Things I Love About My Church #2

I've been on the staff at Windsor Heights Lutheran Church for over nine years.  There's a lot of cool stuff about this church, and though I can't possibly share all that's great about WHLC, I'd like to blog about a few of my favorite things.  For example...

Helping Hands

It's a bizarre experience to arrive on the scene of a disaster.  All routines, patterns, and assumptions are discarded and replaced by a new reality.  Anyone who has watched helplessly as a house burns to the ground or as a building is demolished by high winds knows how this feels.

I had a similar circumstance, though on a smaller scale, this past Saturday when I walked into the lower level at church.  "Is that water in the hallway?" my daughter asked.  It was indeed.  A lot of water.  Several thousand gallons of water had poured out of a broken water line on the third story and was spreading throughout the church.  All three levels experienced water damage, including carpeting, ceiling tiles, and walls.  Affected rooms included the narthex, fellowship hall, classrooms, and Sanctuary.  It was a mess.

After turning off the water, I made a few phone calls to the pastor and property committee members.  Mitigation professionals came to remove the water and discard soiled carpet...but there was still a lot of work that needed to be done in order to "prepare the way" for Palm Sunday.  Items needed to be sorted and either disposed of or moved to a dry location.  Equipment and furniture had to be relocated.  Temporary flooring needed to be put in place.

A few more phone calls yielded additional people.  Kiersten (age 5) said it best, when she told her older brother, "We need to go help.  If our house had flooded our church friends would be here to help us!"

People of all ages worked throughout the afternoon and late into the night and made it possible for worship to happen the following day.  It was a day that was both heartbreaking and redeeming.  As people responded with patience and generosity throughout the weekend, I was reminded of the myriad ways God's Spirit works through people to make the best of a bad situation.

vocātiō

It's been a while since I've written anything in this space.  This happens frequently.  Here are the ten things that happen during a writing lapse:

1. Clever thought enters brain
2. Fingers begin typing
3. Brain and fingers have disagreement
4. #%$&*@!
5. Writing resumes for 5 minutes
6. Writing ceases
7. Temper tantrum
8. Blog post deleted
9. Self-loathing
10. Repeat #1-9

Maybe this time will be different...

* * *

We in the church like to talk about vocation - a word that comes from the Latin vocātiō which means "call" or "summons."  When discussing vocation Lutherans are fond of telling a story that goes something like this:

A shoe maker asked Martin Luther how to best serve God.  Luther asked him "What is your work now?"  The man replied "I am a shoemaker."  Luther told him "Make a good shoe and sell it at a fair price."  

It's a lovely story which conveys the notion that people serve the Lord when they use their God-given gifts in ways that are good and honest.  In this way, vocation is the pairing of a person's abilities and interests with the needs of the community.  

A similar sentiment was expressed (sarcastically and with a few naughty words) in The Onion last week:

...you need to find the one interest or activity that truly fulfills you in ways nothing else can. Then, really immerse yourself in it for a few fleeting moments after an exhausting 10-hour day at a desk job and an excruciating 65-minute commute home. During nights when all you really want to do is lie down and shut your eyes for a few precious hours before you have to drag yourself out of bed for work the next morning, or on weekends when your friends want to hang out and you’re dying to just lie on your couch and watch TV because you’re too fatigued to even think straight—these are the times when you need to do what you enjoy most in life.

Vocātiō seems like a simple concept - serve God by doing what you love.  Yet all around I feel the anguish of people who find this to be unattainable.  There's the teenager who feels compelled to get good grades so he can go to a good college so he can get a job that pays well enough for him to service the six-figure college debt he will rack up.  There's the college student who changed her major because there wasn't enough job security in what she was passionate about.  And there's the young GenXer who can neither imagine working for the same company another year (let alone 30) nor imagine taking the risk of changing careers.

Certainly there are many examples of people who have stepped out in faith to serve God and humankind through their vocation.  There are also people who haven't made a monumental change in their profession, but have modified the way they approach the work they are currently doing.  I wonder how the church - it's people and it's institutional structures - can better encourage God's people to see their work as prayer each day.

Have you witnessed people in your life who live out their vocation?  How might you serve God through your "ordinary" job?

Things I Love About My Church - #1

I've been on the staff at Windsor Heights Lutheran Church for over nine years.  There's a lot of cool stuff about this church, and, though I can't possibly share all that's great about WHLC, I'd like to blog about a few of my favorite things.  For example...


Men's Fellowship Group

It began over a year ago when a new Bible Study for women was established.  The participants took turns meeting in each other's homes for food and conversation each month.  After a while their husbands decided to get together for their own sort of small group.  Instead of an official church-sanctioned Bible Study, they opted for dinner and drinks at a local establishment.  A few months later, they invited me to join them (which was very kind, since my wife is part of a different Bible Study).

