Deep Peace to You

Deep peace of the running wave to you.

Deep peace of the flowing air to you.

Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.

Deep peace of the shining stars to you.

Deep peace of the Prince of Peace to you.

Lydia

Running on empty . . .

For the past several weeks I have felt as if I were "running on empty" . . . actually, one of my favorite Jackson Browne's songs . . . Late for the Sky album . . . yes, I know that this dates me and no I was not 17 in 65! The chorus goes

Running on - running on empty

Running on - running blind

Running on - running into the sun

But I'm running behind

When we began our intentional transformational process and we were challenged to come up with a vision this song started playing in my head. It wasn't so much about me then . . . it was about the yearning all around me that I sense for something more . . . and that something more is really Someone -- I believe there is a strong yearning in people to be refreshed by the the Living Water. When I shared this folks they laughed . . . "let's put an old gas pump out in front of the church with a sign, 'Let us fill you up with Jesus' . . . and as I have thought about this off and on over the course of the following 18 months I have thought that perhaps a better image is an old water pump.

In '69 I was still a kid . . . Hurricane Camille came rushing ashore of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We were stuck at home without water and electricity for a couple of weeks . . . my Daddy use to load us up in our borrowed Mustang . . . great family car! . . . but two of the family cars were lost to the water . . . although the other one floated --VW bug, in the garage, it didn't run . . . and we would go to the artesian well pump two blocks east of our house . . . it has long since been recapped . . . but I still remember those hot muggy days when we would go over to fill gallon jugs . . . I remember drinking that cool, rushing water . . . feeling it wash over my head as I would wash my hair . . . as I remember it either there weren't many folks in town at that time or folks didn't know about the pump . . . I didn't know about it until my Daddy took me over there.

In these past several weeks I have been longing for refreshing waters . . . I found them this weekend at a Worship Renewal Weekend . . . just as the gushing waters from that artesian well refreshed me after the Hurricane Camille the Living Water that flowed during this Worship Renewal Weekend refreshed me in a much needed way . . . it slowed me down . . . helping me to remind me that (wo)man's chief end in life is to to glorify God, and to enjoy God for ever. Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of even God's work in the local church we tend to forget this and God has to remind us to slow down, to be still and know that God is God.

Thank you God for filling me up this weekend.

Lydia

New thoughts . . .

It is hard to believe how long it has been since I have added a post . . . 

Recently I  have joined a small group from across our presbytery who are doing advanced training in transformational ministry. One of the men in the group asked what our experiences have been with transformational ministry.  The church I partner with is now 18 months into the process . . . this was my response to him. 

Emotionally my experiences have run the gamut from immense frustration to immense joy, but I think now I have learned to be content knowing that it is not about me . . . although, paradoxically, it is about me . . . it is about me being willing to be open to the HS working to help me go deeper and further with Jesus and through me to help others go deeper and further with Jesus. 

Honesty . . .  I didn’t realize my need to go deeper and further with Jesus . . . after all, I am a MOWS!!  A large part of my growth has led me to get off the emotional roller coaster although again in all honesty I still find myself booking a ticket on certain days, but more often than not I don't get on. 

If truth be told the  greatest emotion I had to overcome was fear . . . fear of people not liking me, fear of making people unhappy.  A huge debt of gratitude goes to Tom for helping me reach this place. Interestingly . . . 

there was/is a lot of fear in this community of faith about the process of transformation . . . even the word transformation is fearful for some people here and although Tom gave us other names transformation is very Biblical and I won’t shrink from using the word. But I am couching the word in love and grace and gentleness. 

I haven’t quite figured out the origins of this fear – on the surface, it may be related to the Presbyterian mantra “we have always done it this way” or it may be related to the real possibility that transformation will bring changes in leadership (which we are already seeing), but I am wondering more if the fear is not related to having to look, assess and perhaps find that their own relationship with Jesus is lacking.

I don’t want to be critical of this congregation, especially as I don’t think they are much different than most mainline congregations, but the sad fact is that it hasn’t been about Jesus . . .  it has been about “us.”  Yet, almost every day I see this is changing . . .  in individual lives and by extension in the congregation as a whole.  

Without wanting to sound like an egomaniac it began with me -- really, rather than egomaniac,  it was about me growing more into having and living with a servant heart . . . with my own willingness to invest more than I thought I would and could.  Although it can be energy draining in a physical sense, paradoxically it has also been life-affirming.  God has blessed me with good friends, both near and far, who keep before me my need for self-care.  This is a key – self care.

