Ministry in the Middle

Each year, the first Sunday in October is celebrated as World Communion Sunday by Christians of many denominations and affiliations.  This is both an affirmation that Jesus intends his followers to be united and a recognition that we are not yet. Sadly, differing theologies and practices prevent all Christians from gathering together at one table.  However, there is still something hopeful in our willingness, at least one day a year, to push our tables closer together.  If we cannot exactly agree on all of the particulars on who can participate, and how we partake together, and what it all means, at least we honor the centrality of this sacrament in the faith of so many Christians.  And we covenant to gather in Jesus' name at the Lord's Table on this same day. As a member and minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), I strive to be part of a movement for unity where all Christians are welcomed and affirmed at Jesus' table.  Still, I suspect that my...

The world is broken. This seems obvious these days.  We are experiencing a global pandemic, complete with ever-changing guidance on the best ways to protect ourselves and our communities.  As part of that response, there is massive unemployment and broad job insecurity.  In the past weeks, there have been national examples of suspected murders of African-American men highlighting the ongoing white supremacy in this country. This week there have been massive protests and demonstrations, ostensibly in response to a recent police shooting of an unarmed man, but likely a response to all of this.  Some have used these demonstrations as an excuse for looting, arson, and violence. The world is broken. I imagine there is almost universal agreement on these four words.  Almost no one is walking around smiling and thinking to themselves, "I am so glad these things are happening."  The disagreements arise when we start talking about how to fix the brokenness. In ...

repent  - 1. to feel sorry for (an error, sin, etc.) 2. to feel such regret over (an action, intention, etc.) as to change one's mind Webster's New World Dictionary The Modern Desk Edition of Webster's New World Dictionary sits on my desk, next to hymnals and other worship resources.  My name is written on the inside cover in my mother's neat handwriting. I think one of my elementary school teachers required each student to have a dictionary, and this was the one my parents found for me.  It's been on or in my desk ever since, and I've used it quite a bit over the years, as evidenced by the well-worn cover. Preparing for Lent this year, I pulled it out again to check the proper spelling of repentance.  In doing so, I discovered the definition written above. At first glance, it seemed like a straightforward definition of both the common religious and secular uses of the word repent.  However, something about it nags at me. Perhaps it is the initial def...

Sunday is Mother's Day.  For many, it is a day of celebration with family dinners, cards, and gifts.  It has become a wonderful time to show appreciation. For some, though, it is a day of sadness full of painful reminders.  Some grieve what they have lost: mothers who have passed away or the deaths of children.  Some grieve what they never had the chance to experience: perhaps any healthy relationship with their own mothers or the chance to become a mother themselves. What should pastors and worship leaders do on Mother's Day to honor people who have strong and diverging emotions?  How can we best lead the people who gather in worship? Some congregations will have large celebrations this Sunday.  Maybe they'll have a breakfast or brunch.  Flowers will be passed out.  Mothers will be acknowledged and praised during the worship service.  The pastor may preach a sermon focused on motherhood as a gift or vocation of God. Some congr...

A remarkable thing happened to me a few days ago: I had several good ideas and insights that related to my ministry in various ways.  Not one, but two clear ideas for future sermon series.  An insight about some personal study I've been doing on race and the church.  And, if it's not too strong of a word, an epiphany about the challenges of church finance in this climate. Each of these insights and ideas seemed to be of a higher caliber than most of my day-to-day work.  And it was noteworthy that there were so many good ideas on a single day, which only happens a few times a year. As a pastor, I frequently find my self focused on two basic types of work.  One, I fulfill the basic weekly and monthly duties of my job, as related to worship planning and execution, writing and preparing items for the newsletters and bulletins, dealing with regular administrative work, and seeing to ongoing pastoral care.  Second, I "put out fires" and respond to the work th...

Throughout my time serving as a pastor, Holy Week has been the focal point of my year.  I believe there is great value for a congregation experiencing the breadth of emotions and lessons of Jesus' passion.  While Easter and the promise of the resurrection is an essential part of our faith, the meaning of Jesus' resurrection is heavily contextualized by the events that precede it.  So I plan for services on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.  This is a lot for any congregation, especially a small to mid-size one.  However, the number of services offers opportunities for more people to lead in worship and it provides time and space to plan unique worship services. As the congregation has gained more awareness of these services, we have varied our approaches, and become especially creative for the Thursday and Friday services.  (We always celebrate the Great Vigil of Easter on Holy Saturday.)  This year, our p...

As I write this, I am concluding a few weeks of paternity leave, after the birth of our second child.  The leave has allowed me to focus almost exclusively on my family for the past month, for which I am grateful. I believe strongly that paid family leave is a necessary part of professional ministry, allowing ministers to focus on their families immediately after a birth, adoption, death, or during a loved one's serious illness.  The demands of ministry sometimes compete with family time, and too often ministers feel pressure to choose one or the other.  Family leave not only supports ministers during challenging times, but also reminds congregations that being an active part of a family is an essential part of the minister's vocation too. Frankly, I think we create unhealthy expectations throughout the church for ministers and other leaders.  They have to show up  in specific situations, regardless of time of day or how much else is on their plate.  I ...

Like many, I was both shocked and unsurprised by the recent revelation of a lucrative effort by wealthy parents to buy their children admissions spots in prominent colleges and universities .  I was stunned by the amount of money involved, and by the payoffs that many college coaches took, in order to facilitate the efforts.  On the other hand, it has long been an open secret that wealthy people -- particularly alumni -- have enormous influence to help their children gain college admission, regardless of their academic records. Even so, this scandal has dramatically caught the public's attention.  Early on, it even pushed the ongoing political soap opera as the top story in the country.  Some of this awareness is likely due to the involvement of a couple of recognizable actresses.  Even more, the scandal points to the conventional wisdom that the rich in this country play by completely different rules. Many people have debated the injustices highlighted by t...

