Now the Silence

During the Lenten season, we hosted prayer services that were shaped by silence.  We would gather together and use different techniques for gaining focus.  One week we used the flame of a candle; another, words of scripture; still another, our large Good Friday cross.  After between fifteen and twenty-five minutes of silence, we debriefed the time, talking about insights and the experience. 

I can't say that we had huge particpation.  I believe at the largest there were ten of us together.  But those that did attend seemed to find the time both spiritually helpful and extremely peaceful.  I was personally impressed with the ideas and interpretation that came out of our work with scripture.

Spending even that short time working with silence has made me much more aware of how the church either lives and works with silence or dismisses it as uncomfortable dead air.  I have attended unprogrammed Quaker meetings that embrace silence.  I have heard people talk about silence as the result of poor planning.  This brings me to my title for this post.

I recently attended a service where a hymn was played during the collection of the offering by the name of, "Now the Silence."  It's a fairly short song with only one verse that is frequently sung in preparation for Communion.  The service was crowded so the song didn't cover the full time for the collection.  In order to avoid a time of actual silence, the organist launched into a second chorus of "Now the Silence."  I had a moment of paradox and irony when I realized that we were singing about silence in order to avoid silence.

Silence is the canvas on which worship is painted.  It is the prism by which light is divided into a spectrum of colors.  The church needs to find a place for silence, for we worship a God who is the God of peace and stillness as well as the God music and celebration.  We worship a God who speaks in a still, small voice as well as a God who speaks out of whirlwinds. 

There is great depth in silence.  I hope that the church can come to experience it as a gracious gift of peace and rest.

Snow Days

I have served in three different congregations over the past fifteen years, one in central Pennsylvania, one in upstate New York and now on Cape Cod.  In all three calls I have lived in a parsonage adjacent to the church building.  Because of this, I have been slow to cancel services in the case of bad weather.  I can always make the commute.

When I was serving in rural Pennsylvania, the Congregational church down the road had a weather committee (a sub-committee of the property committee). When it snowed, one of the members of the weather committee would get in his four-wheel drive truck and see how bad the roads were and whether the parking lot had been cleared.  Then he would call the other members and they would inform the pastor of the decision of the committee.  The pastor never had to make the choice. 

Whenever I have a discussion of weather policies it usually comes down to the devotion of a "little, old lady."  I use the quotes because in all three congregations the same example has been brought forward.  Everyone is certain that there is a little, old lady who is so devoted to the church that unless we call off our services she will get in her car and drive through blizzards and earthquakes to make it on time.  It's never a large, young man.  It's never an average-sized, middle-aged woman.  It's always a little, old lady who makes this sacrifice.

In my congregations, I have yet to meet that little, old lady.  In any kind of discussion I have had with the ladies of the church, I have been told, "Pastor, you're great, but..."  But I'm not dumb enough to drive through a blizzard to hear you.  But I'm not so foolish that I can't look out my window and know I shouldn't drive.  But do you really think I can't get on without you.

I think that the image of devotion is one that is helpful for our congregations.  Most of the time when the weather report is bad, people have already canceled church in their minds.  Bad weather is a perfectly valid excuse to take church off the to-do list.  It's not that the people don't want to go (at least this is my hope) but it is nice to have a reason not to go, to sleep in, hang out, watch the snow fall. 

We also want to imagine that there is a little, old lady who will risk life and limb to make the trip.  We imagine that she will be there in our place even on those Sundays when it is not snowing but we are too busy or too tired or just need a break.  We want her there as a model of devotion, standing and sitting in our place when we choose not to be there.

Perhaps it does matter than she is imagined to be older.  I think it is common to assume that older generations were more devoted than we are today.  I'm sure when the little, old lady was younger, she could imagined little, old ladies who were far more devoted than she.  It is similar to the way I hear the early church idealized in its unity of faith and devotion.  Yet each generation struggles to maintain faith in its own time and context.  Sometimes the struggle of faith is with animosity.  Sometimes the struggle of faith is with being culturally acceptable.  Sometimes the struggle of faith is with apathy.  The struggle is part of the walk of discipleship.  May the next generation of Christians look back at us in our context and find a model of devotion.

