Do you ever feel like God is really trying to get your attention?

I have had that feeling over the past couple of weeks.

As I have been attempting to settle into my life her in New Rockford, I have been recieving many cards and gifts as encouragement, welcome, and congratulations. It is always wonderful to have such a warm and inviting welcome. It is nice to have so many people reach out and let you know that they are happy for you. It is helpful to have countless people affirm your place in the world. And it has been in the mix of all of these warm wishes that I have noticed God really trying to get a message to me.

You might think it is merely coincidence. I however take it as confirmation that I am where I am meant to be.

You see I recieved a lovely card that had a nice poem on it. The next day, I received two more of the same card. A few days latter another one of the same card was in the mail. This pattern continued and I now have 8 of these cards from various people in four different states.

Sure, there might be a limited number of inspirational cards. Absolutely everyone who sent them loves me and might be biased. Yes, it is a great sentiment that many people would be attracted to.

However, I feel God nudge me every time I open an envelope and see the blue and green card. There was one given to me at my ordination when I was so excited I could see no problems ahead (only for that brief time I assure you!). There was one in my mailbox the first time I opened it. There was one from the congregation I came to. There was one the day I came home so overwhelmed that I felt physically dizzy. There was one the day I got home after leading a funeral for the first time.

The message pops up often. I see God behind it every time it does. Thanks be to God!



I hope all of you read this and know that it is meant for YOU as well!


Dayspring for Hallmark
Poem by Roy Lessin

Just think...
you're here not by chance,
but by God's choosing.
His hand formed you
and made you the person you are.

He compares you to no one else-
you are one of a kind.
You lack nothing that
His grace can't give you.

He has allowed you to be here
at this time in history
to fulfill His special purpose
for this generation.

You are God's servent
in God's place
at God's perfect time.

I preached a great sermon yesterday.

Well I participated in a great sermon yesterday.

Actually there was a little idea on the workingpreacher.org website that I held up to the congregation, and it was a wonderful cooperative time of learning.

I had very little to do with it.

However it was such a neat insight that I wanted to share it with you.

Buried in one of the commentaries that I read was a simple statement alluding to the idea that we focus so much on Jesus during the season of Christmas that we do not look at what we learn about God the Father through God the Son.1

The idea really struck me as being very relevant. Don't we learn about parents by watching their children? As a former teacher I know that to be very true. Isn't that why we try to distance ourselves from the disisions they make that we don't like. True I don't have children of my own, but I can still see this behavior in myself. Even with my nieces I do this. Just the other day I found myself saying to another person in the play area at the mall, "They dressed themselves today." Effectively saying, "I had nothing to do with that clothing choice."

Of course in reality I did. I have always encouraged them to feel free to voice their opinions and preferences with me. (If I now regret that at times, I have no one to blame but myself.) Yet in 15 years, when they are able to speak their mind, and have the confidence to stand up to opposition, I will be proud that I helped influence that ability in them.

Yes, we can learn a lot about the adults in a child's life by watching that child.

The same can be said of Jesus. Isn't that the very reason that He was sent to this world, to reveal the very real presence of God in our lives? We learn about God the Parent through watching God the Son. The compassion, the sacrifice, the unending, redeeming, unconditional love that Christ shows in His life, that come through the John 1:1-18 passage about Christ are reflections of the love of the heavenly Father.

Yes we can learn a lot about God the Parent by looking at God the Son.

I encourage you to spend the next three years looking at the lectionary through that lens.

Blessings and Wonder be yours this year!

1. Lewis, Caroline. Commentary on Second Reading for January 2, 2011, Ephesians 1:3-14. workingpreacher.org.

The stark reality that 2010 is over has not quite hit me yet.

I have not written the date yet.

I have not even seen the full date yet.

I have started this day in much the same way I have started everyday since completing my internship and returning to Phoenix.

I have continued in similar habits and activities (including finding a coffee shop so I can work in the familiar environment of busy-ness.)

I keep thinking, "Maybe I should come up with a New Year's resolution."

After all, isn't that why we have them? When we really get down to the heart of whatever we swear we will do differently, doesn't it all come down to the fact that making a change in our lives is the only real way we can actually grab hold of the passing of another year and the entrance into a new one.

Yet if a noticeable, tangible change is what is required for me to recognize the passing of time, I am not sure that I will need a resolution for that.

Tomorrow is a big day for me. Tomorrow a vote is being taken that may change my life in thousands of ways. Even if tomorrow does not go the way I would like it to, the same changes will eventually come my way.

