CHISELLING OFF THE NAME

When I was in school, I had a serious ambivalence about history.  I had some serious dread associated with the topic partly because most history teachers have this thing about students remembering dates.  Because numbers tend not to stick in my mind, I was always getting dates wrong.  On the other hand, I found the narrative of history fascinating and loved looking at connections and relationships and how actions in one place and time affected actions in another place and time.

During one of the course I took in history, we were looking at ancient Egypt. Fortunately, the dates for that course were not particularly important and I could really focus on the narrative.  One interesting fact I discovered was that when a new pharaoh or dynasty took over, one of their first official acts in office was often to send out crews of workers whose job was to chisel the name of the previous ruler off all the public and private monuments that they could reach.  Sometimes the name was simply chipped off and a blank space left–and other times, the new ruler had his name cut into the monument.

I thought at the time that that was hilarious.  The ruler was trying to do away with the past, probably trying to wipe out the existence of a predecessor just by removing a name.  No matter what the new ruler did, someone would remember the previous ruler and depending on what the ruler did, would laugh or applaud the vain efforts to get rid of the past.

Well, skip ahead.  We live in a whole new era, an era where we have a deeper understanding of history and people and how things work.  But we are still trying to chip the names of the monuments–or in some cases, removing the monuments.  When we discover that our heroes of the past had feet of clay, we often feel that we have to remove them from the historical record.

In the nearest city to where I live, for example, there is a statue of one of the city’s founders.  He was a significant figure in the history of the city and our province and so his name is everywhere.  But he was also responsible for some significant evil, causing the death of a great many native people.

We don’t actually know what to do with such people.  Does the evil they did outweigh the good or does the good overcome the evil?  Do we build them a statue and name things after them or do we remove the statue and change all the names?  Maybe we are not all that much different from the ancient Egyptians trying to alter history by chipping names off monuments.

People are people.  The greatest are sinful and the worst are good somehow.  The man who founds a city also persecuted natives.  The politician who did so much to help the nation also owned slaves.  The preacher who brought help to many also abused others.  The drug lord funded a children’s hospital.  The war criminal deeply loved his wife and children.  The liberator of the nation was also prejudiced against outsiders.  These are realities coming from the heart of humanity–we are both good and bad.

We probably need to discover how to live with that reality.  We need to learn how to accept and praise the good while accepting and denouncing the bad.  We need to learn how to balance our accounts so that both the good and the bad have their rightful place.  Some people deserve a statue or monument for their good–but their evil also needs to be recognized and condemned.  As we learn how to deal with this human reality in history, we can then help ourselves deal with it in our own lives today.

Chiselling names off monuments; erecting and then removing statues; rewriting history books to fit our cultural and personal desires are all rather expensive and pointless ways of trying to deal with an essential human reality:  the best of us are going to do bad stuff and the worst of us are going to do good stuff.  God knows how to deal with our reality:  he show us all the same grace in Jesus Christ.  I expect that in the end, our answer to the dilemma involves learning how to be as graceful as God.

May the peace of God be with you.

SEARCHING FOR PERFECTION

One of the constant realities of my work as a pastor is the connections I have made with victims of childhood abuse.  As I have worked with people who have suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse during their early years, I have become deeply aware of how painful and traumatic such abuse is.  It can and does affect an individual for the rest of their lives.  It affects the ability to form healthy relationships; it affects the ability to develop healthy self-esteem; it may even affect the ability to live a long life.

Any kind of abuse at any age is wrong and evil.  And for that reason, I am hopeful about the developing trend for abuse victims to feel able to report their abuse and name names.  As long as abusers of any kind can do their evil without fear of the consequences, abuse will flourish.  Fear of being named may not change an abuser’s basic drives but it might prevent at least some of them some from abusing some people some of the time–and while that may not seem like a great victory, it is a victory for the potential victim who doesn’t get abused.

So, my hope and prayer is that our culture continues this recent trend to empower victims of all kinds of abuse to speak out.  Evil flourishes when it is hidden in the dark–shining light in the dark corners of life is a positive and powerful force that benefits everyone.   Taking away the power that fear and concealment provide to abusers and giving it to those who need protection from abuse is an essential part of changing our world.

But I have to say that I do find one part of the developing process interesting, at least from a theological point of view.  While there are some people whose outing as abusers surprises no one, there are other situations where everyone is surprised that so and so could ever do something like that.

