So tomorrow is supposed to be the official first day of my sabbatical. Of course, that does not mean that things are slowing down for me at all. If anything, the pace has picked up significantly as I try to get everything covered at Living Water and prepare to go on the longest trip of my life.
But there is one thing I still have left to do to close out my church responsibilities. And it's one of the most difficult things I've had to do in order to disengage from vocational ministry. I'm going to hide the Facebook status of my church members from my news feed. Even writing that makes me start to cry a little bit. Facebook has become a vital ministry tool for me. As a pastor, we often don't know about all the little things that go on in the lives of our congregation - birth of a nephew, new job, stomach flu, etc. But Facebook allows me to know all the details (and then some) of what my congregation is dealing with. I am able to post comments or start praying or follow up with a phone call if it's a more serious issue - death of a loved one, hospital stay, broken relationship, etc. Without Facebook, I would not know half of the things going on in the life of my congregation. So I check in every day, several times a day, and pray and post comments when I see a need or a joy that I can respond to.
It makes perfect sense that I would hide those posts and allow Rev. Trish to be pastor to these people while I am gone; it's the whole point of a sabbatical. But the reality is that she doesn't yet know them. I'm not sure she wants to make them all her Facebook friends for the three months of her pastorate. So things will happen in their lives, important things, little things, and maybe no one will post to say, "I'm praying for you; Call me and we'll talk; I hope tomorrow is a better day!"
I tell myself that none of those things happened with my congregation before we all found Facebook. But we have. The truth is, the real reason I don't want to temporarily cut these people out of my life is that they are not just my congregation, they are my friends. I want to know, as their friend, when they are hurting and when they are celebrating. I don't want to come back in September and find out, "My brother died; I lost my job in June; we're pregnant!" I don't want to offer my sympathy or congratulations 3 months after the fact.
In seminary we often talked about setting boundaries, and one of the boundaries that is most difficult to negotiate is whether the people in your congregation can really be your friends. I've known more pastors than I can count who have formed friendships in the church only to have those people betray confidences and turn on them. That hasn't been my experience. Yes, I have friendships outside of my congregation, mostly with other pastors, but the people in my church are my friends. It's going to hurt - a lot - to hide their lives from me for the next three months, especially knowing that many of them are going to read this blog faithfully so they know everything I'm experiencing.
It's all about learning to trust. I have to trust that I am not the only one God has provided to care for them. There are others. So I leave you, my Living Water friends, in the care of God and Rev. Trish. But please tell me everything I missed in your life when I get back!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Saying Goodbye
Yesterday was the official send-off for my sabbatical. I knew that having it on Memorial Day weekend would mean that a lot of people would be gone, and that was the case. Still, it was a good morning full of rich blessings. I preached a sermon that was more personal, more directed at my congregation than probably any other I've ever preached. There was so much I wanted to say - about my need for a sabbatical, about what I would be doing while I was away, about what this opportunity meant for the church. So, it was long and maybe a little rambly, but I think I said the important things I needed to say.
I am very grateful that Rev. Trish Winters is ready and able to step into pastoral leadership at Living Water while I am gone. I know that she can handle whatever comes her way this summer and that gives me a great sense of peace.
My goal was to be able to walk away (well, drive away) from church on Sunday and be done with all my Living Water work. That didn't happen. There are loose ends that need to be tied up - some of them very important things that only I can do. So I will spend some time today and tomorrow dealing with those. But the big work ahead for me this week is preparing what I will preach in Tanzania. This is a task so big that I could not even sit down to begin working on it while I had all my other responsibilities. And it is still a task so daunting that I must give up any hope of "being prepared." Even if I were to spend hours (days) writing out manuscripts for all those sermons, I would undoubtedly find myself wanting and needing to make changes once I get to Tanzania and begin to learn about the people there. So I can only pick Scriptures, themes, get general ideas about where the sermons will go. And then throw myself on the mercy of the Holy Spirit.
One of the biggest blessings I received yesterday was a drawing from my brother-in-law Clifford. He heard me say in my sermon first service that I was really scared about preaching this crusade in Tanzania, that I've never done anything like this before and that I might mess it up so badly that I'll eventually be preaching to empty chairs by the last night. He came up to me between services and handed me a drawing. He said it was a vision of my crusade. In the drawing, I was preaching in a tent, and he said more and more people came each night so that on the last night, there weren't enough seats and people had to stand outside the tent to hear me preach. I don't know that it will happen that way, but I'm taking that drawing with me as a reminder that with God, all things are possible.
