THE PLANNING PROCESS

            I make a lot of plans.  I am an organized, structured person and like the sense of security a good plan and effective schedule provides me with.  My daily schedule promises me that I can get the things done that I need to do and want to do and allows me to work and play well.  I have parts of the plan on my phone calendar, part of it in my mind and part of it is so automatic that I don’t even think about it or write it down.

When it comes to my work, I like to have structure.  I don’t like having to decide on Tuesday what I will be preaching about on Sunday.  I like to have at least three months of sermons planned ahead, with at least Scriptures, themes and a sense of how the sermon fits into the overall ministry of the church.  Big events, special events and so on all get entered into the plan and I can work on them as I have time.  I have a daily schedule, a monthly schedule, a seasonal schedule and a yearly schedule.

And with that, you might begin to think that I am an overly structured, somewhat rigid individual who tries to make the world fit my schedule.  You might be right, except for the fact that I am also a pastor, a part of a profession that is notorious for its assaults on carefully planned schedules.

Certainly, there are parts of ministry that are rigidly scheduled.  Worship takes place at a certain time every week, barring snow storms.  Bible Study occurs every week at the same time and generally at the same place.  Certain people are going to call or drop in at pretty much the same interval month after month.  These predictable and scheduled things are like the footing wall around ministry.

But beyond that, predictability goes out the window.  Real ministry involves working with real people who have real issues at real times–and they don’t pay much attention to the schedules and structures of the pastor.  I have come to expect that unexpected at the most inopportune times.

I might schedule the few minutes before people begin arriving for worship as a time to mentally and spiritually prepare myself for leading worship–but once people get used to the idea that I am there early, those who just need a minute or two show up early, sometimes just to chat and sometimes to drop the bombshell that they have cancer or are moving away or are getting a divorce.

I might schedule the early morning for study and writing–but the person worried about their spouse in the hospital just wants help now.  The family that suffers a death in the night doesn’t really care that my schedule calls for me to be asleep at 2:23am–they need a pastor right now and don’t consult my schedule before making the call.

Ministry is conducted in the context of some rigid and scheduled events and a great many unpredictable and therefore impossible to schedule events which often must be dealt with right then in spite of what the schedule says.

This can be a recipe for chaos and all of us in ministry probably struggle to deal with the chaos.  Some approach it by ignoring schedules.  Ministry becomes a series of opportunities that require the pastor to hop from one thing to another, finishing the sermon during the second hymn and choir selection and doing Bible study on a wing and a prayer.  They hop from one thing to another and somehow, everything gets done, sort of.

Me, well, I prefer to schedule and structure and then revise the structure to account for the emergency.  I can flow from event to event, coping with the emergencies and still have the sermon done before the worship actually begins.  And because I am scheduled and organized, everything gets done, somehow, sort of.

Working with people is inherently chaotic.  Human life has twists and turns and surprises and the unexpected all over the place.  I find it easier to cope with the unscheduled by having a schedule to provide a foundation.  Others find it easier to forego the schedule and get right to the chaos.  In the end, as long as we end up helping people discover the love and grace of God, which approach we take depends more on who we are and what we need to feel at peace.

May the peace of God be with you.

SUMMER IS OVER

            The other morning, I work up at my regular time and as I headed for the exercise bike in the basement, I stopped as I always to check the outside temperature.  The thermometer told me that while it was slightly warm 22 (Celsius) inside, it was only 11 outside.  Later, I was outside and the air had a fall feeling to it, that almost indescribable combination of coolness, a hint of moisture and a slight promise of frost in the next few weeks, overlaid with a touch of fog.  I enjoy that fall feeling–but that morning, it bothered me because it meant that summer was coming to an end.

Now, I know that summer isn’t over and that here in Nova Scotia, we can and will get some really nice summer weather for another month or two but the reality from a work point of view is that summer is pretty much over–in a couple of weeks or so, the churches I serve go back to their regular schedule.  Generally, for someone like me who likes schedules, that isn’t a problem.  The predictability and regularity of the schedule helps a lot in ministry where the unpredictable and irregular keep popping up.

