Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

On the Blessing of No…

05 Wednesday Jun 2024

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Photo credit: https://toledoparent.com/online-exclusives/learning-to-say-no/

For weeks my fourth grader has been talking about running for Student Body President.  I was admittedly proud of her gumption, but also wildly (and quietly) nervous on her behalf.  She is a genial, vibrant, beloved individual and I feared what losing an election at her age might do to her self-esteem.  But even with gentle warning, she was determined.  So, we worked on her speech and filled out the paperwork.  The “primary” involved whittling down a group of 12 students to three – no speeches or posters, just a raw “popularity contest” among the fourth graders.  Last night she returned home only a little disappointed that she had not been elected to the final ballot. 

I do not know why I doubted her capacity to maintain her self-confidence in the face of such a loss.  I have been modeling the same for her for years – sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.  Sometimes you get a yes, and sometimes you get a no.  These lessons have certainly happened verbally and in low-risk ways, like in card games.  But the lesson has been learned in big ways too – like a lost bishop’s election.  Though I loathed the very public nature of a bishop’s search, I do not think I fully understood the power of letting my girls watch me not only be nominated, but make very public presentations, and then not be elected.

Without realizing it, I have been teaching my girls the power of a good “no.”  Almost all the good things that have happened to me – jobs, schools, auditions – were preceded by a solid no.  The student government election I did not win, the audition where I did not make the cut, the job I really wanted and did not get.  Every single one of those no’s profoundly taught me something about myself I did not know, and every single one of those no’s led to another opportunity that could only open up because of the no that happened first. 

The experience of no’s can be brutal to the ego.  But I wouldn’t be the spouse, mother, priest, or human that I am today without all those no’s.  And now I know that learning was not just for me – it was for my children too.  And maybe those no’s have been for some of you as well.  I wonder what no’s you are facing these days.  I wonder what you have learned from the times you received a no.  I suspect the Holy Spirit has been transforming you so that when you get a yes, you come to that yes as your most powerful self – the self that was made in God’s image and is beautiful and beloved.

Sermon – Acts 1.1-11, AS, YB, May 12, 2024

29 Wednesday May 2024

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Our Stewardship Team gathered throughout the winter and spring and had some meaningful conversations about how we measure what matters in life.  We talked about how stewardship is more than money.  Stewardship is a lifestyle based on a relationship with Jesus Christ and fulfilling our baptismal covenant to provide and participate in the mission and ministry of Hickory Neck Episcopal Church to proclaim the Gospel in word and deed in order to change the world in which we live.  But we also talked about how things can get in the way of our faith journey:  our allegiances, our faith, our compassion, our use of money, our generosity, and our belief that God provides what is necessary for living out our lives.  And so, we agreed.  In order to help us navigate how to be faithful stewards, we would begin a preaching series over the next several months – looking at those challenges to our faith journey and what scripture has to say about them.  Today, the Stewardship team teed me up on this Ascension Sunday to talk about allegiances.

Now I do not know about you, but when I read the text about the Ascension from Acts, I did not really hear anything about stewardship.  Jesus did not lean over his shoulder as he was ascending to heaven and shout, “Don’t forget to tithe 10% to the Church!” So, what does the Ascension have to do with faithful living – with stewardship?  Well, to understand that notion, we have to take a big step back from the event of the Ascension.  You see, the Ascension is sort of a pivot moment in our lives.  Luke, the author of both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, understood history to be “divided into two ages:  the broken old world marked by Satan, idolatry, sin, injustice, exploitation, fractiousness, scarcity, enmity with nature, violence, and death.”  The renewed world where God restores all things to God’s purposes is “marked by true worship, forgiveness, justice, mutuality, community, abundance, blessing between nature and humankind, shalom, and life.”[i]  Jesus’ life and ministry was in witness against the broken world and a shepherding in of the renewed world.  In the process of ascending Jesus gives authority to the disciples to continue the work of the renewed world.  That’s why the whole rest of the book of the Acts of the Apostles will be about how the community of Jesus – the Church – will live:  sharing resources, supporting those in need, living as a community of abundance, mutuality, and justice.

This past Thursday’s Discovery Class was the session where the attendees teach the rest of class on given topics.  One set of our class members focused on the history of the early church in America.  They talked about how the church in the 1600s and 1700s was the governing body of the region – using their resources to care for widows and orphans, tending to those who fell on hard times, basically serving as the social services agency of the region.  Now, they also had clergy appointed by the governor and charged local residents a mandatory levy to help the Church pay for those expenses (an idea I imagine a certain treasurer of ours probably wouldn’t mind) – but for all intents and purposes, the early church of the Americas operated just like the early church in the Acts of the Apostles – living as a community sharing resources, supporting those in need, embracing abundance, mutuality, and justice.  In essence, a community who understood their allegiance to be to the kingdom of God and not to the kingdom of brokenness:  a community of faithful stewardship.

