The Real Question

Putting it simply this week...I'm thinking of two poets I saw recently, both slam poets, one not from a Christian tradition and one from a Christian tradition.

The difference in language and vocabulary, descriptors and verbs just made me think......

Can we be real enough once we have crossed over to church culture? Do we so lose our edge that we forget what despair and fear and hopelessness sound like? They have a different emphasis you know.

And if we can't, then how shall those who know the true slice of the negative, the evil that has not been assuaged by spiritual mentholatum, engage with us enough to hear the next verse of hope or redemption?

If redemption, and knowing redemption change the very nature of our connection to the history that gripped us frozen can we speak of 'before' enough to invite people to 'after'?

Moreso from the pulpit. Do you make a point of remembering when you were lost? Can you at least call to mind and heart what it felt like so that 'free' is a contrast instead of an alternative?

Hmmmmm..... I have to think on this more. I think it is key in telling our stories so that they are as real as those recorded about Jesus' encounter with 'lost' are the model rather than the inspiration.

Love,
Deborah

Thanksgiving

Yesterday I was feeling particularly isolated and discouraged. It happens to the best of optimists and faith filled people yasure.  There are some things that are in place this holiday season that for whichever reason have left me wanting. I've felt like I was lacking and let down by the lack in others.

I know it will pass. That's the good news. That's resurrection power, for which I am thankful.

My Bible is right on the bed and I had been reading in Jeremiah 31/32 about restoration and taking it in my soul ever day is a time of restoration for us spiritual types, or ought to be. Otherwise we have to rely on the outer structure of service to maintain our frame and that makes us ingenuous. Nobody wants to be an ingenuous shepherd.

All of you are about to kick into hyper drive. Now this particular season of advent that follows so quickly on the second helpings of Thanksgiving is more about coordinating the lay celebration efforts: choir directors, children's ministers, deacons.  So the peacemaker and encourager side of  faith shepherding is the paramount drain. Unlike the other Lent...grand Lent...which is when we are setting the example This advent is about tell, and the big Lent is about show.

More than ever I encourage you to dig deep into the release of your heart to the Lord. Surrender to the incarnation. Make the telling of the birth come out of Thanksgiving for what God has done in your life.

Well...that is what Jesus mandated us to do right?  That's the good news. You can go to seminary and pass all your exams and get a position and still need Jesus. What we have to tell people is that no matter where , who , or what...we need Jesus, every hour.

That's why the first part of any good prayer is Thanksgiving. We remember what God has already done.

So...what got it right for me? What got me back on track?  I was cooking a meal to take to a woman I don't know whose son died about a month ago and is so grief stricken she can't go back to work yet, and while I was cooking I was praying for this couple who just experienced the death of a their second child. Let me make that more clear. They had two children. One died about ten years ago, the other died last week.

When I can't find the words to pray for a loss that big, I remember to thank God that my burden, that which is making me cry or cry out is not that....whatever it is.

People are looking to you for the example of walking in faith. As you enter this season that is so heavy on telling, remember to let your surrender show. It will shine like the stars in the heavens. That is your greatest gift; your ability to surrender.  I give thanks for your desire to surrender and pray it will increase.

Or at least that's what I told myself. And what words did I finally find to say as I dropped off the meal? My heart is with you. I fyou can say that genuinely to anyone who crosses your path, then you have been touched by God and can give thanks. And I did. And it was good.

Love,
Deborah

Watch Your Mouth

We are entering that time of the liturgical year = from Christmas through   Easter = when our worship, traditions and relationships are more scripted than at other time. It can feel very very good to move into the familiar rejoicing, to retell the story that gives us such comfort.

Pull yourself back and freshen it all a bit. Make a point of using different language this year. Take the old verses and litanies and say them from your heart as if you were a new believer unfamiliar with any tried and true expression. Take comfort from Jesus coming....again...as a baby. Participate in Jesus being born again. Say it like you don't know what lies ahead. Be a shepherd not a priest. Be Mary, be Joseph not the angels in the sky who were in on the whole thing and even understood Glory in all it's hallelujahness.

That feeling one has when one dares to ride a new carnival ride should prevade us all. Remember not the Hope...remember the birth of days that are yet to be in delivered in a way that is going to radicalize your entire definition and prescription of and for living.

You're in charge. You can do it. A smile grows on my face with the Joy of imagining all of you in front of your congregations speaking as if in tongues because your being is embracing it all for the first time....again. Since we know all research shows that faith is caught not taught, think where you will lead your congregations in their own faith walk as they observe and absorb your example! Oh it's just a gift from God thinking about the possibilites. Give yourself that gift this advent.

