WHOSE CHURCH IS IT, ANYWAY?

Because I am a pastor, I spend most of my people time with church people. I work for and with church people; I go to seminars with and about church people; I spend some of my free time teaching people from other churches; I read and study about church people. Some of the reason I spend so much time with church people is that I am an introvert and after spending so much time with church people, I really don’t look for opportunities to spend time with other people.

But mostly I spend my time with church people because that seems to be the nature of my calling. God has called and gifted me for the task of working with church people. And because I have been doing this for so long, I have a lot of ideas and comments and even a few complaints about the church. I am committed to the church, both the local churches I work with and the universal church that all believers are a part of. I have a great respect and appreciation and even love for the church.

But that doesn’t blind me to the difficulties and problems that are an intrinsic part of the church. Because the church, any church, is made up of imperfect people who are learning how to be followers, the church is never going to be perfect in reality, at least in this life. A major part of my calling is helping the church see, understand and change the things that are less than perfect.

And one of the major areas of imperfection that I have noted over the years concerns the ownership of the church. It has been my experience that most people who are a part of the church have the wrong idea of who the church belongs to. There isn’t any real agreement among those who have the wrong idea—the number of wrong answers to the question of who the church belongs to is staggering.

Just as an example, there are those who believe the church belongs to the pastor. Some would suggest that it belongs to those who pay the most. Another group suggests that the church belongs to the denominational structures. Another possibility is that the church belongs to whatever group within it that can come up with the most votes. The oldest members sometimes want to lay claim to the church, especially if some of the newest members want to dispute that claim with a claim of their own.

This debate over the ownership of the church is more than just an intellectual discussion. It affects the very nature and work of the church. If the church belongs to any individual or group or organization, the policy, direction and activity of the church is set by the ownership. The owners decide what the church does, when, how and where. If the owners decide that the mission of the church is comforting the afflicted or afflicting the comfortable, that is what the church does.

But the debate misses the point. The church doesn’t belong to the pastor, the moneyed, the connected, the right age group, the organization. The church belongs to God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is his church. Christ is the head of the church and the owner of the church. Certainly, he works through his human agents—but it is his church. Forgetting that important reality opens the church to incredible pain and suffering.

Our task as the church is to discover and do what the owner wants—and if the Bible is any indicator, the owner generally wants us to act in ways that go against our generally self-centered desires. In other words, what I want for and from the church are likely not what Jesus wants for and from the church. The church doesn’t exist to make me feel good—it exists to serve Christ. And one thing that pleases Christ is seeing me challenge and change the selfish and sinful aspects of my being that get in the way of really knowing him.

And when I gather with other believers to form a church or the church, the purpose of the church isn’t to make us all feel good—it is to help us all become better at serving the owner personally and as a body. It is Christ’s church, not ours.

May the peace of God be with you.

FAITH AND CULTURE

Whether we realize it or not, much of Western culture is being affected by a non-western religion. While many people in Western countries aren’t aware of how deeply this non-western religion has affected us. Mind you, many participants in this faith aren’t aware of how much the western culture as affected this approach to religion either. Both have been modified and re-arranged by the other.

Unfortunately, the culture has tended to gain the upper hand in this modification process. Some of the ways this old, non-western religion has been changed have had beneficial effects on it. For many years, for example, some branches of this faith explicitly required that it be practised in a language that many followers didn’t really understand. Eventually, the cultural pressures allowed the religion to discover the value of using the language of the people. Another change in this ancient religion came about in the way the worship was conducted-over time, cultural pressure brought about more culturally appropriate styles and approaches to worship. Mind you, parts of this religion have successfully resisted all such changes.

But for all the good changes, the religion has tended to be on the losing side of the culture war. It’s essential teachings have been tampered with; it’s codes of conduct have been weakened or selectively ignored; it’s followers have been encouraged to follow cultural norms rather than original teachings; it’s greatest insights have been blunted or ignored. In many geographic areas of the west, the legacy of this ancient religion is all but forgotten while a culturally modified façade seeks to use bits and pieces of it to bolster cultural norm and patterns.

The irony is that this ancient religion has at it’s core a call to change culture. The basic teachings and tenants of this faith call for a different approach to life, an approach that stands in sharp contrast to the individualistic and self-centered western approach to life. This religion began claiming to be a divinely given alternate to the destructive and selfish realities of human life. And at times, it did a fantastic job of changing culture.