For a variety of reasons, we assume that certain people would never do anything bad.  They are such nice people or they play such nice people in the media or that have such a great job or wonderful family or they have lots of money or are so smart.  We assume that because they are X they could never do evil–another application of the halo effect (see my post for Nov. 24/17).

And because we assume some people are incapable of such terrible things, we have one of two reactions.  Sometimes, we simply deny the reports–they accuser has to have made them up for some evil reason of their own.  But mostly, we believe the report and end up disappointed and become even more cynical–if we can’t trust so and so, who can we trust?

Theologically, we shouldn’t actually be surprised.  We can be disappointed and hurt and upset–but not surprised.  The Christian faith–and most other faiths, for that matter–is very clear on the fact that there are no perfect people.  As Paul puts it in  Romans 3.23, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” (NIV).  All of humanity shares this fatal reality:  the best of us harbour dark and evil sides and the worst of us harbour light and good sides.

And that means that all of us are guilty of something.  Dig deep enough into someone’s life and you will find the darkness and the evil.  This is a reality well known to politicians seeking to ruin an opponent, investigative reporters looking for a big story and theologians seeking to understand the world.  We all have a dark and evil side and we all will either act on that darkness or fight it for our whole lives.

When people act out their dark and evil side, it really shouldn’t be a surprise.  It can be wrong; it can be criminal; it can be devastating; it will have consequences and it must be dealt with appropriately–but it really shouldn’t be a surprise.  It is a reality of the human condition, a reality that God recognizes and seeks to deal with through the live, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

May the peace of God be with you.

THE HALO EFFECT

            I was at a meeting a while ago where someone was talking about the situation that prompted the meeting and made a comment concerning her understanding of how the problem developed.  Essentially, she was pretty sure that older pastors had caused the problem.  I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the comment because I was trying to focus on the problem at hand which was and is more complex than any of us realized–and besides, I have been working on this particular problem for a long time and had no sense that I had actually caused it.

However, a friend was sitting nearby and was quite upset by the comment.  He has been in ministry almost as long as me and I heard his mutter something like, “I am tired of being blamed for everything that happened in the past.”  He had heard the words and took them personally–and when I looked at it from his perspective, I understood his hurt.

We tend to make sweeping statements that inaccurately and unfairly include a wider group of people that we realize.  Part of that comes from falling into a psychological trap that I learned about early in my university days.  Some psychology book or professor referred to something called the “Halo Effect”.  This effect has nothing to do with the contemporary computer game and had no theological base.  It refers what happens when we assume person with one characteristic has several other characteristics.

So, the speaker at the meeting recognized that the problem we were dealing with was often associated with older pastors–and was suggesting that anyone possessing the characteristic of being an older pastor was therefore also responsible for creating the problem.  Since my friend has been involved in trying to fix this particular problem almost as long as I have, he felt upset at being “haloed” into the other group.

There are a great many people who do bad, evil, stupid and wrong things.  Some of them fall into neatly defined categories.  Older white males have managed to create some serious problems over the years.  But to assume that all older white males are equally guilty of all the offenses that have been committed by some older white males is really no different than assuming that all people of a certain colour or ethnic background or age or gender or sexual orientation are guilty of whatever current evil some members of the defined group are accused of committing.

But it is easier to make use of the halo effect than it is to be honest and discerning.  It is easier to make blanket statements than it is to sort out the real causes and perpetrators and issues.  It is simpler to tar a whole group than it is to deal with the reality that people are different and unique and that one polka-dotted individual who secretly pulls the tags off mattresses isn’t a sign that the whole group does the same thing.

It seems to me that our western culture is moving in two directions, neither of which is overly helpful.  While we are becoming increasingly individualistic and demanding,  we are also becoming increasing unwilling to see others as individuals.  While we want our personal rights and freedoms to be given sacred status, we are increasingly willing as a culture to say and act as if “their” rights should be limited because “they” all do that.

Fortunately for all of us, God doesn’t lump us into groups and treat the group the same based on some characteristic of one or some of the group.  He is aware that although my friend (and I) are older pastors, we didn’t actually create the problem and have actually been working hard to change the problem.  God sees us as individuals; God loves us as individuals; God responds to us as individuals; God rescues us as individuals.

