thoughts on showing up to all that is

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Who Has Shaped Your Journey

So, have you ever felt a call, deep in your soul, to do something with your life that makes a difference in the world? Have you ever had that moment where you knew you were doing exactly what you were put on earth here to do? So, how did you discover that call, that place where as Frederick Buechner has said, your deep gladness meets the worlds deep needs? Was it trial and error? Probably some of that. But if you look back, do you see people who were encouragers, equippers who called forth gifts in you that you did not even know you had?

As I think about my calling as an ordained clergy, I could talk about the religion class I took my senior year of college that shifted my path away from the world of business. I could tell you about my grandmother who loved me in a way that gave me a taste of God’s unconditional love. I could reflect on my parents who gave me a faith by making church a part of our lives. I could speak of pastors who were wonderful role models of what it means to be a person of faith and to be real and human so that I did not think they were so set apart, I could never be that!

But when I think who most influenced my calling, I would have to say it was the whole church, the saints of Cleveland Ave. United Methodist Church. I came to this church as a pre-teen. It was a small church, and for a young person who was experiencing those awkward teenage years, they were definitely a community of love and forgiveness. And even more, they saw gifts in me and allowed me to lead. I taught Sunday school. I served in leadership roles. I was engaged in youth ministry and through that learned how to work as a part of a team. Interestingly enough, I don’t remember any one person saying to me, “Have you ever considered ordained ministry?” but in everything they did, they were saying you are a leader, and the church needs your leadership.

It took me awhile to put two and two together and realize that the combination of my gifts and my love of the church was indeed a calling by God to lead God’s people, the church, into its mission. But I finally got it, and when I shared this calling with the beloved people in my life, and those saints in the church, they simply said, “of course.” They had seen it all along.

Cleveland Ave. United Methodist Church closed it doors several years ago. The numbers had dwindled to the point where it did not make financial sense to keep trying to be church in the way they were, so they made the faithful and difficult decision to merge with Fairmount Ave. United Methodist Church. Today, many of those saints continue to be encouragers, equippers, and influencers. And I want to offer my own shout out this day, giving thanks for their influence in my life, and for them to know their ministry is living on in future generations because of people like me that they sent out into the world.

Listen to your life, my friends. Listen to the people in your life. There you may find your calling. And if God might indeed be calling you to lead God’s church, then go to explorecalling.orgto learn more about the United Methodist Church and the ways you can bring your gifts to the world through the church to make a difference.

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A Crowd of Sorrows

It is hard to linger in suffering. This is Holy Week in the Christian church. We like to go from the parades of Palm Sunday to the resurrection celebration of Easter and skirt by the agony and suffering of the Garden of Gethsemane and the journey to the crucifixion.

In our American culture, we have the reputation of seeking to medicate away our pain. Have a problem, take a pill. We don’t like to dwell in sadness and grief. We don’t tolerate pain well.

Then this writing from Rumi:
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes from an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them in the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

I have always been a serious person…even as a child, and a little prone to melancholy. I have always seen that as something to overcome. I have longed to have a more light hearted spirit, to be a more joyful person. I have lots of reminders in my life to choose joy, to laugh…trying to counteract my basic nature. But this writing from Rumi gives me pause. Perhaps the melancholy is gift and it teaches me something as well as creates a more empathetic spirit in me.

I would never advocate suffering for the sake of suffering. And clinical depression does require medication. But sometimes, we are just plain sad, and life is bringing us pain. And perhaps the way through, is really to go through it. To feel it, to see what it is teaching us, and instead of trying to fix it, to see it as God is working in and through it….and indeed clearing us out for some new delight.

So this is Holy Week. Let’s not rush through it. Can there really be resurrection if there is not death? And does embracing death, gives us a new perspective and attitude about life?

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We Are All In This Together

Trust does not come easily to me. Having been single most of my adult life. I have had to rely on myself. Because of that I do not easily hand off tasks or responsibilities. I have this is little voice in my head that says if it is to be, it is up to me. I expect competence from myself. I need to manage my life.

And yet, this article in our Soul Leader’s materials from Warren Christopher where he talks about how dependent we are on each other causes me to think. He talks about driving down the road and how much he is counting on the driver in the other car coming at him not to fall asleep or be distracted by his cellphone or crossing over the yellow line.

