Gossip
Church communities have been doing gossipy fake news for centuries long before fake news had a name as it does today. When I think back to all the high drama points of the last 10 years of my ministry (and the war stories from other clergy, there have been some crucial crises of conscience, but 90% of the time it's much ado about nothing. For example, one of my mentors did a full immersion baptism. He also likes to play tennis. One day he wore a white shirt and white tennis shorts underneath his alb (white robe) on baptism day. One parishioner decided, that because they couldn't see the priests pants with the wet alb, that he must have done it naked! There must be something sinister about this baptism they thought. Pearl clutching began, and it was weeks before a mini campaign to discredit the clergy finally fizzled out. I don't know how many hours of damage control actually went into this imaginary outrage, but the gossip made it all the way to me in Houston. You would not believe your clergy if they told you half the gossip they are subject to. You can’t make this stuff up! Episcopal clergy are big girls and boys and we can handle it, but I absolutely believe lay people and clergy have an obligation to short-circuit gossip for the sake of God’s kingdom. Gossip is the dark side of what we do best - church people love and are interested in each other and we have a way in Christ to really listen to each other, but we are easily seduced by made up or half-baked stuff. Gossip is part of our heritage as humans. We used it to monitor those in our tribe in the way back days, and it is not inherently bad; it is just that we don’t quite know how to turn it off when there is no need, or turn it on as empathy instead of shock. A TED talker, Elaine Lui, says about gossip – You can’t consume it without bias. You can’t consume gossip without filtering it through the prism of your own experience. In filtering gossip through the prism of your own experience, what inevitably comes out on the other side, is a pretty definitive declaration about what we believe, what we expect, what we reject and how we process. Gossip allows us to communicate a behavioral code to others. Gossip allows us to set a standard of conduct. We are a church focused on Christ. When we filter communication and expect everyone to conform to our own idiosyncratic mores, we reject Jesus. Jesus came to make strangers friends and outsiders family. Gossip decreases real communication. Ungossip Speaking as a recipient of all sorts of hard hitting-but-helpful feedback. I cherish the times when someone takes the time to approach me and neither yell at me or talk around me. They had to make a choice that they were going to offer their feedback, with the risk I might completely reject what they are saying. That my friends is “ungossip,” but it is hard to practice. A life changing moment in this regard happened to me years ago. I was doing church work at a location that will remain nameless. I spent hours on a particular floor working with people in great need. I had the privilege of working alongside a social worker I admired, who I also thought was strikingly beautiful (and a gym rat like me). Working next to each other, I thought I was making innocent conversation about the exercise routine she used to keep her in such great shape. Two days later, I was called into my supervisor’s office with a fellow church worker to question my behavior. It sucked. I did not want to hear what they were saying and struggled not to write both of them off as uptight. I am super grateful for that ministry moment. It made me much, much more aware of my conduct and behavior. You might be thinking that is just too PC, and we don’t need that egg shell sensitivity garbage anymore. But if they had not stepped up I would not have the clarity of boundaries that I do today. If they chose to avoid the situation, that little encounter would have grown to gossip about what an terrible person I was. My life is better, and I treat people better because two people took the time to ungossip me. The Biblical way for ungossip is this - Matthew 5: 23 Therefore if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. 25 Reconcile quickly with your adversary, while you are still on the way to court. My personal wish is that people would hold others accountable for the stuff they actually screwed up and not what they might have screwed up. Furthermore, the thing that makes me insane in the membrane is the moving target of completely imaginary failings, or people ramping themselves up about others shortcomings even as they are smiling at each other. I think the church of the future will commit to weeding the gossip and fake news out. Shutting down gossip is neither innovative nor a new ministry model, it’s just Matthew 5:23-24. But it is one of the most basic things we can do for the health of the church, and today it is weirdly countercultural. Fake news Now more than ever we need a community committed to Matthew 5. Our culture has gone crazy with gossip. Look at the fake news around the recent election. I still shake my head over pizzagate. Take a listen to “Reply All”, an audio podcast at the top of my list of ear candy. They did an episode on Pizzagate - a fake news story where John Podesta, Hillary Clinton, and other high powered operatives are running a clandestine child sex trafficking out of a pizza shop. Not only is the story completely concocted, it also had real world impact. After the story had been bubbling awhile, a man showed up and fired a loaded weapon in the store to do some “investigative journalism.” The conspiracy minded pizzagaters even dismissed this looney as part of the conspiracy. Take a listen if you want to feel a little crazy (there is intense subject matter and profanity, so consider yourself warned) https://gimletmedia.com/episode/83-voyage-into-pizzagate/ . Sticks and stones can break bones and words almost always hurt despite the rhyme’s protest to the contrary. The church can and should be a place where we know and hear each other’s stories. If we don’t do it, no one else seems to be doing it. This is our call to real relationship. Chik-Fil-A has to remind us of this https://youtu.be/2v0RhvZ3lvY. The commercial is intended to sell more chicken, but it is also a banner of how people can listen past fake news, gossip, and all the other junk in which we get so easily entangled. We are on a mission to really see Christ in each other, and it requires swimming upstream. Down with gossip and fake news!