Nor does the end of summer upset me with its hint of colder things to come.  I am not a summer worshipper.  Hot, sunny days are nice but cold, snowy days with some wind and double digit wind chill are better.  Shovelling snow beats mowing lawns any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

The reason that fall feeling bothered me was that I had planned on accomplishing some things this summer that are going to be pretty much impossible to accomplish in the short time remaining before the regular fall schedule starts up.  Normally, I use the summer to accomplish a couple of things: to repay myself for all the extra time I put in during the regular church year and do some advance work for coming fall season.

I am a part-time pastor but ministry is full-time and can’t really be done with an eye on the clock.  But normally, there are times when nobody cares if I goof off instead of visiting them or go for a long bike ride instead of working on the Bible study or skimp a little (or a lot) on sermon preparation so I can work on the preaching plan for the fall.   The sleepy, warm days of summer are perfect for constructive goofing off and planning and preparation.

So, last June, I looked at my large accumulation of overtime hours and counted the days until summer when I could do something about that.  Early in July, I was actually on track–we took a week’s vacation and then added another few days to work off some overtime.  But that was as far as it got.  The rest of the summer was hectic–illness that required pastoral care, special events that took more time to prepare and attend, pastoral visits that couldn’t wait until fall.  The opportunity to take time off got pushed further and further into the summer, the time to prepare for fall kept getting pushed to next week–and then suddenly, I woke up one morning to the smell of fall and the calendar bluntly telling me that there was no more room to push ahead what I was planning on doing this summer.

I can, of course, tell myself that with the coming of fall, things will get back to a regular routine and then I can find some space to accomplish what I didn’t accomplish over the summer.  And that will happen–my advance planning will get done, although advance planning might be one day before I actually need it.  And the time off will come–we might get an early winter and have some snow days in November and I seem to remember once in the distant past when we actually has a snowstorm in October.

I am bothered–but not deeply bothered.  I am doing what I am doing because I believe this is what I am supposed to be doing.  While I might end the summer a bit more tired than I planned on being and a bit less prepared for fall than I planned on, I am still doing what I am supposed to be doing and enjoying the sense of still being able to respond to the God who loves me and calls me to this task.  Eventually, I will find time to take time off and I will get the prep work done–and in the meantime, I am comfortable with where I am.

May the peace of God be with you.

LEARNING TO HEAR

Like most people engaging in a new career, I made a lot of mistakes in my early years of ministry.  I still make mistakes at this late stage of my career but hope that I have learned to avoid some of the more serious ones from the early days.  A lot of the early problems came from not knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore–I hadn’t developed a sense of ministerial selective hearing.

I was noticing and seeing all sorts of things.  This couple was obviously having a struggle in their marriage.  That individual has an addiction problem.  That teen is heading down the wrong road.  Those parents are going to cause their child serious problems.  This congregation really needs to understand their faith.  That deacon is terrible at his calling.  These people need to make more effort to share their faith.  The things I was hearing and seeing were endless and with very little effort, I could easily have waded into the deep, murky waters of ministry and quickly been overwhelmed.

Fortunately, I had some fantastic mentors who helped me discover that seeing or hearing something wasn’t the same as being responsible for it.  I learned that what I was hearing and seeing needed to be processed through some important filters that would help me determine what needed attention and what kind of attention it needed.

Among the filters I learned to use was an awareness of my limitations.  Early in ministry, as a single pastor with no children, I might notice issues in marriages and in child rearing, but the real truth is that I had no experience with either and no credibility beyond that course I took, a course that really didn’t qualify me to intervene in such things.

