Church Stopping: God of Wonder

(Photo from freeimages.com # 1404961)

You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 

but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that  you eat of it you shall die. (Genesis 2:17)

For one whole year were were a fallow field, resting, listening, waiting, fermenting. We put up a bulletin board - a big one - with dayglow orange and chartreuse letters saying, "People with a Passion for Jesus".  If somebody had a nudge from the Spirit or a passion they's write it out and post it on on the board and if somebody else wanted to join in that with them they's sign their names. I, frankly, didn't think it would work for a minute. I was wrong. People signed up for all kinds of things - people who'd never worded on a committee or done anything. I kept having to sit back and trust God to run the church because I didn't have a clue about what was going on. (Pastor David Digby in A Concise Compendium of "The Ames Story"

It really isn't that big of a deal, is it? We don't really die after all when we reach for the tree of knowledge of good and evil...do we? Our hearts keep beating. Our lungs keep breathing. Our blood keeps pumping. So why does God make such a big deal about the tree of knowledge of good and evil anyway? Isn't knowledge...especially of good and evil...a good thing?

These are all questions I have asked of the Fall.  After all, I like knowledge.  Maybe you do to. I like to know what I am doing and why and with what results.  And there are a lot of things I know and there are a lot of things you know...we delight in knowing. We know praise and worship music. We know high-church liturgy. We know that we are right on a particular theological or social justice issue.  We know who has the authority to preach and serve communion and baptize.  

And this Room of Knowing in which we live is not a bad place.  It is just small.  There is a library in the corner with a book we have read again and again. Again, we reach for the knowledge we know so well and die to the wonder of what we don't.

The Unknown Country, just outside the Room of Knowing, is vast and full of wonder. It is a land wild and free, and sometimes fierce; where Jesus walks on water and prophets run for their lives. It is a place where axe heads float and herds of pigs rush into the sea.  It is a place where the dead are raised and the the mountains quake and the sea monsters roll. This is the place where the dying believe and the child plays by the cobra's den and the lion lies down with the lamb.  This is a place where Santa still makes his midnight ride and God still whispers that some day, and some day soon, and in some way that we cannot plan or coerce or program, they will no longer hurt or destroy in all His holy mountain and the knowledge of God will be like oxygen-completely filling the earth and quickening our hearts.  

I'm not suggesting that the church operate from the seats of our pants.  I'm not suggesting that we don't plan and meet and figure out how to do all things well.  I'm just suggesting that maybe, sometimes, we stop, put down that book and reach for the door.  Let us venture out where we "don't have a clue what is going on" and see what God might be up to.

Church Stopping. Less Doing. More Being.

Church Stopping: Job Site or Candlelight?

(Photo from www.freeimages.com #1569226)

I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.

But I have this complaint against you. You have forgotten your first love!  (Revelation 2:2-4)

Churches need sabbaticals as much as individuals. Spiritual stagnation deepens in the soil of freneticism. A congregational sabbatical can be a time for nurturing spiritual roots, a time for slowing down and taking the time to listen, to pray, and to learn. But it means just what it says--taking a sabbatical from the routine and schedules that define a church's life. The usual work of committees and departments is suspended, especially the development of programs. Only the bare essentials to keep the machinery going are maintained during sabbatical time. The governing body can attend to necessary business but this, too needs to be kept at a minimum. Established groups, such as church school classes, women's and men's groups should also be involved in sabbatical time, either by choosing not to meet or focusing their time on prayer an study. The point is to step away from customary activity. Renewal will not occur if the old routine is maintained. it would be like a teacher taking a sabbatical but continuing to teach  It is the break form routine that helps to create the space for something new to emerge. (Reclaiming Evangelism, Jan G. Linn)

It was during my continuing education at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary I kept reading about the benefits of sabbath and sabbatical...not just as individuals, but as congregations. There wasn't a lot specifically written about church sabbatical, but there was enough to keep me hunting. It was as if I had discovered gold in the bottom of my pan; it was new, it sparkled, and there had to be more of it if I just kept looking!

At the time, I was serving a little church that ran as much on elbow grease than it did on prayer. It was a church that valued a solid work ethic sometimes more than a solid soteriology.   I knew that sabbatical was what we needed to get past our good work and become reacquainted with our first love.

Oh! We knew the value of a job well done. We enjoyed the praise of our peers.  We knew that our work was God's work, however, we weren't moving forward.  We were losing steam. We found our palms a little thick and our souls a little thin. We found that we had fallen out of love.

It is easy to do in any relationship.  Instead of a wonder-filled romance, we become a good team. We drive the kids to soccer and we mow the lawn and we do the laundry...and we do all these things because we love the people we serve.  After all, we are good Ephesians. We work hard and endure patiently.  Sometimes, we burn the midnight oil but we never quit and, sadly, we forget our first love.