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Fun is hallmark of spiritual growth - I hope. Years ago someone came to me deeply upset because we weren’t going to use incense on [insert special day]. I invisibly scratched my head and nodded and said “I’m sorry” wondering if they were serious. Yes - deadly serious. I laughed an uncomfortable, sardonic laugh and said that we have not had incense at Ascension, since like ever. They were gone two weeks later. Now, I think I would probably just effect a stage cough and tell them how sad I am that I don’t smell like covered up bong smoke too. They would probably still leave, but church is too important to take so seriously. Maybe we all can be a half millimeter less uptight - the world of hair-trigger offences is not the church’s best rodeo.
Yoga - a personal mission If you've talked to me for more than 10 minutes, you know that I am a gym rat. I practice yoga all the time, and it is a centerpiece of my spirituality. No, I am not into Ganesh, Shiva, or Shakti, but I do know that hips don’t lie. After a decade of consistent yoga practice, and Shakira aside, the barrier between body and soul grows thinner and thinner for me. I am still truculent, petty, emotional, grumpy, etc. It is just that now I see the emotion train coming down the track far earlier than I used to, and have the skills to recover faster after the train has hit me square in the stomach. Maybe yoga is so personally important because quietly praying with a devotional bores me senseless. I love scripture; it guides everything I do and it supports insight, but eureka moments are almost always filtered through my body and not my noggin. Unfortunately my brain is far too scattered to focus, so I have to stalk insight like a cat. You can blame Ana Forrest and her book Fierce Medicine if the next two paragraphs are too weird. She writes about stalking, tracking and hunting her fear. I have learned that insight needs to be stalked, tracked and hunted in the same way. When you are hunting, you need lots of patience and attentiveness. Cats bring this out in me. They don't lumber up to you like a dog, and a cat's affection is not rewarded to the impatient. You put out your hand, but you don’t approach the cat directly unless you want it to bolt. Sometimes the cat bolts anyway. I have learned to patiently wait for insight by showing up in prayer and study. I have rarely found the word-of-the-Lord when, as if by force of will, I think I can force God to bless me. If, however, I commit to being available, Jesus in his own good time comes up and licks my hand with his sand paper tongue to reveal himself. When I don’t insist that God speak to me or insist that my body open up – both happen along the way. Back to the Mission The Church has a mission given by Jesus. At the end of Matthew, he said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.” Despite how awesome I may or may not be, the authority, the authorship, for the church belongs to Jesus. I know we can follow his lead and all will be well. Mission Statement workshop A few weeks ago, we had our “Mission Statement Workshop” with 16 key leaders to help us think about our mission. Here is what we came up with:
Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. With our shoes on, we can live into Jesus’ promises that the gates of Hell, apathetic teenagers, or Sunday brunch won’t prevail over the church. Our vision consultant reminded us that a mission statement is not about us, but about what God wants to do through us for the world. Our job as disciples of Christ here at Ascension is not to save the institution, but to renew the church and strengthen the Kingdom of Jesus. Mission part 1
The Church lady says Why aren’t people coming to church, serving, coming to parties etc.? I have heard this seventeen different ways at every church I have ever served or been a part of. I wonder if this is the same gripey impulse that creates static in the commons. When we kvetch about the people that aren’t there, you are playing small ball - worrying about deck chairs - or whatever cliché suites you. The thing I have learned about this very human tendency is that it creates radioactive fallout. You can’t see it, but this radiation breaks the DNA of people it touches. If we focus on the shortfalls of people, we have a hard time hearing through the static of our own judgmental attitude and we get radiation sickness. But, If we focus on our mission to love and serve the whole world, God will provide the people to support that mission. Years ago, a person, not Ascensionite, carried around a most sour look on his/her face. I used to ask him/her if everything was ok, but I have stopped. The response was always robotic with