Love,
Deborah

So what IS alive?

If the church is dead, what is alive is the Body of Christ. That is imperishable.

How does the Body of Christ walk?  How does the Body of Christ talk? Think? Feel? Laugh? Eat?

What if we replaced the church with the Body of Christ?

Just think on that. Church....dead...Body of Christ...alive...
Ah....sweet freedom and joy....
Love,
Deborah

The Best Laid Plans

Well... there I am sitting around a table at a church potluck for a special occasion and it comes up again about how someone is trying to invite someone to church but they had a real bad experience and...

The 'AND' is this. The church as we know it is dead and we would all be doing better service to God and ourselves if we could go with the flow. If you go to an arena or a satellite station mega ministry or are hunkered down in a little church hanging on to it's last member with an endowment or a parking lot that pays for the expenses then probably there's still some life to feel.

But is that living?  My suggestion is this. Why not find what speaks to people about the Gospel. Why not set up some listening stations instead of churches? Why not just sit and hear what people have to say about their faith walk.

If you're liturgical , your place is probably growing. Why? Because people are eager to be in the presence of God. If you're mainline Protestant we can probably hear a death gurgle. Why? Because there isn't enough God in worship. Because, as one famous theologian said, denominations have become about who has the best retirement plan for pastors.

It is NOT bad news that the church is dying or dead. What is bad news is that we are sitting shiva. Let the dead bury the dead. That was Jesus' mandate. Let the dead bury the dead...and then walk off with Jesus to see who the new people are he is going to listen to and speak hope and healing to that day.

Walk brother and sister...Walk into the light!
Love,
Deborah

Be Happy

Many events have come together in the last two weeks that truly can only be recorded in my journal...but this much I found out --

In the Christian world much is touted about the minimal importance of happiness. What's only supposed to be valid is Joy and in fact happiness is supposed to defer to Joy.

Because of what I've experienced in the last two weeks, I believe God wants us to have a happiness that lives in concert with deep inner Joy. I believe circumstances DO matter to God. How I extend that thought is that circumstances do not frighten, intimidate, overwhelm, discourage, embarrass or vex God.  God's character is so Love that apparently Love not only covers a multitude of sins, but strengthens the ability to over ride negative responses to circumstances. 

That is not to say that God doesn't weep and moan and cry out to us as surely as we weep and moan in our limited wisdom and cry out to God. But that all pervasive Love immediately transforms the direst of predicaments into possibilities for new life and new birth and new growth. Happiness in the most temporal of definitions IS important to God. Anything else is too gnostic to support the incarnation.

If you are not happy, then Joy is compromised. The dimension that defines us in different ways in our ability through the Holy Spirit to feel strength in weakness, hope in sorrow and vision during times of discouragement and so forth because we surrender the limits of our understanding, not the limits of our experience. There are no limits to what we can experience with and through the Triune God.

Wow... don't miss out.... save the platitudes and open up the invitation to a full and complete surrender. If the ruling body is getting stuck on some technical issues in your church this week, have a go round of , not Joys and Sorrows, but Joys and Happiness. Being happy is important to God. It's the place where we are unstuck.

Totally believe this....

Love,

Deborah

What does ordination feel like?

I've just been working on a piece of writing that is about a decade old. It prompted me to think on this: What did your ordination physically feel like? What does it feel like to pledge yourself to serve God in counter culture ways? You did pledge to do that didn't you? Did it feel like you were dedicating yourself to be opposite pop culture? Or did it feel powerful in a self actualization kind of way? Is the sensation of being thought of as God's ambassador a good feeling physically?  Research says there are a heck of a lot of ordained people -- I would imagine in all faiths-- who are very depressed. That's supposedly a pretty out of body experience.

Are you a sin eater? A savior? The good time person who bespeaks peace in words and action? What does it feel like physically to carry those roles?  Are you an advocate for God's intellect? Or are you a chicken fryer who fixes the furnace when it's broken? What does the role you take on physically feel like?

We understand the incarnate God when we stay present in our bodies while we serve. I've got to confess that frequently that was the hardest part for me when I was a new pastor.

Full disclosure... right now I'm trying to lose a whole lot of weight I gained while I wasn't paying attention. I keep asking myself how my relationship with the Triune God will change when I am skinny. It's an important question for me. And yet I find that every time I ask it, I panic. I don't have any definitive, conclusive observation right now. I just wanted to bring it up. So.. tell me ... what's your experience been ?
Love,
Deborah

Not a Bad Question

I dumped a load on a friend the other day because I misunderstood about a meeting time. It took a day or two in considering all that had been written back and forth. I was honest about my feelings. There is a situation about which I am enormously sad. It has gone on for some time. When the dust cleared I realized I hadn't mentioned to my friend that I considered her a 'go to' person for this situation. She's in a season where she is doing a different juggle than myself. So... I thought about the disciples elbowing their way through the original creation of the Good News story and my mind's eye turned to Jesus.

