On the Move

One of the predominant, but rarely talked about, themes of the Bible is moving. The characters in the Bible are constantly moving, asking to move or being asked to move. Adam and Eve are moved out of the garden. Abraham was called to a new land. Jacob moved to escape his brother’s wrath. Later his tribe moved to Egypt to survive a famine. The nation of Israelites wandered in the wilderness before settling in the promised land. David stayed on the run to hide from King Saul. Jesus’ ministry is described in the gospels as a journey towards the cross. Paul’s travels kept him moving to spread the news about Jesus.

We all know what it is like to move. Just thinking about such a change can cause anxiety to well up inside of us. We leave what has become familiar to face the unfamiliar. We walk away from the comfort that we know in hopes of creating a better life. We venture into unknown places, unknown relationships and, sometimes, unknown customs and cultures. Even when our move is nothing more than leaving one job to take another, we experience the same kind of anxiety and change as if we moved across the country, just on a lower level.

So far in my life, I have lived in ten unique zip codes in five different states. I’ve moved more than that, however.. I’ve lived in some towns more than once and have moved to a new residence within the same zip code a couple times. I’ve lived in cities, in suburbs, in small towns and in rural settings. Each transition created its own grief over what it being left behind as well as hope for what possibilities existed in the new place. Each place presented its own mix of new values and cultural assumptions. Each move brought unexpected challenges in addition to surprising gifts of wonder and grace.

The first move I remember happened when I was three or four. My family moved from a modest house in the city to a newly built house in the suburbs. Well, it wasn’t a suburb yet. It was a subdivision plopped down in the midst of a cornfield between the city and neighboring town. The landscaped brick wall at the entrance let passersby know that this was no ordinary, run of the mill neighborhood. These homes with sodded lawns and spindly trees were, in fact, Countryside Estates.

The subdivision was primarily one, main street with a couple of other streets that looped around and came back to main drive. In two or three places streets branched off and dead-ended at the edge of the corn field ready for future development. Since there was only one way in and out of the neighborhood there wasn’t a lot of traffic which made it great for being able to ride bikes when I got a little older. The subdivision ended at the top of a small hill in a wooded lot where some of the older kids made bike trails. It always felt dangerous and thrilling to ride through the woods since I was certain that my mom could sense whenever I participated in this forbidden activity.

When we moved to the subdivision we left behind my neighbor Ernie. I remember him being old because he had grown children but he was kind to me and my brother whenever we were outside. He wasn’t the only kindly older person we moved away from either. In the city we lived between my two sets of grandparents, just a few blocks from each. The subdivision wasn’t too far away but it required some planning to get together.

What I gained in the move was a bigger yard to play in (and eventually mow) and a house where I could have my own bedroom, which, as it turns out, was one of the very few times in my life when that was the case. The move also provided a safe place to gain a growing sense of independence. I started school while living here. As I got older I was able to venture beyond the borders of our yard without constant parental supervision. And I began that arduous task of making friends of my own with all the attendant heartache and joy that entails.

People leave home and move away for many different reasons. My parents moved because they thought it would be best for the family. I moved because I had to. We see both of  these reasons for moving in the Bible too. Clans and communities move because they decide it is in the best interest of everyone to make a change. There is better land somewhere else or they can avoid famine over there. But people also move because someone more powerful forces them: A community is sent into exile, an employer transfers a worker to a new city to keep a job or the government announces that a new highway is being built through your neighborhood.

Moving, like any change, is a varied mixture of outside forces and interior desires. No matter what the motivation, however, not moving rarely seems to be a viable option. (Lots of Bible stories are about people’s reluctance but I can’t think of any stories where people refused to move and found blessings. If you can think of one leave let me know.) While we like to think that making such a change on our own terms is better, the truth is that it is difficult regardless of the reasons. Leaving a place of comfort and venturing out to experience something new is never easy but it seems to be one of those things that we are forever being faced with.

Finding a Place

Growing up, I spent a lot of time at church. My family was there every Sunday for an hour of worship and an hour of Sunday School. We were usually one of the first families to arrive and last to leave making it an all morning affair. Later in the week, my mom would bring me and my brothers back for what we called “Midweek,” which included a class, supper together in the fellowship hall, and then children’s choir rehearsal. During the summer there was a week of Vacation Bible School and when we didn’t have school we were at the church while my mom had her weekly prayer group. My childhood life was split three ways: Home, school and church. 

It was at Calvary Lutheran that I first started to tie my identity to the church. Most of my church friends attended different schools. I always looked forward to seeing them. As a kid I was overweight and slow but that didn’t seem to matter to my church friends. When I tried out for teams at school I wouldn’t get many chances to actually play. The church, however, had teams that played in church-sponsored leagues where everyone got to play no matter how good or bad they were. For me, the neighborhood was where I lived and school was where I went but the church was where I felt I belonged.

It was also at Calvary that I was first encouraged to share my gifts and abilities with the whole congregation. I loved being asked to help and there were a thousand different ways to do it. I helped fold bulletins before worship. I served as an acolyte and did other things in worship. I set up chairs or would carry things from the supply closet to the places that Sunday School classes were taught. I helped my dad mow the church property whenever he signed up to take care of that chore. I enjoyed being asked to help out in these special ways. People would encourage me and that always made me feel more grown up and responsible.

One day, the pastor asked if I would like help with a baptism. He said that I could put the water on the baby’s head while he said the words. The baby was my Godmother’s child, my second cousin, and I was more than eager to help. I stood there at the baptismal font in my acolyte robe and awkwardly scooped water on the baby’s head as he was held over the font while the pastor said, “You are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” I had never seen another acolyte, or anyone beside the pastor ever do part of the baptism.

Later, as an adult, I took a class where I discovered that I have the spiritual gift of Helping. Simply put, that means that I find meaning and purpose in doing behind-the-scenes kinds of tasks that are necessary for the life of the congregation or community. Most of the time people don’t recognize that someone has taken care of these tasks unless they aren’t done or are done poorly.

As a pastor I still spend a lot of time getting things ready for other people. I spend a lot of time trying to make sure that everything is ready for worship. I no longer fold bulletins but I prepare and proofread sheets for our worship leaders. I set up the presentation software with song lyrics and congregational responses that are projected on the screen at the front of our worship room. I still get to the church on Sunday morning before anyone else to open up, turn on lights, adjust thermostats, set up the sound equipment and other electronics and make sure that education rooms have been set up the right way.