I also learned to make use of the filter described in the old adage, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink”.  Some people are deeply attached to what I consider problems.  They may be unwilling or unable to deal with them or give them up.  While I might be able to help them, I really can’t help them until they want help–to try and “fix” things when they don’t want them fixed creates problems for all of us.

I learned another filter.  This filter involves the reality that other people likely see what I see and may already be involved and my help, no matter how well meaning it is, probably does nothing more than get in the way of what the other people are doing.  If the other helpers are making a difference, I need to help by allowing them to do their job.

I also learned to filter by time.  In any given congregation, even small ones like I serve, there are lots of issues and problems and things that would benefit from someone doing something.  If I see and respond to everything, I could be busy 24-7 and arrive at worship on Sunday morning with nothing to say during the sermon time because I was busy helping people.  Of course, that would only be a short term problem because the ensuing burnout would do away with the need for sermons.

Not everything needs to be dealt with right away.  Certainly, there are some critical issues that need to be deal with immediately–but sometimes, I need to be the person who defines criticality, not the nosey neighbour down the street or the well meaning friend who tends to make mountains out of a grain of sand.  And sometimes, I even need to avoid buying into the individual’s sense of how critical their situation is.

The end result of all this filtering is that I hear a lot and act on a lot–but sometimes, the action is to postpone, delay or ignore.  This isn’t because of a lack of concern or laziness or unwillingness to do my job.  It comes because I have learned to be strategic about ministry. Not everything I perceive needs to be dealt with right now by me.  In fact, I have learned that in the end, some stuff doesn’t need to be dealt with anytime by anyone.

I have also learned to trust the leading of the Holy Spirit–opening myself to this leading has proven to be the best filter possible for me.

Because I have learned to use some filters, I am more able to respond appropriately to the things that need a response when they need a response.  I may have selective hearing in my ministry but I think it makes my ministry more effective for both me and the people I am called to serve.

May the peace of God be with you.

SELECTIVE HEARING

A few years ago, I was attempting to prove that while my hearing was fine, my wife had been gradually lowering her voice making it difficult for me to hear so I scheduled an appointment with a hearing specialist.  An hour and lots of money later, I had hearing aids because it was my hearing that was the actual problem after all.  The specialist was careful to brief both of us on what to expect and what not to expect from the new hearing aids.  Since I could now hear, I listened carefully–and am glad I did because of what began to happen.

I was hearing everything.  After getting the devices fitted, we went shopping.  As I was standing in line, I heard the conversation between a couple several spots behind me in the line–did I mention that the new hearing aids have both forward and rear facing microphones?  I heard the squeaks and rattles in the car, the rustling of the groceries in the back, the raindrops hitting my hat.  Everything was clear and audible and eventually annoying.

I would have been tempted to rush back to the dealer and have him readjust the hearing aids, except he had warned me about this.  My hearing had been slowly deteriorating over the years and I hadn’t realized I wasn’t hearing all this stuff.  Normally, our brain processes out most of the extraneous noise–but because my hearing had been bad, the areas that do that processing had to be retrained to ignore the stuff I could now hear but really didn’t need to hear.

We all have somewhat selective hearing.  Right now, I am working in our living room.  There is an air purifier running by the living room door.  The kitchen fridge adds to the noise level.  If I focus, I can hear the dehumidifier in the basement.  The fan in my laptop cycles on and off.  The dog flops and walks and does whatever else he does.  With my hearing aids, I can now hear all that stuff.

But I have had them long enough that my filtering systems are back at work and so I only hear them when I choose to or something goes wrong with them.  My hearing is normal in that I can hear it all and depend on my brain to select what I really need to hear, except for a few minutes immediately after I put the hearing aids on in the morning until the filtering process kicks in.

This selective sensing works in most areas of life.  I look out the window and see the trees, the deer, the squirrels and the salt marsh, ignoring the lawn, the wires and the neighbour’s cat.  I can smell the cinnamon from my breakfast granola and not notice the slight odour of wet dog.  I notice the perpetual pain in my left knee from but ignore the lesser pain in my right knee.