God, in fact, created us with individuality in mind–the fact that I am left-handed doesn’t make me exactly the same as all left-handed people. The fact that I am an older pastor doesn’t make me the same as all older pastors.  The fact that I am colour blind might make me wear strange combinations now and then but it still doesn’t make me the same as all colour-blind people.

God celebrates our diversity and doesn’t use the halo effect–thank God for that.

May the peace of God be with you.

A SCIENTIST?

I was watching a TV show recently where a couple of characters were having an argument.   One, a pastor, was telling the other, a budding scientist, that the scientists needed to believe in God.  The budding scientist said he didn’t need God because he had science.  That interchange pretty much summed up a dichotomy I see a lot of these days.  It seems that a lot of people believe that you can have faith or you can have science but you can’t have both.  Those who believe in faith and God built their fortress of faith and those who believe in science build their fortress of faith and they sit in their forts and take shots at each other.

I personally don’t really want to be in either fort.  I prefer being on the outside of both forts–not because I am against both faith and science.  No, I don’t want to be in either fort because I want to be free to make use of both or criticize both, depending on the realities of life that I deal with outside of the sacred walls of the competing fortresses.  In short, I want to be a person of deep faith and a scientist.

Well, maybe not a full-fledged scientist–that boat sailed without me mostly because of my somewhat less that spectacular math skills.  Maybe I should call myself a science wannabe or science groupie or closet nerd.  But I am also a person of faith–even more, a person whose calling and profession and desire is to help other people both discover and develop their faith.  I want it all.

I especially want both sides to stop the war. Just because I am a believer doesn’t mean  I refuse to accept global warming.  It doesn’t mean that I think the world is 6000 years old.  It doesn’t mean that I will accept any claim any faith charlatan  makes to try and part me from some of my money.  It doesn’t mean that I am vaguely afraid of technology because I see hints of Revelation style demonic conspiracy in chip technology.

Just because I am a believer, I don’t think that scientists are agents of satan.  I don’t see attempts to understand the wonder of creation at attempts to get rid of God.  I don’t see men and women in lab coats as my rivals for the hearts and minds of people. I don’t think scientists want to prove that my faith is dumb, pointless and the result of genetic anomalies in my brain.

We of faith and the scientific community have a lot we need to say to each other.  We probably need to apologize to each other for all the stupidity and pettiness and prejudice we have used against each other in the last few years.  We probably need to drink a lot more coffee and tea together to get to really know each other. (Sorry, science people–many conservative believers won’t be comfortable having a beer or glass of wine with you).  We probably need to spend a lot of time actually reading what the other is using to base their ideas on instead of basing our relationships on hearsay and innuendo and what someone thinks someone else said.

We need to accept that both people of faith and people of science are people first and actually need each other.  When I get sick, I want the best of science to treat my illness.  And when a scientist gets sick, I am pretty sure I have some faith stuff that will help that scientist deal with the realities of that illness.

As is always the case when we set up opposing sides and start fighting, we miss the point.  The war between science and faith exists in our minds, not in reality.  God is not diminished when a scientists discovers the earth is several billion years old and science is not diminished when a believer says that God created the earth.  We could both help each other a lot to sit down and really look at what we are saying and discover that we have a lot more in common that we sometimes want to admit.

I am a person of faith–but as much as my poor math skills allow, I am a person of science.  I not only like both, I need both to make my life complete.

May the peace of God be with you.

COME LET US WORSHIP

            It might appear to anyone reading some of my last posts that I don’t spend a lot of time in worship actually worshipping.  I direct the service, seeking to use my gifts and abilities to help others worship.  I deal with interruptions either by ignoring them or working around them.  I am generally at least one step ahead of the congregation–while we are singing one hymn, I am making sure that I have the next one marked and ready.

And in some ways, it is true–I am not actually doing much that seems like worship.  But when I remember the times I have been able to attend English language worship services as a worship participant, I discover something interesting.  Often, when  I am just attending worship, I am less connected to the worship than when I am leading it.  I am less conscious of the flow of the service; I am less involved in the process; I have less sense of the other participants; I focus less on what is being said and done and I am less tuned in with the music.

That might indicate that I have some spiritual difficulties.  And that is probably true–like every other believer, I am not perfect and have lots of stuff that needs God’s help to make it better.  But I think when it comes to worship, I may not be doing as badly as I sometimes think I am doing.