You know how we've all made fun of the 'what would Jesus do?"  phenomenon a while back? Well... again and again when I am lost I turn to the shepherd who has gone to retrieve me and is carrying me back on his shoulder to the flock and ask... Jesus... friend, keeper, savior, rescuer, point to the Holy Spirit-er... what would do?  Then I have to ask the second question:  Can I do that?  I don't proceed forward until I  know the answers to those questions.

I remember back to when I spent three years as a solo pastor ( while single parenting) in a small rural church and think how many times it was possible to go a day with Jesus in my heart. He was always on my mind, ( pardon me Willie Nelson), but I wasn't always sitting on his shoulder letting him carry me.

Is ministry valid if Jesus is not primal? Yes, of course. But we may get lost. Sometimes Jesus says, pick up your bed and walk. Sometimes Jesus says, you're off the grid and behind the gate, let me carry you.

If today is a day you are carried count it as a blessing. It does not mean you are a weak leader, it means you are a loved disciple. Ask more questions on those days. You are closer to his mouth to hear his answer.
Love,
Deborah

LINGO

See the reason that pastors are out of touch with the faith of their congregations is because the congregation does not lead a cloistered life. They are out there in the untamed world with their bodies and souls butting up against the unseemly and ungainly.

But  you... the pastor.. has the inherent need to be all things congregational. No matter your appreciation of the congregant's life and lifestyle, you are not afforded the luxury of having your faith develop except by the proxy of those who are out in the world.

Don't protest.  Even if you are meeting one group of 'worldly' people for breakfast or offering a sympathetic ear to someone going through a tough time, or maybe your marriage is on the rocks, your kids are rebelling and your in laws drive you nuts, or the denominational competition for 'pastor of the year' is a pressure, the fact is you get to speak in the LINGO of the church all the time. And then Sunday you roll in for the really big show and it seals the deal

Give it a week without speaking any Christian Lingo at all.... Can you do it? What happens when you do?

The church doesn't need your defense, but the Body of Christ may need you to perform CPR.  Could you do it? Can you breathe life into faith?  Can you give a witness?  Would you?
Let's start a conversation. Tell me about it.
Love,
Deborah

Taking the Gloves Off and Putting Them On

There are two things a person can do when they are up against it; you can put on your gloves and fight, or you  can take off your fighting gloves and put on your garden gloves.

It is disturbing to see that the structure of 'church', the organization created to substantiate the indwelling of power within religion, is so firmly constructed after so many thousands of years of being proved so far from the heart of God.

Like the Jews on the desert who insisted on creating a Golden Calf, and the Israelites begging for a King when God said, "Really I'd rather not" and the disciples who argued about who was going to be on the left or right, and the early church that included a leader who made everyone convert thereby instituting a state religion, and the wars that ensued, and the reforms that just morphed into samo , samo, and the revivals that ended up creating a whole new samo, samo, we are still learning that God wants us to be the Body of Christ not an institution.

I watched in horror on Palm Sunday as a youngish pastor instructed his elders to strip the Altar and asked everyone to exit in silence and then place a nail in the cross on the Narthex. How could someone skip through Holy Week like that?  In the interest of a very trendy, Seder he had scheduled on Maundy Thursday where people were instructed to bring only Kosher dishes ( yet was there two sets of dishes? Was the kitchen cleansed appropriately?).

Form , not substance, law, not Spirit, eludes us.  The week ended with a young enthusiastic seminarian leading a supposed Sunrise Service on Easter morning only it was actually a Vigil and not concluded with the lovely pronouncement 'He is Risen!!" and the lovelier response "He is Risen Indeed!!"

How can that be? How can there be even two Christian leaders who have missed the most basic thread of the story? How can it be that even once this should happen, yet alone so many millions of times? It's a simple story, deep but simple. The story line is not difficult to follow.

It's time to take off the boxing gloves... no more reformations, no more reviewing of the by laws. It's time to put on our weeding gloves. It's time to take out all that is choking out healthy growth as the Body of Christ. Whatever is keeping us from breathing, shedding old skin for new, cramping our internal organs, causing our vision to be older than it is, destroying our circulatory system, we need to weed out.  We need to recapture every thought for Christ. We need to encourage leaders to surrender their hearts. It's time. What are you doing about it?

Love,

Deborah