Existing in the Moment

As I write this, I am in sitting in a proverbial modern day desert. It is scary place to be, let me tell you. For although I have ample food, water and shelter; I am in a place where there is. . . wait for it. . . NO WIRELESS INTERNET OR STEADY CELL PHONE RECEPTION [insert dramatic music and panicked screaming here]!!! 

I know, I know, these are total first world problems.  But sadly they feel serious because of how conditioned I am to having access to them. So where am I that is so far from modern conveniences? Well, I am currently somewhere outside the town of Golden, Colorado at the Mother Cabrini Shrine and Retreat Center. Outside my window, the City of Denver is going calmly about its business and its people are undoubtedly enjoying the technological advantages I no longer have. It is a bit maddening to be sure. My smartphone is sitting right beside me on the table, and all I want to do is use it to check my email to make sure worship is okay for tomorrow. But can I do this? Nooooooo! The signal up here fluctuates too wildly causing my droid to freeze up when trying to access the net. It’s so bad that the hunk of junk is basically useless, except to call people, but who does that anymore?

 As to why I am here, or to be more exact, why I am required to be here. This weekend is one of two yearly Residents in Ministry (RIM) retreats that I must attend to be ordained as an Elder in the United Methodist Church. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this course, RIM is kind of like a residency group for doctors in a hospital. Essentially, I am spending these three days meeting with other provisional pastors in the process, checking in about the state of our ministry and attending topical breakout sessions to improve it. It is not bad idea in concept, but it always seems a major pain to extricate myself to from my life to attend these sessions. There is always so much going on in my two churches that dropping my life to come is very difficult. This is particularly true if I cannot even connect with home using the internet, which I don’t have right now. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Bryson smash!

My view of Denver from the Cabrini Shrine

 

Yes, not having my technology to rely on has been a real pain. Yet, it has also helped me relearn a very valuable lesion; a nice silver lining to not having technology as it were. Since I don’t have any way to connect with my to-do list or gmail, when I get free time after a session or lesson, I end up really having free time. Somehow, I always forget what this feels like. So when it happened this morning, I sat there in shock. I realized I WAS FREE! I HAD NOTHING TO DO! So I decided to take a leisurely walk throughout the Cabrini property, marveling at the breathtaking views of the mountains and city below. Normally, I would just keep walking to wherever I was supposed to be next. However, it suddenly hit me that I didn’t have to be anywhere. I could just stand there with the cloudless sapphire blue sky above me, the beauty of the mountains surrounding me and the amazing view of Denver in front of me. There was nothing keeping me from fully experiencing the moment. I could just be. So I stopped and drank it in, thanking God for the wonders I was experiencing.  As I did so, I felt a very profound tranquility welling up inside me. I have not sensed this feeling  a long, long time. And knowing that was enough to bring me to tears. A mentor of mine once told me that we ruin these moments by acting or speaking, so I stood there and let the Holy Spirit move around me. It was transcendent.  At some point, Be Still my Soul began playing in my mind, perfecting and ushering that sacred time to a close. Despite hearing this hymn a hundred times before, I think today was the first time I truly understood it’s meaning:

                 

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide; in every change, he faithful will remain. Be still, my soul; thy best, they heavenly friend, through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

              

             God had reminded me about that joyful end during this moment, which I know will energize me when I am forced to get reenter the world. Unfortunately, it is already trying to happen as I am getting irritated looking at the lacking 3G signal on my phone and the little red x on my laptop screen where my internet bars should be. These things are threatening my earlier moment, trying to get me to relapse. But that doesn’t need to happen just yet. I still have time to seek the “peace that passes understanding” that found me today. So, after this both laptop and phone are getting turned off for the rest of the weekend, or until I get a real signal anyway

            Are you like me in this? Do you find yourself yearning to get away from the beck and call of your calendar, computer or job? If you are, God’s peace is everywhere, beckoning us to take a break from the rat race and live into it during one perfect, serene moment. As a fellow traveler racing at breakneck speed, I totally recommend trying to find such a time, because it always helps you to remember what we are living for. I hope you find one soon and that you are well my friends. Take care  

A Prayer for Wellington UMF's Season of Prayer

Here is a prayer for those of you wondering how you can extend Wellington Fellowship's "Season of Prayer" into your own lives. I handed this out last Sunday, so know that through praying these words you are joining with the voices of many others who want to discern God's desires for our church. May the Holy Spirit bless us in this endeavor and guide us to the path we seek! Blessings upon you my friends.

