Boring Post
A brief rundown of past and future events:
1. Sr. Pastor has been on another continent for the past two weeks. My work load has been *slightly* bigger (including a funeral).
2. I didn’t go to the STS retreat this week. There are several reasons for that, but I will give you the shortest rundown possible: a) I don’t want to travel right now when it is not required. b) See point 1. c) I just had a bad feeling about it as the date approached.
3. We got our first fall weather this week. It was in the 40’s last night and we may get frost up here tonight. So what does this make me want to do?
4. It makes me want to go see a high school football game, which we will do with a couple other families tonight.
5. I spoke with the Synod office the other day about mobility and the transition that will take place at the church. It feels like this is all happening pretty fast.
6. I am trying to discern what will come next. So far the options that are emerging from conversations with church officials and discernment with friends are as follows: a) another standard call at a parish, b) mission development, c) campus ministry. I have a different pull each day, but I feel like I am being led to options b or c. I have had several people approach me about option b, including the guy who makes option b happen.
7. My poor wife is really being pushed at her job. She took a job at a christian school, and was told that her job was to make sure it developed a more centrist, moderate outlook. She was also assured that it was not a bastion of fundamentalism, which it most certainly is. The things she comes home and tells me that they say and do makes me have mini-strokes, so I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like firsthand. I really don’t want her to go back after the baby comes.
8. Speaking of baby, things are still going great. I can feel a much stronger bond to this little one I have only seen in pictures. She is now responding with motion when she hears my voice at the end of the day, and I never ceased to be amazed at the mystery of it all. I keep being told that daughters wrap their daddies aroun their fingers. This little one already has.
9. Speaking of baby again, we have picked a name. We are not saying what it is yet, but she shares the first name of a Byzantine saint and a middle name that evokes memory of the Blessed Virgin.
10. On a much lighter note, I am growing more and more annoyed at the use of the music that I grew up with in commercials. Kohl’s is now using Big Country in one of their advertisements, and it just kind of irks me.
11. Finally, I feel this need to thank God for the invention of satellite radio. I got Sirius this summer, and don’t think I could ever go back to broadcast radio. The stations I listen to the most include the Elvis channel, Outlaw Country (especially when Mojo Nixon is DJ), First Wave, and various comedy stations. I never thought I would pay for radio, but it is worth every freakin’ dime.
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LP,
Please consider option b, and if you are interested in emerging church mission development, we are meeting in San Antonio Oct 6&7 (only one night away from home) to discuss strategies from this in the ELCA. CHurch-wide is funding the meeting. If you are interested, let me know.
nbolz-weber@iliff.edu
and yes, when Iggy Pop music was on ads for crusie lines I thought surely it was a sign of the apocalypse.
#6 Seems to me like options B & C would be less compatible with your interests in more traditional liturgy, however, they are important parts of the church. You might be a good person to relate to college age people.
#7 Akkk. Why is it that the right leaners are so hard to talk to and with? I think that this is always part of the problem.
#8 Hooray, hooray! God bless you for being so in touch with the developing situation.
#11 I wish I could get MPR (Minnesota public radio) on these trips I have to take. WPR (Wisconsin PR sucks) and besides public radio, “Christian” radio seems very prominent in Wis, with several stations, including a Catholic station. I’m way less than fond of conservative christian radio, although there are a few good things on it. Usually I don’t count the music in that category. I’m also of the opinion that the church-bashing of a couple of the commentators isn’t Biblical.
I would strongly recommend campus ministry. As P.S. notes, you’ll have to compromise on a lot, not the least of which being liturgy. But it’s the mainline’s most important ministry right now. My generation and later is not going to come back to the mainline in their 30s the way the baby boomers did. We’ve got to keep them in the church as students.
SL - I was actually asked by a DO person if I had any interest in planting an Emerging Church, and simply said I would pray about it. Quite honestly, I don’t if I am the guy to do it. I am still too new to my poking around with all things Emergent to be committed to it on that level. And I wouldn’t won’t to be inauthentic about it. I have too much respect for what is going on in the movement to treat it like the next church growth device.
PS and Chris - It was campus ministry that led me back to Christ and the Church. I have a great appreciation for it, and I am glad that you have found it so meaningful, Chris. There is a big place in my heart for the folks who serve our college students, because without folks like that, I don’t where I would be personally. The campus church I went to was pretty high church at the time (more so than the one I am at now).
However, I am always open to change in the liturgy when it is authentic, organic, faithful, and genuinely serves the needs of the people. Part of what I am finding out about my disdain for “contemporary” worship are some of the implications of it being not “contemporary” but it being baby boomer worship, and thus just as tied to a particular time and place as “traditional” worship. Truth is, I am starting to find neither label helpful.
