The Lutheran Zephyr

It has served its purpose

This blog - as a host for my thoughts and feelings, reflections and rants, questions and quandaries - has served its purpose.  As a place for personal punditry and faithful reflection, this blog is done.  Over.  Kaput.  Finished.  Dead.

Well, almost.

For now I'll keep this blog up and running, and perhaps fashion it in the form of Clint's blog, who posts links and compelling quotes and other brief items, but who rarely opines online.  Eventually, perhaps I'll transform this blog into one such as Mark Daniel's, posting lectionary reflections, sermons, and thoughtful reflections on the news.  Perhaps.

But as I enter a new phase of my calling - that of a parish pastor - I'm quickly realizing that I'd do better to read more and write less, to pray more and play the pundit less, to be still and know that the Lord is God more, and busy myself with blogging less . . . I'll be reading fewer blogs much less frequently, too.

This blog has been a great blessing to me for more than three and a half years, a place for me to share ideas and learn much, to grow and be challenged, to express myself and to try something new.  I am thankful for the various people who have commented, who read, who are part of my online community.  You have been part of my formation as a pastor, as a person of faith, as a child of God.  Thank you.

A blessed Christmas season and New Year to all.

Peace to you.
Chris

Signing off for a little bit

My three readers will shout for joy and dance in the street at this announcement - I'm not going to blog for the next week or two.  Why not?  Next week is a little busy.

Monday, December 15: start new job as Associate Pastor
Tuesday, December 16: move to new house
Saturday, December 20: ordination
Sunday, December 21: preaching at my first service as an ordained pastor
Wednesday, December 24: first time presiding at the Lord's Table

So, it'll be busy in the Duckworth/Zephyr household in the coming days.  I'll post some thoughts and pictures from ordination when that happens, but probably not much else until then . . .

Peace to you.

The Uncertain Future of The Lutheran Zephyr

This blog, born in May 2005, may be near the end of its lifespan.  I'm just not sure.  With the ways I use Facebook - to easily share newspaper and online articles, to express brief comments about current issues, to connect with others on certain topics . . . - I sometimes wonder if the longer and much less connective format of a blog is even worth it.

Of course, it is not just a matter of which online platform I should use.  Facebook and Twitter - if I could ever get into Twitter - have their limitations, too.  More importantly, I wonder if this blog has served its purpose in my life.  You see, The Lutheran Zephyr filled a void in my life in that interim period from my days as a non-ordained seminary graduate with serious questions of call, to today when I'm knocking on the door of a call as an ordained pastor.  This blog was a place to share ideas about ministry when I wasn't actively involved in ministry, but wishing beyond all belief that I could be.  But as I look ahead just a few weeks to a congregational vote and the beginning of a call and career in pastoral ministry, all of a sudden I'm not sure if The Lutheran Zephyr is quite as important to me as it used to be.

And it's not all of a sudden.  My blogging has slowed down over the past year, and particularly over the past few months.  I used to write several times per week, but over the past two months it has been much less frequent.  My time and energy are more directed to work and my growing family.  The pixels of The Lutheran Zephyr are just not as appealing as they used to be.

There's also the cost.  More than two years ago I purchased my own url (www.lutheranzephyr.com), I pay $8.95/mo to use some extra services at Typepad, and I pay $18/yr for somebody to host my blog at my url.  It's not a ton of money, but it adds up.  And if I'm on the fence about the future of my blog, and if I can blog elsewhere for free, then why pay?

Though at times I've gotten consumed about the number of visitors to my blog, checking statistics on an almost daily basis, those days were few and they are far behind me.  At its best this blog has been a place for me to express and share ideas, to connect with others, and to grow.  If others enjoyed reading it, all the better.  The Lutheran Zephyr was never was intended to be a polished online journal, but simply a personal journal that happened to be online.  I am grateful for the practice of regular writing that this blog has given me, for writing is a skill I truly value and enjoy using.  But now that I will soon be writing sermons, lessons, Bible studies, and other materials with great frequency, I wonder if the impetus to blog will only continue to decline.

We'll see, and I'd welcome the insights of other bloggers out there, particularly those bloggers for whom the purpose and practice of blogging has changed over the years.  At the least this blog will stay up until my eventual ordination . . . which might be an appropriate time to bid farewell to The Lutheran Zephyr.

Discernment and deliberations to be continued . . .