The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers  by Maxwell King (Harry N. Abrams, 2018), 320 pages Won't You Be My Neighbor?  directed by Morgan Neville  (Focus Films, 2018), 94 minutes 2018 was a significant year in remembering Fred Rogers, the creator and star of "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood."  Over the summer, Oscar-winning filmaker Morgan Neville released a documentary on Rogers, which had significant popularity for a documentary.  It grossed almost $23 million and at one point was screened in almost 900 theaters in the US .  (It was also well regarded, earning a 98% fresh score from Rotten Tomatoes .)  This fall, a new biography, The Good Neighbor , was released.  And, to put the cherry on top of the sundae, a new film was shot, in which beloved actor Tom Hanks will portray Rogers; currently it's scheduled to be released around Thanksgiving 2019. By happy coincidence, I read the new book and then watched the documentary in a two-week ...

This week, the delegates of the United Methodist Church gathered for a special General Conference.  Ostensibly, the purpose of this gathering was to focus on issues of homosexuality -- particularly whether LGBTQ+ people can serve as ordained clergy and whether the church can solemnize gay weddings -- that threaten to splinter the denomination. There are strong and contradictory attitudes in the church, as has become increasingly evident in recent years.  There have been multiple efforts to adjust church laws/rules: many have been trying to remove language that explicitly prevents the solemnization of gay marriages and ordination of LGBTQ+ individuals; others have been seeking to strengthen that language by making it more explicit.  In the meantime, certain pastors and entire conferences have been flouting church laws/rules with regard to LGBTQ+ individuals.  Others have been encouraging church judicial procedures against people who solemnize gay weddings or LGBTQ+ ...

There Is No Good Card for This: What to Say and Do When Life is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People You Love by Kelsey Crowe and Emily McDowell  (HarperOne, 2017), 272 pages Many of life's challenges can be devastating, such as the death of a loved one, a serious illness, or losing a job.  When someone we care about faces one of these awful challenges, we can feel powerless and inadequate to help.  Often, we don't know what to say, and we don't know what to do. Many ministers receive specialized training to help them navigate these situations with compassion and confidence.  Personally, I cherish the unit of Clinical Pastoral Education that I took years ago, and still draw on many of its lessons today.  It was especially useful to help me learn how to be spiritually present with someone suffering by making sure my own emotional baggage does not get in the way. Not all ministers, and few lay leaders, have such training.  Instead, they simply rely on the...

Yesterday, I preached my annual Lincoln Sermon in the congregation I serve.  By my count, it is my 16th such sermon in honor of the United States' 16th President. It all happened quite by chance.  A few years ago, when I was a ministry intern during my seminary years, I happened to be preaching on Jesus' Sermon on the Plain from the Gospel of Luke.  The Biblical text reminded me of Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, perhaps because it was President's Day weekend, and I included a long section in my sermon comparing Jesus' words and Lincoln's. The response was overwhelmingly positive -- even beyond the sometimes obligatory, "Nice sermon, pastor," comments that preachers often receive after worship services.  Several encouraged me to look for other opportunities to talk about Lincoln and faith again. Looking back, I'm not sure if I touched a hunger in their own hearts or if they were responding to my passion, or both.  Lincoln is a pop...

As I write this post today, I am working from home.  The weather here is brutally cold, and all of the nearby schools are closed.  So, too, is our church office -- along with many others, I assume from several who have posted on social media that they are closed today. This hasn't greatly affected my workday.  Expecting the poor weather, I had not planned on making visits today and I had no appointments scheduled.  Instead, I've been on the computer and the phone, planning for upcoming services, coordinating details with other church staff people, catching up on email, and working on Sunday's sermon. The truth is, I can do much of my work as a pastor from anywhere, especially if I have a phone, internet connection, and computer/tablet/smartphone.  And, throughout my ministry, I have often done more than half of my work outside of the church building.  Personally, given the long and unpredictable hours of ministry, including the reality that most congr...

The current political climate has encouraged me to reflect upon how employers treat employees.  Certainly capitalism makes labor a commodity: the pressures of the market try to get the most labor for the cheapest cost.  Still, I believe that there are ethical considerations for how laborers should be treated.  This is particularly true when the church is involved.  We need to value the people who are serving as employees, not just the labor we want them to provide for our ministry.  Jesus would expect nothing less, as demonstrated by his teaching and example, which celebrated the value of each person. With such an outlook, the church should be one of the greatest places to work.  Unfortunately, many people do not have that experience.  There can be a number of complaints, including low pay, long hours, and sometimes unreasonable expectations (if the expectations are even explicitly stated). While the most obvious paid employees of the church are ...

I've spent part of this week preparing for our congregation's first board meeting of the new year.  Often, this process takes more time and more communication than I remember from year to year. Our congregation has a good tradition of official and unofficial term limits, so that most positions have new people in them every few years.  In general, I support this practice.  On one level, I want to prevent anyone from ever becoming so entrenched in a single church leadership role -- whether by personal desire or popular acclaim -- that they cannot do anything else and no one else can assume that role.  On another level, I think that these term limits are a way of practicing sabbath.  Not only do we allow people to rest from certain responsibilities every so often -- even if they are quite gifted at them -- but we also celebrate that God has blessed the congregation with multiple people who can assume responsibilities in ways that bless others and enrich our share...