Let's just assume everything will go the way I would like it to.

In that case, I will be planning a move to North Dakota within the next month.

I will begin a call as a pastor of a congregation.

I will embrace a new title, a new home, a new life.

It is all a little daunting, a little intimidating, and a lot exciting.

I could resolve to exercise more.

I could plan on keeping up on correspondence.

I could say I would eat healthier.

I could attempt to actually write a blog entry once a week, or even once a day.

I could pray more, walk more, read more, worry less, listen more, talk less, or stress out less.

Seriously though, do I need one more change coming my way? And which of the above is not going to be accomplished simply by the nature of the huge changes coming my way?

Yes if a change of some kind is what marks the passage of time for us, I think my New Year is well taken care of.

I only pray that the changes that meet you this year are as wonderful and life affirming as the ones rising up to meet me.

Happy New Year!

I had a great opportunity the other day. I went to Tucson with a friend of mine who works at Fuller Theological Seminary Southwest. I got to spend time with her and encourage others to go to seminary in general and Fuller in particular. Overall it was wonderful, but one part captured my nostalgia and reminded me of what a long journey becoming a pastor truly has been.

We spent Tuesday night with the Presbyterian Campus Ministry group at the University of Arizona.

Different School. Different decade. Different denomination.

Yet so many things were the same.

The enthusiasm, the passion, the talents and abilities that come out so strongly when young people are not only able to, not only encouraged to, but expected to lead.

Watching the girl who provided an amazing meal, the young woman who was so refreshingly childlike in her acceptance and ability to make people feel welcome and at home, the boys goofing around during dinner change into men as they set up for worship and sat down to lead the music, reminded me of my days at Lutheran Campus Ministry of Northern Arizona University.

Yet there was more than the personalities, activities, and actions that called out to me and my memory. There was an intangible feeling among the relationships that we witnessed. A sense of community, of mutual understanding, of love, that I instantly felt connected to. As if I belonged there. As if I had never left my campus ministry.

We can claim it is that sense of nostalgia. We can pass it off as a similar setting, situation, or climate. Some might even claim it is a desire to recapture a youth that I left behind upon graduating in 1997.

The truth however, is so much stronger than any of that. The truth is that it is the Spirit running through that group of people that I responded to. It was the familiarity of the Body of Christ that called out to me. It was that immediate recognition that these young men and woman are a small representation of the amazing potential, the shining future, and the undying HOPE that lies within any Christian community that shares the highs and lows of life together.

It was truly a privilege to watch so many young Christians gather as they embark on a life of serving God and each other, while they find a way to take that into the world.

So I have been mulling over this for months.

It will never reach the perfected humor that I would love to achieve, but oh well.

Here are my thoughts on life as a rural pastor.

You know you are a rural pastor when...

... you receive roasts as appreciation for the job you are doing. And yes, I mean the raw cuts of meat from an animal (in my case a lovely pork loin roast).

... the season's are marked as, planting, growing, harvesting, and hunting.

... worship services are planned around milking times.

... snowmobiles only strike you as an unusual mode of transportation to church when the morning kill is strapped to the back.

... service is canceled because the people can't get out of their driveways (whether or not it actually snowed during the night).

... you are encouraged to offer tractor blessings (and even exorcisms if needed ;).

.... you need a 4-wheel drive to make it to half your congregations homes if there is any ice, snow, rain, or mud (see entry from March 17, 2010).

... lunch

is any sort of sweet accompanied by coffee before, during, or after a meeting.

... pudding mixed with crushed cookies counts as a salad (much to the delight of children everywhere).

... the local convenience store/gas pump also has the spare keys to the church building.

... the mayor of the town plows your driveway every time it snows.

... the local newspaper will announce when you arrive, when you appear at events, when you have company, if you end up with a speeding ticket, and when you leave. (Note that I did NOT end up with a speeding ticket!)

... it is as likely to see a tractor parked in front of a store as any other vehicle.

... people welcome you into their hearts, homes, and lives with warmth and caring. (Okay, and with a little bit of a knowing smile waiting for the 'city pastor' to do something a little crazy.)

My time in southwest

Minnesota was truly fantastic. I enjoyed living in a rural setting, and getting to know some very wonderful people. I was blessed to be able to have an internship that was so encouraging.

Please comment if you have other instances to add!

Hello.

It has been a long time, I know.

I have missed writing and hearing from those of you who respond.

You might then ask, 'Well why have you not posted then?'

