The Lutheran Zephyr

Reporting on Weather and my Ordination Anniversary

In my monthly report to council I include a section I call "narrative highlights" before I list the various pastoral acts, meetings and events in which I was involved over the previous month.  I'm not thrilled with the "listing" I do in the report, but I enjoy writing the narrative highlights (if any of you have monthly report formats that you like, please share!).

Here is the narrative highlight I wrote in my January report, reflecting on the ministry we shared together in December through the lens of the record snowfall we had on the 4th weekend of Advent:

It's a good thing that I don't read divine messages into meteorological events, for on December 20, the first anniversary of my ordination, Arlington was all but shut down.  18" of snow covered our area the day before in the largest December snowfall ever recorded in the DC region.  It was a fitting anniversary, filled with the challenges and joys and quirks of pastoral ministry.  A day earlier I spent hours shoveling the church sidewalk.  On Sunday I preached wearing blue jeans and snow boots (something that you may never see ever again!), while men from our church continued to clear the sidewalk in service to church members and neighbors alike.  On Sunday evening I stayed inside with my family, since our caroling of good news in the neighborhood was canceled.  We also regrettably canceled the Young Adult wine and cheese scheduled that evening at the parsonage.  December 20 was an exhausting and somewhat disappointing anniversary.

But that day also highlights just how vibrant our church is.  Despite the snow, we worshiped and we worked hard to make ours the driest and clearest sidewalk in Arlington.  A devotion was emailed to the congregation via our new email system, and a Sunday School teacher sent her lesson to parents to use as a snowed-in activity.  The wine and cheese event was rescheduled to shortly after the New Year, and was a success.  By Christmas Eve, enough snow had been cleared and melted that worship services went off without a hitch.

I'll always remember December 20, 2008, the day I was ordained here at Resurrection.  But I'll also always remember December 20, 2009, the day that we stepped up in faith to a snow storm that threatened to close us down.

The Gift of Worshiping with my Family

I'm a pastor.  I wear the funny shirt, the robe, the stoles.  I say the P parts of the liturgy.  I sit up front.  And I love it.

But one thing I don't love so much is that I no longer sit alongside my wife and children in worship.  Before I was ordained, I loved worshiping with my children. Yet I no longer worship alongside them, hold worship books for them, whisper instructions to them, or help them with their Bible story coloring sheet.  I do enjoy seeing their faces as they worship from my seat up front, and I cherish the opportunity to declare the forgiveness of their sins, and to place the sacrament in their hands.  But still ... I'm no longer there, by their side, holding them, whispering to them, coloring with them.

Tonight I received a special gift as I attended my wife's cousin's wedding (yes, a wedding scheduled on the Monday after Christmas!).  There we were, Mommy, Daddy, and our two daughters sitting in the pew together (Naaman, our two year-old son, was more than glad to romp around in the nursery.  We were more than glad to let him!).  I held my 3 year-old up high so she could see the pastor's gestures as he said the Words of Institution.  I took her to the bathroom during the Prayers of the Church.  I struggled to hold a hymnal as I held her in my arms.  Yes, by doing these things, I wasn't tuned into every moment of the liturgy.  But I was participating and praying with my children, gathering with them around the table and at the foot of the cross, held with them within the Body of Christ and surrounded by the sights and sounds of God's people at worship.  It was a beautiful thing.

And so tonight I am grateful for this wonderful Christmas gift - the gift to worship as a family. I wouldn't give up my job for anything.  I love what I do.  But I also love when I get the chance to worship alongside my wife and children.  Thank you, Ben and Marissa, for getting married this evening.  You've given me a wonderful gift!

Blessings to Ben and Marissa, and to all in this Christmas season.

I've Done This Before

It's been just over a year since I was ordained and installed as a pastor.  I am no longer a "rookie" in the technical sense, though in many respects I continue to bump and feel my way through this ministry as I have for the past year.  I've heard it said that it takes 18 months to get settled into a new job (don't ask who said that - I have no idea).  Perhaps that is true.

But for the first time in my ministry I can say "I've done this before," in advance of a particular annual event.  This first struck me as I saved my sermon for the 4th Sunday in Advent, and I saw in my computer's sermons folder that I preached on the 4th Sunday in Advent last year, too.  