DEAR LORD, our great Creator, thank you for my church, and for the people who are part of it. I’m grateful to be reminded each Sunday of:

Who I want to be,
Who you want me to be, and
Who you want us to be together.

Continue to guide our pastor, our leaders, and each church member to pursue this dream.

Keep us faithful to you and to the mission you have given us.
Help our lives better reflect your love, both as individuals and as a community.

I pray for courage and encouragement,

For vision and growth of our church ,
and other new churches like ours who are trying to set down roots in this world.

Let their lives show your love and caring
So that many people who need you will find you.

And that whole towns like Wellington would be changed.
Help my living always be a credit to my church
And a sign of my faith in you.

Guide us we pray

 Amen.

-Adapted from Prayers for Life’s Ordinary and Extraordinary Moments by Mary Lou Redding

It's in the Cards

Like many churches, Wellington Fellowship has a care ministry that sends greeting cards to people going through all manner of situations. It's a great ministry, because it offers a bit of intangible support and connection from the congregation to people outside of the church setting.  Keeping up with it requires a tremendous effort, and we are blessed to have a very dedicated volunteer that does the majority of the work. However, since I am the pastor, I do to sneak one in every now and then. This morning was one of those times, as I wanted to send a personal greeting to one of our families that just welcomed a new baby into the world.

Our card volunteer usually has her own supplies that she works from, so I use a stash in one of my office cabinets. Many churches have such a trove. It is a decently sized pile, and the cards range from recent purchases to some that are about 20-30 years old, complete with phrases I imagine were popular when Reagan was president (can't throw anything away in the church after all!) So after putting on my mining helmet, I dove in trying to find the one to properly celebrate a new life. Little did I realize how difficult this would be! After 10+ minutes of digging, I discovered that the cards broke down into about 4 categories. There were a select few depicting festive holiday scenes (Halloween, Christmas, etc), and some with floral imagery and the words "thinking of you" written ornately on them. There were also a number of religiously themed cards (we are a church after all) with the happy animals of Noah's Ark expressing thank yous, birthday/anniversary wishes or perhaps a blank space for another greeting. There were plenty of these, yet I was surprised to find they did not represent the majority of the pile. Rather, the bulk of cards I found seemed to denote bereavement. They wished people well who had moved far away, or abstractly promised support during many different life issues. There was not a card for a new birth in the bunch! Instead there were many for people going through life situations or non-descript periods of decline, interrupted by the occasional holiday or minor celebration. It was discouraging to say the least. So I ended up having to jury rig one of the Noah's Ark Birthday cards by writing my own message in conjunction with the card's text. But it did get me thinking . . .

What does this pile of cards say about the church?

We buy cards to commemorate the events going on in the life of the church, or to literally "be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep," (Romans 12:15 NLT) as the Apostle Paul would put it.  Essentially, these cards reflect the current state of things. With so many negative ones seemingly detailing decline and misfortune in my pile, it appears the outlook for the church is not overly good. Unfortunately, this jives too well with of the statistics surrounding the decline of Mainline Christian Denominations (Methodists, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Lutheran, etc). It is well documented that our message is not reaching younger people, which means that the majority of churches now consist of elderly members who are sick, aging, or dying. Worse yet, the decline is steadily increasingly and there are church leaders  who estimate that the Methodist Church (among others) have less than 50 years of life left if nothing happens. My card pile would seem to support this hypothesis, as is contents relates to many of the situations behind the statistic.