We are told in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles that as the disciples watch Jesus ascend to the heavens they stand there for a moment – frozen in time as their scrambled brains try to figure out what has just happened and what Jesus’ ascension means.  While they are standing there, looking at heaven, two men in white robes appear and ask them a simple question, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”  In other words, God uses these men in white to tell the disciples, “Don’t just stand there – go be the church!  Jesus showed you the way to abundant, faithful stewardship.  Now go bring kingdom living to life!”

That is our invitation today too.  Now you may be thinking, “Yeah, but the Church has changed so much.  We are not the primary social services agency in town – we are not the place responsible for people’s physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being!”  But Jesus tells us today that we are.  That every single member of this community has a part to play – can contribute your financial resources, the gift of your skills and expertise, the offering of your time to make this church a modern expression of the kingdom of God here in Upper James City County.  On this Ascension Sunday, we can choose to carry on the work of Christ, to do our part to turn away from brokenness and be agents of healing and wholeness.  Where will we find the capacity to enliven that abundant life?  In our Eucharistic Prayer today we will pray, “And, that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for him who died and rose for us, he sent the Holy Spirit, his own first gift for those who believe, to complete his work in the world, and to bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all.”[ii]  Not only did Jesus give us the mission, Jesus also gives us the Holy Spirit – that gift we will celebrate next week – so that we might be the faithful stewards of God’s abundance, declaring our allegiance to living in the light – to being the agents of abundance God knows we can be.  Our invitation is stop looking up, and start looking around at the kingdom God has gifted us to tend.  Amen.

[i] Ronald J. Allen, “Considering the Text: Week One, Ascension Sunday, 12 May 2024”  Center for Faith and Giving, as found at centerforfaithandgiving.org, 2.

[ii] BCP, 374.

On Celebrating Life, Death, and Movies…

04 Wednesday Oct 2023

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Photo credit: https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/28/tech/netflix-dvd-rental-movies-ending/index.html

Well, it finally happened.  Netflix’s DVD business closed last Friday.  Now I recognize that acknowledging I still received DVDs from Netflix may make me seem old-fashioned.  Even a contemporary exclaimed recently, “Do people even have the equipment to play DVDs anymore?!?”  I took a good ribbing, but the truth is I love movies, and Netflix’s DVD business allowed me to watch movies that were not available via streaming services.  I was constantly finding new gems, and still had over 100 movies in my queue that I hoped to watch some day.

For those of us old-timers still watching DVDs, the closing of Netflix’s DVD branch has been tinged with nostalgia and a tiny bit of grief.  Over the course of 18 years, I watched 667 films, each story sparking my imagination, eliciting pleasure, sorrow, excitement, indignation, laughter, and hope.  Obviously there will be other ways for me to revel in the artistry of filmmaking, but there is a certain finality to the closing of this chapter. 

Despite my wistfulness, I commend Netflix for the way they have handled this change.  Instead of wallowing in grief, or attempting to apologize for market changes beyond their control, instead, they have handled this “death” with grace and joy.  Knowing the closing was coming, this year they used their iconic mailing envelopes to feature celebratory artwork honoring how a whole generation has been shaped by their service.  On the week of their closure, the sent a “gift” to every member – a summary of the highlights of our membership – what movies we had watched each year, milestones in our membership, and even the list of movies in our queue in case we want to find another way to see them.  Instead of a death, it has felt like a celebration of life.

In a lot of ways, it has reminded me of the ways the Episcopal Church approaches death.  When someone we love passes, we use the burial office to celebrate life – certainly the life of the one who has died, but especially the promise of eternal life promised in Jesus Christ.  But I’ve been thinking about it over this last week, and the Church honors “mini-deaths” all the time:  the ending of a ministry that is no longer needed or effectively utilized, the retirement of a ministry leader after a successful tenure, or the blessing of a parishioner or staff member who moves away from the community.  All those transitions can be hard because they make us remember fondly the ways ministry blessed us in the past.  But those transitions are also often the source of new life:  a new ministry we could never have imagined five years ago, a new leader whose fresh ideas opens up new opportunities, and new members who shape and mold us into a new community.