My well-being is premised on a basic social contract we have made as a society about how we will live. The social contract is as mundane as you stop at red lights and go on green lights, to as complex as you pay taxes for civic and social services so that all of our quality of lives can be better. It is as simple as clean up after your pet when you walk them in public places to as complicated as the conversation we are having as a society about gun control and the right to bear arms. My well-being depends on your living within and keeping this basic social contract. We trust one another to do the right thing day in and day out because when we don’t, we all lose.

So the question I am pondering today is if each day when I go out in the world, even though we all know times where things can and do go wrong, I have to trust that I will make it to work safely, that I will not be harmed in my daily activities, otherwise I would paralyzed, how can I apply that principle to that little voice in my head? Is it really all up to me? Have I left God out of that equation? Are there not people in my life who I can trust to share the load, to help me in a pinch? I am not looking to suddenly become incompetent and needy…that would be my worse nightmare!! i don’t want to swing in the opposite direction of not trusting myself and my own abilities to accomplish things and make my way in the world. But as Warren Christopher says, how can I rely more on the good faith and judgment of others. Sharing the load, the responsibilities, the decision making…that sounds like a whole lot more fun.

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Dealing When Your World Gets Rocked

There is so much of our lives that we can’t control. I could not control the snow that made my morning commute over an hour this morning. I had to deal with it. I cannot control the forces in the world that is making working in a mainline denomination so challenging these days. So what am I going to do? One approach is to hope that the circumstances are not what they really are. I have seen that one a lot. We have had 40 years of decline as a denomination, and there is this sense we can keep going on as we have been without anything fundamentally changing. The economic crisis of 2008 revealed how critical the situation really is. So now what? How do we deal?

So when life throws stuff at us, those are simply the facts. They are not good or bad, they just are. What gives those events power, is the story we tell about what is happening. Sometimes it is a victim story:why does it always snow during commuting hours. Or we tell a villain story. The weather gods are out to get me. Or the most common one I see, a learned helpless story: I can’t drive in snow so I have to stay home.

Ok, maybe those are silly examples…but you get the idea. Each of those stories don’t help us deal effectively with our circumstances. They keep us stuck. So what is a better way to deal?

I am a big believer in responsibility. We each have an ability to respond to the stuff life throws at it. We can’t stop it. We can’t always change it. But we can choose how we will respond to it, and what I find time after time, is if I am willing to face the truth of my circumstances, there are things that are within my control and I can influence. I am not as helpless as I think I am. Taking responsibility actually gives me strength to do more than I think I can.

So what is coming at you right now? What story are you telling about it? Is it a helpful story that is giving you courage to stand in the face of challenging circumstances and even more the strength to respond so that the circumstances don’t completely dictate your reality.

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What Keeps Us Stuck?

So I was listening to this Jillian Michaels podcast. Her director, Janice, was talking about how she has this image of the perfect home she will someday have, and that keeps her from inviting anyone over to her current home. She was playing all sorts of tapes in her head about people not wanting to come, her house or life not being what it should be. You get the idea.

Well, Jillian was being Jillian, and not letting Janice get away with her excuses. She told her to pick up the phone and to call a friend, on the air, and to invite her over. Janice stalled. She called the sound guy. Jillian told her call a friend now, or stay stuck. But if she really wanted it to be different, then she need to act now. Janice dialed.

It seems like such a silly thing to many of us. But for Janice, I am sure there was something underneath all of this that kept her stuck…or paralyzed so to speak.

The question for today in reading Mark 2 where four friends carried a paralyzed man to Jesus, is where in your life right now are you paralyzed? And who do you trust with your paralysis?

It is hard enough to admit to myself where I am paralyzed and why, let alone to trust someone else with my paralysis. What will they think of me if they really knew this piece of my life? Can I trust them to really want the best for me, to go the distance with me, to help me get to the place of healing even if it means challenging my perceptions and beliefs or forcing me to act outside what feels safe. And even more important, am I willing to consider a life where this paralysis might be healed? What risks are there for me in that?

So I am sitting with these questions. I don”t know if I have good answers to them yet, but what i am realizing as I reflect on my life is I have friends and family who have carried me in the past and believed in me when I wasn’t sure of myself. And perhaps that is a good starting place. To recognize I am not alone on the journey. There are people in my life who care enough about me to go the distance and I can trust that for the next step as well.

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Sabbath of the Soul

Last night, I marked ashes on foreheads with the words, “From dust you came, to dust you shall return.  Repent and believe the gospel.”  As I looked into people’s eyes, there was this moment.  Something spiritual was happening.  To be reminded of our mortality, and our finiteness and the ways we had separated ourselves from God, and here was an opportunity to remember our humanness and to return to the heart of God who made us and claims us…to really believe the good news of the gospel, well it was a gift.

