Tuesday, August 31, 2010

My Prayer Discipline and Passions

If you haven’t already noticed Pastor Stephanie is back! The staff is excited to have her back and to get back to the routine that was all but absent with summer schedules. Pastor Stephanie has come back with a renewed commitment and energy for ministry with this congregation. You can see and hear it in her sermons, writings, and conversations. This energy has rubbed off on me!

I also have a renewed energy and passion for my ministry with you. This means that the educational and mission ministry ideas are flowing abundantly (sometimes to fast for me to keep up with!). The struggle for me is to discern which of these of ideas will be woven into God’s purpose and plan for this congregation and which will not. In a recent sermon Pastor Stephanie talked about the importance of prayer in the discernment and visioning process. It is important for me to return to a discipline of prayer in my ministry with you. I need to make time during the day to pray for and about the work I am doing. My hope is that through disciplined prayer and discernment I will be able to better serve you. I also hope that this will help to sustain my ministry on those days when I’m tired, worn out, and just do not feel energetic or passionate for the work I’m doing.

That said, I want to tell you what ministries I am feeling passionate about these days. First, I am passionate about our Adult Education theme for 2010-2011, A Year with the Bible. Being in conversation with God’s story, which is also our story, is one of the most important things people of faith can do. Second, I’m passionate about the potential of Small Group Ministry for our congregation. I hope that by providing both short and long term opportunities for groups of people to gather around specific topics, books, or passions; we as a congregation can grow deeper in our love for God so that we may minister more faithfully to one another and to those outside our church family. Third, I am passionate about providing varied types of mission and service opportunities that the entire congregation is encouraged to participate in. This might mean an outing to Feed My Starving Children to fill food bags for the hungry, an outing to Willow River State Park to help them on a project, or an in “house” mission activity. The options for service are endless and I would like your suggestions! What kinds of mission and service opportunities do you want to participate in?
My prayer for this congregation is that the renewed energy, passion, and commitment to the ministries of this congregation that Pastor Stephanie and I have will rub off on you as we begin a new program year!

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Look Around

John 4:1-15

She poked her head through the doorway and looked around. The shadows were short in the noon sunlight. No one was out in the narrow alley except for the usual pack of stray dogs digging around for a few scraps while everyone else was inside to escape the afternoon heat. The path to the well looked deserted, as it usually was at this time of day, so slowly, with empty jars and the weight of the world on her shoulder she stepped out and made her way to the ancient watering hole.

She’d been coming to the well alone for a while now. Before, the other women just glanced at her curiously. They had all heard about her and were pretty certain they knew enough to make a judgment. That’s when the whispering started. She knew it was about her since no one ever came to share the juicy tidbits in her ears. The rumors started making their way from woman to woman about her string of romances. Eventually they just stayed away from her, coming early for their own water or waiting away from the well until she was done before coming to pull their own water. She wasn’t good, wasn’t pure, just wasn’t right to be around. They kept their physical distance, almost as if they were afraid her condition would rub off on them.

It didn’t take long for her to take the hint, and instead of enduring their scrutiny she just stopped coming to the well in the morning when it made sense to come. They didn’t have to make a rule to keep her out; she could tell by the way they treated her when she was there that at best they just didn’t know what to do with her, but at worst they didn’t want her there at all. Ignored, beginning to believe the lie that she didn’t belong, she just stopped trying. Instead she waited until there was no one at the well before she left each day to draw her own water.

Cast aside, ignored, avoided, barred from the everyday tasks and common community and relationships others shared, she never expected a kind word from a stranger, especially not a religious one. Those are the ones who usually hurl judgment instead of acceptance, anger instead of compassion, who build walls and barriers instead of showing her the way to refreshing new life.

He looked around when he entered Sychar. It was hot and dry. The disciples were hungry, but Jesus had other plans for the moment. He looked around and noticed a woman weaving her way quickly and silently through the barren streets. She carried a water jug, so he made a beeline to the well, Jacob’s well, and waited for her where she was sure to come.

