This will be my last post from Webster City, IA. I was delighted to come here, as there seemed so much promise in the situation here - excited people, a stated desire for change. I know I haven't fulfilled their desires, and I know they haven't been particularly open to my leadership. So, now we both simply declare that our time together is done. God will be the one to determine where we go from this point.
Friday night I begin what will be a packed weekend - no pun intended. I'll do the rehearsal for Saturday's wedding for a former Christian Education Director who was here during my time as pastor. Sunday will be the final service here, and it will include the baptism of a baby born to a couple whose marriage I performed. Saturday is also picking up and loading the truck. I don't know if we will be some place with internet possibilities again until we get where we are going and make arrangement for the service.
So, while you work your way through Thursday, my lovely bride and I will be tidying up in preparation for the loading of the truck. To my friends, I wish you all the best God can offer. To my detractors, I wish you all the best God can offer, and a prayer for God to create a new and positive, open and sharing spirit within each of you - for your sake and the church's.
God's peace be with us all!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Fear Factor
Ok, so I got a call last week that my name was being put in for a position that would have provided immediate employment, though short-term, and relieved a lot of the stress right now - I was to hear last night. Not so much! So the fear over what is happening rachets up another notch, and the unknown looms larger than before. I'm making an effort to find out what happened for sure. Perhaps someone just doesn't understand "time is of the essence" when applied to such a situation and my fears are groundless.
My lovely bride of 35 years had me read a friend's "911 Psalm" last night - which is an adaptation of Psalm 91 - Read it replacing "You" with me or us or appropriate pronouns and listen to the lesson of assurance. It was a powerful passage to read in this manner.
This is one of those times I try to remind myself of what I tell people about difficult situations - remember the poem "Footprints in the Sand," where when questioned about the single set of prints why God had left the struggling child alone, God replies, "But my child, those weren't times I left you alone, they were the times I carried you." But, as I well know, saying and doing are very different matters! I will try to look to my Master-example and rely on God's grace, but I know, I KNOW that matters of paying bills, having shelter and putting food on the table are going to weigh heavy on my mind until this is settled.
I keep trying to reassure my bride, but there is only so much reassurance that I can offer before I too am bereft of assurance to offer. Were I alone, I'd be lost, despondent and getting by on what I could - but I'm not, thank God!! This lovely, loving woman has made me what I am today - teaching me confidence, an ability to show my emotions, and that here with her is where I find my safe place, my resting place - my anger bleeds off in her presence, my hurt dissipates within her arms, my uncertainty seems to find resolution in our conversation!
And me? I'll continue to make my way through life, trying to ease the things that I can for my wife and others. I'll do my best to trust God's grace and walk humbly with my God. I pray that somehow I've been enough of a role model that others through my life and living have learned some of the same.
Peace!
My lovely bride of 35 years had me read a friend's "911 Psalm" last night - which is an adaptation of Psalm 91 - Read it replacing "You" with me or us or appropriate pronouns and listen to the lesson of assurance. It was a powerful passage to read in this manner.
This is one of those times I try to remind myself of what I tell people about difficult situations - remember the poem "Footprints in the Sand," where when questioned about the single set of prints why God had left the struggling child alone, God replies, "But my child, those weren't times I left you alone, they were the times I carried you." But, as I well know, saying and doing are very different matters! I will try to look to my Master-example and rely on God's grace, but I know, I KNOW that matters of paying bills, having shelter and putting food on the table are going to weigh heavy on my mind until this is settled.
I keep trying to reassure my bride, but there is only so much reassurance that I can offer before I too am bereft of assurance to offer. Were I alone, I'd be lost, despondent and getting by on what I could - but I'm not, thank God!! This lovely, loving woman has made me what I am today - teaching me confidence, an ability to show my emotions, and that here with her is where I find my safe place, my resting place - my anger bleeds off in her presence, my hurt dissipates within her arms, my uncertainty seems to find resolution in our conversation!
And me? I'll continue to make my way through life, trying to ease the things that I can for my wife and others. I'll do my best to trust God's grace and walk humbly with my God. I pray that somehow I've been enough of a role model that others through my life and living have learned some of the same.
Peace!