"What happened?" we ask.  "How did we get here?" The answer is found in the middle of our good intentions. There we discover that we are so busy working that we forget that Jesus is out in the front room with Mary at his feet, just waiting for us.  But we simply don't have time. There is just too much to be done. (Luke 10:38-42)

Or is there?

While it is true, even in our smallest churches, that there is always a project that needs to be done and there is always a position that needs to be filled, is our inability to stop an unspoken declaration that the church has become an unrelenting task masker of our own design?  Or is our sabbath resistance the piercing revelation that our faith is simply not strong enough to let God sustain us...not even for a year...while we sit at His feet and fall in love again?

Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.

  

Community Sabbath (Week Six): Kake, AK

(World's largest totem pole and Tlingit woman in Kake, AK.  Photo from TripAdvisor)

"Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you." (Psalm 116:7)

In the summer of 2000, my wife and I spent a few days in the small Tlingit village of Kake, AK.  We were filling the pulpit of the Presbyterian Church while the pastor spent some time on vacation.  Kake is the home of about 500 people and the world's third largest totem pole (132 feet!) and stunning natural beauty.  While we were there, a short trip out our front door, up the main street, and on to the bridge provided a good observation point as black bears fished for salmon below.  

In fact, sometimes, it felt as if there were more black bears then humans.  

I arrived one week prior to my wife by float-plane from Sitka, AK.  I was dropped off with my bag at the end of the village marina greeted by a dog that looked something like a wolf; only bigger and meaner. However, he kept his distance as I prayed in earnest for divine intervention and watched helplessly as the float plane soared away.  I could only hope that this really was Kake and there had not been some mistake.  

I walked from the empty marina towards Main Street with the big wolf-like canine still following me at a distance, growling and getting closer.  I didn't see another human for several minutes as I walked in what I hoped was the direction of the church.  Later, I would learn that it was hunting season and most of the village had piled into boats and dispersed to the surrounding islands. (I believe that this is the reason the pastor trusted his congregation to a couple of seminary students for two weeks!)  

Eventually, an old pickup drove by and the driver, somehow, could tell I wasn't a local.  He asked me where I was going and I told him.  He was kind enough to offer a ride.  His name was Stanley. I was so thankful for Stanley and quickly jumped into the pickup.  I watched as the wolf-like dog sauntered back towards the marina. Stanley turned the pick-up around and drove me to the church, pointing out some of the local points of interest.  Stanley was unable to go hunting because of a fishing accident that had taken his arm.  He was happy to have someone to share the local lore of the village with and I was happy to have someone to talk to.

After a quick driving-tour of the town, Stanley dropped me off at the manse.  The manse was a comfortable log cabin with spectacular views Keku Strait and Frederick sound. I settled in and went over my notes for tomorrow's service before walking the empty beach.  Though the beach was deserted, God seemed present in Kake, somehow, in a way that I had not known before. Maybe it was because there were no cars, no noise, no TV; no distractions. Or, maybe it was the feeling of complete dependence and wild adventure.  Somehow I imagined Jesus walking with me just as he had walked along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, visiting with the disciples with the salted wind tussing at his hair.  

I was told that the Sunday service started at 10:00.  I didn't know if any one would show up. I didn't know if there was anyone in town, but I was ready.  At 9:00, I showed up at the church.  There was no one there, but it was a beautiful place and I went over my sermon a couple of more times.  It was the most polished sermon that I have ever preached. At 9:45, the organist showed up and went through the music for the day.  We visited, and at 10:00 AM on the dot, I welcomed the three people that were there.  After the Call to Worship, the Opening Hymn, and the Prayer of Confession, I read Scripture and began my sermon. That was about the time the rest of the congregation showed up.  There were approximately twenty, and I thought that must have been pretty much everybody that was left in the town.

I was to learn, in my brief stay in Kake, that time was not regulated as much by the clock as it was by relationships.  There was no hurry to get going on time and no worry if things ran late. It was jarring at first, then it was peace and rest.  

In a couple of days, my wife and her parents came over to Kake by ferry from Sitka where they had been staying.  We spent our time doing puzzles and watching the whales breaching in the distance as they made their annual migration to their winter breeding areas in Hawaii. The four of us would take a daily walk up the road to the bridge and watch the black bears fish for salmon.  My wife and I, fresh from the cornfields in Iowa where we were going to school, took long walks on black sandy beaches where we were able to unwind from our seminary studies and breathe in the salt air and dream big dreams of where we would live and where we would serve and begin planning for a brand new family.

It was during that second week of our stay that a lady in the congregation we were serving passed away.  Somehow, word got out to the village people dispersed throughout the archipelago that this matriarch of the community had entered her final rest. The marina began to fill up with hunting boats and the village began to swell and surge like an incoming tide.  I was summoned by a couple of the other pastors in the village. Plans were made for a service at the Presbyterian Church followed the next day by a celebration of life at the community hall. On the third day, we would board a vintage WWII landing boat and take the remains for burial at Grave Island.