And on the larger level, I stand in the pulpit every Sunday and look at the congregation members.  I know these people–remember, I pastor small churches.  As I talk with them before and after the service (and sometimes during), I see and hear lots of things, some of which I actually pay attention to and some of which I don’t.

I see the need of the person I know is struggling with grief and the related issues.  I hear the person who is struggling with some personal issue.  I might perceive the tensions sitting between one of the couples in worship.  I hear the excitement of the couple with grandchildren visiting.  I am aware of the person carrying the burden of an aging and increasingly disabled relative.

And because I am a pastor, I often need to do something in many of these situations–but part of my ministry is knowing what to focus on and what to ignore.  Just like I filter out what my hearing aid augmented ears pick up, so I need to filter out what my pastoral senses show me.

I have learned that the best way for me to do that is to open myself not only to the people but also to God so that the Holy Spirit can help me in the process.  Left to myself, I would either hear it all, which leads to burnout or ignore it all, which is just wrong.  While I am still learning that process, I have discovered a few things, which will be the topic of the next post.

May the peace of God be with you.

THE PLAN

It was a good plan, one that took into account both our needs and allowed us to get our stuff done without causing either of us to have a long wait.  Basically, we both had to see people in the regional hospital an hour or so from home but we both also had a variety of other things to do–and since there were no real tempting movies playing, it would be an there and back trip, with the obligatory stop at the big grocery story.

The plan was simple.  Before I headed to my appointment to get my hearing aids checked, I would drop my wife off at the store where she was looking for something.  Then, when my appointment was done, I would call her and we would meet for lunch in the downtown area, after which we would do our hospital visits and shopping.  Cell phones are a tremendous blessing when it comes to coordinating plans.

I actually got to see the hearing aid tech a bit early and the work they needed to do didn’t take all that long so I was back to the car within 10-15 minutes.  The first attempt to call didn’t work–but I assumed that it was just because the phone and the car Bluetooth systems hadn’t finished talking to each other to get working together.  I decided to head downtown, find a parking spot near the restaurant and try again–after all, I was early so I had time.

After the fifth failed attempt, I was beginning to think my phone wasn’t working.
After the tenth, I was positive there was a problem with the phone and was wondering if there was a phone store in the area where I could get the phone fixed or replaced.  After a few more tries, I remembered that there were still pay phones in the town and headed for them–I actually had some change with me.  After three attempts, I still wasn’t able to make a connection.

Frustrated, angry and hungry, I walked around the area, looking in all the stores I thought my wife might be in.  Eventually, she appeared–frustrated, hungry and wondering why her cell phone wasn’t working and why I hadn’t called.  Eventually, we discovered that one whole communication company infrastructure had gone down–the company we used.  We eventually got lunch, saw the people we needed to see and did our shopping.  Of course, we needed to visit the bank to get real money since the collapse took out most store credit card machines.

So, I am a preacher, which means that I need to find a moral in everything that happens–sermon illustrations are an important part of my life.  This is a good story but I need to find the right sermon to drop it into.  In fact, it is such a good story that it should probably have the prime spot in the sermon.  Since I serve two different collections of churches, I will get to use to twice, maybe with different applications.

But right now, I am not exactly sure how I will use it.  I am mostly aware of how much a relatively new technology has become such a basic part of my life.  The first phone I used was a basic black Bakelite device fastened to the wall with a battery box under it and a crank to connect with the operator who would put the call through.  Now, I have a high-tech device that will call anyone, connect to the internet, give me directions, figure out my finances, and help me hang pictures (I discovered and installed a carpenter level app).

With the old wall mounted phone, I could only connect with people if I was standing within the length of the phone cord on the handset.  With the cell phone, I can call my friend in Kenya who is so far out of the way that his friends pity him.  But of course, that only happens when the system works, which it didn’t the other day.