Many Sunday mornings I feel more like a stage manager than a pastor. I worry about what's coming up next in worship and whether or not someone is going to miss a cue. But this is what belonging to a community/congregation is all about to me. It’s about making sure that details are taken care of so that people can come and find a place to belong. I know that I can’t create that place for everybody but I keep trying. The church became a place for me to forge my identity and share what I was good at. That has always been my understanding of what church is and what it can be.

The Everyday Call

The call to ministry isn’t always a thundering voice from the sky or a burning bush on the side of the road. In my case it was a slow accumulation of experiences and encouragement from people I respected. The most mundane and everyday things that people are paying attention to can contain the call to ministry.

I stood in front of my first grade classmates and launched into an incredible account of my weekend activities. It was time for Show & Tell. This was one of my favorite parts of the school day. I didn’t get to go up front every day but I did whenever I could. Sometimes I would bring something to show but most of the time I preferred to regale the class with adventurous tales of riding motorized mini-bikes through the woods, exploding firecrackers in glass bottles or attending some spectacular show that had been advertised on TV. I would talk until the teacher told me it was time to sit down so someone else could have a chance.

Had anyone been paying attention they might have thought I would grow up to be the World’s Most Interesting Man and make a living pitching Mexican beer. Evidently, no one was paying attention, including the teacher, because it would have been pretty easy to tell that I was making things up as I went along. Some might call it lying. They would be justified to do so. I prefer to think of it as the beginnings of my creative writing talents and practice for public speaking.

I found that I liked being at the front of the class or the front of the church. Of course, I was in the Sunday School Christmas program every year but I also volunteered to act in special dramas put on at the church. When I was old enough I signed up to be an acolyte for worship. The acolyte got to wear a special robe, light the candles, hand out the offering plates and collect the tiny glasses as people finished receiving communion. It wasn’t long before the pastor began asking me to help out at special services. Adults encouraged me and said that I did a good job which made me want to do more.

None of these things is particularly ground shaking. There isn’t a single one that I can point to and say, “That’s when I knew I would be a pastor.”  But when I look back at them I begin to see a pattern. I was encouraged through these things and was given opportunities to lead and serve. These were some of the experiences that led me into ordained ministry. And even though I never heard God’s voice speak to me as I did these things I can now comfortably say that God did indeed “call” me through these everyday events.

The Bible is full of stories where people hear God’s voice speak to them. Is it possible that God’s call came to them in one of these everyday events and when they looked back at what had happened they could “hear” what God was saying to them? What if the places where God speaks to people in the Bible were more common than we assume they were?

God spoke to Abraham through three travelers that he hosted by the Oaks of Mamre. Who hasn’t hosted someone in their home and found themselves in conversation late at night only to reflect on what it meant later? While Moses paid attention to a burning bush that appeared not to be consumed, God spoke. Who among us hasn’t seen some phenomenon that boggles our mind, makes us take a closer look and wonder aloud at what we are seeing? Yes, words came out of Balaam’s ass (I could say it was his donkey but the play on words here is way too rich) while Balaam was trying to go someplace and was frustrated by his animal’s refusal to move. Who hasn’t been frustrated at the roadblocks (often put in place by someone who resembles the aforementioned animal) and the inability to get around them, and then spent time wondering what to do next. God speaks to the prophets, to Peter, to Paul, to John of Patmos and to so many more through dreams and visions. Have you ever awakened with the memory of a dream so vivid that you return to it over and over again during the day and ask, “What does this mean?”

I’m not disputing that people actually heard words they understood to be from the voice of God. I’m simply saying that God doesn’t always come to us in big, grandiose ways but frequently in the everyday moments that are easily overlooked. God doesn’t always come in the earthquake or a whirlwind but instead comes in the still, small silence that takes shape when we take time to listen and reflect on what we have been through

Called to Ministry

In the church we like to talk about the way God “calls” each of us to ministry but we don’t often talk about what that means or how we discern the call. In the days ahead I want to share my experience of being “called” and how that led me to where I am today and eventually where I end up in the future.

The question comes from a middle school student in a large group discussion at Bible camp: "How did you know you wanted to be a pastor?"

Instantly a picture forms in my mind. I see the line of large box elder trees to the south side of my family’s house near Fowler, Michigan. A rope swing hangs from a limb in the tree closest to the road. A scrap-wood fort is nailed among the sturdy branches of the tree farthest back.  It’s the summer before my seventh-grade year and I’m riding the old Wheel Horse mower across the front yard. I drive into the shade under the canopy of braches and cross the two-rutted path that wraps around three-quarters of the old farmhouse and connects to the gravel driveway near the milk-shed. On the other side of the ruts the lawn continues for about twelve feet and ends where we let the grass grow tall.  It’s the one field on the 40-acre property that is not defined by a barbed-wire fence. The dark-green tips of small evergreen trees, planted in rows just a few years earlier, poke up above the wavy grass. 

"I don't know," I begin, "But I remember this time when I was a kid mowing the lawn and I noticed something about the trees and the short grass of the lawn and the tall grass in the field. I remember thinking that what I noticed would make a great example for our pastor to use in a sermon. It would help to explain what he was trying to teach us."

"What was it that you saw?" someone else in the group wants to know.

I shake my head, "I don't remember exactly. I just remember having the sudden realization that what I saw could be used to help people understand more about God. I think I knew then that I would be a pastor but I didn't admit it for a long time.”

The conversation moves on to another topic and I sit for a time, half listening to the conversation around me and half thinking about that day on the lawn mower. At the seminary I was asked about my call to ministry on several occasions. It was a question I had to answer in my application essay. I was asked to answer it again for the Candidacy Committee of my sponsoring synod and again to faculty panels who were charged with determining my fitness for ordained ministry. Never once in all those opportunities did I mention or even think about that day on the lawn mower.

Now, when someone asks what led me to ordained ministry, I retell this story of mowing the lawn and conclude it by saying that after that moment, “I just knew.” In all honesty, though, it wasn’t as if the clouds parted that summer day and a booming voice told me that I would be preaching in front of a congregation someday.  It’s my earliest memory of a growing knowledge, that eventually became a certainty,  that I was being led in a particular direction.

Sometimes people talk about being on a path in life. There have been many days when I wish the path was more clearly defined, days when I have cried out to see what lies ahead of me. Reflecting back on where I have been I realize that I have not been led down a path at all. It has been a direction. It’s like walking through a field of tall grass. I can only see a path when I turn around and see where I have been. 