Thankfully, our churches are living things, so there are always shifts occurring on in the life of a congregation. For example, Wellington Fellowship is currently in an upswing of hope. We have had 4 babies born in the last year. Furthermore, in looking at our statistics, 20 of the 60 people involved in our 5-year-old congregation are under age 18. This means we have a lot of youthful vitality that we can harness and a new partnership with First Church, Fort Collins that can provide stability for our efforts. Between the two, I know we can buck the trend in our pile and similar movements in card ministries across the country! I have seen it, because I had joyful situation that was not present in overly negative cards we normally use. This sends a powerful message to us. For while the cards may tell us what is currently going on in our congregations, they can never restrict the future promise of God and the growing power of the Gospel when a church chooses to live into it. Our church, like many others, are living proof that we can change.

On that note, I need to buy some new greeting cards because I sense there will be plenty of new life, new possibilities and new frontiers in the future. Hope you are having a blessed week, my friends.

A Season of Prayer

 

If you weren't able to worship with us at Wellington Fellowship this morning, you missed the start of an important time in the life of our congregation.

Our service today focused on prayer and the effect it has on our faith lives. And what an effect it is! To sum it up, prayer is a practice through which we humans communicate with God and establish a relationship with the Divine.  It is also a primary means for God to provide grace, or the unmerited love that restores us and brings us into closer relationship with God and Neighbor. This relationship is critically important to say the least, as it links our entire belief structure together. In addition, Prayer is also one of few constant elements in our lives. We can pray in the best of times or the worst of times and know that God will hear us. In other words, prayer is a lifeline that pumps us up with Divine Love and Presence during life’s ever-shifting course. 

Since a new church setting like Wellington is a prime example of an unstable situation, my clergy coach recommended that we pursue the consistency that prayer provides. She reasoned that the many changes in our five years of existence have made it difficult for us to grow, so we desperately need some steadiness.  She is totally right. Having six pastors and three iterations of a leadership team in five years is tough for any church, let alone a new church start like us. Thus, we can greatly use the consistency that prayer provides. Plus, it will also help heal the pain of the past while opening us to the direction that God wants to give us for the future. This is exactly what we need, so I this morning I invited us all to join together for a Season of Prayer.  

So what is a Season of Prayer exactly, and what would it involve? Well, a Season of Prayer is an extended time to intentionally deepen our prayer lives and focus them on specific issues. To translate this into the life of our congregation, we are asking for every member of Wellington Fellowship (and First Church, Fort Collins if they would like to join in) to individually and corporately pray for the good of our church until New Years. So how can you help with this? It’s simple. During your individual prayer time, ask for strength for the people of this church and guidance on decisions. I would also invite you to ponder the gifts that God has given you for ministry. How can God help you use them in this congregation? How can the church empower you to live into where God is already working in your lives?  Then as your participate in prayer with our congregation, ask how we can use our collected gifts to bring forth God’s kingdom. Basically, where is God wanting us to go? Asking these questions as a congregation will help us discern God’s path for us while building up relationships within our community.  

This season is exactly what we need to tie into God’s plan and establish us permanently in the Wellington Community. As such, it will be a constant feature in our worship, leadership meetings and other church events going forth. I look forward to living this season with you and seeing how God’s grace will tangibly change us and transform us into the congregation that we all know we can be! Of course, there is much to be said about how God answers prayer. Or the motivations and methods we humans use in prayer. Those will have wait for a different post, or maybe a late night rant if I can’t sleep tonight. We shall see. So let us head forth into this season and I pray that God blesses you my friends.

 

A New Babel?

I recently entered my third decade of life here on this planet. I am not sure how I feel about this yet but I imagine I will get used to it. One thing is for sure though, celebrating it in style on a  Chicago vacation certainly helped ease the transition!

Honestly, I have never seen anything quite like Chicago. It is by far the biggest city I have ever visited. It is so vast and so loud. There is always a dull hum of commotion, like a dull roar of people and cars broken up by the periodic wailing of emergency sirens. The cacophony is deafening and the amount of people walking by you on the street is overwhelming. Good gracious, I have never seen so many people in all my life. Heck, even the sky was busy. Looking up at the plethora of skyscrapers surrounding me, I felt like a small ant navigating a complex parade of enormous metal giants. Basically, the city engulfs you. It's like you are in the heart of a great beast. There is no where you can look that does not remind you that you are in the middle of an entirely different, urban culture.