The Introverted Pastor

In a recent sermon I spoke about the challenge of being a pastor with an introverted personality.  I live in a culture and carry out a call that favors an extroverted personality.  I have served as a pastor for fifteen years.  Throughout that time, and in the process leading up to my ordination, people have questioned whether introversion and pastoral ministry can coexist effectively.

Part of this has to do with expectations that people bring to pastoral ministry.  The pastors that many congregants seem to remember best are those who were outgoing and made their presence known in the community.  They made the congregation seem friendly because they were naturally friendly and effusive.  My experience has been that this kind of strong personality in a pastor can cover up some shortcomings in hospitality in the congregation.  When that pastor retires or moves on, the congregation suddenly has to deal with its own shortcomings, has to deal with the fact that although Pastor Jensen was a welcoming person, the congregation itself may not be.

I also think that part of the desire for extroverted pastors is a hope that an outgoing personality might change the trends of decline that many congregations are experiencing.  The right pastor might be the magic bullet that will save the congregation, change all those spiritual but not religious people into spiritual and religious people.  We can't get people to come to our church but maybe a friendly pastor can.  Yet as we look across the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (as well as any number of denominations) we see that even friendly Pastor Jensen's congregation is in decline.

At one point it was enough to be friendly.  When religious practice was more of a standard part of American culture, then the friendliest congregations with the best programs tended to grow.  Yet our culture is finding new ways to cultivate friendship and connection.  Many families are finding their needs for youth programs met by other sources.  I have frequently been told that, even when there is a spark of interest, younger people see church as one more thing to do in a plethora of activities.

The role of congregations will have to change in the coming years.  Many of our churches will be smaller and will need to accept that reality.  I have no doubt that the pastoral role will change as well. 

What I hear these days is not so much a desire for a community center kind of congregation, but a desire for a depth of faith.  Thankfully for me as an introvert, depth is something that introverts do well.  I love working with silence and prayer, art and creativity.  Give me a quiet retreat over a networking conference any day.  As Paul writes, "There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit." (1 Corinthians 12:4)  In the near future, the gifts of the introvert may come to be appreciated in the church just as the gifts of the extrovert have been appreciated for the past few decades. 

What I did over Christmas Vacation

I took the Sunday after Christmas off from preaching.  My family didn't have any plans for traveling so I decided to check out a local congregation.  I won't name names but it is the closest thing we have to a megachurch in the Falmouth area (and probably for most of Cape Cod).  It's an independent congregation with three Sunday morning services each with a couple of hundred people in attendance.

The basic format involved a light rock band playing three praise songs (with words projected on a central screen).  This was followed by a scripture reading, a half-hour sermon and a pastoral prayer.  The full service was a little less than an hour.  As we were filing out, the next service was making its way into the auditorium.

I've been to this kind of worship before, so I wasn't surprised by its lack of formal liturgy.  There were some worship decisions that I respected, like the absence of worship bulletins.  I was given a paper with a few announcements but didn't need it for worship, so my eyes could always be focused on what was happening.  There were some decisions that I found lacking.  I have never quite understood how the sharing of the peace (an important theological and communal moment) has turned into, "Say hello to your neighbor."

What I found interesting was how the congregation dealt with some of the issues that we also have in worship.  For instance, during five years of ministry here in Falmouth, I have sat through a few hours of discussions about how to begin our worship.  Does the prelude begin at 9:30 or at 9:25?  Should we gather in silence to prepare or should we have music playing?  Do we start promptly at 9:30 or should give some time since everyone seems to come at the last minute?