It’s funny that the image of a field is what comes to mind as I describe my life’s journey. To a farmer with livestock a field of tall grass is known as a pasture, a place for the animals to graze and be fed. The word pastor is derived from the same word for pasture. A pastor is one who feeds the flock.

My entire life I have been moving towards and within the field of ordained ministry; into the pastoring field if you will. My identity as a person has been formed inside the church. For 23 years (19 years as a pastor and 4 as a seminary student) this identity has been centered specifically around my call to be a pastor. As I look back on the trail I have made I see that it meanders and wanders through the field. But I also see that the meandering has moved me across the field, away from where I was and towards something that lies beyond.

Fighting Loving Feeling Stealing

This week I’ve been writing about the tension between forging ahead with life and waiting for the right time and the right set of circumstances before moving forward. The impetus for this has been a spiritually torturous span of time where I have been trying to discern what the next chapter of my life will be. It’s not that I have to know all the details beforehand, it’s just that I want to be sure that I’m headed in the right direction.

To be honest, I’m not sure where I get the sense that there is one, right direction or why I want to be so sure that I am heading that way. If life is a gift to explore and enjoy then there really is no one way in which to do that. The fact that everyone experiences life differently is a testament to the idea that there is no one, right way. So why I am so concerned that I should know the right direction before I move?

One reason is that I am pretty sure that there are some wrong ways to explore and enjoy life. I want to avoid those ways because they tend to cause me pain and anxiety. I know that it’s not always possible to avoid these things and that wisdom and understanding often come from times of suffering. I also know that trying to avoid suffering often leads to more of it for myself or for others. Yet I go to great lengths to keep suffering at arm’s length from me and escape from it when I can't.

Yesterday, as I wrestled with these thoughts for the umpteenth time I was happily distracted by the news that my favorite band released a new single in preparation for the release of a new album in June. I watched the video and found myself connecting to it immediately which I don't usually do with their songs. The song played right into my thoughts about the way we go through life and learn from our joys and sorrows. It laments and celebrates the fullness of life. I have to share it.

Headlong Flight by Rush

All the journeys of this great adventure

It didn’t always feel that way

I wouldn’t trade them because I made them

The best I could and that’s enough to say

Some days were dark

I wish that I could live it all again

Some nights were bright

I wish that I could live it all again

All the highlights of that headlong flight

Holding on with all my might

To what I felt back then

I wish that I could live it all again

I have stroked the fire of the big steel wheels

Steered the airship right across the stars

I learned to fight

I learned to love

and learned to feel

Oh I wish that I could live it all again.

All the treasures, the gold and glory

It didn’t always feel that way

I don’t regret it

I’ll never forget it

I wouldn’t trade tomorrow for today

Some days were dark

I wish that I could live it all again

Some nights were bright

I wish that I could live it all again

I have stroked the fire of the big steel wheels

Steered the airship right across the stars

I learned to fight

I learned to love

and learned to steal

Oh I wish that I could live it all again.

The song is even more poignant when you realize that the man who wrote these words, Neil Peart, lost his 19 year-old daughter in a car accident and then, ten months later, lost his wife to cancer. To be able to write that you would live it all again is an incredible testimony to the power of life.

There is an African proverb that says that we back into the future. Perhaps by looking at where I’ve been I can more easily see where I am going. By exploring the paths that have brought me to the place in life that I inhabit now, maybe I can make sense of where I am and where I am going.

You’re welcome to come along if you like. Whether you do or don’t consider this video by one of the world’s greatest bands as my gift to you. (And if you want to contribute to a fund that will help me see them in concert in the fall, I will consider that your gift to me.)

Waiting & Suffering

Yesterday I wrote about blazing trails through life and about not waiting for a clearly outlined path to appear before moving forward. But there many places in the Bible that exhort us to “Wait upon the Lord.” (Job 14, Psalms 27, 33, 37, 38, 40, 119, 130, Isaiah 8, 26, 30, 64, Lamentations 3, and Romans 8 for a quick list) So what does that mean? When are we supposed to wait and when are we supposed to forge ahead?

In the English language we use the word “wait” in a few different ways. First, we use it to mean anticipation or a looking forward to some event. We wait for the light to turn green at an intersection. We wait for the food in the microwave to be heated. We can be doing other things while we wait but when we wait we are acknowledging that time has to pass before the event happens.

A second way we use the word “wait” is when we talk about predator and prey. An animal lies in wait for the prey to come close enough to attack. A mugger lies in wait for a victim to pass by. Still, there is a sense that time has to pass and certain conditions need to be met before the event happens.

The third way we use the “wait” in English is when we talk about serving tables. While there are places in the Bible that talk about waiting tables, the original Hebrew and Greek use different words to indicate this action. The passages that tell us to “wait upon the Lord” are not telling us to serve a meal to God.

Most of the passages in scripture that exhort us to “wait upon the Lord” are found in the wisdom literature (Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Lamentations). We also see it a few times in some of the prophets (Isaiah, Hosea and Micah). And in the New Testament it is fairly uncommon, appearing only in Romans 8 and Hebrews 6.

The exhortations to “wait upon the Lord” seem to serve as advice in situations in which a person or a community is ready to give up. On the verge of despair they are ready to give up any hope that their situation will get better. Every admonition to “wait upon the Lord” is an encouragement to hold on to hope and to keep looking for the way out of the suffering that God will provide.

But there is another thing that this exhortation does. It discourages me from seeking vengeance and blazing a trail for my own salvation. “Waiting upon the Lord” means that I will not become the one who lies in wait. It means that I refuse to become the predator or the perpetrator making those who oppress me into the prey or the victims.

One of the things that my wife and children have been good about keeping private is that I suffer from occasional bouts of road rage couple with Situational Tourette’s Syndrome (a self-diagnosed condition where I find myself using publicly inappropriate language to vent frustration due to external circumstances).  Sometimes I find myself frustrated beyond belief at being stuck in the lane that isn’t moving on the expressway. I envision pulling onto the shoulder and speeding forward with complete disregard to the safety of everyone on the road. I can also find myself on the verge of losing it when someone else is driving like a maniac, swerving in and out of traffic, tailgating and being a hazard to everyone on the road. Sometimes I catch myself driving like it's my responsibility to teach that person a lesson by blocking the road or giving them a taste of their own medicine.