I am sure there is a great sermon illustration in that–but I just have to figure out how I want to use it.  I am sure it will come to me.  The fact that I have two chances helps.

But in  the meantime, the next time we make a plan that depends on the cell phone, I may also include a backup plan.

May the peace of God be with you.

MY CALLING

             Early in my ministry career, I was speaking in a city in Western Canada and the pastor of the church I was speaking at arranged an interview with the local paper.  Rather than ask is I would like to be interviewed, he simply set up the interview and told me to expect the reporter at a certain time.  Since I was a bit less inclined to complain at that stage of my life, I let his rudeness go and was polite for the interview.

During the course of the interview, the reporter asked why I was doing what I was doing.  I used my professional shorthand and told her that it because of my calling from God.  Her lack of much in the way of faith background immediately became clear when she looked at me blankly and asked me to explain what a call was.  I really can’t remember what I said to explain the concept of God’s call but in the end, everything I have done professionally and a lot of what I have done personally is a result of my belief that God has called me to do it.

Now, I don’t get emails, snail mail or phone calls from God.  Nor is his call accompanied by a clear timeline and a specific set of plans and directions.  And at any given time in my life, I can be extremely confused about what God is calling me to; fighting against what I know God wants me to do or begging him to change the call or at least its specific application.

But overall, I believe that one of the consequences of my accepting Jesus as Saviour and Lord is willingness to let God make decisions about what I do and where I do it.  If I have really accepted Him as Lord, that involves my being willing to submit my life to him and allow him to direct me.  For me, that has played out primarily in terms of my work.  I believe that God has called me to make ministry my occupation.  Not everyone is called to that particular career path–but all of us are called by God to serve him and follow him in all areas of life.

For me, knowing and following God’s leading has been important.  It has also mean that I have not always been happy with where the call took me.  In fact, many times I have been more than a bit unhappy with where the call has taken me.  If I had been in charge of my life, I would have bulked up the teaching and researching and writing and basically eliminated the pastoral stuff.

But I am not in charge–or it is probably better to say that I work hard at not being in charge.  Because I have chosen to make God through Christ Lord of my life, in the end, I seek to do what he wants me to do, even if I am not always happy with his leading.  I am free to complain, I am free to pray (beg) for a change–I am even free to simply refuse to do what God asks of me.

But overall, I keep coming back to where God calls me, even when I am not happy.  That almost sounds like I have some serious emotional or mental issues but the truth is, I learned a long time ago that while I may not always be happy with where God is calling me, it is always better for me to be where God wants me to be.  Underneath the struggles and the bouts of unhappiness and even depression, there is a sense of joy and peace that comes from doing what I know God wants.

And in the end, I have also learned that giving up a certain amount of short-term happiness is well compensated for by the deep seated and long term joy and peace that comes from doing what I know God wants and being where I know God wants me to be.

So, that means that at a point in my life when I could easily be done with a career that hasn’t always been the happiest for me, I am still going.  I am still going because this is where God wants me to be and I am doing what he wants me to be doing.  I am sure that retirement is there somewhere down the road–but for now, I will follow the calling and enjoy the joy and peace that comes from that.

May the peace of God be with you.

 

WHY AM I STILL DOING THIS?

I am currently serving as part time pastor of two different collections of congregations.  On a good Sunday the smaller group will have a dozen or so in worship.  The larger one will have 25 or so.  On a bad Sunday, the numbers can drop seriously.  I have passed official retirement age recently but am still working and have no real plans for actually retiring.

I am not continuing because the work I do is so deeply satisfying to me that I can’t imagine life without it.  In fact, when I let myself fantasize a bit, I can see all sorts of things that I could be doing to occupy my time–there are lots of woodworking projects begging to be built, trips that look interesting, topics that just need to be researched, leisurely coffee times with friends that don’t have to be rushed or postponed because of a funeral.  Ministry in a variety of forms has occupied my working life–but I can think of lots of other things that I would rather be doing so I can’t say that I am still doing it because of an intrinsic love of ministry.