At the congregation I visited, I arrived at 8:15 for an 8:30 service.  The band was warming up.  They stopped around 8:25.  8:30 came and went.  Some recorded music was playing over loudspeakers.  People gathered (noisily, since they were talking over the music) and the worship began promptly at 8:40.  There was even a clock projected on the screen counting down to the start time.  The feeling was informal, but the design was intentional.

I have come to a point in my life as a pastor where I see very few rights and wrongs about worship.  There are likes and dislikes.  There are traditions and innovations.  Every choice we make includes some and excludes others.  This is partly why so many worship styles continue to develop.  We are all inspired by the same good news but respond to it with a beautiful variety.

Part of my response to my worship experience is colored by a fairly introverted personality.  As popular as the contemporary style may be, I personally find it too loud and too busy.  I find a need to be still and experience God's presence.  The worship style I experienced was more focused on getting me amped up in joyful praise (not that there's anything wrong with that). 

I'm not trying to step into the liturgical versus contemporary debate.  I sometimes experience liturgical worship that is overly busy, overly concerned with what is proper.  I find that many organ preludes are also too loud and too busy.  I wonder if there are others like me who seek a more peaceful approach to worship, a place to step away from the general busyness of life and find the divine in stillness and peace.

It is not a matter of right and wrong, but faithful people worshiping God in a variety of ways.

A New Year in Falmouth

I am sure that the internet is crawling with blogs talking about new years and new starts.  It seems a good time to update things, share intentions.  It is my hope to use this blog more frequently in the coming year and hopefully get more of the congregation to follow it.  We'll see what the year brings.

Christ Lutheran is getting closer to making a decision about whether to adopt the structure that was proposed several months ago.  The language has been drafted and needs to be approved in a couple of weeks.  Anyone outside the church world reading this will probably think, "They didn't do that yet?"  Some folks in the church world will look at it say, "Wow.  They are moving right along." 

It's true that things take extra steps when you are working in the church, especially in any branch of the church that seeks to give authority to the people of the congregation and not just the pastors.  We have to get as many people as we can on the same page.  We have to explain the benefits, do the prep work and then wait for the vote.  In the midst of all of this we trust that the Holy Spirit is at work, shaping the process as we move in new directions.

So in a couple of weeks we may be talking about groups and teams instead of standing committees.  Again, those outside the church will be unimpressed, but for the congregation, I hope this represents a new start, seeking to minister in creative ways; seeking to have an impact on the local community; seeking to share good news in a new year.

A Sense of History

It's been awhile, but I wanted to include an article I had published in the local paper last weekend...

“A Sense of History”

                At the end of this month, my congregation, Christ Lutheran Church, will celebrate fifty years of ministry in Falmouth.  This has sent me climbing in the attic and reaching to the backs of the closet shelves that comprise our church archives.  Over the years, members have made deposits of snapshots, newsletters and newspaper clippings that help tell the congregation’s story.  They didn’t want to throw them out, but they also weren’t sure what to do with them, so they placed them in spaces no one else was using where they wouldn’t be destroyed though probably be forgotten.

                I have been pulling them out of their dark corners, unlabeled snapshots of former members  mixed in with photos of current members looking a good bit younger.  I have seen many pictures of the building in different stages of construction and repair.  The story goes that they paid one dollar for a decommissioned military chapel from Camp Edwards, a building they disassembled and rebuilt on Brick Kiln Road.  Judging by the number of pictures of the building, they were very proud of that accomplishment.

                When I was in seminary, studying to become a pastor, one of my professors told me that every time I came to a new congregation I should go through all the newsletters and bulletins I could find; read the council minutes as far back as they went.  He told me that I needed to get a sense of the history of the congregation and that, along with interviews of members, the paper records left behind were an important tool in recovering that history.