Most of the time, however, I let such drivers go past while delivering a stern lecture to them from inside my vehicle. I call them names that I won't repeat here. This is a form of waiting. Certainly not the patient and calm waiting that I imagine that I am "supposed" to do, but it is a form of waiting nonetheless. I wait on the Lord to deliver me from this frustrating, anxiety producing experience. Once or twice I have had the pleasure of finding the idiot driver pulled over by the police farther up the road. Even though I had nothing to do with them being pulled over I feel vindicated and exultant. But even when they aren't punished for their actions I know that by waiting, the moment passed and I did not participate in making the situation worse.

When the Bible tells us to “wait upon the Lord” it’s almost always in connection to finding relief from suffering. (Admittedly, thinking that traffic delays and unsafe drivers are a form of suffering is relative but all suffering is relative to the person it affects.) Waiting is an admonition to avoid becoming a vigilante justice system to those who are responsible for my suffering. It is a reminder that I can actually endure more suffering than I ever want to go through. Waiting upon the Lord is a way to adjust my mental framework from within my suffering so that I can continue forward and not add to the suffering already in the world. Waiting is hoping and having faith that things will change.

Perhaps waiting is simply a way to be reminded that it’s not all up to me. Maybe the admonition to “wait upon the Lord” is to get me into the right frame of mind to watch for the signs that tell me the time is right to take action. What if “waiting on the Lord” is about moving us out of the anxiety and panic that comes with suffering and places us in a more reflective and reasonable state of mind so that we can clearly see the way out of our suffering when the time and conditions are right? Isn't that better than causing more suffering?

Blazing Trails

In my third through eighth grade years my family lived on a 40 acre farm in Michigan. We raised some chickens, occasionally some ducks and a pile of barn cats. My mom insisted on having a garden in which to torture her sons with the spirit-breaking task of pulling weeds 45 minutes a few days each summer while paying five cents for each ice cream bucket that we filled. That was the extent of our farming. Two fields were rented out to a neighbor who planted corn in them and there were two fields that had been hay fields for the previous owner. Since we didn’t raise livestock we let the grass grow tall in those fields.

We called these two unfenced hay fields of tall grass “the weeds” to distinguish them from the areas of cut grass around the house that we called the lawn. My brothers and I spent hours playing in the weeds every summer. There were no trails so we would blaze our own, carrying our bare arms at shoulder height so they wouldn’t be cut by the slicing blades of grass. Sometimes we would turn around and follow our new trail back out and sometimes we would make a new trail through to the other side of the field.

Standing on the edge of the field I could see where we had been. I don’t remember any of the trails ever being straight. Each one meandered and twisted through the tall grass. Sometimes they went around patches of nettles or around a rock but most of the time the crooked path was simply due to the fact that something inside us told us to step over this way or follow the slope of the land that way. Or, more likely, there was nothing inside of us that insisted that we travel a straight line.

 As a kid it would have made no sense to stand at the edge of the field and wait for a path to appear so that I knew where to go. I knew that playing in the field was fun and a large part of the fun was creating our own trails. We learned painful and irritating lessons about nettles and cockleburs by walking through them. We would be startled and excited by a noisy pheasant taking flight being flushed from its hiding place in the weeds. We would avoid the corner of the field where we could smell that a skunk den had been built. We were scared out of the field for days when a ground hog bull rushed its way past us low in the grass.

Had we stood on the side of the field waiting for a path to appear we would have missed all of this.

That’s the problem with waiting for God to reveal each new step in our lives. It completely ignores the fact that we learn through our experiences. It actually disengages us from the fullness of life that is given to us as a gift. But the biggest problem is that it immobilizes us with fear. When we wait to be absolutely sure of God’s next step for us we become anxious that we will miss it. We hesitate, afraid that it is too soon to move. We fret that we may have missed our opportunity and now it is too late.

The Plan

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

-Jeremiah 29:11

I believe that God does have a plan for us. However, it is not as specific as we sometimes wish that it would be. Instead, what if God’s plan for us is to set us free from fear (fear of harm, destruction, death etc…) so that we can live in the fullness of this life? What if God’s deepest desire isn’t to create a world full of obedient people but is to see the gift of this life experienced in all of its glory and tragedy? What if the point is to be blazing trails through the field of life instead of standing where we are in hopes that a straight and narrow trail with fences on both sides appears to lead us to the other side?

So then, if we are truly engaged and are blazing trails through this field of life, what does it mean to “wait upon the Lord?” What exactly are we waiting for?

A bit more about that tomorrow…

Two Kinds of Waiting

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

                                                                                                Psalm 27:14

A Confession

I hate waiting.

I know that’s not the kind of confession that makes for juicy gossip but it’s a confession that I don’t like to make. I like to think of myself as someone who is patient. After all, that’s one of the fruits of the Spirit right?

But to be patient means “to be long suffering.” Who wants to be long suffering? I don’t want to be suffering at all let alone suffering for a long time. I want relief from my suffering. I want to be saved from my suffering. And waiting is its own kind of suffering.

There are times when I don’t mind waiting so much. When I know that I’m waiting for something good I look forward to it with anticipation. If my wife tells me in the morning that she is planning on making a special meal for supper I don’t want to eat it for breakfast. I actually like to think about it during the day and anticipate how wonderful it’s going to be. Waiting makes it even better.

However, it doesn’t seem to work that way when I’m sick. When I have a cold or am stricken with the flu I know that I will gradually get healthy over time.  Thinking about being healthy and imagining the day when I won’t feel congested and tired only makes me more impatient to get over my illness.

The difference between these two types of waiting boils down to this: In the first example I am waiting for something that is a pure gift. My wife wants to make something special for me. If I refuse to wait and take the initiative to cook the meal myself I will ruin the gift. It just wouldn’t be the same as letting her do something nice for me.

In the example of waiting for my health to return I can actually take steps that will make it come sooner without ruining the end result. I can eat and drink in healthy ways and I can get extra rest instead of going full-speed through every day. In these ways I am an active participant in making the future that I eagerly wait for become a reality.

So What Am I Doing?

There are dozens of passages in the Bible that exhort us to “wait for the Lord.” What I want to know is which kind of waiting I am doing: The kind in which I simply look forward to the gift that is coming or the kind in which I take an active role in creating that hoped-for future?  