I wonder what things feel like they are dying in your life right now – what things you thought would always be there are undergoing change.  Where might the Holy Spirit be inviting you to see new shoots of growth in the midst of something withering on the vine?  How might those “mini-deaths,” be tremendous gifts to you or your community?  How might we take a cue from Netflix, and find ways to celebrate those endings with dignity and joy?  I am grateful for the ways a secular business is helping me see the sacred in our own life cycles.  Let’s celebrate together!

On Enjoying the Walk…

14 Friday Jul 2023

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He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.  Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.  (Isaiah 40.29-31, ESV)

Photo credit: https://www.henryford.com/blog/2023/05/10-ways-walk-better-health

I was reading today about a running method many marathon users use to help them sustain their pacing.  It’s called the “run/walk method.”  To sustain pacing for the marathon, a runner could choose to run for five minutes and walk for one throughout the race.  The challenge for the runner is to use this method throughout, especially at the beginning, when adrenaline is running high and it may feel like capitalizing on energy is a good idea.  Instead, keeping the run/walk pattern allows for the stamina for many runners to complete the race.[i] 

I’ve been thinking that my sabbatical has been utilizing the run/walk method by accident.  The twelves weeks had included multiple trips, punctuated by periods of 4-5 days at home between trips.  This week, one of those trips was cancelled due to weather complications, so my “walking” time at home has been more like 9-10 days.  Initially I was irritated by this disruption in my rhythm.  But as I lived this week a little differently, and as observations about the week have percolated up from family members, I have realized the gift of this rhythm disruption.

In the midst of this rhythm disruption, I have been able to more leisurely take naps and rest – something I would have limited if I knew I was approaching another “running” cycle.  I have also been able to be more thoughtful about time with family – whether an impromptu lunch with a kid at home, going to a community show with a kid instead of encouraging my spouse to do so, and just having some fun together time.  I’ve also been able to create quiet time in town – finding a place to tuck away in my local library.  It has not been the week I planned, but in many ways, it has been a week of blessings – certainly blessings I wouldn’t have enjoyed were I not on sabbatical in the first place.

I wonder what rhythm disruptions God has been gifting you lately.  Have you noticed them?  Have you been able to see them as invitations instead of annoyances?  I suspect the Holy Spirit does a lot more disrupting that we regularly notice.  Our invitation today is to settle down into a walk to see where the Spirit will guide us.

[i] As relayed by Curtis Zackery, in his book Finding Soul Rest:  40 Days of Connecting with Christ (Bellingham, WA:  Kirkdale Press, 2020), 52-53.

Sabbatical Journey…On Weariness and Gratitude

01 Saturday Jul 2023

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Montana Driving (reuse with permission)

Today was a driving day for our cross-country trip – perhaps the longest driving day of the trip.  All told, we were on the road, with multiple stops, for about 10-11 hours.  By the last hour, I was engaged in an inner complaint fest:  the trip felt like forever, I was stiff from the ride, and I just wanted to be in the next location and stretch my legs.  But when we arrived, I was glad I had kept my complaining to myself.  First my younger child exclaimed, “That wasn’t so bad!  It went by kind of quickly!”  My husband agreed, “Yeah, that was an easy drive!”  My elder child confessed, “I kind of like driving days.  They’re like ‘chill’ days.” 

Their comments helped me reflect on the day a little differently.  I tried to remember all the good things about the day:  the way the heavy fog slowly lifted to reveal beautifully green mountain scenery with rivers and tall pines; how fun it was to drive along winding road, hugging the curves; the pops of color that wildflowers brought to the drive; the fun road trip games we played, where everyone was winning at different points; the laughter, the naps, and adding a new state to our list of visited states.

Today, I am grateful for the invitation into gratitude.  It’s a practice I encourage all the time, but one that is easily forgotten when we are tired, weary, and cranky.  But the funny thing is that gratitude is the best antidote to us who are tired, weary, and cranky.  When we give thanks, we see all the good things that made us tired.  When we offer gratitude to God, our weariness is held like soft mattress.  When we give ourselves to thankfulness, crankiness is melted into praise.

I would love to hear what you are grateful for today.  How has God shown up in surprising ways?  How has the Holy Spirit spoken grace through people in your life?  How is Jesus inviting you into a new interpretation of the day?  I’m grateful for you and our journey together in gratitude!