Friday, June 20, 2008
Sad Commentary
I was taken to lunch yesterday by a colleague and friend, to say good bye after a too short friendship. We have kidded back and forth over my love of dark roast coffee for all the time we have counted each other friends, in what some would find abusive language, but it's always followed by a grin and probably a laugh.
So yesterday we are sitting in the restaurant, and my friend comments that our denomination, the United Church of Christ, will probably be destroyed because people have forgotten that we, like our United States of America, was founded on the proposition that in diversity we can find unity - in fact in that diversity is our strength.
Now, I don't know if he's reading the situation correctly or not as to the end result, but I can tell you he is dead on when it comes to the most difficult aspect of churches today! We do NOT want different or changed or new! We want comfortable, familiar, feel-good theology and hymns and liturgy. The fact that Jesus spent his entire career upsetting that apple cart in his time has no impact on the way people live today!
Another comment related to that was a question, "How many of your young people rush right out after church and put on church organ music to listen to?" And we wonder why they don't like church any more? Or how about the comment I heard a pastor shared with a parishoner complaining about change - "Oh, so you still go down to the river to do laundry? Still fire up the wood stove to cook on? Still drive around in a horse-drawn buggy?"
It's truly sad that the church has forgotten that Jesus said he came to bring life and abundantly! Life is change! Life is upsetting! Life is running into things we disagree with in people we like or need to get along with - and we do! So why can't we do it in church?
We complain about the medical community resorting to specialists on everything, but that is exactly what the church is trying to do - the pastor is the specialist regarding "church work" and that lets all the rest off the hook. The church staff are the specialists that allow the members to coast! WRONG!!!!
When that attitude becomes the life-view of a congregation, it will change or they will die! It is that simple, that stark, that harsh! A church needs to be like a lake - with fresh water coming in and old water flowing out - or like a pond with no such ingress and egress, it will become stagnant, nasty, unpleasant to be around, and eventually simply a stinking hole that is avoided.
That can also be said of the once great nation. All of it. We have the potential to be the greatest nation history has ever known, the shining example for all the world. But when we try to force people through a cookie cutter mold, try to make everyone exactly alike, refuse to live up to our grand heritage - "Give me your tired and huddled masses . . . " - we start to die like that pond, and, as we have seen, our image worldwide suffers!
'Tis time, my friends and my detractors, for us to start paying attention to life, to our faith, to the reality of need to change in order to live. Live? Die? That's each person's choice! What's yours?
Peace!
So yesterday we are sitting in the restaurant, and my friend comments that our denomination, the United Church of Christ, will probably be destroyed because people have forgotten that we, like our United States of America, was founded on the proposition that in diversity we can find unity - in fact in that diversity is our strength.
Now, I don't know if he's reading the situation correctly or not as to the end result, but I can tell you he is dead on when it comes to the most difficult aspect of churches today! We do NOT want different or changed or new! We want comfortable, familiar, feel-good theology and hymns and liturgy. The fact that Jesus spent his entire career upsetting that apple cart in his time has no impact on the way people live today!
Another comment related to that was a question, "How many of your young people rush right out after church and put on church organ music to listen to?" And we wonder why they don't like church any more? Or how about the comment I heard a pastor shared with a parishoner complaining about change - "Oh, so you still go down to the river to do laundry? Still fire up the wood stove to cook on? Still drive around in a horse-drawn buggy?"
It's truly sad that the church has forgotten that Jesus said he came to bring life and abundantly! Life is change! Life is upsetting! Life is running into things we disagree with in people we like or need to get along with - and we do! So why can't we do it in church?
We complain about the medical community resorting to specialists on everything, but that is exactly what the church is trying to do - the pastor is the specialist regarding "church work" and that lets all the rest off the hook. The church staff are the specialists that allow the members to coast! WRONG!!!!
When that attitude becomes the life-view of a congregation, it will change or they will die! It is that simple, that stark, that harsh! A church needs to be like a lake - with fresh water coming in and old water flowing out - or like a pond with no such ingress and egress, it will become stagnant, nasty, unpleasant to be around, and eventually simply a stinking hole that is avoided.
That can also be said of the once great nation. All of it. We have the potential to be the greatest nation history has ever known, the shining example for all the world. But when we try to force people through a cookie cutter mold, try to make everyone exactly alike, refuse to live up to our grand heritage - "Give me your tired and huddled masses . . . " - we start to die like that pond, and, as we have seen, our image worldwide suffers!