Short end of it is this: I had amazing experiences in college with worship, be it the formal Sunday worship or the more “exploratory” forms that we had at other times. I think I would find it refreshing to be it a more fluid environment again.
Alas, only time will tell.
Oh yeah, PS, forgot to say this: Sirius is worth the money if you are traveling much or if you are in a place where you radio choices are limited. You can pick up receivers for around $50 and subscription rates a re pretty cheap. But with all the traveling you hav ebeen doing, it may be well worth the money to you.
Oh man. Any individual or institution that has to assure me that it is not a ‘bastion of fundamentalism’ probably is and then some!
Every now and then Old Navy or Target pulls off a great commercial using “our” music, Seems to me that they get it. Stores like Kohls on the other hand do get really annoying.
I can’t address the mobility and discernment points of your post, but I can speak to #8. I have two daughters and I am wrapped tightly, 100% around their fingers. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The boys were a great experience and I loved every minute of their childhood. But the girls have such a way of making me feel like I am #1 in all aspects…..so natch they get most everything they want. Hey wait a minute!
At the end of January, I went from being an associate pastor (my senior retired) to being the pastor at a smaller congregation. I love it - though I am just now coming up for air and catching a vision of who we are and to what God is calling us. Any way you go, you will be stretched and deepened.
Re: #7: Perhaps being “more centrist” and “moderate” was a sly marketing ploy to get your wife - and perhaps some students? - into the door, and then set them straight. I came back from vacation this summer to find an announcement in our bulletin from the fundamentalist Lutheran church in our area. We in the ELCA are all going to hell, but they’ll take our children.
I hear you about girls. I bonded with mine when she was in the NICU for a few days, and my wife was recovering from labor. I love my sons immensely, and they are amazing, but she has my heart in a special way.
LP,
Just know that there is a group of emerging folks commited to staying in the ELCA and any time you want to join the conversation you’d be very welcomed.
On another note, you may appreciate my elation at a new tattoo (as of last night)…a very large forearm piece…a 12th century image of Mary Magdalene announcing the resurrection.
SL - nothing quite like forearm pieces! Mine still draws looks everywhere I go! You need to post some pics.
I appreciate your invitation. I would say that at this point, I am still lurking around trying to learn a bit. But you never know.
LP — I would love to see you in campus ministry as much for the effect on other campus ministers as for the effect on students.
Perhaps things are better in the ELCA, though.
I served as interim director of an ecumenical (UCC, Disciples, PCUSA, Brethren) campus ministry last year. It was incredibly rewarding, and we went from about two students to nearly ten regulars in a year just by bringing back weekly bible study and worship. The board was super supportive, but I think they just hadn’t had direction for the Christian ministry for a while.
A lot of mainline campus ministers seem to see their job as being professional protesters or prophets, and I’ve met more than a few who see nothing wrong with the fact that they’re taking tens of thousands of dollars from the denominations and yet they have no students or student-oriented ministries. I would always come back from statewide meetings in quite a funk.
Sorry — I could rant about this forever. The denominations need to bring back the funding, but they also need to replace more than a few campus ministers who don’t seem to understand what they’re getting paid to do.
Eric - I am glad to hear about your story. I have worriedabout what it would be like to go from a multi-staff parish to a smaller one.
Chris T - I was pretty lucky in college that we had a town and gown parish right across the street from campus with bible studies and events just for students. It was an awesome thing to be a part of. Needless to say, professional protestor wouldn’t be me.
#6c. University Lutheran Church is beginning a call process (in self-study, no call committee yet) for its sole pastor, if you are interested in Philadelphia.
I assume you’ve chatted with Gary C., I seem to recall that he is the DO guy for Southeastern. I considered that option for my first call — in the Southeastern Synod.
I ultimately decided it wasn’t for me for a variety of reasons. 1) I called to be a generalist, and felt like being focused on church planting would take some of that away from me. 2) I felt like the demands — not the ones given by DO, but the ones I would place on myself if I were doing mission development — were more than I could responsibly take on while maintaining my family life. 3) I don’t know that I am entirely happy with the way the ELCA does mission development. I have been exposed to the way Claude Payne (”Reclaiming the Great Commission”
carried out mission development in the episcopal diocese of Texas, and I think that we do not give enough support to our new church plants — thus creating more work for the developer.
I love being at a smaller church. My internship was at a large suburban congregation in the DC area. I went from 350-420 on a Sunday with 5 f/t, 2 p/t staff to just my and the church secretary. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I am, absolutely, a generalist here.
May God bless you as you move through this time of transition and discernment.