What If

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It seems glaringly obvious to me today that we the church who put most of our energy into a one-hour-a-week gathering have things upside down.  Maybe this is why little churches that don't have a full-time pastor are often healthier than the churches that have one.

Think about the gospels.  Jesus teaches, heals, prays.  If there's a worship service in there somewhere, Jesus isn't the one leading it.  The ones who are leading temple services are the ones that Jesus is arguing with, the ones that he calls "blind guides."

So why is the weekly worship service the biggest thing we do?  Its the primary focus of my time and my pastoral training.  I had classes in seminary about the Bible, Bible history, biblical languages, homiletics, and theology, all of which are geared toward preaching.  I had one class in counseling, and zero classes in social work.  If I could go back and do it over, I would get lots more training in counseling, social work, and administration.

Once in awhile I float the idea that we shift our focus away from worship.  What if we spent some of our Sundays in other ways?  Its not unusual for a church to have a day of service on a Sunday, but it's not a regular occurence. It happens once or twice a year.  We've had a Sunday where we have groups of two to four discuss things, but, again, not a regular occurence.  

I'm ready to make service and discussion part of the regular Sunday rotation.  How about you?

Star Word 2025 - This time for real.

Today I was going through things in preparation for a trip to Seattle tomorrow, and lo and behold I found my actual 2025 star word: enthusiasm. I haven't posted about this word until now, but I did talk about it in a sermon in January.  Here's what I said:

Last Sunday we got star words...

My word for this year is "enthusiasm." As I’ve said before, I often don’t like my word at first, but this year's word felt particularly inappropriate for someone like me who has been dealing with depression over the last couple of years. Enthusiasm is too much to ask.

But then I did some digging, and it turns out that "enthusiasm" comes from the Greek word Enthousiazein which means “be inspired or possessed by God." The root of this word is “en theos.” In God.

Enthusiasm is not something I need to try to manufacture. It is the Spirit of God in me. It brings me right back to my frogs. Fully Rely on God. Trusting that God is with me, loves me, wants the best for me.

What if God is doing something new, something greater in us?

To turn water into wine, Jesus asked that they fill the jars with water, then draw some water out of the jar and take it to the wine steward. Jesus used what they had and turned it into

something better.

What are we holding back out of fear that needs to fill the jars and become wine?

Are we willing to be enthused?

Enthusiasm is challenging.  But passion and whole hearted trust in God will carry us beyond our expectations because God will carry us beyond our expectations. 

Thanks, God. 

Why the Church Needs to Focus on Inclusion

 

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Why does the church need to focus on inclusion?

This is a question that I have struggled to answer well. Today it seems more clear to me.

Aren’t we supposed to focus on Jesus?  Well, sort of.  I think it’s more accurate to say that we’re supposed to focus on following Jesus.  That’s the invitation Jesus makes to the disciples.  “Come follow me.”  

In the gospel of John, the direction Jesus gives in the upper room on his last meal with the disciples is to “go and do likewise.”  Not to focus on him but on doing like he has done.  If we interpret that too narrowly, we’d have to be setting up foot-washing stations all over town.

It is often hard to know what to focus on because there’s so much to be done.  People are hungry.  Injustice is easy to find.  Hopelessness and despair are always hanging around somewhere.

Jesus gives us marching orders at the end of Matthew’s gospel.  “Go and make disciples, baptizing them…teaching them…”  Some churches have made this into a mission/vision statement: Reach the lost, make disciples, send them out.  To fully live that out, we have to be inclusive. 

We often pray for God to give us a vision for being the church in this time and place.  Why are we here in Sterling, Kansas (or wherever you are) in 2025 (or whatever year it is when you read this).  I wonder if we truly expect a clear answer?

To me it’s clear that the most excluded demographic is the one that needs to know the most clearly that we want them to be included.  Churches have been telling LGBTQ that they’re welcome, but only if they’re willing to change. Studies show that one in three people has experienced religious trauma, and the incidence is dramatically higher for people who are LGBTQ. They also have higher rates of suicide.  (Read more here.) These much higher rates shouldn’t be surprising considering how many churches are still telling them that they’re going to hell for being who they are. If we aren’t being explicit about inclusion, people will expect to be excluded because of the church’s history.  