this plastered smile, “O course I am fine, I have the joy of the Lord”. Not five minutes later the face would fall and the stormy cloud return over his/her head. I think most of us can’t fake joy, and we can’t fake away the radiation of complaining. Ascension has about an 800 batting average on joy and welcome, but we can always improve. As we improve, more people will get into the boat with us to help row. We all have a job to do, that is to have fun in the Lord. I don’t want to sound flippant, but I would like my new title to be the CFFO, Chief Fun and Fellowship Officer at Ascension. Our consultant has been reminding Ascension about fun. This fun can even be, should be, part of vestry, finance, mission, and outreach committees. Our goal is that every church meeting be modeled after Jesus’ committee structure – they got together, learned together, ate together, prayed together, and loved each other. As they left, they did not just leave, they were sent on a mission. A usual church model is not like this at all. St. Swithen’s has a slot to fill and the one who seems to come the most on Sunday gets “voluntold” to fill the slot. Once they say yes they bide their time until the term is over. What if every committee meeting was fun and peaceful? Gasp, it can be true and it's not just a pipe dream. I believe we will be reworking the whole way we do ministry. Meetings can be a place for the work to get done for sure, but the Kingdom building would happen in fellowship because we chose to meet together. WWJD do in committee? As your CFFO, I want to constantly be helping fellowship and fun be the fuel for mission. Since the only strength and authority I have is derivative of Jesus’ power and authority and since Jesus has the wheel, I am learning to enjoy the ride as well. My CFFO pledge to you all via Justin Timberlake, I’m bringing funny back We church people don’t know how to act So let’s turn around and take it back Sunday School, part 2
We have committed parents who are pulling hard to equip their kids for a life of faith. But there is a gravity that pulls us in an opposite direction toward expertism. If we church leaders think we can carry the spiritual water for all the formation of kids, it is foolishness at best. So putting the old man glasses back on, “The problem with world today, is that everything has been exported to experts instead starting with the home." And like the guy who stands on his lawn to yell at kids for walking on his grass, I want to grump, "the home is too busy for much of anything except more busyness." How can the church help its people take at least one iron out of the crowded fire? Captain Obvious says that activities won’t save our kids, only Jesus will. I wonder how we church people can take seriously the formation of our kids without taking it so seriously that parents can offload all responsibility for faith formation on the church, and then ironically, not bring their kids to Sunday School. I know that is not you, but if it is what do you need to live into a different way of being? Enough speculation. I am prone to rearrange stuff that I perceive as not working optimally. Our Sunday School now is not optimal. Wonder with me how we can partner with parents to diligently undertake the work of formation while swimming in a world steeped in the overscheduled “sainthood of all children”. Thanks father-in-law for that expression. When he said that to me as if it weren’t always true, it really opened my eyes to the world that I and my fellow parents have created. Hell hath no fury than the parent whose child has their perfection doubted. Is the sainthood of kids deceiving us to double and triple booking every spare second of down time in families? This I think goes back to preaching. How do I preach a God who is lovingly in charge of the world, when I and everyone around me is scurrying around thinking our kids and our life are up to us. We think we can give our kids a perfect life by starting with the right latin teacher, softball coach, and college prep course. I want Jesus and his presence in my life, but as a church leader, I am knee deep in my own programmatic overload along with everyone else. How can I be faithful to the call of Christ to create programs that actually form both leaders and participants become lovers of God and nothing else. Before we rearrange everything, we have to ask two hard questions. First even if there was a highly funded, spotless Sunday School program, would it serve the needs of families and be used more? Second, if the answer is “no”, how do we 'ninja style' slipping the transcendent God into children's lives? Fellow clergy have similar issues with lackluster SS attendance, and they are trying different