Humility is not thinking too much of ourselves.  We are not God.  The marking of the ash is a gift to put my life in proper perspective.  But humility is equally not thinking too little of ourselves.  We are created good.  We are loved.  We are beloved.  The good news is for us and not claiming it is also a form of arrogance.

I don’t know about you but my harshest critic is myself. At least I am pretty sure it is because I do know I have some critics out there!  But the most difficult and persistent voice is the one in my own head that beats me up for the mistakes I make, or the idiosycrancies of my personality that I wish were different, or how I look at others who are more charming, more sophisticated, more socially adept, more skiiled, more confident (you get the idea) and wish I could be more like them.

Sabbath for me is turning down the volume on that voice.  It is tuning into God’s word spoken into my life, and really trusting it is true, more true than any other judging voice in my head about who  I am not..  I am God’s beloved with whom God is well pleased. That kind of Sabbath can happen anywhere, anytime.  I encourage you, this Lent, to write a statement of who you are, from God’s perspective.  Write it down.  Repeat it often.  Claim your identity in Christ and let that be a Sabbath moment whenever and wherever you need it.  

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Soul Leaders

Today, the clergy of the Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church are invited to begin a journey together that we are calling Soul Leaders.  It is fitting that we begin this journey on Ash Wednesday.  Clergy under appointment have received a packet of readings and reflections on a topic related to being Soul Leaders.  The theme for February and March is Trust.  Each week I will write a blog on one of the reflections, and I invite clergy to add their thoughts, stirrings and responses as they engage in this journey.  I am honored and excited to host the conversation and to be on the journey with you.

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Unbundled

So do you remember how you used to purchase a song?  Way back when you had to go to a place called a record store.  And then you had to buy an entire LP and pay for 12 songs you didn’t want to get the one you did want.  And today, to the extent we even buy music, you go on-line, and download the one song you want and make a customizable play list.  This is the trend of unbundling, and it’s effect is being felt everywhere.

I heard this provovative comment from David Wilkens, a Harvard Law Professor, speaking at an event at Hamline University.  His address was about global trends and its implications on the practice of law, but those same trends are affecting religion too.  This one of unbundling hit home with me.

Wilkens further explained that buyers today are way smarter and more sophisticated and have access to a whole lot more information.  That has changed the fundamental nature of competiion.  It used to be about reputation and experience.  Now it is about outputs.  What are you offering that is of value to me?  And those outputs are being measured by sophisticated metrics such as Craig’s List, Angie’s List, Rate My Professor.  It has changed the nature of production.  It is no longer about law firms but networks, with information, ideas and people being co-developed.  The good news he said is that the world is becoming more complex, and people are going to need help figuring out this complexity, but they are also going to push aside the idea that the only way to do that is to get a customized, built from the ground up solution.  They are not interested in a beautiful legal product but they want a solution to a problem that is repeatable and affordable and that reality is allowing different kinds of competitors to compete to solve these problems.  The traditional legal business is being hollowed out by these other competitors taking pieces of it.

So when was the last time your church has a monopoly on all the people who moved into your community seeking a Christian community or even one with your particualar brand?  It used to be that way.  There are folks who remember starting their church in the 1950’s and 60’s where they would put up the sign “new United Methodist Church” and all the United Methodists in that community would go there, and to think about starting a second United Methodist church in that community was unheard of.  Why would we give people a choice?  And when people came to us, we met them on our terms.  They got Jesus and spiritual community in the way we packaged it.  There was a onse size worship fits all, and it only happened at 10am on Sunday mornings.

So how is that working for us today?  The resource providers to religion and spiritual practices have mushroomed. I can go to a paid spiritual director.  I can read all sorts of books that I can download on Amazon and read in the comfort of my home.  I can go to a yoga class, or take a spiritual pilgrimmage with a travel group.  I can go on a mission trip with a variety of non-profit organizations.  I can buuld houses with Habitat and feed children with Feed My Starving Children, and I can have an Outward Bound experience in the summer to stretch myself emotionally, mentally and spiritually.  All good things, by the way.  And that is just to name a few that come to mind, let alone all the choices I have for worshipping communities.  The church is not the only place to meet my spiritual needs.  So how do we respond to this phenomonon?