And while ministry, at least ministry in small congregations isn’t a path to wealth, it isn’t finances that keeps me involved in ministry.  Pastoral salaries might not make one rich, but our denomination as least has a well managed pension plan that will enable me to be financially comfortable in retirement.

I was talking to a friend recently who had retired.  He told me that part of his reason was that when he took the job he had, he saw certain things that needed to be accomplished.  With those accomplished, he was ready to retire.  I appreciated what he was saying–and having seen some of that he had done, I knew what he was talking about.

But I can’t really say I am postponing retirement until I accomplish the things I see that I need to accomplish.  Unlike many people who write about ministry these days, I don’t have a grand, over-arching vision of what the churches I pastor should be doing and accomplishing.  I believe in vision and direction and all that–but I think the real vision of a congregation needs to come from the congregation.  And while I see a major part of my ministry as helping people see and achieve their vision, I generally have no real sense of where things are going until we are almost there.  My vision for the congregations isn’t what keeps me going.  Mostly, I spend my time trying to keep up with the congregation and trying to put into words what we are doing and where we are going.

Nor is it the pastoral needs of the congregations.  As a pastor, I am intimately involved in the lives of the people I serve.  I am their pastor, which means I am committed to being there for them.  I am called to help them in times of difficulty, to visit when they are sick, the teach them about their faith, to encourage their ministry, to perform their weddings and funerals, to provide counselling, to do whatever I and they believe is within my mandate as their pastor.

But I do not think that I can’t retire because these people can’t survive without me.  Most of them did pretty well before I arrived–and the few who didn’t do well before I arrived, well, I am pretty sure that my presence or absence isn’t making all that much difference.  Certainly,  I believe that I am called to help and I do help and I know it makes a difference.  But I have been in ministry long enough to know that when I leave the congregation, God will provide them with another way to have their needs met.  I am their pastor but in the end, I am not indispensible–they would all survive if I retired.

So far, I have looked at a lot of reasons why other people don’t retire–but  none of them really work for me. But I am still working, still in ministry, and still committed for the foreseeable future.  Fortunately, I know the reason why I am doing what I am doing–it is the same reason I have been doing what I have been doing for my whole ministry.  That is the topic for the next post.

May the peace of God be with you.

CHANGING QUESTIONS

Recently, I have been reflecting on a series of related but changing questions that I have been regularly asked during my life.  The first one I remember in the series came very early, as people around asked me “What do you want to do when you grow up?”  The idea behind the question was that people needed to pick their life occupation and prepare to spend the next 40 years or so doing whatever they picked.  I don’t really know if people ask that question as much–given the cultural reality that most people these days will have several different occupations in life, we should probably be asking people what they are going to start with.

Anyway, the next question came after I had finished university and was actually involved in ministry.  The common question I would get was, “Where are you now?”, especially if I was in a context where I wasn’t wearing a  name badge giving my occupation and location.  I was involved in ministry and although I didn’t  move around as much as some people in ministry, I tended to make some large moves, involving extended periods of time in Kenya.

Since I tended to stay in pastorates for a long period of time, some people began asking me a different question:  “Are you still there?”.  Sometimes, the question was asked from genuine curiosity and other times, well, I am pretty sure that were subtly asking what was wrong with me since I appeared to have very little interest in climbing the ecclesiastical success ladder.  I have to confess that with some of those people I took some secret delight in subtly slipping in the fact that I was also an adjunct professor at our seminary or was involved in several denominational projects or was just back from a short-term trip teaching in Kenya.  I know–I was bragging but that question did tire me sometimes.

