Just imagine...

Several years ago I attended a two-day seminar led by Dr. John McClure, who now is the Charles G. Finney Professor of Preaching and Worship at Vanderbilt University Divinity School.  He talked with us about his then-recently published book, Roundtable Preaching: Where Preaching and Leadership Meet.  In that book he proposes a unique way to make sermon writing a collaborative effort between pastor and members of the congregation.  It is a fascinating idea, and one that I utilized for a couple of years with a rotating group of members of the church I served at the time as pastor.  One of the unique methods he describes is working together to look at a biblical passage and try to envision the broader picture of the passage:

·      whose voices do we hear?

·      whose voices are not lifted up in the passage?

·      who might have been standing on the edges of the scene?

·      what might they have been thinking or saying?

·      what might we say if we were there?

It was a wonderful and powerful prescription that helps one really delve into a biblical story.  It never failed to help me find new insights about a passage.

Especially this week - which we in the Church have come to recognize as an especially Holy Week - what do we see, really see, in the events of Jesus' Passion?

·      What did Jesus and the disciples do the afternoon and evening after the entry into Jerusalem?

·      What kinds of things did they talk about?

·      How thick was the tension in conversations on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and the hours before they gathered for the Passover meal?

·      What side talks were going on during that meal?

·      What would we have been doing on that Friday?

·      How much despair would we have felt on Saturday?

·      And would we have believed the women who came with their improbable, preposterous news of early Sunday morning?

This is the high drama week of the liturgical year, because the events of this week were quite literally about life and death.  Let us be faithful in walking with Jesus and the disciples this week... and let us do so with our minds, our hearts, our spirits, our imaginations, and our faith wide open to all that happens.

Learning a New Rhythm

For a little over 36 years I have served the Church as pastor of congregations.  To be sure, over those years I also have done other things:  Fire Department chaplain, college instructor in philosophy, Stated Clerk, and many community activities where I've lived.  However, the thing that has been consistent in my vocation has been serving as a pastor.  I have loved doing that... at least most of the time! :-)  What I know is that when you are a pastor, your primary focus is on preparing to lead folks in the worship of God on Sunday mornings.  Other things come and go - weddings, funerals, pastoral visits, crises, leaky roofs, boiler problems, etc., etc. - but that Sunday morning thing comes around every week... week in and week out.  And at least for me, that has led to a definite rhythm of my weeks.  I know each day where I'd like to be in terms of finishing the worship liturgy, writing my sermon, selecting hymns, and putting the bulletin together.  That rhythm affected and defined my work schedule, my devotional life, my time for study and meditation, and time for writing.

Now, however, for the first time, I am serving in a larger Council of the Church - as the Stated Clerk/Communicator for the Presbytery of Cayuga-Syracuse - and things are different.  I absolutely love my new position!  Yet it is a change for me... not just a geographical change (I've never lived in the Northeast before), and not just a change in presbyteries and synods, but a change in how I structure my weeks.  As a result, I'm having to adjust to "Learning a New Rhythm."  No longer does the press of an approaching Sunday drive me to my books, to writing, to prayer, to reflection, to wrestling with biblical texts.  Yet what I am doing is so clearly ministry, and is a ministry I am enjoying to the fullest.  It's just that there's this different rhythm to my life and my work now.

Change is good... even for someone my age! :-)   And what change can do is to be that impetus to find our ways through life when we are "Learning a New Rhythm."  It's not a bad thing at all.  It's just, well, "different."  And so I'm adjusting to find my way into a new normal, a new routine, a new rhythm for praying, meditating, Bible reading, study, writing, and being in ministry with others.

God's response to our greatest needs?

This was shared with me by a person who attends the weekly Bible Study I lead at our local, high-rise retirement home.  I thought it was worth passing along...

If our greatest need had been information,
God would have sent us an educator.

If our greatest need had been technology,
God would have sent us a scientist.

If our greatest need had been money,
God would have sent us an economist.

If our greatest need had been pleasure,
God would have sent us an entertainer.

But our greatest need was forgiveness,
So God sent us a Savior.


This rings true for me.  How about you?