One of David Wilkens parting shots to the law community was that they needed to innovate to meet this changing landscape.  He said, “whatever you think about billable hours, flat fee billing is not the iphone.”  I would say adding a contemporary worship, or screens in our sanctuary,  is our flat fee billing.  We think we are being innovate and creative (and it is a step) but an incremental one at best.  No matter how much we might wish it differently, the information revoution has changed everything.  People don’t need to come to us to learn about Jesus.  But they are still looking for someone to help them to make sense out of all the competing information out there and they are looking for help for the problems in their lives and hope for their future.  So how do we need to change our delivery system because they aren’t going to come to us for the LP anymore if that is all we have to give them?

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The American Dream

I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you are willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love.  It doesn’t matter whether you are black or white or Hispanic or Asian or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you are willing to try.                        –Barak Obama 

I heard this snippet on President Barak Obama’s acceptance speech on MPR on my way into work this morning.  I was surprised to feel a tear welling up in the corner of my eye and how much emotion was stirring in me just in listening to these few words passionately spoken.  Yes, I am a little sleep deprived this momrning which always makes me more on edge emotionally, but this was something more.  It connected to me deeply.  This is what I believe.  This is what I want for all people.  And for me it is not just the American dream.  It is the God dream. 

This past weekend I was on a TEC (Teens Encounter Christ) weekend as a spiritual director.  My talk to the youth centered on John 3:16…that God loved the world…the whole world…not just the rich or not just the  poor, not just the successful or the educated, not just the whites or the blacks, but the whole world…and God love was given for one fundamental purpose…that we would live.  That we would ALL live.  I wanted them to know, no matter what, they were included, they were loved, they have a future with hope, and whatever  and however they feel like their situatuon or life has been shaped or defined up to this point, God was not done.  It could be more.

Isn’t that the basic hope of each person.  To know we matter.  To feel like we have a chance.  And to be able to make a life: a life where there is joy and meaning and purpose.  And for too many people there are too many barriers put in their way, too many judgments made about who they are and where they have come from.  It is not right.  It is not American.  And it is not Christian.  We are better than that. 

So today, I pray for our country.  I pray that we might be more than we have been.   I pray that I will do what I can today, tomorrow and the next day, to help create the kind of communiy and country where all people really do have the opportunity to make it if they are willing to try.  Today, I will once again stake my life in the proclamation of John 3:16, that yes, I am loved, and so is every other person on this earth, and therefore, my life is inextricably bound with theirs.

Some pundits say that in this election millions of dollars was spent and nothing was fundamentally changed.  We will have four more years of gridlock.  Perhpas.  But something got changed in me this morning.  And Imaybe, just maybe, that is the change that matters most  It is where the American dream will rise or fall: in each of us, in what we choose to believe to be true and how we commit to act on those beliefs.  ..  

 

 

 

 

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The Marks of a Movement

A movement is a group of people who intentionally, at their own risk, join together to make a change in the status quo.

That is how Gil Rendle defines a movement in his book Back to Zero: The Search to Rediscover the Methodist Movement.  My deep question as the Director of Ministries is how do we move from a declining denomination…losing members, confidence, influence and impact…to a thriving, missional church that is making a significant difference in all corners of our state.  What Gil Rendle powerfully reminds me in his book that becoming a movement is an intentional choice.  I am not part of a movement because I am ordained into it, baptized into it, make an occasional financial contribution to it or live in the shadow/neighborhood of it.  So if we believe that the status quo needs to be changed, then we need join together to make the change.  And he suggests that it will require risk…putting aside our self interest for the sake of the common purpose.

What was powerful about the early Methodist movement in the United States is that there was clarity about purpose: spread scriptural holiness across the land, reform the nation, beginning with the church.  There was shared risk by those circuit riders who put their lives on the line to travel by horseback to preach the word, to form class meetings, and start churches in order to raise up leaders who were transforming the world.  They believed this mattered so much…people lives and the world would be a better place with the life changing message of Jesus offered through the Methodist movement, that they were willing to sacrifice many things…the comforts of wealth, home and security, and a willingness to go where sent.

So what I am wondering is do we have a clear, shared purpose that matters so much to us that we are willing to band together to do something about it…and what are we willing to risk, let go, sacrifice for the sake of this shared purpose?  From what I observed at General Conference and in my own life, if I am honest with myself, it is easy to talk about movement, but when push comes to shove, I don’t want to have to give up anything to make it happen.  Then I really haven’t chosen to be part of the movement have I?

 

 

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