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.

Community Sabbath (Week Four): Trinity Presbyterian Church, Wichita, Kansas

If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing you own interests on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it by not going your own ways, or serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the Lord and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Isaiah 58:13-14)

In eleven years of ministry at Trinity Presbyterian Church, I came to know this quirky, fun-loving, and diverse congregation to be united by one universal and pervasive ethos: hard work. However, all of the loving care for the building and grounds had not led to increased growth.  The carefully crafted children's ministry had not led to spiritual vistas.  Multiple choirs and brilliant sermons had not parlayed into a burgeoning budget. There was a growing sense that something was wrong and the status quo could not be sustained. "I have noticed people," said one church member , "working harder and longer than is really humanly possible."  Another pillar remarked in a congregational meeting, "At this rate, in ten years, there won't be a Trinity."

The panacea, I was convinced, to cure our ecclesiastical busyness and spiritual ennui, was a year-long, church-wide Sabbatical!  It wasn't an easy sell.  "If you need a Sabbatical, Pastor Geoff," I was told by one especially busy member, "you take one. I like what I do in the church!"

Undaunted...okay, a little daunted...I set out on visits to Sunday School classes, Bible studies, and small groups armed with facts and figures and the Biblical merits of community Sabbath. I devised sermon series, fielded questions, and brought in another pastor who had navigated the surly pre-Sabbatical waters in his own congregation.  

It helped, and so we launched into our year-long, church-wide Sabbath in January of 2010.  It was thrilling. We dropped the evening programs and encouraged the congregation to spend time with friends and family. The choir sang some familiar tunes and shortened practices.  We didn't go on our annual mission trip, opting to serve closer to home. The senior ministry dropped its monthly luncheon.  We streamlined our worship using pre-prepped resources drawn from the revised common lectionary.  We stopped, for an entire year, meeting in committees. In every way possible, without actually closing the doors, we streamlined our church work so that we could participate in God's work

It took a lot of courage. Not everyone elected to participate.  But most did and the results were palpable.  We grew closer to the Lord and we grew closer to one another.  We were able to discern where God was leading us as a people.  As one church member put it, "I see more people becoming involved besides the core group that always participates. There's more energy and the realization that each one of us is called to be a minister of the Word to the world around us-at work, school, or play."

I am very proud to have been a part of our church-wide Sabbatical.  I think it is okay to be proud because it was so clearly not about me. It was about what God began to do in all of us. And that was pretty awesome.

Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.

Community Sabbath (Week Three): Hi-Lu Farms

(Photo from www.freeimages.com, #1573842.)

“And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey...”
(Exodus 3:8)

Growing up on the Hi-Lu dairy farm on the plains of western Kansas, it may come as no surprise that Maggie McIntyre and her four sibling learned early on the value of hard work.  After all, there was always work to be done. There was the herd of 40-60 Brown Swiss cows that needed to be milked every day. There were also fields of wheat, corn, milo, alfalfa, and soybeans that needed to be cared for and grass pasture that needed to be managed.  There were chores at home and chores in the field in addition to the normal demands of homework and school activites.  

For Maggie, this hard work has translated into a highly successful legal career and a happy marriage all while raising two very active and talented teenage boys.  In every way, she leads a productive and busy life.  However, Maggie will be the first to tell you that productivity and busyness are not the measures of a good life. 

"My father always took a Sabbath," she says.  "On Sunday, we milked the cows and we went to church. My mother prepared a roast or fondue, something simple. But that was it.  No other work was done. If we were in the middle of harvest, we stopped. After church, we spent the rest of our day visiting with friends and relatives, relaxing, playing croquet and watching sports on TV." 

For her parents, Howard and Irene Lutes, keeping of the Sabbath was an important part of practicing their faith, and not just on Sunday.  Maggie would often find her father praying and reading before dawn and her mother would sometimes take a break in the middle of the day and go to the study to read her Bible. "I think it is hard to really have a relationship with God if we don't invest any time in prayer and meditation," Maggie says. "Stop light prayers are good, but we need to dedicate an hour or more every day if we are going to have a real relationship with anybody, including the Lord."

"It is counter-cultural, for sure," Maggie says. "Even back then in rural Kansas, our neighbors didn't always stop for the Sabbath.  In fact, one of our neighbors, whose wheat field was across from the church, always harvested on Sunday while we were having church. It was hot, so the windows of the church were open.  His combine was loud and it was disruptive to the service.  My father didn't like that."  

In ancient Egypt, the Hebrews were enslaved to their Egyptian taskmasters.  In today's busy, outcome-based world, we are sometimes our own taskmasters.  After being delivered from slavery, ancient Israel took time every week to remember that they were no longer slaves.  They took time every week to celebrate the benevolent God who delivered them to a land flowing with milk and honey; a land much like Hi-Lu Farms.  We need that time as well.

"Church shouldn't be secondary.  And not just Sunday morning, but Sunday evening and Wednesday night.  That is how I was raised and how I have raised my own family.  As a result, my boys didn't always get to do every activity that their friends did, but I wasn't going to go to soccer tournaments on Sunday.  They didn't always like that, but I hope that they understand why we made that decision.  If we are too busy, our relationship with God suffers."