It was and is especially effective on the individual level. People discovered the core of this religion and made changes in their lives, changes that made them stand out. Sometimes, they were seen and noticed and gave others courage to follow the faith. Other times, they were seen and noticed and the difference was so dramatic and so counter-cultural that they were shunned, scorned, persecuted and even killed. But often, the religion reached enough people and for a time, the culture it found itself in changed for the better.

But human selfishness is a powerful force—and faced with a force that tries to set limits on selfishness, it reacts in self-defence. Culture comes roaring back and begins chipping away at the core of this religion. Eventually, this religion stopped being a cultural change agent and becomes an agent of the culture, one more way of channeling the essential human selfishness into self-serving ways.

Our western culture has been deeply affected by this ancient religion, Christianity. We see the continuing effects of this change in the continuing calls for equality and fairness in our culture. But at some point in the last century, it seems like a line was crossed and the changes western culture made in Christianity became more significant than the changes Christianity made on western culture. The faith no longer stands outside the culture, seeking to make the culture better—now, unfortunately, it has too often become the weaker partner in the relationship and has become nothing more than a tool to force people into being better players in the cultural games.

But culture rarely has the final answer because the Christian faith is a living and dynamic faith empowered by the presence of the Holy Spirit. No matter how strong the call and temptation of selfishness, the Spirit will eventually act, bringing about a reformation, a reformation that will break some of the tangled bonds it has with culture. Human culture is always based in our human selfishness—Christianity is based in and on God’s eternal love and grace and no matter what it looks like at any given point in time, God will always win.

May the peace of God be with you.

FAMILIES

I have been in ministry for over 40 years. I have the sermon pile, the pastoral weight gain and the grey hair to prove all that. But there are a great many people who don’t seem to understand the full implications of 40+ years of ministry. Either they think that clergy are the most sheltered people in the world or we are the most unobservant and unintelligent people around.

I say this because there are a great many people both inside and outside the church who feel it necessary to clue me in on things that they think will surprise me, upset me or shock me. It is not uncommon, for example, for someone to drag me aside to give me vital information about the family I am working with during funeral planning. In the corner, speaking quietly, they inform me that there are tensions within the family that might make the whole funeral difficult. Or the wedding planning process that someone feels they need to talk to me about because someone won’t like it if someone else is involved.

Then there are the shocking moral issues that people feel they need to bring to me, perhaps thinking that I need to be warned so that I don’t pass out when I discover that the couple I am going to marry are already living together and have a child or that the older gentleman I am conducting the funeral for was an alcoholic. Or perhaps they feel I need to know that the child of one of the church members is actually gay and that is causing some problems in the family.

I listen to all these insights and revelations and nod pastorally. But inside, I have to confess that I am thinking something like, “Do you actually think I am that stupid/naive/out of touch?” I am a pastor, which means that I know almost as much about people and their families as the village gossip—and I gained my knowledge legitimately and know what is true and what is made up. I am also because of my training, my experience and my nature, as capable social observer. I am rarely surprised and even when I am, can actually see the reality of the new revelation pretty quickly.

It is actually a major part of my calling to understand and know people. I think it is also a major part of my calling to know and understand and accept the realities that I am working with. People are people and families are families. We all have good and bad, positive and negative, inspiring and sordid mixed together in a tangled and confusing mess that makes us what we are. To find a family where some members are at odds with each other isn’t a surprise to a pastor—actually, the surprise is finding a family where that isn’t true.

As I have thought about this, I think that part of the problem lies with clergy. Some clergy have been and perhaps are guilty of pretending that the darker side of life is beyond them. As a body, we have perhaps been too eager to condemn the failings in individuals and families. Rather than accept and work with the realities, we have condemned, which has caused people to try to hide things and cover them over. But that isn’t a very effective way of dealing with the negatives of life.

As a pastor, my job isn’t to encourage people to hide stuff from themselves, others and me. I see my job as helping people accept their reality as a first step towards dealing with it. If I can accept their reality, it helps them accept their reality—and if I can accept their reality and them, maybe they can find the courage and insight to deal with the painful darker stuff that they, like everyone has. My model for this, of course, is Jesus who saw the darkest and deepest and most hidden realities in every life and still loved and accepted and offered the fullness of his love and grace. He did get somewhat testy with all those trying to put on a false front but for the rest, he knew, accepted and loved.