Politics can be better than this

A little while ago I began to wonder if my blogging is not a little bit too negative.  It is so easy to respond in criticism to the workings of our politics and world.  There's nothing wrong with criticism - unjust, stupid, and wrong acts in the public square deserve a response.  But it did get me to thinking . . .

Yesterday I was fairly critical of both Barack Obama, whose candidacy I support, and John McCain, whose candidacy I supported in the 2000 GOP primary.  Despite some personal admiration for each candidate, I find them both lacking.  I am extremely critical of Barack Obama for making political use of his religious faith, trying to score political points with his personal piety.  But I am also critical of John McCain, whose "Country First" campaign has portrayed him as an honorable hero, yet whose tactics have sometimes been much less than honorable.

Politics can be better than this.  We can have a politics that debates the issues and challenges of today using the language of politics and policy rather than personal attack and misplaced piety.  That is, we can have a politics that is about . . . politics, rather than this other garbage. 

We can have a politics that puts our Country First.  Yes we can!  At least, that's what these two candidates promised us.  But they've failed.  And their failure only mirrors our own failure.  We've all failed to elevate the level of politics.  When we're more interested in William Ayers or the Keating Five scandal than we are in fixing health care, ending wars, or alieviating poverty, we've all failed.

Such a failure calls for some negative blogging . . .

A Real-World Lutheran Bloggers Organization?

I was perusing the website for the National Lutheran Youth Gathering and noticed an invitation for displays and exhibitors.  Which got me to thinking . . . is it time for Lutheran Bloggers to reach beyond webrings and blogrolls and become organized enough to show up at national Lutheran events - such as the Youth Gathering and/or Churchwide Assembly?  It seems to me that the Lutheran online community - as disorganized and disparate as it is - is an emerging established arena for reflection on theology, ministry, and life from a Lutheran perspective, and some broader exposure might not be bad for us or for the whole church.

What do you think?  Is this a good idea, a lousy idea that isn't worth the pixels its printed on, or something in between?

Leave your comments.  We'll take it from there.

PS.  Just for fun, I was thinking of names for such a group.  Please add your ideas!

• SLOB - Society of Lutheran Online Bloggers
• ALB - Association of Lutheran Bloggers
• BLA - Blogging Lutherans Association
• Blog Alone
• ELBA - Evangelical Lutheran Bloggers Association
• JELBO - Junta of Evangelical Lutheran Bloggers Online
• LWB - Lutherans Who Blog
• NAFTRYC/IJALB - Not a Fad to Rescue Your Church/It's Just a Lutheran Blog
• LMBAW - Lutheran Ministerium of Blogs and Adjacent Websites
• LWPCGPAE - Lutherans Who Probably Can't Get Published Anywhere Else

Life Gets in the Way of "Hope"

I've been pretty excited to blog chapter by chapter through NT Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.  However, my initial plan to review a chapter every Monday and Thursday has run smack into the wall of life.  Since I first announced my intention to blog this book I have been unexpectedly busy with assignment/first call process happenings (no other details to share at this point); sending our oldest daughter to her first year in elementary school; going to the doctor's office a few times for our ear-infected 10 month-old; holding down the fort while my wife has made several visits to her sister who is pretty sick but getting better in a hospital about a hour from here; following the Phillies' run toward the post-season (thank God for XM Satellite radio that allows me to listen to the Phillies in Fairfax!); celebrating our oldest daughter's first lost tooth; frolicking outside on the first full days of fall; and then there's the tasks of church work; and so on . . .

For those of you who are reading along, I apologize.  The book blogging will return hopefully later this week.  But life has intervened, and as much as I enjoy this blog and this particular blog project, it takes a back seat to more important things, such as sick kids, pennant-race baseball, and a loose tooth.

The Young and the Traditional

Facebook, the online home of gazillions of young people, recently made a number of changes to its website and interactive features.  Thousands upon thousands of these picture-posting, online-chatting, status-updating, Piece-of-Flair-sending, TMI-sharing youngin's have protested like there is no tomorrow.

• Over 1,700,000 have joined the group 1,000,000 Against the New Facebook Layout (perhaps they need a new name!). 
• Over 1,200,000 have joined the group Petition Against the "New Facebook".

So much for the notion that young people easily adapt to new trends!  It seems that many young people are pining for the "traditional" Facebook, wanting to go back to the good ol' days of the old Facebook, back to the way things used to be.

