Ministry in the Middle

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+ ...