So, I listen to all the revelations that a delicate pastoral personality could never expect, thank the revealer and keep on doing what I always do—helping people discover God’s love and grace no matter what their reality is.

May the peace of God be with you.

BEING A PATIENT

I spend a lot of time in hospitals. There are three where I am a regular and three more where I end up now and then. My calling as a pastor to rural congregations and communities with aging members means that there are frequently people in the hospital who want to see their pastor—and I generally want to see them. So, I am no stranger to hospitals or people needing medical attention or the processes that go on in hospitals. I am comfortable and feel that I am making a difference in the eventual outcome for the people I see.

But for all the time I spend in hospitals, I have very rarely been a patient. Until recently, I had spend about a day and a half in hospital as a patient and since that was for kidney stones, I wasn’t much aware of what was going on around me. The debilitating pain followed by the blessing of serious pain killers pretty much rendered me oblivious to anyone and anything around me in the hospital.

Recently, though, I was in the hospital for some day surgery, a process that involved a lot of waiting. We waited for my turn at the registration desk, we waited for my turn for further processing and then I waited in the surgery prep room—my wife wasn’t allowed there. After the surgery, I waited while the staff made sure there were no complications. There were lots of other people waiting at every stage in the process. In my ministry, I have spent time in most of those waiting places as a pastor, helping others through their waiting.

But what I noticed during my waiting was that I really wasn’t interested in being a pastor in any of the places I was waiting. I wasn’t overly nervous nor was I anxious about the coming surgery. Although it could have some serious implications, I wasn’t stressed or biting my nails. It wasn’t high anxiety that kept me from being concerned with the people around me.

I just didn’t want to engage anyone. My introversion was working overtime. I talked to my wife when she was present—but once she was gone, I was most comfortable reading and playing solitaire on my phone. Being me, I was aware of what was going on in the rooms—I heard the loud extrovert covering his anxiety with talk; I noticed the very anxious couple over in the corner; I spotted the guy trying to cover his nerves by appearing to sleep; I watched lady try to make a safe nest in her hospital bed as she waited for her turn—but I didn’t want to engage. I just wanted to be a patient.

I wanted to be someone there for day surgery who was most comfortable reading and playing solitaire. I did engage a bit when someone I knew was wheeled into the room—this is after all, a rural area and the chances of my knowing someone any place are good. But he wasn’t overly interested in conversation so after some general talk, he picked up his crossword and I went back to the phone.

I am aware that many of the people waiting with me could probably have used some pastoral input. Some might have appreciated some prayer. There may even have been one or two there who would even see a repetition of my last sermon as a good distraction. But I really wasn’t interested in providing it. Now, if someone had recognized me and specifically asked for pastoral care or prayer or even the sermon, I would probably have provided it, although they might have got the condensed version of the sermon. But mostly, I just wanted to be a patient, waiting out the process of getting my surgery done so I could go home.

I have given it some serious thought and have come to the conclusion that this was the best choice for me. I am a pastor and I do care about people and I do push beyond many limits. But that particular day, I needed to be a patient. Of all the ways I could have dealt with that day, I think I chose the best for me—I had a hospital patient arm band, I was a day surgery patient, I was in the process. Going with the flow worked for me. I was glad to just be a patient.

May the peace of God be with you.

FIRST SNOW

In the last few weeks, I have run onto several recent immigrants to our area, several of whom haven’t had the pleasure of driving in snow. They were talking a bit about the process of discovering snow tires, low speed trips, watching the weather, allowing more time than normal and all that sort of stuff that I grew up knowing. While some of the people I have been talking to have several years of winter driving under their seatbelts at this point, they confess to still being nervous.

Generally, winter driving doesn’t make me nervous—except for the very first storm that puts real snow on the road, especially if that storm begins during the day time and the snow accumulates before dark. Then, I get really nervous. A minor part of the nervousness comes from the inherent danger of driving in snow—that is a good nervousness because it causes me to remember all the winter driving techniques that I have learned over the years: slow down, don’t make sudden starts or stops, slow down. allow lots more space between cars, slow down, pay more attention to oncoming traffic, slow down, never pass the snow plow and finally, slow down. Remembering and following these rules has saved me from lots of accidents. The accidents that I and others had to prove the value of these rules did have a positive side.