'Tis time, my friends and my detractors, for us to start paying attention to life, to our faith, to the reality of need to change in order to live. Live? Die? That's each person's choice! What's yours?
Peace!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Another Step on the Journey
Another step on the journey of getting out of here was taken today when I finalized arrangements on the church's computer. All my personal files are off, and it will remain at the church from here on. I still have a committal, a wedding and a baptism to go. I will admit that I'm delighted to go out a high note with a wedding the day before my last Sunday and a baptism in my very last service at the church. It is still unclear what will happen regarding a farewell service.
The hardest part of this next three weeks will be dealing with the heart-broken folk coming to ask what they can do, how did this happen, who's behind this - all those difficult topics that there are no clear answers to. I listen, I offer the answers that I can, and I sit back to allow them to vent and find direction through their concerns for our friendship and the future of the church. For all in similar situations, church members that is, I would simply say that you must make yourselves aware of what happens in the church, make every effort to make your community of faith into a place where God and God's will are the paramount focus and all other considerations are only side issues to be discussed and agreed upon to be disagreed upon. Churches will be controlled by those who are willing to put forth the effort. Christians need to be willing to face the future knowing that God's message and service are true focus rather than budget and membership numbers.
Our big focus now is simply to be packed ahead of time. We have the kitchen about ready for the counter repair, and other rooms are nearing completion. AND we are LOOKING FORWARD to our weekend with family in Minnesota. So, back to the packing!
Peace!
The hardest part of this next three weeks will be dealing with the heart-broken folk coming to ask what they can do, how did this happen, who's behind this - all those difficult topics that there are no clear answers to. I listen, I offer the answers that I can, and I sit back to allow them to vent and find direction through their concerns for our friendship and the future of the church. For all in similar situations, church members that is, I would simply say that you must make yourselves aware of what happens in the church, make every effort to make your community of faith into a place where God and God's will are the paramount focus and all other considerations are only side issues to be discussed and agreed upon to be disagreed upon. Churches will be controlled by those who are willing to put forth the effort. Christians need to be willing to face the future knowing that God's message and service are true focus rather than budget and membership numbers.
Our big focus now is simply to be packed ahead of time. We have the kitchen about ready for the counter repair, and other rooms are nearing completion. AND we are LOOKING FORWARD to our weekend with family in Minnesota. So, back to the packing!
Peace!
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Nearing the end
We have been diligent at packing, and are far ahead of the usual packing schedule, though not done. As we move closer to the end of our time here, it becomes harder to want to do the last of the packing, the last of the cutting loose ties that have formed, the last --
It's amazing to me that as much as we look forward to getting out of difficult situations, we still find it hard to cut all the ties. Some of those we leave are jumping for joy, others are saying "Oh, well, it happens" and going on, a few are truly expressing distress over what is happening. And they are the ones that make it most difficult to let go and go on.
Over the years, there have been many who affected us so, and they aren't forgotten, from the couple in our first church who gave our daughter her orange stool, to the couple who gave us so many worked rock book ends, to the woman in our second church who stood up for us when the church decided we were to leave two weeks before school was out, to the woman who refused to allow me to go into the water-filling basement to retrieve items for the men of the church preparing to move our things into storage, to the couple that stepped in with a loaner car when our own car froze the engine, to the folk of our third church that showed me how gracious a church can be through their care of our family through the death of my father and my wife's traumatic surgery on a cyst in her neck, to the folk in our fourth church that shared staunch support in the face of emotional reactionary stances and shared their humor with us, to the folk in the fifth church that repeatedly showed their love through caring extended to our daughter through her lupus treatment and research and their constant and abiding presence in our need, to the folk I've mentioned here.
That's what makes the leaving difficult even in the face of difficult standards, resistance to the change that is part of life itself, and uncertain future. I'm I wanting to stay here? No! But will there be pain at the departure? Yes!
Life is difficult. We go on!
Peace!
It's amazing to me that as much as we look forward to getting out of difficult situations, we still find it hard to cut all the ties. Some of those we leave are jumping for joy, others are saying "Oh, well, it happens" and going on, a few are truly expressing distress over what is happening. And they are the ones that make it most difficult to let go and go on.