He didn’t go to the religious house and wonder why she didn’t walk in looking for her. He didn’t announce his presence and wait for her to come seeking what he had to offer. He looked around and he saw who was clearly left out of the local synagogue, the local community, and he made sure to go to her, to give her the living water he had to offer. He sought after her and welcomed her when no one else would.


Find more videos like this on Deep and Wide


The church that really wants to make a difference looks around. The church that really wants to invite new members, encourage new life, and share the love it receives from Jesus looks around for those who are left out, those who are despised or even just ignored. The church that really wants to grow deep and grow wide is willing to open its doors and its minds to people who look and act a little different and is willing to be changed by them. A church that isn’t willing to do this IS willing to die.

When I was in college the church I was a part of provided “adoptive families” to students in the campus ministry. I was paired with a lovely older couple, Otto and Betty LeBron. When I announced to the LeBrons that I had changed my post-graduation plans and decided to enter seminary they were excited and supportive. They also laid before me what I believe is part of my call from God. With tears in their eyes they told me of one of the deepest pains in their lives.

Their grandson Rick and his family had no church home. They had tried a few churches over time, but nothing had ever worked out. It’s not that anyone told them outright that they couldn’t come. No one made a rule to keep them out. They could just tell by the way they were treated that churches just didn’t know what to do with Rick who had various medical problems and lived with developmental delays.
They didn’t know how to include him in Sunday School. They didn’t know what to do when he reached confirmation age. They didn’t know how to welcome him comfortably into worship, and worse than not knowing, they didn’t try to learn. Ignored, beginning to believe the lie that he didn’t belong, they just stopped trying. When I told the LeBrons I was going to seminary they asked me, they charged me to make the church better for families like Rick’s.

My relationship with the LeBrons and the call they delivered to me was in my heart when I accepted the call to this church because of the relationship with the Bridge, and it has been with me ever since. I have shared this story with some of you and maybe even in worship once before, but always without a more concrete way to move forward. As long as I have been here I have seen in this congregation special gifts for a ministry of hospitality, education, and worship with families like Rick’s, families who are sadly missing from churches all across and beyond our denomination. However, the way to share these gifts has not been obvious to me. A deeper relationship with and spiritual offerings for the Bridge community even made it to our garden of ministries last spring, but again without a clear vision for carrying these ideas forward.

It seems, though, that God may now be planting seeds in this garden. Late last week I was invited to be a part of a meeting that will be taking place this coming week. The meeting will include a pastor and representatives from Bethel Lutheran Church and a worship leader from another local congregation who is also the mother of a teenage girl who was diagnosed with autism at the age of four. There is interest among this group in developing an ecumenical ministry in Hudson that will reach families that are touched by autism and other developmental special needs.

Looking around at all of our church memberships at the same time we can see that the numbers don’t add up. We can see there are people missing, people who have a very special need for loving and supportive community, for messages of hope and grace, for rest and renewal and drinks of living water. There are people in our community, but not in our churches who need to know that God loves them and calls to them, and that the rest of us need their gifts of patience, compassion, advocacy and love in our churches. We have looked around and seen people like Rick and his family who are on the fringes, and we feel called to go to them and embrace them with the love and acceptance of Christ’s body on earth.

I ask for your prayers this week as I am part of these initial inquiries and discernment. I ask that you will also prayerfully look around, especially outside of our church family, and try to see who is missing. Pray that God might show us how we can meet them without judgment where they are and welcome them into our midst to share the love of Jesus, the living water. I don’t know where these conversations will take us. I pray though that they will take us right to the well where we will meet Christ in each other. Amen.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Before the Beginning

Jeremiah 1:4-10

It’s probably no wonder that these words from Jeremiah spoke to me this week. It is good to be back here in worship with you all after being on a blessed maternity leave for the last 12 weeks. While I was away, in addition to introducing Margaret to life on earth and doing my best to simply keep her alive, I took the opportunity to worship at a number of different churches. It was a blessing in many ways, being able to worship God from the pews instead of from the pulpit, but at the same time it also left me longing to come back here to our worship, our community. It was an interesting feeling being away from the place to which I have been called, and while I was able to learn a lot of new things to bring back to us, it feels good to be home.