Throughout this week I want to explore the issues behind waiting. I think that some of them are directly related to the two ways of imagining heaven that I wrote about last week (Two Heavens: One Kingdom). I think some of the issues have to do with the way the predominant culture shapes us. Waiting also has to do with our desire to be in control and to take matters into our own hands. I imagine I will discover more issues as I write about them.

If there are issues related to waiting that you would like to see me address leave a comment or send an email to zukey.jones@gmail.com and put “waiting” in the subject line. I’ll see what I can do.

Two Heavens: One Kingdom

The current issue of Time magazine has a feature article by Jon Meacham about the evolving understanding of heaven in our culture. (I’m sorry that I can’t link directly to the article. You have to be a subscriber. Time/Warner hasn’t fully escaped the 20^th century yet.) It is a well-researched and written piece that summarizes the cultural trends in thinking about heaven. If you can get your hands on a copy I highly recommend taking time to read it.

Basically the change in the way we think about heaven can be summed up with two questions in a sidebar to the article: What if Christianity is not about enduring this sinful, fallen world in search of a reward of eternal rest? What if God brings together heaven and earth in a wholly new, wholly redeemed creation?

Yes. 

These are the questions that have been rattling around in my thoughts and prayers and sermons for the past few years. It’s a bit humbling to see it put so succinctly in an article printed in a major news magazine. But these questions lead to others and the lot of them have been causing some significant anxiety and stress within my mortal frame. Why? Because a faith that is built on enduring this world in the hopes of one day escaping to a safe reward feels a lot different than one where we are working together to bring God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”

I am coming to believe (and will write about this more in future posts) that this is not an issue of right and wrong. I firmly believe that it has to do with the culture changes happening around us. Both ways of imagining heaven encourage people to live altruistically in this life as a response to God’s goodness, grace and forgiveness. (Never mind that it isn’t always successful.) It’s just that the former way of imagining and talking about God’s kingdom (or heaven) isn’t connecting with people in the emerging culture. So if we want to continue to proclaim the gospel of God’s love then we need to reimagine heaven and find new ways of thinking about God’s kingdom that will connect.

The stress and anxiety come from a place inside that recognizes that there are wonderful, caring and loving people in my congregation that exist on both sides of this issue. Because the idea that Jesus brings heaven and earth together in a wholly redeemed creation is connecting with me I feel compelled to preach and teach in these terms. The scriptures are opening up in front of me in brilliant and exciting new ways as I revisit passages that I thought I understood before.

But I am also aware of the legacy that brought me to this point. And I am aware that there are many people who have spent a lifetime developing a faith based on the thought that heaven is a place we go after we die. It would be both wrong and arrogant for me to just write that off and say, “I’m sorry you committed your life to what turns out to be a mistaken notion of what this life is all about.”

So where do we go from here? Is it possible for a faith community/congregation make the transition from one concept of heaven to another? Or are we talking about two different ways of believing? Is there an even more basic core concept of what it means to be a Christian that unites us and will allow us to have two visions of God’s kingdom? Or are we destined to see an new expression of faith emerge similar to the way Christianity emerged from Judaism 2000 years ago?

Anyone interested in helping me think about this?

Time is Not on My Side

This is the tenth and final post in a series about ways that I have missed the mark as a pastor. It began as a response to several articles about why young adults are leaving the church. You can begin here if you want some background to this current article.

I get so overwhelmed by the programs, meetings and all of the minutiae of sustaining a congregation that I don’t have the creative energy to explore new ways of being the church together.

In the 20 years that I have been responsible for the worship practices of various congregations I have seen a dramatic increase in the amount of time that it takes to prepare for weekly worship. When I first started planning worship I helped lead two worship services every Sunday morning. Each week we followed one of two liturgies that were printed in our hymnal. The three or four hymns that we sang would be chosen by the pastor from several hundred available in the hymnal. The order of worship was printed in a weekly bulletin and a worshiper could follow the service by turning to the correct page in the hymnal. Both services on a given Sunday morning were identical with the exception of inserting a choir or a baptism at one service or the other.

Today I am responsible to plan, oversee and, at times, lead four unique worship services every week. Each one has its own special order of worship. At one we use an organist and traditional hymns but now rotate between six different liturgies. At two worship services our contemporary praise band leads the singing but each has a different order of worship. At the fourth service, on Wednesday evenings,  an acoustic music group provides a mix between the traditional and contemporary styles.

All this variety means that more time has to be spent planning. There are elements of worship that change each week but are used at all four worship times (prayers, scripture readings, dialogs etc…). These changes need to be prepared up to six weeks in advance so that the teams of people who now choose the music for each service can coordinate the music choices with the theme and message for the day.

This variety also means that we have to prepare five bulletins to help people follow the order of worship. One bulletin has all the community announcements and an outline of the orders of worship. It is given to those who come to worship. Then we have a separate “leader’s” bulletin for each of the four services with more details and cues for the musicians and worship leaders.

Instead of a hymnal we use a computer, a projector and a screen to put all the lyrics to songs and hymns, scripture readings and prayers in front of the congregation. All of these things need to be put into the special presentation software not once, but four different times; once for each service. And heaven forbid that we put these words up on plain backgrounds. Artwork needs to be found, purchased or designed to enhance the entire worship experience and tie in with the themes and messages of the week.

Using the projector and screen also means that when I preach I have to prepare pictures and words to put on the screen. To do that I spend time searching for pictures on the internet or modifying pictures with Photoshop and then create a graphic presentation to go along with my sermon. This has easily added two hours to my preparations each time I preach.

All this extra work has been created just for worship. It doesn’t include required duties like teaching confirmation, staff meetings, council meetings, committee meetings and fellowship events. Each of these also has a certain amount of prep time and follow-up time. All of these things are primarily about keeping the institutional church running.

It doesn’t leave a lot of time or creative energy to explore new ways of being the church. As a woodcarver and someone who likes to dabble in other artistic ventures I know the importance of having enough time to let thoughts and ideas percolate before a vision or idea can take shape in your head. The church used to leave room for pastors and leaders to do that kind of thinking and reflection. But the extra worship styles, the outreach programs and the need to fund them all have robbed church leaders of that time. The irony is that these things are started in an attempt to breathe new life into the church and welcome in new people. But again, is making more people members of the church the same as making disciples of Jesus? (See my earlier post in this series Recruiting for Christ).