Over the years, there have been many who affected us so, and they aren't forgotten, from the couple in our first church who gave our daughter her orange stool, to the couple who gave us so many worked rock book ends, to the woman in our second church who stood up for us when the church decided we were to leave two weeks before school was out, to the woman who refused to allow me to go into the water-filling basement to retrieve items for the men of the church preparing to move our things into storage, to the couple that stepped in with a loaner car when our own car froze the engine, to the folk of our third church that showed me how gracious a church can be through their care of our family through the death of my father and my wife's traumatic surgery on a cyst in her neck, to the folk in our fourth church that shared staunch support in the face of emotional reactionary stances and shared their humor with us, to the folk in the fifth church that repeatedly showed their love through caring extended to our daughter through her lupus treatment and research and their constant and abiding presence in our need, to the folk I've mentioned here.
That's what makes the leaving difficult even in the face of difficult standards, resistance to the change that is part of life itself, and uncertain future. I'm I wanting to stay here? No! But will there be pain at the departure? Yes!
Life is difficult. We go on!
Peace!
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Part of History
Well, I proudly claim my part in a historic first! I've supported Senator Barak Obama since early in his candidacy. That support came because I liked his hope message, his note that we needed a change in Washington, not just in the White House. I have been very impressed by the positive tone of his campaign. Yes, there were moments of frustrated sniping, but who wouldn't when both the opposition and the main same-party candidate both attacked lack of experience. Exactly how prepared was the current occupant of the Oval Office? What fantastic credentials or enormously successful bi-partisan effort has that candidate produced?
We do need a change, and I think Barak Obama offers the best hope this nation has for the future - a future where we can start putting down some of the ideological cudgels and start rolling our sleeves up to work together for the betterment of our nation, and a return to our role as ethical and moral lights in the world.
We lost a lot of that over the last eight years, and now it's time to start building it back. I know Republicans I'm proud to name friends. Heck, I even worship with some of them! But until we all start to find that commonality of being citizens first, and political party members second; until we learn to put down our religious cudgels of conservatism and liberalism, straight and gay, male and female, and truly hear Paul's message that there are no distinctions now in Christ we will never accomplish what we can.
In the same vein, until our children and youth are heard, truly valued for their contributions and thoughts and made part of the planning for the future of the church, we will continue to dwindle in Mainline churches, and churches willing to make entertainment part of their appeal will continue to flourish - and Jesus will simply become another rules-carrying judge for humanity. The Body of Christ in America has to learn that Jesus repeatedly took Jewish Torah law and set it aside for the simple law of loving God completely and neighbor as self, that the old traditional judgments still bandied about by some religious expressions as the true measure of one's faith aren't any more valid today than when the Christ set them aside as human efforts to usurp God's mercy, compassion, forgiveness and love.
Barak Obama in the political sphere. Jesus, and only Jesus in my religious sphere, and God above all, in all, and loving all. Plain, simple, and oh, so difficult to grasp, isn't it.
Peace and squirmings!
We do need a change, and I think Barak Obama offers the best hope this nation has for the future - a future where we can start putting down some of the ideological cudgels and start rolling our sleeves up to work together for the betterment of our nation, and a return to our role as ethical and moral lights in the world.
We lost a lot of that over the last eight years, and now it's time to start building it back. I know Republicans I'm proud to name friends. Heck, I even worship with some of them! But until we all start to find that commonality of being citizens first, and political party members second; until we learn to put down our religious cudgels of conservatism and liberalism, straight and gay, male and female, and truly hear Paul's message that there are no distinctions now in Christ we will never accomplish what we can.
In the same vein, until our children and youth are heard, truly valued for their contributions and thoughts and made part of the planning for the future of the church, we will continue to dwindle in Mainline churches, and churches willing to make entertainment part of their appeal will continue to flourish - and Jesus will simply become another rules-carrying judge for humanity. The Body of Christ in America has to learn that Jesus repeatedly took Jewish Torah law and set it aside for the simple law of loving God completely and neighbor as self, that the old traditional judgments still bandied about by some religious expressions as the true measure of one's faith aren't any more valid today than when the Christ set them aside as human efforts to usurp God's mercy, compassion, forgiveness and love.
Barak Obama in the political sphere. Jesus, and only Jesus in my religious sphere, and God above all, in all, and loving all. Plain, simple, and oh, so difficult to grasp, isn't it.
Peace and squirmings!
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