I could give you a lot of reasons, chief of which would of course be that I have been busy. True of course, but not the whole truth.

The whole truth goes beyond one concrete reason. It is a nebulous blur of semi-conscious reasons ranging from not knowing what to write, being apprehensive about the end of internship that was looming ever close, and being truly overwhelmed by the unknown future lying ahead.

Have you ever faced a time in life like that? Where certainty of anything lies just beyond your grasp.

For me that feeling began around June. The close of my time in Southwestern Minnesota was less than three months away, and any thoughts of the future seemed slightly debilitating. Something had to give. that something turned out to be the conscious processing of my time as an intern that writing this blog required.

Now as I look back on it, I plan on going back and reviewing that time with you.

It ended very much as it began. Full of warmth, support, and knowledge that God had surely placed me there for that time. It was a wonderful experience, and one that I will always be grateful for having.

I now look toward the future, slightly more than anxious to learn where God will place me for my first call. I invite you to join me on that journey as well.

And I ask that you forgive the lapse of communication!

For now, be blessed!

I've been growing things.

You wouldn't know it to look at my 'garden', which is momentarily home to a lone little cherry tomato plant still boldly growing next to the remains of three sadly departed cucumber plants and lying 15 feet away from three struggling strawberry plants.

But truly I have been growing things. They are all inside the house. Safe in little peat pots, hidden from the brutal wind and scorching sun.

I have been watching these things all grow from seeds into little plants. I am fascinated by the whole process. Particularly the way each seed (regardless of what it is, avocado, basil, pepper, chili, bean, broccoli, spinach, or carrot) sprout in the same way. For days there was nothing to see while roots spread out, and then suddenly, a hint of green, and by the next day two little leaves were poking out of the soil on a stem that seems to fragile to support even one leaf let alone two, yet there they are. Two little leaves branching out from the root to reach out to the world and gather the sunlight.

I'm too scared to plant all these little growing things in the garden. It's so safe in the house. Outside in the little patch of ground that I inevitably forget about, how will they survive? In the house, on my kitchen table, I can't help but remember them.

But everyday they grow more, and that growth allows them to lean even more to the outside world that waits, and the sun that lives there beckoning to these fragile little green things. They need to be planted. They need to spread roots and reach their leaves further up into the sky.

I'm encouraged by the fields I pass day after day. Watching dirt suddenly erupt into thousands of tiny little plants with two little leaves reaching out, facing the wind, the sun, the animals. It is what they are meant to do. The fields give me hope that my little plants will survive in my little garden. Despite me.

There is something else I have seen. Now maybe it is just the fact that I have been trying to think of a way to preach on the Trinity all week, but I am struck at how each plant begins in the same way. Roots, stem, and those two little leaves.

Now I am not one to try to find a metaphor for the Trinity in everything from water, to life roles, to plants be it apples, clovers, or newly sprouted seeds. However, what has struck me is how essential the idea of three parts really is in our world. Of course that is why so many of the natural worlds phenomena have lent themselves to be models in our attempt to explain this complex understanding of God. So many things in the world have three parts, or three states; peel, flesh, seed; core, mantle, crust; solid, liquid, vapor.

The natural world is not the only place we see this occur either. Think of how many of our relationships exist in this pattern. Father, mother, child. Student, teacher, parent(s). Wife, Husband, God.

There is something about three parts making up a whole that makes it so much stronger, so much more able to face adversity, strife, and difficulty. Like my little plants, the three parts help it be grounded, upright, and reaching out and up to the sky, without fear of the wind overcoming the whole of it.

None of these things is a perfect model of the Trinity of course. After all, if I would have to hazard a guess, I would say that our creator modeled this idea of three parts making up the whole, three beings forming one relationship, from the pre-existence of the Trinity and the communion that had always been.

"I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now." These are the words Jesus speaks in John 16:12. There is so much that we can not bear or understand now. Yet we struggle and grapple and fight with it all anyway. We try so hard to understand this idea of Trinity that I think we fail to recognize that anything we grasp hold of to illustrate it will always pale in comparison, because they are only reflections of the original. Human kind wants to know, to understand, to have the control over it by having the knowledge of it all. It is so hard to let it go of the need to put our heads around the knowledge and just accept what is.

Well my little plants have to be put into the ground. I have to trust that God created them in a way that will enable them to survive in the environment they were meant to live in.

As for preaching on the Trinity? I suppose my message is less one of trying to understand, and more one of living into the blessing we have in Gd who can relate to us in three such unique ways, and who cares enough about us to do so.