White Wave Manifesto: Ecclesiastical Vacation

In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength,

            but you would have none of it. (Isaiah 30:15)

                     He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. (Psalm 23:2)

"In our product-driven society, work, especially networking, makes us feel important and productive.
Of course it may also make us feel cranky, put upon, overtired, frustrated, thwarted,
bored, and miserable-but who has time to think of that?
Who wants time to think of that.
We do. We just may not know that we do." (Julia Cameron, Vein of Gold)

We still talk about it.

That trip we took to the Redwoods two years ago. We had driven all day to get there. The sun was starting to set, so we pulled over into the nearest picnic area we could find and entered into a whole new world. It was amazing. Some of the trees had been standing there since the days of Christ. Our middle son, seven at the time, bailed out of the car before I came to a complete stop and began running from tree to tree until he found a snag that he could climb.  Up he went and from his elevated rostrum shouted joyfully into the maritime dusk, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for taking me to this place. I have been dreaming of this place my whole life!"

We need to get away. We know it...even if we don't because when we don't, we get cranky and miserable and bored. Life loses it's liveliness. There's a reason that many employers encourage their employees to take vacation time...they are more productive when they do and those around them like them better when they get back.

It's the same way with the church.  We need time off. We need to re-consider the idea of ecclesiastical vacation.  When was the last time we took a vacation as a church family?  There isn't a Biblical mandate to take four weeks off, but there is a mandate to rest; to enter into quietness and trust.  How much vacation time do you receive at work?  Do you take it all. You should. It isn't just a good idea, it is "your salvation."  

But do we believe it?  Do we really trust that the church can exist for four weeks without our input and our wisdom and our hard work?  It really is the question.  It isn't a question of whether or not we can stop. It is a question of whether or not we really trust that God will move when we stop.

There are, of course, some practical considerations when taking an ecclesiastical vacation just as their are practical consideration when heading to the Redwoods.  For example, the chickens need to be fed and the mail needs to be picked up and the flowers need to be watered. The point in leaving home is, in part, that we can't do the things that we normally do.  Likewise, when we leave our church home it has to be long enough and far enough away that we can't do the things that we normally do. Arrangements will have to be made for the lawn to be mowed and the bills to be paid.  Staff needs to be informed that they are not to stop by the office and answer phones or do correspondence.  The point is that we actually leave the church.  It will be okay.

And we will be freed up to go see the Redwoods or experience a different kind of worship. Our souls might be fed while hiking a fourteener in Colorado. We can listen to God's word and not worry about preaching or singing or ushering or greeting. Or, perhaps our sacred desk is a fly-fishing stream or a week taking in the culture of the city. Maybe we can find our very own, two-thousand year-old Redwood snag and clamor up to new heights and exclaim with new excitement in our voices, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, Lord, for taking me to this place. I have been dreaming of this place my whole life!"

Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.

White Wave Manifesto: A Congregational-Sabbath Blueprint

(www.freeimages.com 1307880)

I wonder...

I wonder what would happen if the church didn't rely on our own strength and actually trusted God for strength.

I wonder why we insist on making the church move when the church is a movement of God.  

I wonder how effective the church has been for all of our hard work and how much more effective it would be if we allowed room for God to work.

I have enclosed a "blueprint" for a new church development or for churches wanting something new. It would take courage.  Major things would have to change. But imagine how different things would look if we gave control of the church back to God.

Over the next five weeks, I will look at each of these steps in more detail.  Until then, I have offered them to you in toto.  

White Wave Manifesto: A Congregational-Sabbath Blueprint

A. Stop: For four weeks every year.

·                     In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength,

            but you would have none of it. (Isaiah 30:15)

·                     He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. (Psalm 23:2)

           

B. Stop:  For one year every Seventh

·                     For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops.

                But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the LORD.  

            Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. (Leviticus 25:3-4)

             

C. Stop: Paying full-time staff

·                     For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God

            prepared in advance for us to do.  (Ephesians 2:10)

*         For by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles              of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. (Hebrews 5:12)

            

D. Stop: Counting Members.

*          Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? (I Corinthians 6:15a)

*          It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you             and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples...

E. Stop: Maintaining church buildings.

·                     All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and

            possessions to give to anyone who had need. (Acts 2:45)

.·                     Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you

            have received from God? You are not your own; (1 Corinthians 6:19)

Church Stopping: God of Rest

(Shirk Ranch, photo from www.lesstravelednorthwest.com)

"Be still and know that I am God." (Psalm  46:10a)

"The industrial era at climax, in the panic of long-anticipated decline, has imposed on us all its ideals of ceaseless pandemonium. The industrial economy, by definition, must never rest. Rest would deprive us of light, heat, food, water, and everything else we need or think we need. The economic  impulse of industrial life (to stretch a term)  is limitless. Whatever we have, in whatever quantity, is not enough. There is no such thing as enough. Our bellies and our wallets must become oceanic, and still they will not be full. Six workdays in a week are not enough. We need a seventh. We need an eighth.  In the industrial world, at climax, one family cannot or will not support itself by one job. We need a job for the day and one for the night. Thank God for the moon! We cannot stop to eat. Thank God for cars! We dine as we drive over another paved arm. Everybody is weary, and there is no rest. (Wendell Berry, from the forward to Living the Sabbath by Norman Wirzba)

You all might have guessed from the delinquency of this post that it has been anything but a restful week.  It was a busy week with school and practice and getting ready for company to visit. 