Merits of the Facebook changes aside - and the changes are largely good, in my opinion - it doesn't surprise me that young people would protest change.  A few anecdotes from my experience in the church:

• When I went to college in 1993, the college students sat in a pack in the back pew of the local Lutheran Church.  To protest the "new" (1970's!) translation of the Lord's Prayer used by this congregation, the college students defiantly (and rather rudely, in retrospect) said the "traditional" form of the prayer in full, punctuated voice.
• About nine years ago, as a youth director at a Lutheran congregation accustomed to both traditional and more "contemporary" forms of music, I was struck that on Youth Sunday the kids more often than not chose to express their faith in part through rather traditional hymns such as Lift High the Cross and Beautiful Savior.
• In my current congregation two of the most vocal voices offering opposition to hand-clapping hymnody are 18 year-olds who just went off to their freshman year in college.
• And of course, if you have ever helped lead an annual retreat or lock-in, you know how important tradition is.  Woe to the youth leader who dares to tweak the traditions of 2AM pillow fights, rude early-morning awakenings, or campfire sing alongs.
• Facebook includes a few groups for the traditionally-minded, church-going, online set, including Praise Bands Annoy God and Actually, young people do like traditional liturgy.

Of course, many young people do like new songs and are willing to try new traditions. 

• Many young people love the labyrinth prayer walk experience (oh, wait a minute - that's an ancient faith practice going back hundreds upon hundreds of years).
• I admit that Youth Sundays often include "Awesome God," that comtemporary song written in . . . 1988, years before today's high school youth were even born, and the same year that Guns N Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine" and Amy Grant's "Saved by Love" hit the charts.

The knee-jerk assumption that young people like new things - whether in online social networking or in church - is wrong.  Young people tend to be fairly conservative when it comes to their routines, the ways they "do" school, church, camp, holiday traditions, etc..  This is not to say that young people resist all new things (they don't) or that church leaders shouldn't invite young people to engage ministry in new ways (they should).  But  we can't simply paint all young people with the brush of "change."  It ain't that easy.

There's more to say about this - including asking why Boomers and Gen-Xers assume young people always like new things (perhaps it says more about the older folks than it does the young people), and examining how we teach our traditions and engage young people in ministry.  But these are topics for another day.  Time for me to get off to the day's tasks . . .

Peace to you!

I'm on Twitter

I'm not sure I entirely "get" Twitter - the microblogging service that allows users to tell the world what they're doing, and see what others are doing - but I'm twittering now.  You can follow me at http://twitter.com/chrisduckworth.  If you're on Twitter, let me know . . .

My 3rd Blogaversary

[singing]
Happy Blogaversary to me! 
Happy Blogaversary to me! 
Happy Blogaversary dear Lutheran Zephyr! 
Happy Blogaversary to me! 

Today is the 3rd anniversary of The Lutheran Zephyr, born May 22, 2005.  However, we've got a sick kid and we're preparing to drive to Philadelphia for my brother-in-law's wedding.  So, no deep thoughts to share on this auspicious occasion.  Just a word of thanks to all who read these pixels, to all who have become real friends (though we've never really met), and to Al Gore for creating the internet (couldn't have done it without ya, Big Al!).  This blog has been a great outlet for me to explore thoughts and feelings, ideas and theories, theology and faith, and for this opportunity I am grateful.

Three years.  782 posts.  1453 comments (since moving to Typepad - comments from the first 11 months on Blogger didn't transfer).  60,000+ pageviews (since moving to Typepad).  It's been fun.

Peace to you, and thanks.

I'm Blogging Less

This blogging dip may be a temporary situation - I hope so, for I do enjoy blogging.  But life has been pretty darn busy recently. 

As I detailed in a post last evening, our au pair suddenly left a month ago, leaving us in a childcare pinch.  We've been trying to balance life and work and care for three children shorthanded.  Time I used to spend blogging I'm now spending holding children or catching up on household chores.

On top of that, I'm approaching my Approval for Ordination interview.  In the past few months I have written my approval essay, attended part of a Candidacy retreat, and sat for a 90-minute interview with two members of the seminary faculty (I received a positive recommendation from them).  May 16 is fast approaching . . .

Two weeks ago my wife put the final push on to complete her PhD dissertation.  She'll have more edits yet to do, but getting the whole thing out on paper was a huge accomplishment. 

In addition to family and Candidacy, my internship is keeping me busy.  From teaching and preaching to fellowship events and pastoral care, I've had my hands full.  Our congregation is a vibrant place with lots going on . . .

So, that's it.  Family, candidacy, internship . . . that is, Life has been catching up to me.