But remembering the rules accounts for only a minor part of the nervousness. Most of my anxiety and stress with winter driving comes from having to share the road with other drivers. Most drivers in Canada quickly remember and adapt to winter driving techniques—but there are a few who seem to think that driving in snow and slush is exactly the same as driving on clear dry roads. Those drivers really bother me. They may think they have control as they pass several prudent drivers, slipping and sliding as they (probably) curse and fume at all us slower drivers. But they don’t have as much control as they think and their next accident is only a slip away—and my nervousness comes from the fact that I really don’t want to be in their way when they lose their tenuous traction and spin out. Slippery roads mean I have very little chance of avoiding their out of control vehicle.

When I meet or am passed by such a driver, I almost always get around to asking myself why people do stuff like that—generally, that comes after I question their sanity in less than ministerial terms. (I freely admit to not being perfect and there is nothing like a poor driver to bring out my imperfection). I don’t actually know why I ask about their motives because ultimately, the answer is basic theology.

We are sinful beings, a traditional theological way of saying that we are all selfish and think that we are the centre of the world. We tend to think that if the world doesn’t revolve around us, it should and we have a tendency to act in ways that confirm our selfishness. So, if I don’t want to slow down on snowy roads, the world needs to accommodate me. I may justify it by saying that I am an experienced driver or that I have a car that is good in snow or that I have four wheel drive or that I can handle the snow better than others but the reality is that my sinfulness is showing.

And that means that I need to do some work on myself. While I tend to focus on their sinful and selfish poor driving, I probably need to focus more on my sinful and selfish judgemental attitude. I might be driving slower than they are but I am being as sinful as they are—and since I can’t really reform them, I need to focus on what I can really control: my driving and my attitude. I probably need to drop the stone that I want to throw at the poor driver and deal with my own sin.

It is much easier and more gratifying to judge the other driver—but as a follower of Christ, I need to allow the Holy Spirit (and maybe the police) to deal with that driver while I ask for the Spirit’s help to deal with my own sin.

May the peace of God be with you.

RUSH HOUR

The other day, I was heading out in the car to go see someone in the church. I came to the stop sign at the end of our side street and had to wait before I could turn. That isn’t uncommon—about half the time, there is a car coming and I have to wait. But this time, well, there must have been at least half a dozen cars coming from both directions. It felt like I waited hours and hours to get a clear stretch so I could pull out. I mentally joked about it being rush hour in town.

But then I visited our daughter in the big city. We took a train into the city for a day trip. Part of the route parallels some of the major roads into the city. We went into the city after the morning rush but left just as the rush home was building. The train car we took going home was packed and the roadways were also packed. This was the real rush hour—when the train car has more people than our village, it is crowded. I know that there are more people in our town than there were in the train car but allow me my country mouse exaggeration.

I enjoyed our time on the city. There are so many things to do and see and experience. I could eat samosas, eat lunch in a revolving restaurant hundreds of feet in the air, visit a waterfall and an huge shopping mall within minutes of each other. I could listen to English, French, Hindi, Spanish and who knows how many languages. The options are endless and when I visit, I like to enjoy them—our town hasn’t seen samosas in ages and our restaurants are fantastic but they don’t revolve.

But after I visit, I am going to come back home to our small town, settle back in and still complain about having to wait for six cars before I can pull out of our side street. For better or worse, I am a country mouse. I like where I live. I am not tied totally to any one location but I just prefer places where rush hour involves a whole lot less people than what I see when I visit the city.

It isn’t that I dislike cities. I have spend time in a lot of cities, significant time occasionally. I like exploring cities, especially in the days when my knees allowed me to walk. I love the possibilities in the city and whenever I am in a city, I quickly discover places where I can indulge in treats. I can tell you where to find great coffee in Nairobi; a great curry buffet in Toronto, fantastic street food in Ottawa, some tremendous beaches in Mombasa, a entertaining open top bus tour of Vancouver, a middle of the road evangelical church in Louisville—I have discovered and enjoyed all this in my travels.