In addition, the boys and I have been spending every waning daylight hour on an addition to the tree house. Actually, it is a brand-new tree house. We are thinking something akin to the Swiss Family Robinson version...so we have a long way to go!  We closed the pool and cut some firewood. I preached on Sunday and noticed a leak in the ceiling below our one working bathroom on Saturday. I guess when it rains it pours.

And on top of all of this, after several weeks of illness for the boys, double pneumonia for my wife, I was called in to work at 8:00 pm on Saturday and stayed until 1:00 am on Sunday.  In the midst of the madness on Saturday night, my wife sent me a text at work, "We so need a Sabbath!"  She was right, of course, but a late night call on Sunday sent my wife on an impromptu, 2.5 hour road trip to take care of a family member that is being admitted to the hospital.

Whew!

Everybody had gone through seasons like this. It seems hard to rest.  Sometimes, it seems impossible and we paddle like mad just to stay afloat. We hold on for dear life as our life lives us and God whispers, "Be still and know that I am God." 

It seems that life is less about doing more as it is about being more alive.

So on Sunday night, after preaching my sermon and working in our yard, I sat down and didn't get up. I couldn't move, so it was easy to finally be still.  My wife and I agreed that the bathroom leak could wait. Instead of working on it, we made some popcorn and had a family devotion with my parents who were visiting all the way from Wyoming.  Then we watched a movie.

Sure, the bathroom is still leaking, winter is fast approaching, daylight hours are shrinking, and a loved one convalescing...but even in the midst of this whirlwind of a life, God still commands us to be still.  It's a commandment because it's not natural, but it's a commandment wrapped in a promise.  The promise is that even when our lives are spinning out of control and we can't keep up, we can know that God keeps us.

Church Stopping. Less Doing. More being.

Church Stopping: God of Peace

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:2-3)

(Photo courtesy of Rev. Charles Smith)

To the biblical  mind menuha is the same as happiness and stillness, as peace and harmony. The word with which Job described the state after life he was longing for is derived from the same root as menuha. It is the state in which there is no strife and no fighting, no fear and no distrust. The essence of good life is menuha. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters' (the water of menuhot). In later times menuha  became a synonym for the life in the world to come, for eternal life (Abraham Heschel, The Sabbath)

I've been watching the World Series with some interest this year. Of course, I'm thrilled that the Royals are in it (again!) this year and one game away from winning it all in front of the home crowd.  It has been so exciting  for me personally and something our whole family  has been able to enjoy together.

I'm also curious.

I haven't seen, in the the four games played so far, anyone leaving in the middle of the game. It's puzzling to me, for someone who has been going to church my whole life and read a little bit about church history, that there haven't been any boycotts among those in attendance of all the supporters of Amendment 14F.  And surely, there's a closet postmillenialist that can be singled out for the error of their ways. Furthermore, there must be a conservative pro-lifer sitting by a progressive supporter of the ordination of women that should be separated for the sake of purity.  And I'll have to ask Charles, who was actually at the game, if there was anyone vocally opposed to the color of the bathrooms and the quality of the announcements.

But I haven't seen it. I haven't read about the Royal fan base dividing into those that prefer American League Rules and those that would prefer National League Rules.

Maybe it isn't a fair comparison. After all, I know that the people that attend these World Series games have paid good money to attend and churches have free admission,  However, even those who haven't purchased a ticket to watch in person seem united in their support of the team.  There is "no strife and no fighting, no fear and no distrust." There is menuhot. There is peace within Royal nation.

Not so in the church.

In churches that I have attended and in churches that I have read about, there is often fighting and fear and distrust.  As Christians, in our effort to stand for what is right and in our zeal to act on deeply held priniciples, we willingly separate ourselves from friends and family members.  Sometimes, there is nothing but strife and fighting and fear and distrust. There is no menuhot.  There is no peace. And we do it in the name of God.

What's the difference?

It seems to me, at a baseball game, the issues that divide us simply don't matter because the thing that unites us is so much bigger than any of the issues that might divide us.  On the other hand, at church, we believe that being faithful to the issues that divide us is being faithful to One that died to unite us.

I'm not saying that we should compromise our principles on marriage, on eschatology, on ordination, or on bathroom color.  But maybe we should stop. Maybe we should stop trying so hard to be right and maybe we should stop being so willing to divide on principle.  Maybe we should stop and return to the "waters of menuhot" and remember that we have been called to "be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:2-3) Indeed, for this God has died.

Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.

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)