Concluding Thoughts

Ultimately this leads me back to the place that I started from. Should I expect the church in its present form to be transformed to meet the needs of the emerging culture? Or is something new being born outside the traditional confines that we have called church? But as my spiritual director recently reminded me, the Church is bigger than the membership of every congregation and as a disciple of Jesus a person could be working for the Church even if they no longer worked within the church. Maybe so many young adults are leaving the institutional church, not because there is anything inherently wrong with it, but because they are being led by the Spirit to start what will become a new expression of the church.

The only thing I know for sure is that I wish I had more time to explore together what it all means.

Being Slow to Change

This is the ninth post in a series about ways that I have missed the mark as a pastor. It began as a response to several articles about why young adults are leaving the church. You can begin here if you want some background to this current article.

 I apologize for being slow and unresponsive to the need for change because it’s easier to follow the path of least resistance (and there is tremendous resistance to the changes we are faced with).

I believe we are in midst of changes in our culture and our world of Biblical proportions. I know this is hard to prove and that times of change always feel like they are much bigger than they turn out to be. But I’m not the only one who believes this is so. Watch this brief (3 min.) video by Phyliss Tickle. She is the one who first gave structure and words to what I had been noticing in our world.

In addition to the “500 year rummage sale” I would also add that some of these transition points in Judeo-Christian history also coincide with significant advances in information technology. The Exodus, and the beginnings of Judaism as a communal faith, happened shortly after the invention of alphabets and using clay tablets to keep records. Some scholars believe that the Ten Commandments were the first set of religious laws codified in writing. The great Transformation and the writing of the New Testament took place at about the time that animal skin scrolls were being replaced by the cheaper and easier to make papyrus. This allowed the Gospels and Paul’s letters to be easily copied and distributed. And every student of the reformation knows the roll that Gutenberg’s printing press played in distributing catechisms, leaflets and even Bibles to more and more people.

Today the changes in information technology are astounding. Computers, smart phones and search technologies have simply transformed the way we store information (digitally), the way that it is shared (social media sites) and access we have to that information (all the time and everywhere). These changes are fundamentally changing the way we understand ourselves as humans and the way we are connected in community. At the risk of exposing myself as a TED Talk junkie here is a video talk by Amber Case (who calls herself a cyborg anthropologist) making a case for the ways technology is making us even more human.

When we begin to think about ourselves as people and as communities in different ways than we have in the past we get into all sorts of murky waters. In the past 100 years our culture has been struggling with gender roles and sexual orientation. We see changes in the relationship between parents and children at all stages of life. Work roles are changing from the thought that we are only a cog in the machine to being part of a collaborative team. We argue about our place in the earth’s ecology and just how much impact we really have. And what can it possibly mean for how we understand our place in the universe when we start imagining multiple universes or the simple fact that our universe is so much larger than we ever imagined?

The truth is, trying to keep up with the changes on a personal level is exhausting. Trying to make sure that a whole congregation full of people keeps up is even harder. As a rule, people are resistant to change. Change on this magnitude and at this speed only make it worse. Additionally,  many believe the church should provide an anchor in the storm of change or that it should provide black-and-white answers to a world that is shaded in gray.

I’ve been involved in this business of change in the church for over 20 years now. At times we debate (and debate and debate). Other times we wait to see what happens. And yet other times push to make the changes only to find that it is only one step in a process that is going to take many more steps. So for the fact that I am so tired of pushing for change and trying to get people to even see the need for change that I sometimes just give up, I’m sorry.

The world needs more than this from the church and its leaders. We need to be more inclusive in our conversations and try harder to understand what people are experiencing in these changes. We need to let the gospel speak to us all. And we have to understand that it is okay if we don’t understand it all. Perhaps the time for reflection will come when the changes have run their course. Maybe what we need now is to simply help one another through it.

Doubt and Certainty

After taking a few days off from the blog to prepare and participate in the religious observances of Easter weekend I’m back at it. I had hoped to finish this series during Holy Week but found that I ran out of time and energy. This is the eighth post in a series about ways that I have missed the mark as a pastor. It is a response to several articles about why young adults are leaving the church. You can begin here if you want some background to this current article.

I participate in a church culture in which any kind of doubt is viewed as suspect and I tend to hide my own struggles with faith behind a veneer of certainty. For that I am sorry.

Well, I did it again. Just yesterday. As the pastor who led Easter worship said, “He is risen!” I responded, “He is risen indeed!” The thing is, I didn’t just join in this Easter tradition.  I was the one who pieced together the parts of the liturgy in which we said it. I was responsible for including it in our worship.

For a Christian there is no more important article of belief. We believe that Jesus rose from the dead. To affirm that belief with certainty has been the definition of Christianity for a very long time. A Christian is someone who believes that Jesus is God and that he died on a cross and was raised from the dead. It has codified in creeds and doctrines for thousands of years. For many, many people, if you can’t say that Jesus is risen from the dead with certainty then you aren’t really a Christian.

As a part of the religious establishment I find myself participating in this culture out of habit and out of a sense of obligation. These are the things that have been passed on to me. It is what I have been taught in my upbringing and in seminary. It would seem downright weird to hear the congregation respond to “He is risen!” with a resounding, “We have no doubt something important happened but can’t be certain exactly what.” I can call what I do tradition but when tradition fails to convey meaning then it has simply devolved into a habit for me.

The problem is that traditions do carry meaning for a lot of people. Just because it has lost its meaning in my life doesn’t mean that it has lost meaning for everyone. So I feel obligated to use forms of liturgy that convey certainty of belief for other’s sake.

One of the biggest surprises I have found in ministry is the way people pin their beliefs on their pastor. Peter Rollins explores this in his book Insurrection at length. In my experience people have attacked me for expressing even the slightest bit of doubt or for even questioning an article of faith. It seems that many people simply want to believe in belief. When they struggle in their own lives to believe, they want to know that someone has the kind of unshakable belief they aspire to. Often that person is a pastor. So when the pastor hints at personal doubt it forces others to deal with their own questions and uncertainty.  Maybe forcing them to do that is the loving thing to do. But this comes at a pretty serious cost to the pastor who is willing to do that. People will try to destroy or get rid of pastor as being “unfaithful” before they turn to the pain of their own shaky faith.

The other reason I hide my own struggles with faith is because it can indeed feel like I have lost my faith. It can feel like I’m abandoning so much of what I believe when I start asking myself questions like, “Can I be a Christian even if I admit some uncertainty about Jesus’ resurrection?” or “Is this passage from the Bible really what God wants for us or was it inserted by someone for other reasons?”  If I combine these feelings of lost faith with the insistence of others to be rock-solid-certain of my beliefs then add that to the sense of obligation I have for those who rely on the traditional forms of expressing faith, I sometimes feel like I have no choice but to hide my struggles behind a veneer of certainty.