After a couple days of this, I was getting a little frazzled. I did enjoy many of the cosmopolitan experiences (Wrigley Field baby!) but since I am an introvert, I relished the quiet time I spent sitting with my wife in a coffeeshop at the foot of the Willis Tower. It is a fascinating vantage point from which to watch the city function. I saw men in expensive three piece suits darting around like hummingbirds, talking on bluetooth headsets and arguing about trade deals with distant countries. Then there were the large groups of tourists in bright, comfortable clothes, gawking at the Willis Tower and snapping pictures every couple feet. And, of course, there were the homeless who resigned themselves to shaking their change cups to get your attention. They hardly said a word, they just shook their cups as if that was all the explanation needed to garner a donation. As I sat there, all these people went about their business. Each had their own goals and lives in mind and were undoubtedly unaware that I was watching them. Some of them even seemed oblivious that they were walking around some of the biggest structures on earth, it was just a normal day for them.

As I sat there, I began feeling something that I am just now able to articulate. Looking at the Willis Tower,  I began hearing the story of the Tower of Babel from Genesis 11 run through my brain. I am not sure why this happened as there seemed to be very little in common with that story and what I was seeing around me. In the story, the people of Earth unite to construct a large tower in the hopes that it would make them famous and prevent them from being scattered across the planet. However, their efforts attract the attention of God, who is unhappy with the people's hubris and  decides to confuse their language so the project could not continue. In doing so, God shows humans the error behind excessive pride. It causes us to overly focus on our own issues and wants while isolating us from the needs of those around us. In the case of Babel, the people had taken this to an extreme. They were building a prideful monument to themselves, to call attention to their own abilities and achievements, instead of giving glory to God who's creation and influence allowed them to do such a feat.

It seems the lesson of Babel did not stick too well, because Chicago is filled with such towers. Most large cities have them nowadays. The Willis Tower is a prime example, it was built to be the largest in the world and draw attention to human achievement. It dominates the skyline and inherently draws attention to toward itself. I think this inward focus has also affected the city's inhabitants. Throughout the trip, I saw many, many people walking with their heads down, totally immersed in cellphones, Mp3 players and their own lives. They road the elevated trains in silence, not daring to talk to their neighbor. They worked silently in cafes, looking up only to make sure they weren't in someone's way. It was like people had become their own Towers of Babel, monuments to the separateness and importance of their own lives.Granted, my wife and I weren't speaking many people either, which is why I had such a great epiphany in the coffeeshop. I was feeling isolated, which is a bizarre concept in a city of millions. I had passed thousands of faces and hardly said hello. In fact, I vividly remember the only person we did talk to. It was outside Wrigley Field as the person taking our picture decided to introduce herself. Her name was Sarah and she was from Minnesota. She was also a tourist and had come to see the legendary ballpark. Our conversation didn't go much beyond that, but it made her stand out. She became a person amongst the throngs. We made a few other contacts while we were there, but that one will always stand out in my mind because of how it broke the seclusion.

Of course, I am unfairly describing Chicago in all this. There is no doubt my opinions are skewed by my experiences in smaller, more community oriented towns. Chicago is a fantastic place, but I think it's size makes humanities inherent prideful tendencies much more visible. That trait extends far beyond Chicago. It is everywhere and in everyone, and is always calling us to build our own Babel-esque towers. This isolating effect is what the church must always combat. It must help us walk the line between the individual and group identity toget us to a point of balance where we can look away from our selves to needs to others. If we do this, we can honor everyone and see that a tower is never the answer. What is important is that we use our resources for the good of all; that we build a structure where all can live with ample room for God and neighbor. It can happen in Chicago, or anywhere for that matter. So why not here? And why not now?