At one point, late last year, for me self-care meant stepping away for awhile from doing transformational ministry (about three months) to make room for more intense prayer, study and planning for transformational ministry. I came back re-energized and recommitted because this is what I believe God desires for this church.  It was after this break that I was able to see little blossoms of spiritual growth everywhere.  It isn’t huge growth but it is growth and this growth is bringing hope to a congregation that I really believe has been living in a fog of hopelessness for many, many years. 

Peace, 

Lydia

 

Frustration . . .

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you feel as if you are being pulled from every single side . . . this is where I have been this week and it ain't fun.

In my last call I served as an AP . . . before the church moved to the Senior Pastor/ AP model they tried the Co-Pastor model . . . it didn't work out . . . from everyting I have read and heard they rarely do, but I think most of this is because they are entered into for the wrong reasons . . . I know this was true in this former situation . . . although they called this pastor the Co-Pastor he was an AP . . . by calling him as the Co-Pastor they avoided the search process. RABBIT TRAIL . . . anyway, I never met him, but someone in the congregation told me that one of their problems with him was that he always felt tomorrow was another day . . . now, at first blush I couldn't see what was wrong with this . . . that is until the person continued, 'he was putting in enough hours as he always thought there would be time tomorrow.'

But you know what . . . I think I must think like that member of the congregation . . . and this, ultimately is what leads to my frustration . . . I can talk the talk, but I don't walk the walk . . . yes, I can talk about wanting to be more like Mary . . . sitting at the feet of Jesus . . . heck, I even used that image today in the prayer I offered after Women's Bible Study -- which, by the way, I did on my day off . . . but to be honest they changed it to Friday as I was going to be out of town for a church thing, but I am Martha . . . I want to be Mary.

It's Friday night . . . moving onto midnight . . . tomorrow I will be working on policy . . . something coming form a committee I chair . . . three people were working on it and when I received the copy of it tonight I was FRUSTRATED so started on revisions . . . I will also begin planning Ash Wednesday services that will lead into a study of the spiritual disciplines during Lent.

As I leave let me share a poem with you that I found on line at AgentOrange -- a strange place to find a beautiful poem that describes the journey through Lent that I want to be able to take this year . . .

winter's like an inside wilderness:
it's broken branches and creaking bones;
it's like a fast from light and heat, a cold retreat.
it's not just beyond the body walls:
there is an inside frozenness, too;
a winter of the heart and soul, dark-cold as coal.
the inner wild is evil-laden,
filled with devils and bright temptation;
marked by love of self and pride, the us we hide.
but there is a way that leads to life:
a lenten journey from dark to light;
a passion path through days of lent and winter spent.

My prayer for Lent is that I learn to slow down . . . to learn to be as the title of a book reads, "A Mary in a Martha World" . . .

What is your prayer for Lent?

Lydia

The congregation I partner with has been involved . . . or we say we have, in a process of intentional transformation. I say "we say we have" as I haven't seen any real commitment on the part of the congregation . . . we said we were . . . more than 1/2 the congregation signed a commitment for openness to transformation when we began working with an internationally known consultant in church transformation over 18 months ago . . . but I had begun to wonder if we were only giving lip service to being open to the Holy Spirit working in and through us to capture this new thing God is wanting to do here . . . to use this church in building the Kingdom by reaching out into our community with the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

As I wrestled with this, I realized that I was judging the congregation while not really looking at myself . . . I spend about two months in prayer and reflection asking God how I needed to be opened to the Holy Spirit so to be in a better position to help lead God's people through this process . . . in the process, I was lead to an unlikely book of the Bible (Nehemiah) and to Andy Stanley's book on visioning.

I have spent the better part of three months now kind of engrossed in Nehemiah -- three weeks ago I began preaching a series on The Building Blocks of Vision (much of the credit here goes to Stanley), provided the Session a Bible study on what it means to be spiritual leaders based on Nehemiah, and am in the middle of planning a Visioning Retreat for the Session and congregation as we seek God's vision for this church.

You see I had forgotten the first key to transformational ministry -- it begins with the individual, even, and perhaps most importantly, the pastor allowing herself to be transformed by the Holy Spirit . . . Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2

I don't know where this process of transformational ministry will lead this particular congregation . . . I pray that we will continue to go deeper and further with Jesus . . . there are signs that many of us are on the way . . .

Lydia

Learning to tell time . . .