For me, the point of worship is to help us re-connect with God.  God is present and active in our lives all the time but in the hectic, stressed and busy lives most of us lead, we lose sight of God.  We might feel that he has gone away but he is still present and active–we are simply not willing or able to focus on him.  Worship, both private and public, provides us with the chance to open our eyes and see the reality of the presence of God.

My job as the worship leader is to help people make this reconnection.  As I design worship, I am looking at how best to enable the people I serve remember the reality of God’s presence in their lives.  I choose Scriptures to enable this; I help select music to facilitate the connection; I develop prayers to help open hearts and minds to God; I prepare sermons to touch those things which will bring the awareness of God to the front.

And in the process of all this, I am offering myself to God to be used by him in the process of helping others worship. As I stand at the front and announce hymns and read Scriptures and lead prayers and preach sermons, I am working hard–but I am also conscious of the deep and powerful reality that I am leading God’s people in their worship of him and the only way I can do that is if I am willing to submit myself to him in the process.

My worship experience is different from that of the people I lead–but it is still worship.  I am recognizing the presence of God and my need of him in the process of leading others in worship.  That is probably why I struggle when I am simply a participant in  worship.  I am out of my element.  I haven’t had enough experience being a lay person in worship.

For now, I am the worship leader, responsible for leading others in the process of reconnecting with the God who never left.  I am also responsible for my own worship, seeking to make sure that as I lead others, I am worshipping through remembering that I need God’s help to do what he has called me to do.

Someday, I will need to learn how to worship like the people I am leading.  I am planning on retiring someday and will then be someone sitting in the pews seeking an opportunity to reconnect with God.  At that point, I will become a student, learning how to do what others have been doing for years.  But for now, I offer to God my time, gifts and abilities to be used through the power of the Holy Spirit to help others worship God.  For now, this is my act of worship.

May the peace of God be with you.

IT SNOWED

We have had an unusually dry and warm fall here in western Nova Scotia.  Most years, the ice scraper gets dug out in early to mid October and stays busy pretty much until spring.  But this year, the temperatures have been at or near record level highs all fall.  We actually had night-time lows of 17 Celsius (mid 60s for those who don’t use celsius), meaning that the ice scraper remained lodged in the space between the back seat and the cargo area of my Jeep until well into November when I had to find it one morning.

This made great weather for our local economy.  We are heavily dependent on tourism in this area and the extended summer like weather seems to have encouraged a lot more people to travel here a lot later than normal.  It also meant that the people who provide lawn care were working longer, which may or may not have thrilled them but work is work.

But for me, well, the fall was something of a disappointment.  I really don’t like heat much and I especially don’t like heat at night when I am trying to sleep.  Mostly I cope but the extended warm weather was getting to me.  I really don’t have anything against warm weather or sunny weather except when it interferes with my sleep.  I would like a lot more rain that we have been getting but since the dryness slowed down the growth of the lawn, there was a bit of a benefit to the dryness.

So a few days ago, I was sitting in my “office”–the living room.  I was writing something, probably a sermon that wasn’t really coming together.  I was sort of aware that it was a dark and dreary morning, with rain in the forecast.  Given the number of times that rain has been forecast and failed to show up, I wasn’t expecting all that much precipitation.  It was also cold–near zero.  I actually had the heat turned on, probably for the second time this fall.

But mostly, I was fighting with the sermon that refused to come together.  The theme sounded great when I prepared the sermon plan a couple of months ago but the actual writing was hard work–I would compare it to slogging through sand with a full backpack but I have actually done that and it was easier than this sermon process.

Because I was fighting with the sermon, I wasn’t paying much attention to what was happening outside.  I normally glance out the window a lot, looking for the deer who frequent our street or the squirrels looking for acorns or to see whether the tide agrees with my tide clock or just to get a break from whatever I am writing.  But this day, the fight with the sermon was taking all my attention.

But eventually, I looked out the window and it was raining.  But even more exciting was the fact that there was snow mixed with the rain.  That was exciting and gave me a real lift.  Now, I knew that it was too warm for the snow to amount to anything.  It was just a brief flurry quickly overcome by the rain and above zero temperatures–I doubt that one flake ever made it to the ground.  But it was snow.