things. So, please without giving me a curriculum that will solve all my problems, solve all our problems. I can wrap my head around preaching, but expectations of child formation seem to change more than Justin Bieber’s haircuts. The Sunday Schools at all three of churches I have served have ebbed and flowed. At the same time, I have a persnickety commitment to childhood Christian formation that is non-negotiable. Sunday School might be negotiable, but my Charlton-Heston-NRA-cold-dead-hands will not let me slack. Let the little children come to Jesus and do not stop them. So how does the community offer a compelling education that the kids will nag their parents to take them to and what can we do to empower the parents to help their kids fall in love with Jesus?
The fruit of a good program is probably that the kids want to be around their friends. We leaders try to make a program fun, and then let Jesus slip in through the side. I have seen bigger non-denominational and Methodist churches who do a great job of making Sunday School into a holy romper room. Tricycles, praise music, and a good teacher. I don’t think the Episcopal church could, even if it wanted to, pull that off. If we are not going to double down on entertainment culture, what does it mean to take the mantle of teacher or parent empower-er in the lives of our littlest disciples? I like working with kids; I like teaching school chapels; I love double jumping my own kids in a bouncy house; but I think this is bigger than throw the priest at it so that he will fix it. Disclaimer – parents, I in no way would even think about being wreckless with your kids, even when I am sorely tempted to double bounce your particularly annoying, rambunctious 8 year old. The status quo of children’s formation seems to be a medicinal approach to Sunday School. A little craft is the liquid bubble gum flavoring that helps the Jesus antibiotic medicine go down. I want to wonder aloud with you. What does it mean to form kids for Christ? Pleeeaassee don’t send me your favorite curriculum that will solve all my problems. I think we are being called to more existential question. I want to wonder WWHUD. What Would Jesus Have Us Do? First, I/we don’t pray enough specifically for the kids. So I resolve to pray for by name our kids. E….h, E…….n, C….e, L…n, W….e, C…..r, A….w, N….e, D…..e, J….e, J…a, M…..e, K……e, M.c, E…n, I..a, O……a, N…e, T…e and others. I have a pretty practical view of prayer: It can’t hurt and will help. Please pray with me not only for our littlest disciples’ success but that our kids grow into the full stature of the Lord. I think we don’t empower our kids to pray effectively. One of my dreams is to have actual tools to send home with parents every week so that they can do nightly devotion, compline prayers, vespers, etc with their kids. Please pray for our program, pray for our volunteers and pray for Miranda's leadership. May we all bring the light of Christ to our little ones so that they have the spiritual tools to live in joy. Next time, I will put my old man glasses back on and rant about over-scheduled kids and Sunday School. Many of you have asked how I get to Sunday with a sermon in hand. Short answer, lots of mental sweat and curiosity. Here are a few of my favorite things:
Online biblical resources
Books for sermons
I read a lot, but have a confession to make. I don’t particularly like religious books. Most of them bore me. However, my all-time favorite religious book is Alexander Schmemann’s For the Life of the World, Sacraments and Orthodoxy. I read lots of church development books for professional development, but I doubt you would find that particularly interesting. My favorite non-church books in the last 5ish years are:
I spend an inordinate amount of time listening to podcasts. I think it is because doing the dishes are more fun that way. Cardio, cleaning, lawn care, and commuting time is the perfect time to find out about the awesomeness of floss, the history of the Erie Canal, the archeological study of space trash, or the latest yes, yes, no. In order of awesomeness
Thanks for listening! I'm a pretty good preacher. My wife gives me a report card every Sunday afternoon that ranges from C+ to A. She is a stingy grader, only giving me A's about every six weeks. During my five plus years at Ascension, people have stopped telling me what they think about my sermons, maybe because they don't want to be redundant. Maybe they think I don't want to hear what they have to say. Mostly, it's "good sermon" or "thank you for your sermon" -- if anything. On occasion, I will get "I didn't like when you said XYZ" and ironically, I really appreciate critique or negative responses because it means they're listening.