Margaret’s only been in our house for about 12 ½ weeks, but it’s already hard to remember what it was like before she was born. It’s been almost a year since we knew she was coming, but in a sense she’s been a part of us since even before that. Before she was forming in my womb, well before she was born, we knew we would want a third child to complete our family. She was a part of us before she was here; she was being planned for before she ever existed. We didn’t know who she would look like. We didn’t know what her personality would be. We didn’t know she would have Karoline’s reddish newborn hair or William’s huge, huge eyes. We didn’t know she would THANKFULLY sleep through the night as hard as her mom and dad, but before she was born, before she was formed in my womb, we knew she would be in our family.

“Before I formed you in your mother’s womb…” “Before you were born…” Yahweh, our God, spoke to Jeremiah. Before he was a presence on this earth, Jeremiah was already in God’s mind and heart. God was working together a particular set of gifts for a particular kind of ministry and, I like to imagine, just waiting for the right time and place to set them down in creation put together in just the right person. God claimed Jeremiah for ministry to the nations; it was a part of his life even before his beginning.

Christians point to this particular passage and this claim in some of our deepest deliberations and debates. God’s call to Jeremiah is cited in relation to issues as varied as abortion, predestination, human sexuality, and whether or not God has “a plan (including a particular vocation) for my life.” We regularly accept that the promise and claim of this call isn’t just for Jeremiah, but that it applies to any of us in our walk with Christ. What if, though, these words aren’t just for Jeremiah, and they aren’t just for each of us, but what if they are for ALL of us? Together. The church. This church.

Now the word of the LORD came to First Presbyterian Church in Hudson, Wisconsin saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were a thought in the mind of the new founders of Hudson I knew you existed. Before you were born I consecrated you. Before you built even the old building downtown on 3rd Street I blessed you. I appointed you a prophet to the town, to the state, to the nations!" What does it mean for who we are and what we do that God has been here before us hoping for us to be here, too? And what is it we have been appointed to do?

Another thing I did this summer while on maternity leave is attend a large portion of the Presbyterian Church General Assembly. This is the biennial meeting of our largest Presbyterian governing body with voting delegates from all over the county, including Barb Van Loenen from this church. During the Assembly meetings they would periodically show videos that are shared on a website developed in response to an item of business at the last GA in 2008. The website is called “Deep and Wide” since the initiative is a commitment on the part of the entire denomination to help grow Christ’s church deep and wide through evangelism, discipleship, servanthood, and diversity. These were essentially some of the same goals we discerned as a congregation last spring in our visioning process together. Over and over again we talked about wanting to “go deeper” together in faith and knowledge of God. We talked about wanting to expand our congregation’s impact wider into our community and throughout the world, as well as expand the reach of our membership. Videos shared at GA and on the Deep and Wide website show the specific efforts of churches across our country to grow in these ways. I’d like to share two of these videos with you this week and next.

Find more videos like this on Deep and Wide

I believe the story of this first church sounds somewhat familiar to our own story from the recent past, but still has something to say to us as we move forward. I heard in the telling of their story two of the important steps they took as they discerned their way forward.

The first is one you will hear in every video on that website of churches in transformation. They prayed. The conversations that led them to new life weren’t just the conversations that happen around committee and session meeting tables. They were conversations with God. In order to find new life in their church, in order to offer life to others in their community and claim resurrection life for themselves, they had to deeper than a connection to the ones with whom they share life on earth. They had to strenghten their connection to the One from whom all life comes. They had to get in touch with God who formed them each in their mother’s wombs, the Spirit who sustained the congregation for well over a century, Christ who redeemed its life when the doors were about to close.

The second thing they did was pointed out by the narrator. Knowingly or unknowingly, they rediscovered their roots as a congregation. When they started in Oklahoma City in the 1800s, we were told, they were a church on the outskirts of town. They were a church ministering on the edge, where newcomers were arriving. They weren’t necessarily downtown in the hustle and bustle of city life, but instead were located where new growth was happening, helping to develop a spiritual community where a new community was being built.