I look forward to time in a city and try to experience it to the full and bring home the pictures to prove it. But in the end, I am going to come home and look at the pictures and remember the coffee and all the rest as I sit in my living room in our small rural community. I might sit there planning my next trip but I know I am going to always end up here or somewhere like here.

And that is because in the end, I know who I am and what works for me. I prefer the slower and less crowded spaces when it comes to a place to call home. That is part of my nature and part of the reality of who I am. I like rural spaces, I like small churches, I am most at home with fewer people. I might want samosas and revolving restaurants now and then but in the end, I am going to come back to a smaller, slower place where rush hour involves six cars probably driven by people I know and have spent time with or who I have at least seen at the store or market or post office.

This isn’t everyone’s reality but it is mine and I learned a long time ago that I can live my choices without knocking someone else’s choices. This isn’t an anti-city rant—it is a statement of who I am and nothing more.

May the peace of God be with you.

HOW TO WITNESS!?…

The title of this blog isn’t suffering from one of those strange electronic glitches that sometimes produces unexpected characters in text. It actually represents something of my personal journey (and confusion) when it comes to the process of being a witness to my faith.

Early in my faith, I was sure that being a witness involved direct action, strong words and clear purpose, hence the !. Witnessing was and is a basic requirement of all believers and as a young, evangelical new believer, I knew that I had to witness to my faith always. The books and sermons and seminars on witnessing always included a “!”—there was always someone telling me how to be a more effective witness—with at least one ! in every title and paragraph.

I read all the classic witnessing tools: Four Spiritual Laws, The Roman Road, The Sinners’ Prayer. I knew all the arguments to cut down opposition to the faith. I had answers for the questions I was going to encounter. I had lots of !!! in my approach, my understanding and enthusiasm.

But no matter what I am doing, I am an analytical person: I need to examine things, take them apart, understand them and evaluate them. And I discovered that the certainty of witnessing wasn’t all that certain. Most people weren’t paying attention—and no matter how many !!! I and others used, our approach wasn’t working.

I began to see witnessing with a ? instead of a !. I had lots of questions: Why aren’t people listening? Why aren’t the approaches working? Why can’t I find the right words? How come the !! aren’t working? My analysis began to suggest to me that the witnessing process wasn’t as clear-cut and as easy as all the books and trainers had lead me to believe. In fact, I began to wonder if it was possible to witness at all.

My journey from ! to ? didn’t stop me from wanting to share my faith and it didn’t stop me from actually sharing my faith—but it did change my approach. Rather than understand witnessing as an aggressive, verbal offence on my part, I began to see it as a waiting for the other person to give me an opening, which I could then exploit. It didn’t actually happen all that often but when it did, I found that none of the canned responses actually worked. My witnessing sessions had a lot less ! and a whole lot more ?, questions from both the witnesser and witnessee.

And the ? phase of the witnessing journey also didn’t produce all that much in the way of results. I had some great conversations about faith and sometimes really was aware of the presence of the Spirit in the process but often, the person would thank me for the time and insights and continue on their way, not having walked the aisle or raised their hand or prayed the sinners’ prayer.

And thinking on that has led me to the present stage of my witnessing journey. I see witnessing as a process, something best exemplified by …. Witnessing is a long and involved process that is much bigger than me, my words and my actions. I am not THE WITNESS—I am a witness, one among many influences, all of us working under the leading of the real witness, the Holy Spirit.

Ultimately, it is God who brings people to himself. In the process of helping someone to open themselves to his love and grace, God graciously allows us to play a part. He could do his work without us and many times, I am sure that he would have an easier time if we weren’t involved. But he invites us to participate in his work of bringing others to himself. Sometimes, we have a clearly defined and clearly important part in the process—he uses us to deliver the right words to the right person at the right time. Other times, he gives us a less clear but nonetheless important part—who knows how the cup of cold water delivered in his name is going to affect the process?

So, for now, I see witnessing as …–an ongoing process where God is seeking to bring someone to him and gives me a task along the way. As I faithfully seek to know and do what God wants, he lovingly and graciously uses it in his process—and the witnessing goes on…

May the peace of God be with you.

FREE TIME

The last few months in the churches have been hectic and stressed—church work can be that way, even in small congregations. The regular activities like worship and Bible study and pastoral care get supplemented by funerals, crises, special events and a variety of unpredictable things. While I try to find breaks and rest stops along the way, most of the time, I find myself hanging on, counting the days until the next break.