And that means that we can get on with the year.  I can find the snow shovel, check the supplies of salt and sand for the driveway and most importantly sleep under covers at night.  I am aware that most of the people I know, including the majority of the people in the churches I serve saw that snow as a depressing omen of things to come.  I am also aware that sometime next March, I will greet snow with a very different attitude.  But right now, seeing the snow was a bright and positive note to my day and week.  I am aware that that makes me somewhat strange but my church people all knew I was strange when they called me to be their pastor so I am not worried about that.

I like snow and cold weather.  I don’t mind shovelling snow, especially since the church gets most of it plowed and I generally don’t have more than half to 3/4 of an hour clean up.  Seeing that brief flurry gave me some optimism.  The sermon was still hard work but at least it was snowing.

May the peace of God be with you.

WORSHIP INTERRUPTIONS

Given that my spot during worship is at the front facing the congregation, I get a great view of everything that is going on in the sanctuary, except for the choir area behind me.  While that area can be a source of interruptions, it is more normal for the interruptions to happen in front of me.

So, when the visiting grandchild starts acting out their boredom, I get to watch the grandparents struggle to cope.  When the busy farmer drops off to sleep because worship is the longest time he has sat still in weeks, I see and empathize.  I am used to interruptions and so was prepared for what happened at a recent worship service.

We were about 30 minutes into the service and I was just getting into the introduction to the sermon when I heard a noise at the front door.  Since all our regulars were either present or accounted for (one of the benefits of a small congregation), I thought that we were having visitors.  Visitors are always nice, even when they come during the sermon when the service is half over.

I was on the wrong side of the pulpit to actually see the door so in the course of preaching, I casually moved enough to see the door.  As it opened, someone peeked around the side of the door, saw me and quickly closed the door and left.  I actually wasn’t surprised that the visitor left–in that brief time his face was visible, I recognized who it was.

He wasn’t an actual late coming visitor coming to check out our worship.  He was a local resident well known for showing up at worship services and asking for money to help out his family.  The latest request tends to be for gas so his wife can get to work.  How do I know that?

Well, I have been pastor in this area for years and have worked with three generations of this family and with him directly.  He had actually called me a few weeks previously asking for money.  But since I knew that he had been making the rounds of local churches (one of the benefits of good relationships between churches) and that one pastor was offering to help the family with budgeting, I told him that I couldn’t help.

I know that he has been visiting local churches for a while looking for money.  I had worked with him and his family a lot over the years and have seen this pattern and process first hand.  I expect that his visit to our worship service was made in ignorance of the fact that I am the pastor–the church hasn’t got around to replacing the name of the previous pastor yet.  When he saw me, I think he realized that he was unlikely to get help that day.

The irony of the situation is that my sermon theme was that healthy churches seek to serve God by serving their community.  I am not at all sure what I think of this interruption during this particular sermon.  I think I handled the initial request wisely and graciously.  I am aware that I reached my limit with this particular family quite a while ago.  I am also aware that others have stepped in and tried.

But as my sermon progressed, part of my mind was processing the interruption and my response.  What is my responsibility to this individual and his family?  How do I serve God in my relationship with him?  I didn’t get too far in the process because the sermon does take most of my focus.  But I did decide that the family isn’t starving at this point–I know that they both have jobs.  I re-affirmed my decision not to give money.  And I decided that if he was sitting in his car waiting for us to be done to ask for money, I would offer budgeting help again hoping that this time, it would take.

Well, worship finished and by the time I actually got out the door, the parking lot was empty so I didn’t have to deal with any requests for money.  I can’t say I was upset with that, just as I can’t say I am upset with my response to the situation.  I decided that the issue for me isn’t that I don’t want to help, it is that I don’t want to help in a way which reinforces the present situation.  I want to offer something that will help change things which to me seems a much better option.

May the peace of God be with you.

THOUGHTS DURING WORSHIP

Because of the fact that I am a pastor, I rarely get to attend worship where I am not involved somehow in the leadership of the service.  That means that my involvement in worship tends to focus on what is going on and what I need to do next and how the worship is flowing.  In addition, because I am a pastor, I am also watching the congregation picking up clues and hints and indications about how they are reacting to the worship as well as how they are in general.