"Church Stopping. Less Doing. More Being.

Community Sabbath (Week Two): Eat More Chicken

(Photo from www.freeimages.com #1563678. Thanks Adriana!)

Then he (Nehemiah) said to them, "Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."  (Nehemiah 8:10)

If you have ever craved a chicken sandwich after church on Sunday, you probably know that you can't satisfy that craving at the local Chick-fil-A.  In fact, in every mall, on every college campus, in every city, on every Sunday, that mouth-watering bit of breaded goodness is unavailable.  

By some estimates, the act of shuttering approximately 2000 stores across the country for the Sabbath costs the giant chicken sandwich chain over 500 million dollars annually.  (The Christian Century, April 26, 2011) But Chick-fil-A founder, Truett Cathy said it was always about more than money: it's "about the way Chick-fil-A people view their spiritual life." (www.truettcathy.com)

"Spiritual life! Well, good for Chick-fil-A," says the cynic in me.  "With revenue of over six billion dollars per year, they can cultivate their 'spiritual life' with little risk!  My company simply doesn't have the kind of cushion that allows us to be holier than thou.  We must keep working.  Furthermore, it would be financially and spiritually devastating for our church to take a Sunday off. Our child's college application will suffer and I will loose my promotion if our family celebrated the Sabbath together." 

Right?

Theologian Rabbi Irving Greenberg, suggests that the real expense might be in ignoring the Sabbath:

Shabbat (the Sabbath) [provides] the necessary leisure to be one’s self and to enter into deeper relationships.

Rest is more than leisure from work, it is a state of inner discovery, tranquility, and unfolding. . . . The Sabbath commandment is not just to stop working, it is actively to achieve menuchah (rest) through self-expression, transformation, and renewal. On this day humans are freed to explore themselves and their relationships until they attain the fullness of being.

[The Shabbat’s] focus remains the enrichment of personal life. In passing over from weekday to Shabbat, the individual enters a different world. The burdens of the world roll off one’s back. In the phrase of the zemirah (Sabbath table song): “Anxiety and sighing flee.” In the absence of business and work pressure, parents suddenly can listen better to children. In the absence of school and extra-curricular pressures, children can hear their parents. Being is itself transformed. The state of inner well-being expands. As the Sabbath eve service text states: “The Lord . . . blesses the seventh day and [thereby] bestows holy serenity on a people satiated with delight.” The ability to reflect is set free. Creative thoughts long forgotten come back to mind. One’s patience with life increases. The individual’s capacity to cope is renewed. (www.publicdiscourse.com, September 18, 2014)

There is a cost to Sabbath keeping, for sure. I believe that if Truett Cathy were alive today, he would agree that 500 million dollars is a lot of money and a lot of good could be done with that additional revenue; more restaurants could be opened. More employees could be hired. More could be given back to the community. However, there is also a reward for stopping that is worth more than money. For Nehemiah it was the 'joy of the Lord." For Rabbi Irving Greenburg, it is 'holy serenity on a people satiated with delight." These are things that money simply cannot buy.

In the end, maybe the question isn't whether or not our corporations, churches, and families can afford to take a Sabbath, but if we can afford to continually ignore it.

Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.

Community Sabbath (Week One): Bethesda Covenant Church, New York City

(Photo from www.freeimages.com #1531720)

"A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be to you; in it you shall neither sow, nor reap what grows of itself, nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines.  For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat what it yields out of the field. (Leviticus 25:11-12)

A few years ago, I read about a church in New York City that did something "radical and countercultural, something so outside the norm of ordinary church behavior and tradition that most who hear of this practice seem to find it either brilliant or highly suspect." (Amy Rohler and Adam Rohler, “A Communal Sabbath; One Church’s Annual Practice of Rest.”Congregations (Spring 2009): 33-34)

What was this unbelievable thing they did? They stopped. There was no sermon, no Sunday School, no committees, no music, and no services at all for three whole weeks! 

At the time, I was a busy full-time pastor of a busy little church as well as a full-time husband and father of three young boys.  When I read about what Bethesda Covenant Church did every year in the sultry dog days of August, I was thinking "brilliant" and "highly suspect" all at the same time.  It was brilliant because I knew in the weary church where I was serving, it would change everything.  It was suspect because I just couldn't imagine anyone actually pulling it off when there was always just so much to do.   

So, I poured over the article again and again. And again I was continually struck by the gift that was granted to this brave congregation.  With no ecclesiastical responsibilities, they could rediscover that the One that invented the church was not a cosmic taskmaster driving them to speed up and do more, but a gentle shepherd who was encouraging them to rest and drink deeply. Amidst the hustle and bustle of New York City, a gentle move of the Spirit and a courageous act of faith allowed parishioners to recharge their batteries, be renewed for God's vision for the church, and enjoy the diverse treasures of God's kingdom all around them. Recharge. Renew. Enjoy...it sounded like certain death!  "Our church would never survive!" I cried.  Then, I was reminded that, just maybe, death was part of the plan:

Barbara Brown Taylor on Sabbath

http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/sabbath-a-practice-in-death

We do need to die to ourselves. But with the Gospel, there is the promise of new life after death.  This doesn't mean that we will have more of what we started with. It means that God will give us a whole new quality of life; something we could never have imagined on our own.