I have noticed that I am being asked a different question these days.  I have reached the stage where people want to know “When are you planning on retiring?”.  People in the churches I serve aren’t asking that question–they simply tell me I can’t retire.  But people I have known for a while and haven’t seen recently seem to want to know the answer to that question.  My answer tends to be non-committal.  I plan on retiring someday but right now, I am not sure when.  A few people don’t like that answer, especially when their subsequent (somewhat invasive) questions lead them to discover that financially and chronologically, I can retire anytime.

A few people who know me well find the answer confusing for another reason.  Although I have been involved in pastoral ministry for most of my working life, I have never really liked pastoral ministry. I think I bring some skills and abilities and gifts to ministry that congregations appreciate and which help individuals and congregations and I get a fair amount of gratification from using these gifts and helping people, but pastoral ministry itself really isn’t a joy-filled, deeply gratifying part of my life.  It is challenging, it can be interesting, it is demanding, it has significant rewards but for me, the real joy and deep gratification has always come from teaching, something which has ultimately been a minor part of my overall ministry.

So here I am–at a stage of my life when I could be retired and I am still at work, still involved in the kind of ministry that I have done most of my working life.  It is a ministry that is important and valuable and which makes a difference to people, but a ministry which has likely done a lot more for other people than it has done for me.  And yet, I am committed to what I am doing for a while–I don’t know how much longer but am pretty sure that it is measured in years not months, although there times when I would like it to be days.

So, that brings me to another question, one that no one has actually asked me but which I needed to ask myself.  And that question is, “Why are you still doing what you are doing?”

But since the answer to that question is going to require some serious staring at the trees and marsh outside the living room window (and ignoring the lawn and wires), I will postpone the answer until the next post.

May the peace of God be with you.

THE OLD CHURCH BUILDING

            The area where I live is one of the oldest settled areas in Canada.  Before the arrival of European settlers, there was a thriving Native population.  European settlers arrived here in 1605 and have been here every since.  As might be expected, we have a great many old buildings.  The coffee shop where I treat myself to the world’s greatest cinnamon buns, for example, is housed in a building put up in 1747, although the coffee and cinnamon buns are much newer.

Among the old buildings are several unused church buildings of various denominations.  Some of them belong to denominations that have no problem  dealing with old, unused  church buildings.  The bishop, presbytery, committee or some other outside organization signs a paper and the building disappears or is sold and become an antique shop or funky house.  But other denominations, like the one I belong to, have serious problems because control of the building belongs to the membership.

But one of the interesting realities is that when the membership passes, control of the building seems to vest itself in a variety of people who want it kept for a variety of reasons.  Some have fond memories of family members who attended there.  Some are deeply appreciative of the architecture of the building.  Some swoon over the historical connections of the building.  Some see it as a possible money making opportunity–a wedding chapel or something like that.

Everyone wants it preserved and repaired and painted.  But very few want to pay the money and put in the time to make all that happen–and the few who do soon discover that having an unused church building to look after can be a major source of frustration, aggravation, stress and anger.

Interestingly enough, very few people see the building for what it really is.  An unused church building is the last sign physical of a once vibrant worshipping community.  It speaks of the faith that brought people to God and each other; a faith that enabled relatively poor people to build a building to house their congregation; a faith that sustained that worshipping community for many years–but also a faith that faded as its membership aged and moved and died.

If the congregation was faithful and worked at being the church, the deteriorating building isn’t the last sign of the former congregation’s life, nor is it even the best symbol of the legacy of the congregation.  To really know the value of a congregation, it is necessary to look at the lives touched by the congregation who used to worship in that building.  How many were helped through the valley of the shadow of death?  How many discovered the wonder of God’s grace?  How many found a cup of cold water when they needed it?  How many found their lives more abundant because of that congregation?

Unfortunately, answers to questions like that are sometimes hard to find.  People move away; communities shrink and fade away; memories grow dim.  The people who were touched by that congregation may not be anywhere near the old building–and the building probably isn’t anywhere near as important to them as the people who once made up the congregation.