I used to be the young guy with amazing insight, now I'm just the preacher. I'm not complaining; I really love the preaching ministry. I have read more books about and been to more conferences on preaching than I can count. Despite my wife's middling ratings, I care a lot about preaching. If you were to ask me what the goal of preaching is (without using a lot of church language), it would be to transfer energy. I want the Holy Spirit to flow from me to the people and back. More theologically, I want the energy transfer to have a name - Jesus Christ; Father or Mother; or Holy Spirit - just as long as God gets the credit. I am not trying to reproduce a TED talk, mainly because I can't out-TED-talk a lot of TED talkers. But I do resolve every Monday to Sunday to let God be in control of my preparation, preaching, and the liturgy. If I out-TED TED, then God did it and not me. One part of why I care for preaching is that I want to create an itch that many don't even know is there. Maybe you are just congratulating yourself for even making it to church, but next time you come ask God to help you listen to the sermon. You might be entertained, but if God has God's way, you will be transformed. Now cue old man with reading glasses hanging precariously off the tip of my nose, "that's the problem with the world today," I say. For generations, even when I was growing up, my contemporaries had a sense that church had something different, even if we hated the church. As I grew older (high school), the spiritual itch I felt had a name - longing for meaning - and the backscratcher was the church. I felt like the church fire alarm would trigger if I set foot inside; but I held out hope that there was something to that old time religion, even as I was soaking myself in KMFDM and self-loathing. Preachers have a particularly daunting challenge today. For many who come to church, there is no felt need for transformation. We preachers have to work overtime to first create a spiritual hole and then offer the living and active Christ who can get to work filling that hole long after we've said amen to our sermons. Some of the most transformative moments in my development as a Christian came from preachers who spoke to the gap that I did not know I had until they spoke. I was at a Christian conference nineteen years ago. The presenter was a country girl who had land and cattle. She had made charcoal drawings of the cattle she saw outside her window as a way to understand grieving and loss. Because she had slowed down to really observe them, she noticed how younger cows would just sit with older, sicker cows just because they were comforted by it. At that point, I was regretting coming to this talk because it was too precious, too anthropomorphic and I was getting bored. She read Proverbs 3 about wisdom focusing on verse 15 about how wisdom is more precious than diamonds. Blah, blah, blah. I was really late for the door at the point. I was calculating how I could leave discreetly when she began singing a song. It was with Proverbs 3 for the lyrics, but instead of praising wisdom, she replaced wisdom with our names. She sung how we were more precious than diamonds..... I lost it. A huge gaping hole of self-contempt opened up like a flower. It was dark and ugly. So big that I could not even look at it. Her singing was opening something and at the same time filling in huge gaps with possibilities. Maybe the story of human failure was false. Maybe a sick cow like me could be worth something. That's not why I am not rushing to put up screens in church and not having the service downloaded on iPad, because as lovely as my iPhone is, it is great at distracting from the ever-present holes our spiritual life present. In worship, there is space for gaps to exist and to let God do the rest. The Church is not always supposed to make you feel better; sometimes it's supposed to make you feel worse! It's God's job to write possibility on our hearts. So I'm praying that every time I sit down to get ready for my sermon prep on Monday morning God will reveal the gaps in my own life and fill my words with possibility. Maybe I can trust that in God's good timing I too will be filled up to overflowing. Then my words will open the door for the spirit to come in and fill the church and her people. Help When you sit in the pew, will you give me more than the standard, episcopalian Mona Lisa smile when you like something I say? I gave an energizing sermon just yesterday after Sunday services at a private Nigerian baptism. The sermon was 3-4 minutes long, but they "amen"ed and nodded me into a better preacher than I had prepared for. Maybe you won't be standing up in your pew and telling me to 'testify' when I preach, but I will be a better proclaimer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ if I know you're with me. At the same time, if I bugged you in the sermon, tell me that too! One of my sermon anchors (a church lady who listens intently) looks like she ate lemons when she does not like my words. Hallelujah. I really believe preaching is the work of the people good and bad. In the next post, I will tell you some of the things I do to get from Monday to Sunday. Detail warning - this post has detailed notes about what we actually did on our Saturday Core Values workshop. Go to the previous post if you are already bored.