Christmas Eve?  Done that.  Annual Meeting?  I was there last year.  I'm now asking fewer questions and moving forward more confidently, even as I continue to grow into the nuances and unique patterns of ministry at my congregation.  And for this I'm excited.  It's been a great first year of ministry, and I look forward to many more to come.

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FYI, I've changed the manner in which I post my sermons.  They now appear on a separate blog with their own feed and email subscription.  If you want to get my (more or less) bi-weekly sermons, visit my sermons blog (linked in tab above), and scroll down to the "Subscribe to Sermons" box in the right hand column.

As the Blog Fades ...

If there's one type of blog post I don't really enjoy reading, it is the post that dwells on the task of blogging itself.  As if personal blogging in and of itself isn't narcissistic enough, blogging about blogging certainly is.  You put yourself out there on a blog, write on a regular basis, get some response.  You bookmark the blogtracking website, and you begin to get interested in your blogging stats.  Perhaps you even begin to time your writing and posting so that it hits the readers when they're likely to be online, rather than on Saturday night.

But then, for whatever reason, the blogging slows down, and aware that there might be 40, 50 or even a few hundred people out there who have noticed your blog, you decide to write about blogging.

Over the past four years I've followed that track and have arrived to this place where blogging seems increasingly     irrelevant to my life.  So add this post to the list of posts I've written about the task of blogging (click on that link at risk of falling off into a boredom-induced stupor), and the various posts I've written about the end of my blogging career (including this one back in May, this one last December, and this one in April '08, among others).  Oye.

Blogging for me was an outlet, a way for me to dabble in issues of church and pastoral ministry while I was on the outside looking in.  But now that I'm on the inside of parish ministry - ordained and serving a congregation since December - I find that my desire to blog has plummeted.  For me, blogging was a prelude, a preview, an appetizer. 

Well, the main event, the feature presentation, the main course has arrived.  What I used to do on the blog I now do via email and in person with parishoners, at conference meetings with fellow pastors, every other week in my ministry of preaching, and in the planning and preparations for the ministry areas for which I am responsible.  That is, the theological and ministry dabbling that this blog allowed me do I now do elsewhere ... in my call as pastor.

And though I love to write, I'm finding that I do plenty of writing in the course of my job, and don't need a blog to scratch that itch.  I've been writing for my work within the congregation, and also some for Augsburg Fortress and the ELCA.  It's been fun - a bit overwhelming at times, actually - but has also crowded out the blog.

Finally    , I can see nothing but bad things to result if I were to blog about my parish.  Broadcasting parish news on my personal blog, or referring to parish situations (even if I were to change some of the circumstances for the sake of the innocent) seems to be a violation of a pastoral trust that must exist between parish and pastor.

So, whatever ... this post is now annoying me.  Perhaps this is a love/hate thing, one of those "it's not you, it's me" kind of break-up things, or simply an overly narcissistic thing that needs to end here and now.  Whatever it is, this might be the end of it.

Until, that is, I have something else to share with the world.  ;-)

"We all have our religions, but ..."

Once again, the religious faith of a presidential nominee is being brought into question.  

Today's Washington Post profiles Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, the president's pick to be Surgeon General, and gives particular attention to her religious faith (Surgeon General Pick's Stance on Abortion May Clash With Church's, by Cheryl W. Thompson, Sat July 28, 2009, A5).  Dr. Benjamin, after all, is a practicing Roman Catholic.  Yet, according to friends, she aparently supports abortion rights (she has not made any public statement on her abortion views). The article attempts to play up the potential conflicts between her religious faith and her public service, and also between her stance on abortion and her membership in the Roman Catholic church.

Cited in the article are the now-common yet simplistic refrains that the nominee can separate religious faith from public service. Supporters - and nominees, too - often make this claim when their religion teaches something that might come into conflict with their public role. In this case it is an odd claim to have to make, since Dr. Benjamin seems to support the law on access to abortion, and since the position for which she is nominated has little influence on the abortion issue.  Nonetheless, the faith-is-separate-from-public-service argument has been trotted out:

"We all have our religions, but when you speak as the surgeon general to the American people, it's not about your religion," said David Satcher, a fromer surgeon general under President Bill Clinton ....