In my research for this article, I was saddened to read about the death of Bethesda Covenant Church. After 130 years of daring worship, the church closed it's doors.  But not without breathing a new rhythm of life into her parishioners and into her city and into countless others inspired by a brilliant and suspect interlude in the midst of incessant activity. 

Church Stopping. Less Doing. More Being.

Ripple Effect

"But be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." (Isaiah 65:18) 

Somebody once compared the lives that many of us lead to a stone skipping across a pond. "We spin round and round, skipping across the surface from one spot to another until we finally run out of steam, and sink.  Our lives," he went on, "should be more like children in the midst of a cannon ball; enrapt in joy, plunging completely and safely in to the love and grace of God and from that center, divine, joy-soaked ripples move out into all areas of our lives and into the world around us."

For the last year, I've shared our family's attempt to embrace the joy at the heart of God through the intentional practice of Sabbath.  We certainly haven't perfected the art of Sabbath-celebration, but we have made a start at stopping and a plunge into joy.  On Friday nights, one of our boys will usually ask, "What are we doing for Sabbath this week?"  It has become part of our family routine and it will be interesting to see how it plays out over the course of this next year.

It will also be interesting to see the ripple effects of this cannon ball emanating into the rest of our lives.

How will our personal practice of Sabbath affect our daily routines such as school, and work, and church?  Can we let go of our schoolwork just as readily as we let go of our housework? Will the work get done if we walk away from our job just as it did when we walked away from our lawn? Can our willingness to take a break from church work be as strong a witness as our great deeds of service?

The answer, I believe, is, "Yes!"  But don't take my word for it.

In the next several weeks, I will be highlighting some businesses and some churches that have dared to make Sabbath an important part of their business models and mission statements.  You've heard of some. (eg. Chick fil A, Hobby Lobby) You probably haven't heard of others. (Bethesda Covenant Church, Ed Catmull). Every story is different. Every story is inspiring.  And perhaps in hearing them, we will be encouraged to take the plunge ourselves.  And in taking that plunge, our world will be rocked by more and more of those divine ripples...white-capped reminders of a joyous God who not only rejoices in what is created, but creates it for joy.

Church Stopping. Less Doing. More Being.

A Year of Sabbaths (Week 52): Unexpected Blessings

(Sam and Will posing outside of North Platte, Nebraska.)

"The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still." (Exodus 14:14)

The car pictured above is a 2015 Mustang convertible. I'm sorry to say, it is not ours.

The boys pictured above are Sam, age 12 and Will, age 6.  I am very happy to say, they are ours.

The place pictured above is about ten miles west of North Platte, Nebraska. Needless to say, no trees were harmed in the making of this picture.

The reason for the above picture is that our 2004 station wagon broke down on I-70 en route to a rendezvous in Sidney, Nebraska with my parents.  They were taking Sam for a week-long visit at their home in Wyoming - fishing, hiking, driving a tractor and seeing some long lost cousins. Sidney was half-way.

The breakdown took place on Saturday night, just east of North Platte. Our car was towed to  town, but there was no place in town that could fix the car until Monday and we still had 120 miles to go to Sidney.  We had to rent a car, but the only rental car available in town was the Mustang.  "Beggars can't be choosers," I told the rental agent.  He laughed.   Three hours after our car trouble, we were wheeling our way to Sidney in style!

My parents were waiting for us outside the hotel and we were starving.  I ordered some pizza and after a short visit, we were off to sleep.

The next morning, Sam was off to his Wyoming adventure and Will and I were returning to North Platte to wait for the car. Yay...

I wasn't too sure what we would be doing in North Platte all day, but things started to look up when we noticed that there were warm cookies being served in the hotel lobby as we checked in.  Sweet!

Refreshed after a few warm cookies and some ice-cold milk, I asked the hotel manager what she would recommend that father and son do on a Sunday night in North Platte.  "Go to the park and ride the carousel," she said. So that's what we did...we drove to the park and we drove with the top down.

The carousel turned out to be AWESOME! And Will rode round and round and round. Then, the two of us noticed the concession stand.  By now, our cookies and milk had worn off so we each ordered a large soft-serve cone.  Will will be happy to tell you that his cone was much larger than mine!

All of this was okay because by the time we arrived back to the hotel, they were serving late-night pancakes.  Will could only finish one. I had two.

Our unexpected stop in North Platte ended up being a wonderful blessing.  Will and I connected over cookies, ice cream, pancakes, and a cool convertible.  We made some cool memories.  In the same way, this year has been full of unexpected blessings; kayaking trips, waterfalls, movie dates, and adventures in eating.  There have also been a few bumps along the way.  However, I am convinced, now more than ever, that God still does great things when we stop.

Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.