However, that isn’t all that I think about during worship.  At one recent worship, I came to worship in pain.  I am not sure if I overdid walking or the change in weather affected me or I was sitting too much but my knees and shoulders were seriously painful.  Standing to lead worship was tolerable, although I took the two steps up to the pulpit area a bit more slowly than sometimes.  But when I announced the offering and sat down, I noticed something.

The pulpit chair is really low–and the creaky knees that I currently possess did some severe protesting at the extra distance to sit down.  Normally, I grab the chair arm and use that to take some of the strain–but the shoulder taking that strain decided it was going to lodge a protest.  I did set down but to be honest, it is more like I fell the last inch or so.  Since the choir does their special right after the offering, I had a few minutes to recover–and wonder if I would be able to stand up after the special.

Now, I am not alone having such issues. There were at least 3 canes and one walker in use during that worship service–remember, we are an older congregation.  I know for a fact that I am not the youngest person there but that particular day, there were only about 4 people younger than me there.

But as I was sitting in that way too low chair, listening to the choir and wondering if I would be able to stand without looking like my knees were in open rebellion, I wasn’t thinking too much about the others in the congregation.  I was thinking about my knees, my shoulders and the fingers on my left hand, all of which seem to have decided that arthritis was a good choice.  I was conscious of being 65, conscious of not being able to do what I used to do, conscious of having to think through even simple physical activities like standing up from a too low chair without further upsetting my knees.

I am getting old.  Now, I know that aging is a state of mind and that we are only as old as we think we are and that my attitude makes a difference and that 65 really isn’t old anymore.  I have heard all the platitudes, I may actually have used them now and then, hopefully not to shut someone up as they talked about their struggles with aging.  But in spite of all the propaganda to the contrary, aging isn’t a picnic.

I hurt–and that is a direct result of living for a certain number of years. I am tired a lot–and that is a result of just not having the energy I used to have.  I forget things–well, to be honest, that has always been a problem and has stayed about the same over the years.  But I do notice a decline in what I can do and in my level of physical comfort.

What am I going to do about all that?  Well, when the choir finished their selection, I grabbed the arm of the chair, put my painful knees under me and levered myself up to begin the prayer time that came next in the order of service.  I carried on with the worship, preached my sermon, concluded the worship service, carefully stepped down the two steps and then, at the impromptu meeting to arrange our annual tea and sale, volunteered to be there pretty much the whole day.

Which is to say that I am getting older, I have more aches and pains, I am slower and more limited in what I can do but I am adapting and I am going to do what I can while I can as much as I can.  Learning to live with and around my limits just might be a sign that I am developing some maturity.

May the peace of God be with you.

NUMBER 80 ONCE MORE

I like planning and having a sense of where things are going.  I generally have a three month plan for preaching; a plan for Bible study that includes not just the present topic but also the next topic; a ever developing and changing plan for the next few weeks’ work in the churches and a less than successful plan for how to get caught up on all the things I am behind on.  I also like to have a longer sense of direction for the church, a plan that I work on with the church at regular intervals.

One set of churches will be meeting soon and we will discuss plans for next year after we start back up once the winter break is over.  I have a few ideas, some of the church people have a few ideas and as we talk together, we will likely come up with a few other ideas.  For us, that is long term planning–knowing now what we want to accomplish next July is pretty good.

But recently, I have been thinking about my position as the 80th pastor of this gathering of people and realized that I am also making plans for the 81st pastor, plans that may or may not help him/her.  I have always sort of known that.  As a long time part-time pastor, I have had the opportunity to share my experience and knowledge with other, newer part-time pastors and one of the things I tell them is to think of the next person coming along.

If the church and I agree that I will be paid to work 16 hours a week, it is tempting for me to “volunteer” more time than that because I have the time and the work needs to be done.  But in doing that, I have planted a very large and dangerous land-mine in the path of the next pastor, who may not be able to go beyond the agreed upon hours.  But as things don’t get done the way they were before, my “volunteer” hours explode and that ministry runs into trouble.

So, as number 80, I need to look ahead to number 81 or 93 or, if things don’t change drastically, number 180.  How to do that gets a little fuzzy at times because some of my best stuff may not be the best for the next person.