In those three days, it was amazing for me to see the community come together; neighbors helped cooked meals and prepare music and had long visits.  All the pastors of the community came together at the community center because the entire village was there and that included members of their own congregations.  Stanley even hooked me into singing with the Alaska Native Brotherhood Choir.  (It was one song, and I have never been invited to return.) By the end of three days, grief had been tempered by the joy of knowing that a faithful daughter of God had been welcomed home and the simple joy of a community glad to be called together

As I reflect on that stay in Kake, AK over a decade ago, I still remember how rested  I felt.  Even in the midst of preparing two sermons and a funeral homily, time seemed to stand still. 

The village of Kake is still not a fancy tourist destination. It is a bit off the beaten path and a little bit weathered and cracked around the edges. There is still probably a big, angry dog guarding the town from interlopers stressed out by time.  But somehow, in that pocked of human civilization by the sea, the people had tapped into an ancient rhythm of life that I have experienced only episodically since then...a rhythm of life that is not governed by exhaustion and trying to fit one more thing in, but a rhythm devoted to the One and then fitting life around Him. A rhythm the ancients called rest; they called Sabbath.

I would love to go back to Kake now that we have children.  I would love for them to see the raw beauty of God's creation, but, even more, I long for our children to experience that rhythm of life...it is a life that doesn't demand more to make us full but rather dwells in fullness as its only demand.

Church Stopping. Less Doing. More Being.  

(<a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotos-g31021-Kake_Alaska.html#20527557"><img alt="" src="http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/39/39/c5/world-s-tallest-totem.jpg"/></a><br/>This photo of Kake is courtesy of TripAdvisor)

Community Sabbath (Week Five): Pixar

(Picture by budding Pixar Animator, Sam Snook)

"So God created humanity in his own image, in the image of God he created humans; male end female he created them." (Genesis 1:27)

Creativity, it seems, is a very important part of being a human.  After all, we have been created in the image of the Creator.  Maybe we are not all artists, but we are all creative.  We are creators of speech and relationships. We are creators of homes and gardens and music and airplanes and treehouses.  We were created, it could be argued, to create.  And so we are drawn in large numbers to the worlds created by Pixar; the creator of such memorable movies as Toy Story, Cars, Planes, and Monsters, Inc. 

It was interesting for me to learn that Ed Catmull, president of Pixar, takes a ten-day silent retreat every year for "care of the soul." (Global Leadership Summit, 2015)  This practice illustrates our normal approach to Sabbath: We carve out a day, or a part of a day, or ten days if we can, to connect with God.  From that connection with the Creator, our lives are shaped and brought back to the divine image we were created with.  As a result of our time with God, we begin to connect with who God created us to be and we begin to connect again with those God gave us to be with.  

And there is good evidence that the best of Pixar's creations mirror, in very creative ways, the story that God has written on the storyboards of our hearts.   

Consider, for example, one of my favorite movies, Cars. The hero, Lightning McQueen, discovers that there is something more valuable than winning; friendship.  In Lightning's self-sacrifice, we are reminded of the Gospel story where Jesus, who instead of winning, brings others to the finish line through self-sacrifice.

And in Planes: Fire and Rescue, the broken Dusty Crophopper sacrifices his own life to save others.  In the end, he is restored and brought to new life. As we are told near the end of the movie, Dusty is now, "Better than new!"  There is hope in our brokenness.

It can be argued that these stories tell Biblical truths and reflect a connectedness to the Creator. The problem with my theory is that I haven't been able to find evidence that every Pixar employee takes a ten-day silent retreat every year. So, how did Pixar get to the point of bringing to life these stories written on the deepest part of our hearts without intentional Sabbath?

As we look closer at Pixar, we discover that computer scientists, animators, and other employees, while encouraged to decorate their personal workspaces in whatever way suits them (i.e, as a castle, spaceship, tiki lounge, etc.) work takes place in an open environment that fosters corroboration with other employees.  (Business Insider, April 2, 2014, Drake Baer)  

Could it be for us as individuals that cultivating our personal creativity and interpersonal relationships would connect us with the Creator?  And could it be for us as a church that cultivating individual creativity and encouraging interpersonal relationships could reveal the stories that God is writing in our midst?

Yes!  In fact, I believe that cultivating personal creativity and nourishing interpersonal relationships are Sabbath.  If you are feeling stuck in your Sabbath keeping, cultivate your inner Pixar.   First, do something creative; Maybe you could pick up a pencil and paper. Maybe a guitar.  Second, reach out to those all around you.  Listen to their story.  If you do these two thing, chances are that you will connect with the Creator of the universe and you will discover the story that God has been writing on your own heart.  

Church Stopping. Less Doing. More Being.