I am very grateful that Rev. Trish Winters is ready and able to step into pastoral leadership at Living Water while I am gone. I know that she can handle whatever comes her way this summer and that gives me a great sense of peace.
My goal was to be able to walk away (well, drive away) from church on Sunday and be done with all my Living Water work. That didn't happen. There are loose ends that need to be tied up - some of them very important things that only I can do. So I will spend some time today and tomorrow dealing with those. But the big work ahead for me this week is preparing what I will preach in Tanzania. This is a task so big that I could not even sit down to begin working on it while I had all my other responsibilities. And it is still a task so daunting that I must give up any hope of "being prepared." Even if I were to spend hours (days) writing out manuscripts for all those sermons, I would undoubtedly find myself wanting and needing to make changes once I get to Tanzania and begin to learn about the people there. So I can only pick Scriptures, themes, get general ideas about where the sermons will go. And then throw myself on the mercy of the Holy Spirit.
One of the biggest blessings I received yesterday was a drawing from my brother-in-law Clifford. He heard me say in my sermon first service that I was really scared about preaching this crusade in Tanzania, that I've never done anything like this before and that I might mess it up so badly that I'll eventually be preaching to empty chairs by the last night. He came up to me between services and handed me a drawing. He said it was a vision of my crusade. In the drawing, I was preaching in a tent, and he said more and more people came each night so that on the last night, there weren't enough seats and people had to stand outside the tent to hear me preach. I don't know that it will happen that way, but I'm taking that drawing with me as a reminder that with God, all things are possible.
Friday, May 27, 2011
New Journey
So I'm getting ready to go on sabbatical - a journey in itself. But in my case, the Lilly Endowment saw fit to fulfill my grant request for a "trip of a lifetime" sabbatical. So that is the journey that will frame the real journey - my journey to re-discover my call and re-ignite my passion for ministry.
I wanted to blog this sabbatical experience, and I knew that I already had a blog out there somewhere - floating around in space on the great trash-heap of abandoned blogs from well-intentioned bloggers who got bored and distracted after a few weeks or months of writing down thoughts. But I logged on Blogger and - viola! - I found my blog. Actually, it was very cool. I started it (and ended it) with a trip to South Africa three years ago. Seeing those photos and reading about all I saw and did on that trip has made me more excited for the next adventure. So instead of starting on a fresh blog, I thought I might as well just use this perfectly good one (it's only slightly used). It seems fitting anyway. Our lives are not made up of building blocks of experiences, each contained in its own wall of beginning and ending. Our experiences bleed into each other, affecting each other, changing our perceptions of things that happened to us long ago. So what I saw in Cape Town will inform what I see in Germany and Tanzania and Nashville and my sister's farm in Illinois.
If you ever wanted to know what goes on in the mind of a suburban, white, middle class, mainline, American, middle aged pastor's head as she takes a trip to visit the family of her exchange student then preach a crusade in Tanzania then go on a safari (a safari?!?), feel free to read along...for as long as I feel like blogging anyway.
I wanted to blog this sabbatical experience, and I knew that I already had a blog out there somewhere - floating around in space on the great trash-heap of abandoned blogs from well-intentioned bloggers who got bored and distracted after a few weeks or months of writing down thoughts. But I logged on Blogger and - viola! - I found my blog. Actually, it was very cool. I started it (and ended it) with a trip to South Africa three years ago. Seeing those photos and reading about all I saw and did on that trip has made me more excited for the next adventure. So instead of starting on a fresh blog, I thought I might as well just use this perfectly good one (it's only slightly used). It seems fitting anyway. Our lives are not made up of building blocks of experiences, each contained in its own wall of beginning and ending. Our experiences bleed into each other, affecting each other, changing our perceptions of things that happened to us long ago. So what I saw in Cape Town will inform what I see in Germany and Tanzania and Nashville and my sister's farm in Illinois.
If you ever wanted to know what goes on in the mind of a suburban, white, middle class, mainline, American, middle aged pastor's head as she takes a trip to visit the family of her exchange student then preach a crusade in Tanzania then go on a safari (a safari?!?), feel free to read along...for as long as I feel like blogging anyway.
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