discover neighbors we never knew we had.

He may come out of this wilderness with friendships and experiences that enrich the rest of his life. The wilderness gives us up to the care of our neighbor. Time in the wilderness better positions us to notice the kindness of strangers, writes Taylor.

In our home, we are short one Lewton, yet we are, all of us, in a wilderness, which I guess is nice. Every variety of transition is a one-way ticket through the wilderness, where the strangers we encounter may be God in disguise.

Have the paths in your life become too established? Or are you, like my family, moving through a wilderness time? If so, notice the strangers. And let God be your guide, as you let go of the map for now.

Photo by ALEXANDRE DINAUT on Unsplash