Sabbatical Journey…On Seeing through Song

28 Wednesday Jun 2023

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Chapel of the Transfiguration, Episcopal, Grand Teton National Park (reuse with permission only)

After a day of exploring the magnificent Grand Tetons, seeing beautiful waterfalls, peaceful lakes and rivers, we closed the day with a covered wagon dinner and show.  I had been pondering the beauty of this day, when the western quartet closed the show with the old hymn, “How Great Thou Art.”  If you are not familiar with the hymn, the lyrics are:

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works Thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy pow’r thru-out the universe displayed!

Chorus
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

When thru the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees,
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze,

Repeat Chorus

I could not have asked for a better summary of this day.  As I saw the enormity of the mountains, I stood I awesome wonder.  As I listened to a different familiar hymn being played in rustic chapel, I remember thinking I could look at the views all day from that beautiful space.  As I watched the calm lake, I marveled at the reflection of God’s creation.  As I heard the roar of waterfalls, I felt in my chest the way that God’s love sometimes roaringly overpowers me.  And as the mist of the falls kissed my face, I remember thinking, “My God, how great thou art!”

Sometimes words fail me, especially when encountering so much of God’s inspiring creation.  So often, the artistry of song has helped me shape words my mouth could not.  Tonight, singing that song “How Great Thou Art,” with the help of guitars and a fiddle, I knew immediately those were the words I could not articulate all day.  Other times, sacred songs have come to me in sorrow, in anxiety, and in longing.  I hardly ever choose the songs.  And sometimes I must sit in silence for a long while before the songs pop into my head.  In these times, the songs feel like gifts from God, who knows I need a way to express the inexpressible.

What songs are you longing to hear?  I would love to hear how the Holy Spirit has flitted through your longing heart and given you a song.       

Sabbatical Journey…On Reframing Puzzles

25 Sunday Jun 2023

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Las Vegas Sign (Photo Credit: Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly; reuse with permission)

Tonight, we were able to squeeze in a magic show in our short trip with family in Las Vegas.  Perhaps my favorite part of the show was a puzzle trick.  Jen Kramer, the magician, showed us a puzzle, surrounded by a frame.  She removed the frame, showing us how it was solid.  Then she pulled the magnetic puzzle pieces apart, encouraging us to imagine each piece as a part of lives that define who we are:  special transformative moments, meeting a mentor or a love interest, our family or friends, and on and on.  She reassembled the pieces, and then reminded us that sometimes other pieces are added that don’t quite fit – perhaps a challenge that we cannot quite overcome.  Then she rearranged the pieces and somehow managed to get them back into a perfect square.  The idea is that the challenges and failures of life shape who we are just as much as the blessings.  But the master trick was that when she went to put the frame back on, the puzzle still fit into the frame with the new pieces – the challenge or failure we didn’t plan absorbed into the whole of ourselves.

I loved this metaphor for life in general.  How often do we see hurdles and challenges as something to be glossed over or hidden away:  the diagnosis we struggled to overcome, the job we didn’t get, the lover we lost?  Too often, we see those things as something outside ourselves, as though because we didn’t “win” them, they exist outside of ourselves.  But those challenges and failures are just as much a part of who we are as all the good parts.  Invariably, those no’s lead to shifts in who we are – sometimes helping us find a yes we did not know to pursue.  Sometimes those losses make us appreciate our gains in life.  Sometimes those hurts help us learn to heal into something stronger.

Living in Sin City for the last 36 hours, I have been thinking a lot about poor decisions, losses of all kinds, and regretted behavior.  But much like that magnetic puzzle, I do not think repentance is something that whitewashes our lives before God.  Repentance is about acknowledging how the bad in life has impacted us and those around us as much as the blessings in life.  Though we might want to hide those seeming failures from everyone else, God walks with us through the good, the bad, and the ugly – and offers to make us whole again, managing not to erase parts of us, but to redeem us and use the not so good to shape us into even better selves. 

I wonder what part of your life seems to not “fit” into your perfectly framed life?  How might the Holy Spirit be inviting you to reimagine your “frame,” so that others might not see the posed picture of you, but the full, vulnerable, real picture of you?  Your invitation today is to love all the parts of you that can squeeze into your otherwise perfect frame.  Perhaps the parts that you want to purge might actually become the parts that help others frame their imperfect lives.

Sabbatical Journey…on Burdens and Blessings

20 Tuesday Jun 2023

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My husband is a master planner, especially when it comes to travel.  So, when we embarked on this sabbatical adventure, I had no worries because I knew he had planned the trip, down to which rest areas we should use.  You might imagine that kind of exacting detail would translate to rigidity – someone who can become rattled when things do not go as planned.  But that is not the case with my husband.  In addition to being a master planner, he is also absolutely the person you want in the room when things go sideways.  He is able to quickly shift, make alterations, and carry things forward seamlessly.