                In my first call in rural Pennsylvania, I dutifully went through those records as long as I could stand it.  Council minutes and old newsletters are extremely dry reading.  Did it matter any longer that the council moved to buy one brand of industrial mixer over another in the 1950s?  Did it matter any longer that the Church Ladies’ roast beef supper of 1938 was considered a great success at the time?   So much of the history was made of these seemingly minor details.  I also knew that these minor details were sometimes connected to hours of committee meetings, debate and heated arguments.  I actually met someone who had left the congregation because it had chosen the wrong mixer in the 1950s.  Would my ministry really be another collection of trivial decisions that wouldn’t matter in fifty years?

                I suppose there is a fair amount of pride that goes along with that question.  Like most people, I want what I do to matter.  When I do leave a congregation, I hope that people will think I made a difference as a pastor.  For whatever reason, I have always made the assumption that making a difference would mean major events that would stick out in the memory of the church, not as footnotes in filed away newsletters. 

                On the other hand, the choice of a mixer was probably a major event at the time and the Church Ladies’ roast beef supper of 1938 was for a while remembered as a signature moment the congregation’s life.  More importantly, these events that seem trivial now set more important events in motion.  The success of the 1938 supper led to more suppers that led to the need for an industrial mixer for making massive amounts of mashed potatoes and the fillings for homemade, chocolate-covered Easter eggs which were then sold to raise funds for missionaries.  Those missionaries helped build churches, hospitals and schools in Liberia (in West Africa).  The cumulative effects of those minor events turned into a legacy that was much larger.

                In our current culture, in which congregations are struggling with declining attendance and deficit budgets, many are looking for a quick fix, some major event or novel ministry that will bring new members and new life to the organization.  Yet those faces in forgotten snapshots and voices from the back of the closet shelf tell me that it is the trivial events that actually create the great moments of a congregation’s life.  It is the minor moments that create a culture in which major moments can grow or be dealt with (because major moments are not always positive).

So I take comfort in the idea that what I do now will matter in fifty years, not because anyone will remember my name or a sermon I delivered that was a turning point for the congregation’s life.  I take comfort that I am participating in history in my own minor way, that the events of this day that will seem trivial in fifty years (perhaps that even seem trivial today) can have a much greater impact than I can predict. 

I hope that in fifty years, when the new pastor reaches back in the closet and finds a box full of ancient flash drives and memory cards that no one knew what to do with, she will take the time to look at those digital memories of suppers and worship and festivals.  I hope she will sift through some of the articles and newsletters and assorted records of trivial matters, dry as they may be.  I hope she will find that we were faithful.

Cape Cod Lutheran Challenges

I grew up in Michigan with extended family in Wisconsin.  My experience of Lutheran Christianity was shaped with a strong sense of community.  Some of that experience may have come from my grandparents' church, which was founded by Danish immigrants and saw itself as a haven for those with Danish heritage (excellent pastry at coffee hour, by the way).  I remember gathering together as being important for both support but also celebration.

Cape Cod is different.  One might argue that the whole society is different, much more focused on the individual.  Yet I think that this trend is a bit more exaggerated on the Cape.  People move here and retire here because they want to be independent.  They are often choosing to live away from family and friends in order to live in homes that are themselves often physically secluded from any center of community.

This trend creates a number of challenges for living as the church.  First, it is hard to keep track of people.  Has this person been away from church for three weeks because he is angry or hospitalized or because he just hasn't been around for three weeks?  Second, it is hard to get people together, especially outside of Sunday morning.  Third, the church often feels like a resource that members are using in their spiritual lives as opposed to a community that might shape those spiritual lives (As in, this week I am going to church and next week I will watch the sunset on the beach.)

In response, I am introducing a series of discipleship challenges to the congregation.  The first is simple, that members congregation might say grace at every meal for the next two weeks.  It is simple but it is also a reflection of a value of gratitude that should set the church apart from our culture.  While our culture teaches us to be dissatisfied and seek more, we are challenged to say, "Thank you," to God for what we already have.  It is my hope that by deepening our lives of discipleship in simple ways, we might also deepen the life of our community.