The group consists of about 2/3 recent empty nesters (with children in their early-mid 20s) and 1/3 grandparents of teenagers.  Much of the conversation centers on current events and/or whatever happens to be on someone's mind.  It's a diverse group, and opinions are not hard to come by.  Inevitably, the conversation will to religion, church culture, and the Bible.  All of these men have been leaders in the church for 20+ years (some more than twice that).  They are faithful in worship, prayer, generosity, and study...and yet they come together to wrestle with questions, doubts, and curiosities.

The most beautiful part of this group is the deep and abiding affection (dare I call it "love") that these men have for one another.  They root for different sports teams, live in different parts of town, work for a wide array of vocations, vote for different presidents, and express their faith differently...but they care about each other enough to engage in the kind of conversations they may not be able to have anywhere else.

For example, I arrived a few minutes late tonight, so most of the people had already gathered.  Before I sat down, I was asked about my opinion the previous night's congregational meeting (where, among other things, we voted to move forward with the design phase of a $3.2 million dollar building project).  How did I think it went?  What surprised me?  Am I excited about the building project?  From there, we shifted to the Newtown, CT tragedy.  We debated the nuance between the presence of "the devil" and the presence of "independent evil" in the world.  Does the devil exist?  Is there a hell?  If so, does the person who killed all of those children belong there?  What about mental health issues?  Did the shooter need help and, therefore, does he deserve our sympathy instead of our hatred?  Do we want to be in heaven if murderers are there?  Should people with mental health problems have access to guns?  Should anyone have access to the kind of guns used in Newtown?  Do we need stricter gun control laws?  Do we need looser gun control laws?  Where was God in the midst of the shootings?  Did this happen because teachers can't pray in school?  Is this one of the signs that the world is coming to an end?

All of this in the 20 minutes before our food arrived.

From there we engaged a variety of topics -- social media, raising children, politics, sports, and whether or not the University of Iowa should find a new president.  The group adjourned after a couple of hours, with a commitment to meet again next month.

I don't know if it's commonplace for other churches to have a group of 12-15 people who are committed to one another in the same way as this men's fellowship group.  I certainly hope so.  Sharing dinner and drinks with these people has certainly blessed my life and given me hope that civil discourse is possible in our world.

Propped Up by Culture

Every once in a while a blog post comes along that appears to be speaking directly to me.  Such was the case with Pastor Keith Anderson's Pastors Stop Complaining About Sunday Morning Sports.  If there's one common theme that has come up in youth ministry circles (with greater frequency) is the idea that we are in competition with sports, music, drama events.

At some level, we are.  Young people have a finite amount of time to give to various activities.  The extrinsic consequences for missing a basketball practice, for example, are greater than missing youth group.  The coach can reduce playing time or even remove a player from the team if they appear to have a divided loyalty.  The youth leader, by contrast, isn't likely to bench a young person because they missed youth group.  At worst, the young person might get a "hey, we missed you" or "you haven't been to church in a while"...but nothing like what might happen after missing a practice/rehearsal.

It's like every activity-group is a plastic containers of food.  Everything aspect of life is compartmentalized.  A sports team is one container.  Same for a music ensemble, drama troupe, academic club, social group, etc.  Some containers are bigger than others.  Many consider their faith-related activities to be in a similar container -- something they do when they're not doing those other things.  Maybe, instead, we need to help people think of their faith life as the refrigerator; the appliance that keeps the food in the other containers from spoiling.

Pastor Keith points to the need of church leaders to emphasize vocation in their interactions with people.  If, instead of becoming bitter about being on the losing end of our competition with sports/music/drama, we encouraged those young people to consider the way they approach those activities is connected to their faith life.

* * *

Another fascinating concept Pastor Keith broached is this:

The emergence of Sunday morning sports is just a symbol of a shift that's happening in our society where the church is no longer accommodated or propped up by our culture.

I never thought about the church as being propped up by culture - but I have to admit there are a lot of ways it has been and continues to be.  I've grown up in a time and place where almost all of my friends went to a Christian church.  I knew some nones, but I knew even fewer people who practice a different religion than Christianity.  Additionally, I recall a strict "no homework" policy at my school on Wednesday nights, because that was Church Night.  Music contests, sporting events, and other extra-curricular activities took place on Saturday; never on Sunday.  Lots of stores were closed on Sunday, some even explicitly indicating it was "in honor of our Lord."

As this trend continues, it's understandable that some church leaders will become depressed.  It will also become easy for parishioners who long for the good-old-days to blame their pastor or youth leader for why young people aren't flocking to churches like they did in previous generations.  (Something I touched on in this post.)