Today, just day three of our twenty-one-day adventure, those skills came in very handy.  The first hiccup happened when our lunch plans got altered.  Our lunch date got called away (welcome to the life of a priest-parent!).  I was super sad about missing our visit but know all too well that things happen.  But when you travel with my super husband, all is not lost.  During lunch, my husband coordinated Plan B, and off we went to the Oklahoma City National Memorial.  I had only seen the site in pictures, but pictures cannot capture the power of seeing all those names, retelling the tragic story to our kids, noting small chairs for the children in daycare who died that day, and even worse, the one chair that indicated the death of a pregnant woman, with the unborn named child on her chair.  It was a powerful moment of sobriety and a reminder to all of us how much we need to savor one another.

Fast forward to our final destination.  We were all tired and a bit weary.  When we stopped at our hotel to check in, we figured the water gushing from a ceiling down the hall was a bad sign.  Sure enough, the hotel’s water had been shut down, with no estimated fix schedule.  Before we even got through the line to cancel our registration, my husband was already booking an alternative hotel on his phone, and then calling customer service to make sure our prior booking wouldn’t charge our card.  Our frazzled, anxious little family was on our way to a new hotel less than a block away within the half-hour.

It had been a heavy day.  We began the day with conversations about the Trail of Tears, why there are so many reservations in Oklahoma, and what we can do as consumers to support the economy of indigenous Americans.  We talked about Juneteenth, and wondered about our experiences in Little Rock and how much more work we have to do.  We recalled mass violence and the death penalty as we walked through the vivid artistry of the Oklahoma City National Memorial.  And we dealt with our own travel hiccups.  Needless to say, as walked in 100-degree weather to an impromptu dinner, we were all a bit worse for the wear.

And then I saw it.  A beautiful, unusual flower lining the road of our walk.  It seemed silly to stop and take a picture of the flowers (or at least, so my then cranky family told me), but I knew this was the Holy Spirit’s way of telling me to look around at the blessings of the day:  to remember the constant invitation to think about injustice in all its forms and how we can be agents of change; to remember that even when things do not go your way, sometimes equally wonderful things happen; to remember that even in the midst of sweaty, weary, whiny messes, God uses the gifts of all of us (problem-solving husbands, caring strangers, and even nature herself) to renew and restore us.  What blessings has the Holy Spirit been trying to show you today?

Photo credit: Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly (reuse with permission)

Sermon – Acts 1.6-14, E7, YA, May 21, 2023

30 Tuesday May 2023

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One of my favorite videos on YouTube is an experiment by the group called SoulPancake.  They asked six pairs of individuals, in various stages of relationship (from total strangers to a couple who has been married 55 years) to sit in two chairs facing one another, and without speaking, look into one another’s eyes for four minutes.  At first the couples are a bit uncomfortable – initially unsettled by the forced silence, but ultimately jarred by what they quickly realize is deep intimacy.  Slowly over the four minutes the couples settle in, their faces transforming from discomfort to curious to deep connection.  You can almost see the sparks of love emerging in their eyes, tension draining from their bodies, and invariably smiles of appreciation spreading across their mouths.[i] 

When Willie James Jennings writes about the ascension of Jesus, one his primary concerns is that in focusing on the heavens, where Jesus used to be, the disciples will forget to focus on one another, on the stranger in need of witness, and on the presence of God.  Jennings worries that the disciples are looking “into the heavens concerned by absence rather than looking forward to see presence.”[ii]  The text from the Acts of the Apostles tells us of the last earthly day of Jesus’ post-resurrection life.  Jesus gives the disciples a commission and is lifted up into the clouds and whisked away.  The text tells us the disciples do exactly what you might imagine – they stand there, staring at the heavens.  I imagine that standing and staring had several iterations:  there was likely the stunned awe of the moment; there may have been some not wanting to leave for fear of missing what might happen next; there may be some immediate second guessing about what this all means; there may be some Peter-esque desire to preserve the sacred location of the profound moment; there may be a sense deep grief, or conversely a sense of profound joy.  Whatever those disciples are doing, they are not at all doing they are supposed to do.  Hence the men in white robes asking their very basic question, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”

You and I are about to engage in the profound and infrequent journey of sabbatical.  The temptations in this time are many.  For either of us, we could easily see this as twelve weeks of frozen time – where we will each gaze upon God, and then simply pick up where we left off in August.  For either of us, we could be prepared to happily engage in sabbatical activities, absorbed in our own mountaintop experiences, forgetting the journey of the other.  For either of us, we could be guided by fear, burying our talent like in the parable in Matthew – just hoping not to risk doing sabbatical the “wrong way” instead of investing our talents to see what return we gain. 