In a more populated area, it’s not too hard to find truly LGBTQ-inclusive churches now, thankfully.  But in rural central Kansas where I live, there are none.  It’s a ministry gap that exists because people in rural areas tend to assume that there aren’t any LGBTQ people here.  It’s hard to know who exactly is hiding here, but for sure they’re hiding.

In 2 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul says we are called to the ministry of reconciliation - restoring broken relationships with God and with one another.  In regards to LGBTQ people, the church has a lot of reconciling work to do…not only with those who are LGBTQ, but also their family and friends.  This is work that we are called to do, and especially in this time and this place.

I know that this is difficult.  Our culture has raised us to be anti-LGBTQ, even to the point of anger and revulsion.  We have been trained to react negatively to non-heterosexual behavior.  It takes time to unlearn what has been ingrained in us so deeply.

I hope we’ll keep on moving forward.  It’s the least we can do.

Thanks for reading.

Star Word 2025

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I can't believe it's already June and this is the first time I'm posting about my star word for this year.  This tells me two things: 1) I disliked this year's word so much that I've almost entirely disregarded it, and 2) I am still wrestling with depression and in some ways with God.

The word that I drew out of the basket of words at church in January is "gratitude."  The concept is great.  It's just so obvious. I preach about it.  I pray about it. I share daily thankfulness with my husband and one of my long-time friends.  I can recite scriptures about thankfulness from memory.

I guess I was hoping for a more challenging word.

A colleague suggested to me that it's ok to just coast sometimes.  I don't seem to be very good at doing that for very long.  I take days off.  I take naps.  I'm set to take all my vacation and continuing education this year for what may be the first time since I became a pastor.  I even had a three-month sabbatical last year.  Gratitude should be a nice, easy coast.

Except that sometimes it's not.  I've had some days when my mood was quite bad and gratitude was extremely hard.  I can always say I'm thankful for my coffee, but when I say it I want to really mean it.  

I don't like the memes that say "there's always always always something to be thankful for."  It's true, but sometimes what I need more is to be allowed to be angry or sad or frustrated.  There are bad days. Sometimes they happen for no good reason, and that makes them even worse.  Sometimes there are reasons and those reasons are awful.  Being thankful on those days feels horribly hypocritical, and it took me months to allow myself to skip the thankfulness on those sorts of days.

So that's probably why it's taken me till June to write about the word I got in January.

There's another reason, too.  The person who continually encouraged me to write blogs moved away in January and died in February.  

I know other people read them.  Thank you for reading!  

Most of all I'm thankful that I know that God is infinitely patient with me about all of this, as God is patient with us all.

Thanks, God.

. . .

P.S. I just scrolled back through past blogs and it turns out gratitude was last year's word!  Sheesh. I don't even know what my 2025 word is.  When I figure it out, I'll post again. 

Maybe.

Bringing God-Colors to Light

 

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You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.  – Matthew 5:14 MSG

Recently I’ve become fascinated with stained glass windows.  In many churches, they’re the most colorful part of the sanctuary—sometimes the only colorful part.  One of the reasons for that is the teaching of the Swiss reformer Huldrich Zwingli.  In response to the ornateness of Catholic churches, Zwingli felt that a plainer church would have less to distract the congregation from focusing on God.  Maybe so, but I find the plainness to be the distraction.

In the Bible there are a few descriptions of visions in which people meet God.  The settings are never plain.  They’re imaginative and colorful and filled with sights that cause awe and wonder.  Maybe Zwingli felt the church shouldn’t try to compete with that.  But I think the church would do well to reflect those colorful visions of our creative God.

Of course, “God-colors” are more than stained glass windows and fantastic visions.  The world is filled with color, both literally and figuratively.  There are more than 400,000 different kinds of flowers in the world, and they come in all sorts of different colors.  There are 10 million colors and 18 decillion variations of color.  No wonder the paint companies keep coming out with new shades to paint with.