I have hope that an emphasis on vocation will renew our church members and staff to being about Christ's presence in the world.

Biblical Purity

Some of you may recall me writing back in February about a biblical purity resource called Wholeness & Holiness.  I'm thrilled that, after more than a year of collaborating with Jake Bouma and Ritva Williams, W&H is finally available for church leaders to purchase and use in their context.  It's only been a week and we're already hearing great feedback from people who plan to use it with youth, parents, and other adult groups.

One of the hurdles we are already facing is the notion that "biblical purity" is only about sex and sexuality.  From my perspective, Wholeness & Holiness is about sex in the same way a grocery store is about selling vegetables.  When you enter a grocery store, you can find a lot of varieties of vegetables prepared in different ways (fresh, canned, frozen, etc.), but there are many other kinds of food in that supermarket.  In the same way, W&H has a robust lesson called Holy Sex! and includes an extended supplemental resource for leaders to delve into deeper conversation about sex...but W&H is about much more than sex.  The purity laws found in the Bible touch nearly every aspect of individual and communal living — food, clothing, hygiene, jewelry, and much more.  When crafting this resource we tried to reflect the expansive nature of biblical purity, dating back to the time of Moses.  As one commenter put it, "so you really do mean BIBLICAL purity!"

I hope people find Wholeness & Holiness to be a helpful resource in telling the whole story of biblical purity.  It's exciting to be part of the conversation that is already unfolding.  For example, the concept of calling behavior "biblical" is a hot topic right now.  (One needn't look any farther than the thousands of comments related to Rachel Held Evans' recent post, The danger of calling behavior 'biblical'.)  I hope W&H can debunk some existing purity myths and be part of the larger discourse about holy/pure/biblical living.

If you want to know more about Wholeness & Holiness, please check out our web site, like us on Facebook, and/or follow us on Twitter.

Drinks & Hymns

A few years ago, some of the cool churches started doing a "Beer & Hymns" event — a time for the spiritual-but-not-religious and the religious-but-not-spiritual to meet in a locally owned pub for a hymn sing.  The allure was two fold: (1) a chance to debunk the impression that Christians are stuffy prohibitionists, and (2) a proclamation that songs of faith can/should be sung outside of church.

In September my friend Nate Houge came down from Minnesota and led a coffee + beer + hymns event in Des Moines.  The venue was perfect -- a slightly rundown theater owned by an adjacent coffee shop which also seves food, wine, and beer.  We promoted it across several Lutheran churches and two local colleges, hoping to snag the notoriously de-churched Millennial crowd.  About 30 people came - many of whom were church workers.  I'll admit to being simultaneously disappointed with the turnout and blessed by those who came.  It was a fun night, but I wondered if my circle of influence wasn't "urban hipster" enough to pull off this kind of radical project.  I totally get it.  Singing hymns in a public non-church place is weird...especially if alcohol might be present.

I'm not sure why, but we decided to do another one...with a few tweaks.  We held it on a Friday night (instead of Thursday) and changed the name to Drinks & Hymns which is a little more church newsletter friendly.  We also relied on local musicians to perform a brief concert and lead the hymn sing.  This time around, there were 75+ who attended, which made for a loud and satisfying evening.  It was truly a cross-generational event involving people in their 70's on down to a five-week old baby.  The full spectrum of drink varieties were consumed.  Some tears were shed.  Harmonies were sung.  The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

There seems to be some energy around doing Drinks & Hymns again in Central Iowa...which makes my heart happy.

If you're thinking of starting your own beverage/hymns event, Pastor Keith Anderson has some helpful suggestions.

Give Me Shelter

Last night I had the opportunity to serve supper with some high school students at the Central Iowa Shelter & Services in downtown Des Moines.  The congregation where I work provides dinner to nearly 200 people at the CISS on the 11th day of each month.  It's a powerful reminder that Jesus calls us to give food, drink, clothing, and shelter to people in need.

This was my first time in the new 42,000 square foot shelter facility.  The building has a large dining room, two smaller gathering rooms, laundry, computer classroom, clothes closet, food pantry, and a weekly medical clinic.  These upgrades help CISS pursue its mission "to provide free shelter and meals to homeless adults regardless of physical or emotional conditions, and to facilitiate their move toward self-sufficiency."

I recall visiting the St. Francis Center in Denver, CO in 2004 and wishing that Des Moines had a similar place to provide holistic services to homeless people.  Though the operations at CISS aren't nearly the size of St. Francis, I'm proud to live in a city that has devoted significant resources to reaching out in love to people in need.