Tomorrow in recognition of the beginning of a new year, I am preaching from Ecclesiastes 3: 1-14 about the cycle of life . . . moving into the cycle of life of the local church . . . this comes on the heels of my finding out that the church where I was a charter member and who I was under care of in seminary is closing its doors in March of this year . . . if the presbytery approves it.

Before Katrina there was a move to do this . . . membership was around ten . . . although no longer a member of that presbytery I heard that a fairly new member of this smaller membership church made an impassioned plea on the floor of presbytery to keep it open . . . and her plea was echoed by the pastor of a sister church (mid-sized) about 20 miles away . . . so Presbytery kept the church open . . . after Katrina God graced the presbytery and this church with funds to bring in a bright and forward thinking Minister of Word and Sacrament . . . the church yoked with another church in the same town . . . the yoke didn’t work -- it was one-sided . . . the church changed its name . . . and the woman who gave the impassioned plea to keep the church open, her family and her sister’s family left the church shortly after Katrina . . . the church wasn’t able to help them the way they wanted after Katrina . . . Remember, membership was about 10 -- most of them her family and Katrina had done a job on the entire area.

As I have shared this news with folks here they have offered their condolences . . . telling me how sad I must be . . . but I’m not . . . I am nostalgic . . . but more than this I think “what ifs?” . . . what if the organizing pastor hadn’t left? . . . what if after that we had called so and so . . . What if we really understood what it meant to be a church . . . like many churches it was, for a large majority of us, about us . . . not about those outside our doors. When we were doing the mission study for calling a new pastor I remember the fights . . . over whether or not we really wanted to grow . . . If we really wanted to fulfill the mission of the Church and the local church . . . to go into the world and make disciples . . . It is the same struggle that continues in so many congregations, including this one . . . Yes, we want to grow as long as we don’t have to change.

But life -- whether a human life or the life of a local congregation, is about change . . . we are always changing . . . Change is inevitable . . . The question is will we manage change depending on God’s leading us through or will we change drag us kicking and screaming or worse yet passively into the future . . . If the church is alive and organic then they have life cycles just like human beings . . .

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

This new year I pray that we will learn to tell time,

Lydia

Encountering Jesus . . .

Many, many years ago as a young Elder I volunteered to take our youth group to Montreat. After that experience I vowed “never again!” Flash forward about a quarter of a century -- I am now doing my seminary internship when I am told by my supervisor that we’ll chaperone the youth group on their annual mission trip. “No, Brad, you don’t understand I don’t do youth trips.” After Christmas I find myself in the front passenger seat of a van with 15 teenagers heading down to work with the PCUSA Border Ministry in Nuevo Laredo.

It was one of the most amazing experiences . . . not the work . . . there wasn’t much of that as once we got down there they decided we weren’t the construction type . . . we had been scheduled to work on laying the foundation for a new building in the medical compound where we were staying. Instead they scrambled to find us work we could do . . . we were assigned to paint the orphanage in the colonia (neighborhood) where we were staying.

The orphanage wasn’t like those we think of where children who have lost their parents or have been abandoned live until they can, hopefully, be adopted. This orphanage housed many of the children from the colonia; their parents placed them there so they would have a place to sleep, running water, food to eat and could get, at the very least, some education. The colonia was marred by abject poverty -- shacks made out of cardboard, sewage running in the streets. As a social worker who early in my career made home visits to some of the poorest areas of the Mississippi Gulf Coast I thought I knew the face of poverty, but I was shocked. And frankly I was worried about the teens . . . white upper middle class kids who wanted for nothing.

After the first day it became obvious that we weren’t going to get a lot of work out of the teens . . . they had found playmates in the kids of the orphanage . . . so Brad and I painted . . . later we were joined by some of the parents . . . our kids and their kids played and got to know each other, despite the language barrier.

As I write this the tears come back . . . for you see all of us experienced Jesus on that trip in ways that none of us could ever imagine. Our trip ended on Epiphany . . . that’s the big celebration in Mexico . . . it ended with Worship and although my little Spanish wasn’t much help in understanding what was being said in that small chapel with plain wooden benches, a dirt floor and in the cold of winter words weren’t needed . . .

We are all just travelers on this journey called life;
Some walk in darkness, while others follow the Light.
We carry our treasures so close to our heart;
Some we let go of while others never part.
And somewhere on this journey we encounter a King
That will change us forever, to Him our treasures bring.
(Lynn Cooper)

A fellow traveler,
Lydia