We brought in a consultant, Reb Scarbrough, to help us on our journey toward discerning God’s call for our future. Forty of our Ascensionites gathered to hash out core values. Core values are the values that we actually practice and not what we hope to be. The hope-to-be stuff comes later in our vision and mission work. The day was exactly like Vision Quest (my favorite movie as a high school sophomore wrestler). Underdog wrestler loses 20 lbs to wrestle the demigod Shute to the rockin’ background of Madonna and Journey. So yes, our meeting was exactly like that, if by exactly, you replace grueling workouts and a 500 calorie daily diet, with kolaches, workshop handouts, and church fellowship around six circular tables. Louden beat Shute and we beat business as usual. In the beginning we started out in groups of six writing a “book” about Ascension. Chapter 1 Why were we founded? Because the Bishop said so. Not really - we used to be out in the middle of nowhere and Westheimer ended two miles to the east of us. Episcopalians were tired of stealthing at the local Methodist church and the Bishop was keen to support them. Chapter 2 What we do well internally? We have always been Jesus freaks and bible fanatics. Christ is at the center of our lives and scripture is our guide. Also, Ascension-as-refuge has always been important for us. We are a sanctuary for all and a place for people to have a church family. Chapter 3 What do we do outside the church walls? Our consultant remarked on how many events and ministries we engage for outreach. This was neither negative nor positive. My hunch is that we need a clearer sense of outreach so that we can clearly and cleanly do the work of Jesus in the world. I am pretty sure as we get more and more focused we may do more or less outreach but we will have guiding principle and themes for why we reach out. Chapter 4 Why do we do what we do? “Cuz we care” was one group’s summary. We do it for the glory of God and the care of souls. It is our joy and duty to proclaim the love of God to those inside and outside our church. After Lunch 2/3rds of the group went on with their day and the smaller group had the daunting task of distilling two hours of controlled mind spill into a working set of core values. The smaller group made several passes at “Book of Ascension” trying to distill the essence of the work. First, we made summaries from the five different books made by the larger group and tried to come up with repeating themes. After we had the summaries of the books, groups of three broke out to actually discern and write out a working draft of our core values. This working draft turned out to be largely similar to what we created seven years ago. To my mind the new version has cleaned up and clarified the prior language about our values. We also added diversity as an explicit core value. It’s important to us to welcome everyone regardless of background and we cherish that we have members from a variety of cultures. This is the working draft of our work on Saturday: Worship We are called by God to worship and enlarge His Kingdom in the living tradition of the Book of Common Prayer, practice of the Sacraments, biblical principles, and joyful praise. Spiritual Formation We grow spiritually through worship, fellowship and education. Fellowship We create opportunities to build relationships and nurture one another in the love of Christ as we welcome the community into our family of faith. Mission and Outreach We proclaim the love of Christ through prayer and compassionate service to the larger community. Diversity We embrace our diversity by welcoming all and sharing our common faith. Core Values from seven years ago with a little of my commentary If you were wondering about the older ones, they are: Holy Scripture Love for the Truth and Authority of the Living Word of God. Christian Development: Making disciples of Christ of people of all ages through Christian education and evangelism. Mission and Outreach: Proclaiming the love of Christ through prayer and compassionate service to the larger community. we did not change anything we liked it so much. Worship: Exalting Christ in Anglican worship and praise as set forth by the Book of Common Prayer. Anglican had multiple and confusing meanings for people. i.e. are a church with African oversight? Are we not really connected to the Episcopal church? Are we Church of England? Also, we included “tradition” in the core value of worship. The word tradition caused a lot of faces to wrinkle in equal parts confusion and distaste. I offered the somewhat vague description of “living-tradition” to communicate that we value our heritage but are not stuck in 1979, 1928 or some other ‘better’ past. If you push me too hard I will look piously to the heavens and say, “living tradition helps us encounter the mystery of the church while standing on a three legged stool” or “I dunno.” Fellowship Welcoming others and nurturing one another in the love of Christ. It was a lot of fun and everyone who came was energized and refreshed by our work and I pray it spreads to others as we continue. Why did we start using a consultant?