I like old church buildings–but then, I like all church buildings, from the huge cathedral to the mud and wattle hut in the Kenyan bush.  But I like the congregations that inhabit the buildings even more.  I might appreciate the furtively scratched ship drawings hidden on the back pew in the balcony of an old unused church building but I appreciate even more the legacy of the congregation that used to inhabit that building.  Their worship might have bored at least one budding artist, but it also touched lives and made a difference.

The old building might have historical, architectural, cultural and emotional significance but the real story and real value of the building is written in the lives of those who built it and worshipped in it and in the lives touched by that group of people.  What happens to the building after the worshipping community ceases to exist?  Let the historians and the architects and the culture buffs and the nostalgia surfers figure it out.  I am going to take some pictures, thank God for the church that used to be there and worship somewhere else, where God is using another group of believers to touch lives.

May the peace of God be with you.

MORE WIRES

In the last post, I wrote that there were two things contemplating the wires I tend not to see actually showed me, one of which was my selective blindness.  The other thing the wires reminded me of is the depth and breadth of connections I have with the rest of humanity.

As an introvert with very strong independent tendencies, it is easy for me to downplay and ignore the connections I have with others.  I am quite comfortable most of the time doing my thing and if I occasionally go for extended periods of time not interacting with others, well, that is okay.  But even an independent introvert like me has more need of others that I sometimes let myself be aware of.

And the wires coming in to the house are a visible reminder of those connections.  If my introverted self wants to slump down in the recliner watching TV and ignore people, the cable wire reminds me that I can’t actually do that without some significant interactions with real people.  These people connect the signal to my TV.  They repair the wires that carry the signal.  They run the switching equipment that brings the signals to the wires.  They administer the business that provides the service.  They make the programs that come through the wires.  They do all that just so I can sit in front the TV and ignore people.  And they can do that because I and many others interact with them.  Paying the monthly cable bill is an interaction, one that involves a lot of other people at banks and so on.

The poet John Donne wrote “No man is an island”.  Putting aside his non-politically correct language as an artifact of a different era, he is making a powerful point.  No matter what we would like to think, we humans are intricately and intimately related in more ways that we can imagine.  The connections are beneficial–but they are also two way.  The cable company will happily provide me with diversions, provided I provide them with a monthly income. The power company will likewise give me power to run my various toys and heat the house, provided I interact with them financially.

The wires connect me to the world so that I can supervise a food security project being done by a Congolese pastor as part of the requirements for the course he is taking at a Kenyan theology school–and I can do it from the comfort of one of my two work chairs in my living room in Canada.

If I am drinking a cup of coffee while I am doing it, I am connected with the whole coffee production line, which means that in the end, some of the money I paid for the coffee ends up helping some farmer somewhere buy food or pay school fees. And maybe that does involve me in the debate over whether that farmer actually gets enough for his time and effort to provide me with my coffee.

After Cain killed his brother Abel and was trying to hide the crime from God, he asks God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4.9).  He would desperately like the answer to be “no”–but it can’t be no.  We humans are so interlinked and intertwined that a sneeze in Canada affects farmers in Kenya. All human need becomes the responsibility of all humanity–we are all connected in some way and have mutual responsibilities and benefits.  Often, we are aware of some of the connection and responsibilities but would like to ignore others.  I want to ignore the panhandlers on the streets when I am in the city.  But ultimately, I have a connection to them–maybe because a former student is using some of the stuff I taught to develop a ministry to the street people whom I am trying to ignore.  Or maybe that person with their hand out is the grandchild of one of the people who occasionally comes to one of the worship services I lead.  Or maybe the connection is that God wants me to intervene directly in that life.

I will probably continue to ignore the wires coming into the house, at least until one of them doesn’t work or I get desperate for something to write.  But I do need to remember the connections they represent and the wider connections they symbolize.  Even at my most introverted and independent, I have benefits and responsibilities connecting me with the rest of humanity.

May the peace of God be with you.