Because of my particular situation, I also look forward to the New Year because one of the pastorates I serve basically closes down for the winter months. The membership decided several years ago that the stress of winter travel, snow clearing and heating old buildings was too much for a small aging group of people. Better to shut down and wait out the winter. Since these congregations account for half my work week, the shut down means that I have some free time over the winter.

This year looked even better because the congregation I had been filling in for during the shutdown months has recently called a permanent pastor. In the past, I have made significant plans for the use of this free time. I have had woodworking projects, outdoor plans like skiing, plans to meet with friends for coffee and so on. But I didn’t actually get around to making any plans for this year. The fall was busier than normal for some reason and I didn’t have the time to give the break a lot of thought. I knew it was coming and was depending on it mentally but didn’t really give in much thought, beyond the occasional “I’ll get to that in the new year.”

Well, the New Year has arrived—and if the first few weeks are any indication, I was really wise not to plan anything major that depended on having that time free. The free time is turning out to be busier that I expected and probably busier than I want. Today, for example, should be relatively free—it’s a Monday, a day when I don’t normally work and it is a Monday during the down time of the year so it should be even freer. But instead of having a relaxed Monday where the most difficult decision is coffee or chocolate for my mid-morning break, I have three appointments. Two are related to ministry I am involved in beyond the churches and one is a health appointment.

So far, the month of January is pretty much filled with stuff like this. Some of the health stuff I am not all that fussy about but it does need to be taken care of. The ministry stuff is all stuff that I want to do—I either volunteered or didn’t resist being volunteered because it involves things I like or feel strongly that I should do. But January at least isn’t going to have the amount of free time that I anticipated.

I am sure that there will be some free time during this down time—and the reason I am sure of it is that I will make it happen. I need the break so that I am able to function at my best. And so I will decide just how busy I am during this time. I am not going to play the game that keeps me running and rushing all the time because it gives me some inner gratification to think that I am so important that I can’t actually slow down. I know that in the end, I am in charge of my schedule and my plans.

There are certainly some things that I can’t control: the various health related activities or the crises arising in the churches, for example. But ultimately, I decide how much I do and when I do it. If I let the whole three month shut down go by without getting some time and space for relaxation and restoration, I have no one to blame but myself. So, as busy as this time seems to be starting out, I will find the time I need to prepare myself physically, mentally and spiritually for the rest of the year. It will take some effort and work but it is my schedule and my life and I have no one to blame but myself if it doesn’t happen.

May the peace of God be with you.

A NEW BIBLE

One of my devotional activities consists of reading the Bible through every year or so. I try to read a different translation each time, which keeps me always on the lookout for translations that I haven’t seen. While we live in an era where it sometimes seems there is a new English translation coming out every other day, that isn’t quite the case. As I neared the end of the last translation I was reading through, I began looking around for the next one and was having some difficulty.

Or I was until I checked the Bible programs I have on my various devices. There, I discovered several translations that I hadn’t run into before. They aren’t new translations—they were free with the Bible program, which means they are older and probably didn’t make all that big an impression even when they were new. But they are different translations and I haven’t read them before so now I have several more years of devotional reading. I won’t stop looking for new translations but I don’t have to wonder where my next one will come from.

The one I chose to read comes from the early 1800s so I didn’t expect contemporary language. I began reading and found myself relaxing and enjoying the process. The reading was producing a sense of comfort and contentment and even peace that I hadn’t actually expected. To be honest, sometimes, my devotional reading is done out of duty—I have committed to this and I am going to do it, no matter what.

But that hasn’t been the case so far with this new translation. I am enjoying the process and the words and phrases seem to wash over me, giving me a powerful sense of something positive. Now, I am not a person to simply accept things—I need to know why and how come and all that sort of stuff.

I realized shortly after I began reading that this particular translation uses pretty archaic language even considering it’s 1800s origin. In fact, it seemed to be pretty close to the language used in the King James Version. I actually did some checking and discovered that isn’t a coincidence. The translator set himself the task of slightly revising the KJV to bring it up to date a bit—he didn’t want to make major changes or re-translate the whole thing. All he was interested in doing was updating a few words and phrases here and there.