One of the most amazing discoveries that I have made recently is that I can enter these places of doubt and questioning and still have a strong faith without ever coming to a resolution about them. There is something much deeper than the questions and doubts. And as unsettling as doubts and questions can be I also find a great comfort and even joy in the fact that I can explore these dark places. Now as I read the Bible I see more and more uncertainty written within its pages. I see people and communities struggling to come to grips with the meaning of life. Sometimes they choose ways that prove to be beneficial and sometimes they choose ways that aren’t.  I’m also finding that I enjoy working with people who want to engage their own faith on a deeper level by struggling with questions and doubt.

The question that haunts me right now is whether or not the culture of certainty that has taken root in the church can be transformed. I am skeptical but not without hope. When I read articles by people who are leaving the church but staying engaged in their faith it gives me hope that even if the church can’t be transformed, a new way of being church will be born that will welcome all doubts and questions as a path to greater faith.

The Tidiness of Doctrine

This is the seventh post in a series about ways that I have missed the mark as a pastor. It is a response to several articles about why young adults are leaving the church. You can begin here if you want some background to this current article.

I’m sorry that I engage so much of what is happening in our culture and our world on a doctrinal level and not as a matter of faith that is sometimes messy and unsure.

My faith lives in my head.

This is one of the main criticisms of the mainline Church in America and Lutherans are champions of this kind of faith. It’s why we are so good at theology. We think about faith. This was the faith in which I was raised and, as one of my favorite songwriters penned it, “you can only grow the way the wind blows.”

But it’s also where I find I am most engaged with God. I love to meditate and reflect on what I see God doing in the world. I can spend hours trying to sort out the relationships that we humans have with both creation and the creator. I find peace while listening for the Divine to speak in a variety of ways (except when I experience frustration at hearing nothing or hearing something that I don’t want to hear). I find joy whenever a new insight inches me closer to understanding what this life is all about.

To be honest, though, I like living out my faith in my head because it’s safe. It’s like sharing your faith in a sermon. Many people think that preaching in front of a large group is difficult but, once you get over the fear of public speaking, you soon find that sharing what you are thinking in a place where people aren’t (usually) welcome to respond, refute or rebuff can make a person pretty bold. (If you haven’t already, see my post from a couple days ago From Authority to Resource to get an idea of the kind of authority that is granted in preaching.)

I also like to let my faith live in my head because it is always a bit neater and more tidy than in the world of emotions. I can sort things out and categorize them. I can rationalize and reason. I can remove myself from the roller-coaster ride that emotions take us through. Again, it’s all about finding a safe place. So when someone comes to me with the raw emotion of life’s messy issues overflowing around them, retreating to the safe confines of religious doctrine is my first response for all these reasons.

The thing that I am being forced to learn is that faith doesn’t lead to a safe place. That’s where we want to end up: In a place of safety and comfort. But faith (and life) leads us to places of risk. As one conference presenter put it, the major stories of the Bible are all about leaving home, over and over again. Life is a constant leaving of the places where we have become comfortable in order to risk and grow, not just for ourselves but to help others grow as well.

I am constantly learning and relearning the importance of staying in the moment no matter how thrilling or anxiety-producing it is. I am a firm believer in a ministry of presence; just being there with people in their sufferings and joys. But it is never my default mode of ministry (or existence). I have to catch myself as I turn to doctrine to tidy up a messy situation and be mindful to just sit within the pain, the tension and even the delight. That doesn’t mean I can’t reflect upon it later or that I can’t help someone else reflect on it when they are ready. It just means that sometimes I have to experience life before I try to make sense out of it.

Obliviously

This is the sixth post in a series about ways that I have missed the mark as a pastor. It is a response to several articles about why young adults are leaving the church. You can begin here if you want some background to this current article.

For being oblivious to the deeper concerns of your life that peek out at the edges of our conversations, I am sorry.

This one is on  me. Personally.

I’m just not very good at listening to what is buried in our conversations.

I know pastors who can scan their congregation during worship and identify the people who are struggling with something in life. They can, with just a word or a look as they shake hands, determine that something is amiss and they are sure to give a call or drop a note to invite that person to open up. And it isn’t just a gift that some pastors seem to have. I’m sure you know someone who just seems to be able to tell when you are down and they have this way of making you feel better in the midst of your suffering.

But it’s not me.

Oblivious is the right word here. I am usually so wrapped up in my own head that I can’t even tell you how I’m feeling, let alone be aware of what the people around me are feeling. No matter how hard I try (and believe me, I do) I can’t seem to get the hang of it. I don’t believe it’s a matter selfishness either. I believe that it’s a spiritual gift; one that I don’t have.

That doesn’t mean that I have an excuse to be unsympathetic. It just means that people need to spell things out in order for me to catch on. And a lot of times they can’t because they don’t know what’s bothering them. But other times it gets buried in our conversations because it’s hard to open up and let one’s self be vulnerable.

It sometimes amazes me that I still have a job when I think about the number of times someone thought they had opened up to me in a vulnerable way and I just missed it. Then my obliviousness is interpreted as uncaring or even contempt. By the time it finally gets back to me, and someone explains what I was supposed to see in the first place I have a lot of apologizing to do. And sometimes, unfortunately, it is not enough.

I wish I could blame this one on our shifting culture, or on the fact that I am busy making sure other aspects of my job are complete. But I can’t. This is just one that I’m not good at and I’m sorry. Just please don't stop trying.

And speaking of being vulnerable: Here are a couple of talks by professor and researcher Brene Brown on the subject. They are well worth the time to watch. Both videos are about 21 minutes apiece. I hope you enjoy them.

From Authority to Resource

This is the fourth post in a series about ways that I have missed the mark as a pastor. It is a response to several articles about why young adults are leaving the church. You can begin here if you want some background to this current article.

For believing that the one-size-fits-all model of spirituality and piety was ever a real thing that could be attained with enough training or persuasion, I apologize.

As I go through this week I am finding that writing these gets harder and harder. I have been struggling with this one for years and I find that I am not the only one who has trouble with it. Lay people are struggling with this one too.