"You kind of have to park your personal beliefs at the door when they conflict with what your role is," said [Jorge] Alsip [a long-time colleague of Dr. Benjamin's], who said he opposes abortion rights.

What both Drs. Satcher and Alsip fail to grasp here is that religious faith can send someone into public service, and that faith indeed can lead someone - out of a call to serve others - to at times work within settings and tasks that otherwise might be in the "thou shalt not" category of faith.  

The concept of faith that Drs. Satcher and Alsip seem to have is one that can only operate in isolation or in the ideal, and has little ability to maneuver the challenges and realities of the "real world." Indeed, I have serious concerns about a faith that is comparmentalized and easily set aside when faced with challenging circumstances. A robust faith - and with it, a robust theology of vocation, human anthropology, and of God's two kingdoms - is one which can navigate the challenges, pitfalls, and moral inconsistencies of daily life.  A theology of Christian perfection gets the real-world Christian nowhere, and forces her to ditch her faith in the face of human imperfection.

I've written about this topic before, concerning two Bush administration nominees - about four years ago at the nomination of Chief Justice John Roberts (Our Discomfort With Faith), and two years ago at the nomination of James Holsinger to be Surgeon General (Partitioning Faith). In each case it is claimed that the nominee can keep their faith separate from their public service. I say hogwash. Rather, I would expect that it is religious faith which first propeled them to enter public service, and which sustains their daily work.

More on this later, perhaps ...

So Help Us God (or Virtus)

I never imagined how "holy" an experience it would be to register at the courthouse for authorization to legally offiate at weddings.

• I provided papers proving that I am a called and ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (We call you to exercise among us the ministry of Word and Sacrament which God has established and which the Holy Spirit empowers, one of the documents reads).
• I provided $29 in cash, bearing the words In God We Trust, as payment of the courthouse's administrative fee.
• I took an oath which concluded with the words So Help Me God (and yes, in a strange feat of government orthography, the first letter of each word in that phrase was capitalized). 
• And to top it all off, as I walked into the Arlington County Courthouse I passed the seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia, which prominently features the Roman goddess Virtus. 

All this God-talk is required so that I can be authorized to declare a marriage legal.  I'd expect God-talk in the church and in preparation for my ordination, but to formalize a state-sanctioned, legal relationship?  I don't see how such language is necessary, to be honest.

One thing this experience has taught me is that when it comes to God's role (or the role of ancient Roman dieties, for that matter) in our state and society, I think we're a confused lot ...

(Click here for more of my admittedly radical perspectives on the separation of church and state.)

Tryin' Out a New 'Do

(This post first appeared in my congregation's June 2009 newsletter)

You have probably already noticed it, but you are too kind or polite to mention it.  Perhaps that’s because we’re still dancing the get-to-know-you dance, and you may not want to say anything so personal to the new pastor just yet.  Well, I’ll say it: I’m growing my hair long.  To be honest, I’m not sure if I like this new hairdo or if it suits me well at all.  We’ll see.

I have wanted to grow my hair long for years, but I’ve never had the guts to actually go through with it.  But not this time.  For the first time in my life I’m growing out my hair.  Why?  Back in January I was asked to participate in the leadership of our synod’s Confirmation Camp (held in late June at Mar-Lu-Ridge Camp near Frederick, MD).  My role?  To portray Jesus in the week-long teaching and re-enacting of the Holy Week/Passion story.  Since we commonly envision Jesus with long hair, and since for years I’ve wanted but been unwilling to grow my hair long, I have allowed my hair to grow for this role.  We’ll see if I keep the new ‘do after June.

Growing my hair long is just one of many firsts I’ve had in my first six months of ordained ministry (and not one that I would have anticipated!).  It is here with you that I first presided at the Lord’s Table and at the Baptismal Font.  It is here with you that I first said, “As a called and ordained minister of the church of Christ, and by his authority, I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins.”  It is here with you that I first sat down with lay leaders to dream about education and outreach ministries for the coming year (and also for many years to come).  And after years of moving from place to place, it is here with you that I am finally laying down roots for my ministry and for my family.  For the first time in my life I am settling into patterns of life and work, and growing into the hopes and dreams that God has given me.

