Getting the Seminary Out

Last Friday night I went to the home of one of the other pastors in town. Over dessert and coffee we were talking about my young career and his many years in ministry. He told me that his church recently had an intern. One Sunday after worship this pastor of 30+ years asked one of the pillars in the congregation what she thought of the new intern. Her response, "He needs to get the seminary out of him."

Here in lies my internal struggle. The chasm between seminary and congregation is wide! Wow! I have known this through my experience before seminary and hearing it from friends who came back from internship while in seminary. Yet, to taste and see it first hand is eye opening and humbling. I am so grateful for the education that I received while in seminary. Yet, until I have touched and seen the lives of people grappling with faith and life outside the very sterile and pristine lab of the seminary, faithful leading is only a concept.

After three whopping (tongue placed firmly in cheek) weeks, serving with the title 'pastor' or 'intern pastor' attached to my name, I am not ready to purge the seminary from my system. As many things in life, change happens more gradually than we often want it to. I imagine I will let go of the seminary in due time...through an organic process like composting. Allowing the education that I have recieved to sit exposed to the elements of ministry in daily life and over time decompose or change, not disappearing but becoming a new substance that in its very nature sustains and nourishes faith as it is mixed into my life and the life of others. Let the composting commence!

Peace to your house.

A quick update

I revamped my blog this morning with a new template, so my old posts have today's date, even though I wrote them earlier. Just to clarify.

I will get some photos up soon to snazz it up.

Christ's grace is with you.

Preaching as a Resident Alien

I preached for the first time as an intern pastor yesterday. It was an amazing experience of grace. After nine months of anticipation for both me and the congregation, and much of a summer hoping that September would come a little sooner, I had finally arrived to a place I had been preparing for for nearly half of my life. I was received with open arms and gracious smiles. I had been told by the leaders in the congregation and their families that worship would go well and my sermon would be well received. Yet I couldn't help but feel enormous pressure and a fair amount of anxiety. I wasn't necessarily thrilled with the sermon I preached, yet I am hopeful that God's inviting call to us to be disciples was heard clearly and that the call is out of God's incredible love for the world. The thing that seemed to be missing as a connection to the people to whom I was bringing God's word. After a week and a half, I am still a stranger in a strange land. The turf is yet familiar and my congregation and community are yet friends. It will only be a matter of time.

I think I learned this weekend how difficult it is to preach to a community that I am not yet familiar with. I keep hearing in the back of my mind one of my college professors famous (or infamous) lines: "Faith is formed through personal trusted relationships." There really is no better way to form faith than through relationships. I am so eager to form these relationships with the congregation and the community and be known to them, yet I know it takes time.

It is amazing how God provides us with situations that draw us out of our comfort zones enough so that we are unable to use all the tools we usually have to depend on. God (and everyone else around me) knows that I am in need of patience for myself, I just need to slow down and take stuff in. My friend Kevin sent me an interview with Fredrich Buechner today and one thing that Buechner said when asked what the most important truths he has learned in his life was,"Pay attention to your life. It is so easy to live your life on the surface and not pay attention what's happened. Your life is speaking to you. Paying attention is to keep your eyes open, look at peoples' faces, listen to their voices, smell the smells in the air. I've gotten a richer sense ofwhat goes on in the world than if I had lived my days on automatic pilot." If you want to see the whole interview, it was in the Washington Post. I think it is definitely worth the time.

So, this week I am going to pay attention...keep my ears and eyes open to what God has placed in front of me. In doing so, who knows, I may find myself in company of friends and fellow sojourners, on the Way and in the world.

Peace to your house.

The Power is in the Verbs

About three years ago I had the privilege of talking to a pastor while calling for my seminary's "phonathon". I had met him several years before, while I attended the university across the street from the church he served. After thanking him for his recent contribution to the seminary, I told him that I had heard him preach several times while I was in college. He was a magnificent preacher who extended the gospel from the pulpit as if it were the most precious gift to behold. After we talked awhile, I asked him how he brought his sermons to life week after week for 37 years. He told me, "The best gift you can give to yourself and to the people you serve in ministry is to read something significant everyday and write everyday."

I wrote what he said down and it has sat in my Bible as a reminder since then. Although I have not succeeded in achieving daily reading and writing (and doubt I will anytime soon), I am on the journey, picking up bits and pieces of the grace and mystery of God around me and reflecting on them when I allow myself to utilize the gift of time to capture for more than a moment God's closeness to me and the world.

I hope that in beginning this blog, I will capture my thoughts more consistently, and that God may even use this space as a place to be encountered and draw close to others. I am thankful to Pastor Wade, who impressed on me the value of the Word and words. He said, "Look to the verbs, the power is in the verbs!" May our being, doing, living, laughing, mourning, hoping, praying, eating, drinking, playing and loving be a reflection of the One who has given all in all to us in Jesus.