But there is danger in looking up in the heavens into absence as opposed to looking forward to presence.  Alan Hirsch tells us, “the biggest blockage to the next experience of God is often the last experience of God, because we get locked into it.”[iii]  [repeat]  What those men in white knew was that if the disciples stood there lost in themselves or even in the ascended Jesus, they would never get their next experience of God – they would get so locked into the mountaintop experience of Jesus’ ascension, that they would never make their way to the next experience of God – in their case the great gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

That is our invitation today.  As we stand on the precipice of sabbatical, maybe as we are still reveling in the memory of an outstanding parish-wide retreat this weekend, or wondering what sabbatical activities we want to try, or even feeling a bit of anxiety about what is next, a great whispering is happening nearby, “why are you standing looking up toward heaven?”  Our invitation instead is to resist letting our next experience of God be our last experience of God.  Our invitation is to gather in these next weeks in prayer and community, knowing that the Holy Spirit will do a new thing in all of us.  Our invitation is to walk down the mountain and into the valley of witnessing the gospel of Jesus, looking forward not only for the presence of God, but gazing deeply into the eyes of others.[iv]  This time of sabbatical is not a time to marked by absence, but instead is a time looking forward to see presence.  We can only see that presence if we pull our eyes from heaven and gaze into the sacred we find in one another.  The next experience of God promises to be greater still than our last experience of God.  I can’t wait to hear all about your next experience.  Amen.

[i] Georgia Koch, “How To Connect With Anyone,” SoulPancake, February 12, 2015, as found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm-T3HCa618 on May 20, 2023.

[ii] Willie James Jennings, Acts:  Belief:  A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 19-20.

[iii]  Alan Hirsch and Rob Kelly, Metanoia: How God Radically Transforms People, Churches, and Organizations From the Inside Out (Cody, Wyoming:  100 Movements Publishing, 2023).

[iv] John S. McClure, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 525.

On Stories and Invitation…

11 Wednesday Jan 2023

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Photo credit: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/15/923962314/good-conversations-take-time-and-attention-heres-how-to-have-better-ones

Last night, my younger daughter and I started reading the first book in the Harry Potter series.  I love the series, although I found it later in life.  I never read them as a young adult.  I started them the summer I was serving as a chaplain in a hospital in my early thirties because I needed something to read that was not overly taxing on my emotionally drained self.  Later, I read them while breastfeeding my first child (I spent a lot of time on a pump!), and then again with my first child when she was old enough.  I could not wait to start the series again with my younger child.

But what has surprised me in restarting this adventure is this is not the first attempt.  Normally an avid reader, I thought my daughter would be excited about reading them with me.  And, given my super enthusiasm for the books (and her knowledge that her older sister and I enjoyed them so much), I thought she would be equally enthusiastic.  But every time I mentioned starting them, even making a point at age eight to tell her I though she was finally old enough to enjoy the privilege, she was only lukewarm about the experience.  We even tried this fall to start them, and she just was not that excited.  With a new set of books all her own being gifted at Christmas, I am hoping this is the attempt that will stick!

I have been thinking how much her journey with Harry Potter might be like others’ experiences with churchgoers who just know that you will love their church.  I recognize I cannot speak with authority about never being raised in the Church – although my faith journey has taken me through multiple denominations, I have never not felt a draw to the Church.  But having ministered to many people who are new to the Church or who are simply Church curious from a very guarded distance, I sense that even our most enthusiastic descriptions are not always compelling to someone who has never been a part of Church culture. 

Many people who have seen the Church decline over the years perhaps feel this is an inevitable reality.  I disagree.  I believe the power of shared stories, including shared stories of faith, remains important.  I am not at all advocating for pressured pitches that many of us have been scarred by (I grew up in a very conservative area and was asked if I was saved more times that I can count).  But being willing to share your faith story is as vital as being able to share about the most amazing food you ever tasted:  it’s an exchange in joy, an exchange in life, and exchange in meaning.  The other person may not be moved to start attending your church, but they might just be intrigued enough to keep listening.  Convincing people to come to our church is not our work.  Our work is simply to share our faith journey joy and invite others to come and see.  The rest is the work of the Holy Spirit and will come (or not!) in its own time.