As I look ahead to September and the start of my first program year with you I am simultaneously anxious and excited.  For years I sat in classes at seminary, or worked as a youth director, or worked at the edges of parish ministry (as a church publishing sales representative, for example).  And in these roles I eagerly learned, hypothesized and developed convictions about ministry.  But this time is different.  No longer am I a temporary intern or a sales representative peeking into the parish.  Now I’m in a new role with new and greater responsibilities … this is where the rubber hits the road.  I admit to being a bit anxious.

But let me tell you how excited I am, too.  I see here at Resurrection great faith and great hopes, a strong desire to serve others and to be a caring community of love and mutual support.  There is already so much that we’re doing well, from our vibrant Sunday School ministry to our Confirmation Class bursting at the seams; from the Clothes Closet to the Christian Service group, both of which serve those in need; from the choir and worship assistants to the dedicated team of leaders on Council and committees, all of whom keep our congregation running; to … well, the list goes on.  

And so with ideas and convictions formed after years of church work, and with a faithful and firm foundation of ministry here at Resurrection, I am excited about what will come next year.  I’ve been meeting with our Christian Education, Evangelism, and Stewardship leaders, and I am excited about the new and renewed ministries that these committees are envisioning.  From new fellowship events to exciting tweaks to Sunday School, from digging deeper into the meaning of Christian stewardship to wrestling what it means to welcome newcomers to the faith and church, the conversations, hopes, and dreams shared by our ministry leaders are exciting and promising.

I’m not sure where all these conversations, hopes, and dreams about ministry will lead us.  Perhaps some of our plans for Sunday School or new fellowship events will work out … and perhaps some will not.  That’s ok, for just like my hair we can cut and change things afterwards and go in a different direction if we don’t like the look and feel of our new ministry ‘do.

And so as I prepare for my first full program year as a pastor I am anxious and excited, confident in God’s leading and hope-filled for what lies ahead … no matter how long my hair is.

Four Years of The Lutheran Zephyr

If my blog were a President, it would be finishing its first term.

On May 22, 2005 I started this blog ... I never thought it would last this long.  I began blogging in order to connect myself to conversations about ministry and faith while I wrestled with my own sense of call and worked at the fringes of parish ministry, looking in.  Now I'm ordained, doing the work about which I often opined on these pixels, and I'm loving life.

Thanks to all for reading, for commenting, for forming me through this wonderful and odd medium of blogging.

Decline of faith-based niche blogging?

I have noticed a decline in the number of blogposts appearing in my Google Reader in recent months.  The decline includes my blog, of course, as I've been blogging infrequently since December.  But I am not alone.  Many of the "churchy" blogs that I used to read regularly are posting less often.  With the exception of the rise of Facebook - and many of my church blog friends are on Facebook - I really cannot explain this phenomenon.

For my part, I'm finding that since throwing myself into the work of full-time parish ministry I have less time and energy to blog.  My life essentially has two parts - church and family, both of which are terribly time and attention consuming.  Blogging - which for some can be part of their work - would essentially take time from either my churchwork or my family, and that's nothing I'm willing to do right now.  If I decide to take time from either, it will be for exercise at the local gym to get rid of the excess 30-40 pounds I'm carrying around.

Furthermore, I'm finding that my inspiration to blog is similar to the challenges I've had recently with writing my bi-weekly sermons.  In my pastoral role - I'm an Associate Pastor - I deal with lots of programming.  I'm finding that managing programs uses a different part of my brain than does writing (blogposts or sermons or newsletter articles), and the writing has suffered as a consequence.  I hope to return to more and better writing, including on this blog.  But when I do get the energy, creativity, and ability to write, it's all I can do to just focus on the sermon and not get carried away with other writing projects right now.

I expect that this is part of my learning curve, my adjustment to full-time parish ministry.  Now in my fifth month, I notice that I am developing patterns and setting priorities in a better manner than I did when I first started.  Perhaps as I continue to grow into this ministry and calling I will find the time and creative ability to return to writing more frequently ... I certainly hope so.

Sermons Updated

I've posted sermons to this blog for the first time in months.  Sermons from the first few months of my life as a pastor, as well as a few sermons from the end of my internship, have now been posted to the Sermons page.

Now, don't all rush.  Walking, please.  One at a time.  No pushing.  Thank you.