We started this multi-phase, 10 month strategic planning process with two goals in mind. To bring Glory to God and to turn our fabulous 50 leaders into our fab 100 leaders. We don't want to do more to feel self important, but to be more engaged because of the joy following of Jesus in this place. One small piece of this puzzle was our Nov 12 Core Values workshop. It left me buzzing. So many people finished the workshop with a new sense of joy and purpose. The connections people made and the excitement about what we are doing was exhilarating. People with young kids got to hear stories of those who were empty nesters ten years ago. People with no kids got to hear about the crazy landscape of parenting today. We all came together to think about how Ascension is a sanctuary for all of it. This workshop helped us take the first steps toward a vision for a fun future. The workshop crystallized around four reasons for us to swing for the church fences.
I am pretty good at a lot of things, but I have a calling to be your Rector. I am the best darn suit salesman in Texas and the most creative personal trainer anyone has ever known, and I am humble. But as your Pastor, God has invited me to serve the church with a plastic ring around my neck. God has convicted me that my big goal this year, as your Rector, is to foster the Joy of the Lord. It is not just Christian insider speak. Without the Joy, specifically Joy of the Lord, the church has no reason to exist. Like Paul said about Christians (filtered through Mr. T) - "I pity the fool, if Christ is not raised from the dead." . We are good - we can be great with Joy. We can be the best darn church in Texas, if we let God have his way with us. When I got back from Sabbatical in August 2016, I made one silent pledge to Ascension - I will swing as hard as I can to help Ascension flourish. I will do everything I can to get people into batting practice with me at Ascension I am invested - 90% of what I put my shoulder to daily is within 77042. My church, family, school, gym - everything is in this wonderful little bubble, and nothing less than everything I can give is going to be acceptable. My sabbatical pledge is to double down on blessing Ascension. I am at my best when I am not counting heads on Sunday, or worrying about air conditioner repair bills or nursing my emotions when someone has grumbled about me. I am at my best when I open my eyes to really see each of you as fellow workers for the Gospel of Christ and as buckets o' joy. This may be a high bar - so how about potential to be buckets o' joy? I am looking at you grumpalumpagus. Grumpy or not, we are worthy of, even deserving of the Joy of the Lord. We all should give great thanks for the many gifted leaders on finance and vestry. They empower me to count eyes more than heads. My most important job is to see you. I see you as you are and as you can be. I see you and am walking with you on the road to more joy. The joy of worshiping God and serving his people is the secret sauce for everything. Nothing else matters except the joy we feel about following Jesus 2000+ years after the first Easter. What I am hoping from you - What do you need from me for the joy of the Lord not to be cliche? How can strategic planning help us head toward that end? I will post the "guts" of what we did on the Core Values workshop on Nov 12 in a bit.
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AuthorAn Episcopal Priest in beautiful Danville, CA. Archives
April 2018
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