And with that bit of knowledge, I began to understand the feelings I was having when I was reading the translation. I grew up with the KJV. It was part of my early faith life: Sunday School, worship, youth group, Bible study. My first devotional reading was of the KJV. The first time I ever read the Bible through was in the KJV. The words and phrases, ancient as they are have been imprinted in my mind and emotions and are a basic part of both my thought process and faith process. In fact, when I think of a Bible verse, I generally think of it in its KJV version and then have to look it up in whatever modern translation I am using. Reading this translation is taking me back to my faith roots, reminding me of times and feelings that go way back.

I have read, worked with and appreciated different translations almost from the beginning of my faith journey. I began seriously using newer translations when I began university and have spend a great deal of time reading and studying Scripture in most major English translations and a couple of Kiswahili ones. I am reluctant to recommend the KJV to anyone younger that I am, especially if I know they don’t have a strong background in the faith or Bible reading. I rejoice in the wealth of new translations available and the potential to match translations with every language sub-group on English. I will not be going back to using the KJV as my basic translation.

But I am going to enjoy this translation I am reading—and may even put the KJV in my devotional reading list again at some point. The old, archaic and hard to understand language that drives me to seek and use newer translations is also touching my faith and feelings in positive ways and I am going to enjoy the process and let the Holy Spirit work through the words and phrases that I may not understand but which still speak powerfully to me.

May the peace of God be with you.

THE PHONE CALL

I am part of the cell phone revolution—we don’t have a landline in our home. That has several implications, one of which is that my name no longer appears in a phone book. As a pastor, that means in order for people to contact me, I have to be very liberal passing our my business cards, as well as making sure that my number is published every week in the church bulletin. I am not hard to get a hold of, at least within my ministry circle.

Recently, though, I discovered that my ministry circle is much bigger than I thought. I got a call from an acquaintance, someone we used to live near. We had a good relationship, comfortable enough to pass some time when we met but nothing deep or significant. The neighbours knew I was a pastor—they may even have showed up at a funeral or two I conducted. I knew that like many people they didn’t have any real church connection. When we moved to another house, we didn’t see each other all that much but when we did, we would pass some time and move on.

The phone call, though, was an overt request for pastoral care. A death is imminent and the caller wanted me to be involved in the process. He explained how he got my number, mentioning a third person whose name I didn’t actually recognize at first gave him the number. When I finally remembered who the other person was, I realized that my connection was through another funeral for a family member—and I may have given him a card. Like the caller, this person has no real church connection other than a familial connection. But even after a year or more, he had retained my card and number and was quite happy to pass it along to his friend who needed some help.

It isn’t that there are no other clergy around. The person who passed on the phone number has a tentative connection with a church that has a pastor. The caller likely knows another clergy person personally since they are close to the same age and grew up in the same area. All the church in our town have landlines and therefore are listed in the phone book.

But the caller wanted to connect with me. It suggests to me that on some deep level, I am his pastor. I doubt if he would define the relationship that way but essentially, that is the reality. He needs a pastor—he finds my number so that he can talk to his pastor. The fact that he has never been in a worship service in any church I have pastored aside from a funeral isn’t an issue. He needs a pastor and I am his pastor.

My pastoral ministry extends well beyond the churches I serve. And it is based on a whole lot more than the activities I get paid to engage in. I am his pastor likely because of the nature of the relationship we had when we were neighbours and because of some ministry I provided to another neighbour, who also didn’t and doesn’t have any other church connection.

I realized again that believers really are never off duty. My faith is part of my being and its reality is always visible. And because of that, I am always a witness. Sometimes, as in the case of this called, my witness is positive, setting the stage for a deeper ministry when it is needed. But there is the very real possibility that some of the phone calls I don’t get are a result of a negative witness that I have shown some person along the way, a negative witness that speaks not only about how my ministry has been perceived but also about how the God I claim to follow has been perceived. I might be a part-time pastor for small congregations but I am a full time witness to a very large circle of people, a circle whose boundaries I will probably never know.

Fortunately, God is aware of the boundaries of that circle and through the power of the Holy Spirit, can and does enable one person to give another person a phone number so that they can contact me—and the same Spirit will guide my ministry with the called, as long as I am willing to listen to the Spirit.

May the peace of God be with you.