Greystone Presbyterian Church found its life renewed when it got in touch with God AND God’s purpose and call to them. Before they were formed God knew they could address a particular need. Really God created them to do just that. Before Greystone was born or reborn, God blessed them with a purpose. They have found new life by doing what God has created them to do.

In the 9th grade I played in the Florida All-State Orchestra under the direction of a brilliant conductor and inspiring leader. On our last day of rehearsal, right before we began the last run through we would play of the William Tell Overture before our final concert, our conductor spoke to us about this experience. "Never again," he said, "will this moment exist. Never again will this orchestra play. Even if we had a reunion 10 years from now, some of you wouldn't come, and even those of you who did wouldn't be the same people. Never again will this exact orchestra be assembled to play this piece, so play it like you were made to play it."

The First Presbyterian Church of Hudson has been here for over 150 years. In looking back over our history, even to the earliest days of this city and this church, we might be able to discover some part of our purpose for today.

One piece of our history that is alive and well today is our commitment to working with other churches and traditions. In our earliest days we partnered with what is now the United Church of Christ congregation in Roberts, WI. Currently we have ecumenical partnerships with many congregations - First Baptist Church, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, and as of last Sunday Mt. Zion Lutheran Church in our NETworks youth ministry and many other churches in our participation in the Backpack Program, the SOURCE, and the Ecumenical Men's Breakfast.

Secondly, churches begin for a number of different reasons. Greystone, we heard, began as a Sunday Schook, a mission to the unchurched children on the outskirts of town. They church that grew into the Cathedral in St. Paul, MN, I understand, began as a Catholic mission to the Native Americans, not necessarily as a congregation of settlers in the area.

Our church, however, did begin as a church of newcomers to the area, although we were not the first church in Hudson. We formed when a group of people were looking for a different way of worshping, serving, and thinking about God's relationship with people - - not a better way or more correct way, but a different way. our church offered people a different way to think about and live their faith in Christ in a tradition that values personal discovery, discernment, and pondering of God's grace that takes place in community. Maybe that Spirit of question and journeying toward God in a supportive community is a purpose we need to reclaim as we move forward.

The faces in this congregation have changed year to year, and will continue to change as some saints pass into God's glory and new saints are born into our family or join us along the journey. But before we were formed in the womb God knew us. Before we were born into this time God consecrated us. We have been assembled in this way for God’s purpose. We have been appointed as a garden of welcome, to shelter, heal, nurture, and grow together toward God. No other church can fulfill the call God has given to us. Before our beginning this is what we were made to do. In Christ's name, let's serve like we were made to serve.

Monday, August 16, 2010

First Things First

The red light on my phone is lit indicating that I have at least one message waiting for my attention, but I'm not going to listen to it yet. First things first.

It's my first day back in the office after a wonderful and blessed maternity leave, and I am returning not only with new life in our family, but a new energy and a renewed spirit. This morning in the car Karoline and I played a usual game as I drove her to Princess Camp. "What's making you smile today, Mommy?"

"Well, Karoline, I'm going back to work today and that's making me smile."

"Why?" she questioned. Following up with, "That's a new part of the game, Mommy. You have to say why."

"It's making me smile because I miss the church and being a pastor is one of things God wants me to do. I want to get back to doing it."

I do want to get back to doing it, and I went to get back to doing it even better in God's eyes. So first things first.

I'm not checking that red message that's staring at me. I might even cover up the light for a few minutes. I'm not going to check my e-mail. I'm not going to look at the calendar. I'm not even going to look at the Scripture for Sunday.

First things first, I'm going to pray. I'm not going to read the Bible to figure out how to present it to others; I'm going to read the Bible to figure out what God's saying to me today. I'm going to get back at this with healthier spiritual practices for myself which will help me be the pastor God is calling me to be. First things first.

It's not that this idea is new to me or to others. It's just that like anyone else sometimes my discipline slips. I am thankful to God who gives second chances. (And thirds and fourths and fifths and....) I'm going to start my day in the office not with phone messages or e-mails or Facebook or blogs or text study or any other of the myriad things I could be doing. I'm going to start my day with prayer, and I pray it will transform my ministry and my life with Christ.

First things first.