In a wonderful TED Talk about learning through our mistakes, educator Diana Laufenberg shares how her grandmother attended a one room school house to be educated. She went because that’s where the knowledge was: stored in the teacher’s mobile memory device (her brain). When Diana was a student her parents bought a set of encyclopedias. She didn’t need to go to the library anymore to get information for a report since she had access to a reliable memory device at home (books). Today, with computers and even smart phones we no longer have to go where the information is. It comes to us. Instantly.

This change in where we store and retrieve the knowledge we need to learn and grow means that the principal role of the educator has changed. A teacher is no longer the authority who carries information in order to pass it along to someone else. A teacher is now someone who facilitates interactive, self-directed learning. It is a process that avoids rote memorization of facts in favor of learning by exploration.

The same can be said about church. I was trained to be the local authority on spirituality, scripture and doctrine. People came to church to learn what God said through the scriptures. Pastors and priests taught spiritual practices that reinforced what they said from the front of the church. We even wear clothes that symbolized the learning and authority we had acquired. (The clerical collar is a modernized version of the old doctoral collars worn by professors. In some denominations the pastor’s robe is similar to a graduation gown.)  

The thing about teaching a large number of people at one time is that you have to find a way that reaches everyone in the group. Basically, you have to find a one-size-fits-all piety. Then you try to cram everyone into that shape. You repeat it over and over from the front of the congregation. You back it up with bible studies printed by your denominational printing house. You invite other authorities with the same view point to “give a fresh perspective” to the congregation. And you limit the knowledge that you pass on, in part because you yourself have limited knowledge and in part because it's easier that way.

But in a world where finding information about other spiritual traditions and beliefs is as easy as typing a question into a phone or computer, people don’t need an authority. I am no longer the mobile memory device for spirituality in the community. I am another resource in the spiritual journey of each individual. At best I can serve as a trusted guide as people explore their own spiritual path. One size does not fit all in this new world. It probably didn’t in the past either but we all make do with what we are given.

In my ordination I promised to uphold the doctrine of the church (with the assumption that my tradition was the one who did, in fact, hold on to THE correct doctrine of all that is holy). I promised to be an authority. But now I see that what the community needs is a trusted resource. The transition from an authority to trusted resource is a humbling and difficult transition. In many ways it feels messy and out-of-control.

Moving from authority to resource means stepping away from the front of the community and walking with people where they are. It means letting go of the need to control details. It means being available when an individual is ready, not making them be ready when I am available. It’s a lot more one-on-one. It’s an overwhelming task in a large congregation. As people walk their own path they will make mistakes. They will venture beyond the bounds of “correct doctrine.” As they serve in the church community as part of their spiritual journey they will pass along bad ideas and misinformation about the faith. But they will also inspire others and give birth to new ways of understanding the mystery of the Holy.

Many lay people resist this transition because it means they have to be responsible for their own life of faith and that's a difficult thing to do. So I feel caught between the people who want me to serve as guide and those who want me to serve as authority. I find that doing both is impossible. I flip-flop back and forth and am aware that this isn’t helping. I am hearing God’s call to make the transition to resource/guide but don’t know how to do it. I’m still waiting to see how that might happen. 

Reducing Ministry to Numbers

This is the fourth post in a series about ways that I have missed the mark as a pastor. It is a response to several articles about why young adults are leaving the church. You can begin here if you want some background to this current article.

I apologize for using the metrics of business to evaluate the success of our programs as if the effectiveness of ministry can be determined by numbers, charts and graphs.

Here’s where it gets really difficult to apologize. I believe that one of the reasons the Church is so slow to change is that we rarely evaluate what we do. We assume that because something worked in the past it will continue to work just as well in the future. So we need to look with a critical eye at what we do to determine its effectiveness. Unfortunately we have adopted evaluation tools from the world of business where efficiency and profitability are the goals. Even when a congregation can come to some kind of agreement about its goals (which is rare) finding a way to accurately evaluate what it does is almost impossible.

I remember the first time I asked a group of church leaders, “Why are we here?” We were sitting in the church basement on metal folding chairs huddled against the darkness that enveloped most of the room since there was no reason to light the whole room if we were just sitting in one section. After a brief silence someone asked, “You mean tonight?”

“No,” I said. “I mean why is the church here? Why do we keep going to all the trouble of being a church here in this community?”

If you ever want people to look at you like you were the biggest moron walking the face of the earth become a pastor and ask people to explain the purpose of the church as if you had no idea. That particular night the best reason they could come up with was along the lines of, “Because that’s the way it is supposed to be.”

Over the past 20 years congregations have become better at defining their purpose and goals. My experience is that it helps a congregation understand that they can’t live up to everyone’s expectations.  In Acts 6 the disciples wrestle with the issue of how to best use their time in service to others when some in the community begin to complain. They eventually decide that a particular ministry is important enough to continue doing but that it needed to be done by someone other than the 12 apostles. Even in the early church they struggled with both the purpose of the church and evaluating the effectiveness and details of the ministry.

In addition to simply needing a way to evaluate what we do I am also acutely aware that we have limited resources at our disposal. I have to be a good steward of what I have been given responsibility for. People also want to know that their money is being used wisely. If I can’t demonstrate some kind of return on their investment I can be sure that they will find ways to be generous with their time and finances in other places.

The problem is that the effectiveness of ministry can’t be shown using the metrics of efficiency and profitability. How do I evaluate the effectiveness of sitting with someone as they die? What level of efficiency is required to maintain a ministry that feeds the hungry without getting taken in by scam artists? What multiple choice answers do you put on a questionnaire to determine the impact of a sermon? How do I evaluate the internal response that parents and kids have when they see me supporting them at sporting events or music concerts? How do we determine whether it is a more profitable to use pastoral time having coffee with a congregation member or praying for the people who participate in ministries by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless or mentoring at-risk youth?

These things don’t fit on charts and graphs. There are no numbers that can easily translate the effectiveness of ministry that isn’t meant to be efficient. This was the struggle that met the disciples when the woman anointed Jesus with the expensive perfume (Matthew 26). The disciples saw a more efficient and practical use for the perfume but Jesus praised the extravagance of the act both for its symbolism and for the way it demonstrated the woman’s love and devotion to Jesus. We just can’t put numbers on love and devotion.

I want to be extravagant and generous with the love and resources that I have at my disposal. But I want to be a good steward too. I feel trapped. There is a need to evaluate what we do as a Church but the metrics of business can’t be the tool that we use. So for the way I have reduced people to percentages, statistics and numbers I’m sorry.