Our Bible study, for example, owes a significant amount of its vitality to the fact that I am an avid collector of facts, figures, interpretations, and so on that I am able to access, correlate and present in the heat of our often chaotic Bible study.  Questions and comments and unrelated thoughts take us in paths that churn up a significant amount of my accumulated knowledge.  If number 81 is a relatively new pastor who prefers order and structure, I may have unwittingly thrown a wooden shoe into the machinery (that is the actual origin of the word “sabotage”).

Somewhere along the line before I leave, I will have to help the Bible Study group develop an approach that isn’t totally dependent on my particular gifts and abilities.  What we are doing now is working and it is helping the church and we need to do it–but as number 80, I do need to look ahead further than next year and think about number 81, who will show up at some time and will need the freedom to make full use of the God given gifts that are the reason for 81 replacing 80.

So, I minister with an eye to the future.  Someday, I will leave this church.  Neither I nor the congregation really want to think much about that right now.  But I actually need to keep it in my mind.  I need to evaluate what I/we plan and do now so that as much as possible, I avoid planting land-mines.  Some things that we do because of my gifts and abilities are important and valuable and I am called by God to do them.  But some of them are based completely on my stuff.  Before I leave, I need to help the church see that as important as some of this was now, it will need to change so that 81 has the same opportunity to follow God’s leading as I had–otherwise 81 ends up spending a lot of time getting frustrated by 80, something I really don’t want.

May the peace of God be with you.

NUMBER 80 AGAIN

Being the 80th pastor in a pastorate that goes back 185 years puts an interesting perspective on ministry.  Like most pastors, early in my ministry, I tended to see what I do in a church as an isolated segment of time and space.  Most of us, I think, discount much of what happened before we arrived and aren’t overly concerned about what happens after we leave.

Very quickly, I learned that a smart pastor needs to know something about what happened before they arrived.  The present is shaped by the past and unless we know the past, we can’t work effectively.  I was pastor in one congregation which insisted that they didn’t want anything to do with evangelism.  Given that being evangelists on one of our basic tasks as believers and churches, I was somewhat surprised at this revelation.  After some digging, I discovered that the real difficulty was a certain approach to evangelism that was part of some painful experiences for the church.

Based on that historical understanding, I helped the church develop an outreach program that was actually quite beneficial to the church and community.  As long as we didn’t call it evangelism, the church was enthusiastic in their support.

As a result, I discovered that it is good for a pastor to know what happened in the past.  The past helps shape the present ministry.  Sometimes, the present ministry needs to work to correct or modify the past.  Other times, we can build on the past–rather than re-inventing the wheel by doing all the stuff that has been done before, we get to build a cart on the wheels prepared in the past.

And when you are the 80th pastor, there are a lot of things from the past.  It might be easy to dismiss anything beyond last year as ancient history but listen to people long enough and you will hear and see the effects of those long ago events.  At a Bible study recently, some of the members recalled the pain and turmoil associated with the ministry of a previous pastor, pain and turmoil that still hurts a bit after forty years.  At some levels, I have to be aware of this ancient pain in my ministry.

In another Bible Study session, someone talked about the love and compassion they experienced from a former Sunday School teacher.  Heads nodded from the others who remembered that teacher–and several were eager to tell her story to the relative new-comers in the group whose experience didn’t go back the necessary 50 years.

So, I am the 80th pastor in one place–and in the other set of congregations, I am at an even higher number although no one I know has a complete list.  But given that this other pastorate goes back to about 1780, that should put me into the low 100s, based on the 2.3 year average of the younger pastorate.  While it might make sense to say I really only need to be concerned about the former pastors up to the age of the oldest members, that isn’t really true

Occasionally, I talk to someone who passes on the family story of old Rev. So and So whose actions in relation to their long dead grandparents kept their family in or out of the church, depending on the nature of that long ago event.

My ministry in both places is built on the foundation of all these previous ministries.  Sometimes, I have to apologize for and undo some of what came before.  Sometimes, I get to renovate and update what came before.  And occasionally, I inherit a really good working thing that I don’t need to touch but which makes my ministry much better.  My ministry is also built on the foundation of all the elders, deacons, choir members, organists, Sunday School teachers, ordinary members and community members affected by what went on before.

I am the 80th in one place and well over the 80th in  another.  I have been called by God to serve these congregations for a time.  What I do will become part of the next pastor.  It makes sense to me now to be aware of the past–remembering where the church has been helps is determine what to do now to get to where God wants us to go.

May the peace of God be with you.