Our sporting events are narrated by color commentators who help us interpret the actions happening in the game we’re watching.  After a political speech, the commentators color our understanding of the words said by giving us their perspective.  There are potentially as many different perspectives as there are listeners.

Maybe God-colors are less tangible, less visible.  The essence of God is goodness.  1 John says that God is love.  Bringing out those colors would be to do good things, love one another, notice the goodness and love in one another, and encourage each other to be compassionate, considerate, and kind.

Bringing out the God-colors might also be shining light on the ways and places that people are being hurt or mistreated.  In Acts 16, the magistrates have Paul and Silas beaten and imprisoned.  The next day they seem to regret their decision and tell the jailer to let them go free, but Paul refuses to leave in secret.  He wants the world to know that something wrong has happened, so he makes some noise about it, bringing the issue to light.

In my own life, I fight plainness and resist dull and drab and beige and gray.  I enjoy color. It helps my mood.  It feels more fun.  It feels more like God to me.

What does “God-colors” mean to you?

Star Word 2024 - Prep for 2025

If you follow me, you've probably noticed that I write about star words twice a year...at the end and at the beginning. (One year I recapped all my star words here.) This year I'm a bit late, and I don't have my new star word yet, so here's what I usually write at the end: a recap of my year with my 2024 word "gratitude."

As usual, I wasn't thrilled with this word when I got it.  Hadn't I already spent enough time talking and thinking about gratitude?  I've even been processing the idea of toxic gratitude.  When depression is hitting hard, do not tell me that "there's always always always something to be thankful for."  There were many years during which I would agree about being always thankful, and probably even quoted Paul's letter to the Thessalonians which says to "be thankful in all circumstances" (1 Thes. 5:18).  If I ever did that to you, I'm sorry.

Unfortunately, Paul's words have been overused and abused, and I don't think the average white middle-class American has much understanding of the kinds of circumstances Paul had encountered, anyway.  I know I haven't experienced war or jail or shipwreck or whipping, and I hope I never do.  But I also hope I'm better at having empathy than I used to be, and better at just listening.

It may have happened this year that I got in the habit of ending blog posts and sermons by saying, "Thanks, God."  So I guess the gratitude has found its way in at least a little bit.

I used to be somewhat religious about writing thankfulness lists in my journals, and writing thank-you notes to people.  Now I'm more likely to send a text or email. I think I'm probably more likely to be thankful in the moment than in looking back to write a list.  And maybe that's better anyway.

Only God knows for sure.

Thanks, God.

Sabbatical Sililoquy on Showers

Photo by Caleb Wright on Unsplash 

Today I took a shower. Generally that's not terribly significant, but during this sabbatical I haven't taken showers as often.  Which got me thinking...showers are almost always good for thinking...

1) Whenever I wait to long to get a shower, I really need it. I can tell, even though I tend to put it off. (I'm fine. It's fine.) I could tell I really needed this sabbatical too. 

2) Showers are for dealing with our physical dirt. This sabbatical has helped me deal with spiritual and emotional dirt. (Yeah, I wasn't as fine as I was telling myself.)

3) Showering is a bit wonky at our house because the main floor bathroom only has a tub. The shower in the basement is fab, but it's not that convenient to trudge down to the basement for a shower. We're finally addressing this problem, admitting to ourselves that it's really not as ok as we pretend, and hopefully by the time this sabbatical is over, we'll have a real shower on the main floor.

4) I am thankful to have any shower. Not everyone does. Some food banks have added public showers because of this. And laundry facilities. Some churches have washers and dryers too, so people can do their laundry while they're at church. 

My small town doesn't have a laundromat (aka washateria) or public transportation. I wonder how people manage? 

There's an old adage that says cleanliness is next to godliness. It's kind of a weird saying, really. Sounds kinda judgy. But lovingly offering the gift of free showers and laundry is kindness, and kindness is definitely Godly. 

Things to think about.

Thanks, God.