Tag Archives: religion

Leadership

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We all lead.

Sometimes we do that leading in acknowledged and titled ways.

Always we lead; titled or no.  We do it through the ways we speak and listen as well as take action and rest.

Leading in a church is an adventure like few others.  We are grounded on the teachings and leading provided by Jesus.  Jesus knew that people were going to bump into each other in ways that would sometimes provoke hurt.  Knowing that, he taught much about forgiveness and about being willing to know the larger heart of the Holy that connects and grounds us through pain and joy alike.  He taught that our larger identity, beyond any other labels we might graft onto our sense of self, is that of follower of the Way.  We stumble, we lurch, we glide and we fly and in all of those human beings, we are people connected by Holy grace.

Not a one of us does life without bruises inflicted and received.  To be in community is to know hurt.

My prayer in all of our attempts to live the teachings of Jesus is that we remember our larger holding.

At RUMC, we seek to live in such a way that we see the Christ in all.  We make decisions and make life seeking to create community in such a way that when hurts happen, as we know they will, there is a sense of the larger heart holding us as we discern our call to fullness of life.

On this day, I want to name the courage it takes to step into the world and seek to live teachings meant to bless and provoke.

In all things, at all times, this thing called leadership calls for mindful, courageous, humble and compassionate engagement of whole selves.

This thing called “church” is a wholeness laboratory.

Thank God for holy Petrie dishes.

change

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Last night a group of us shared some fine time.

Those gathered are people who summoned the courage to enter the doors of our church for the first time.  They came in the door, decided that they might find meaning in our midst, and have decided to join their lot with ours.

Every time I meet with prospective new members I am moved by wonder.  Truly, taking membership vows represents a longing for community and communion that is no small thing.

We talked about what it was that prompted them to walk through the doors for the first time, and we asked about what it is they are seeking.  We barraged them with the requisite information but really, what we sought to do was listen for the story of the Holy that walks in their being as we invite them to  enter a community seeking to live and name transformational possibilities.

They are a wise and diverse lot.  They named their awareness that the church is so very much more than the pastor.  They have sniffed around our being and decided that at RUMC, they may find a safe place to grow in their relationship with the Holy and those the Holy has created – even themselves.

This thing called “church” is no easy thing.  We challenge ourselves to learn about what Jesus taught and put that teaching into the living of our days.  It is messy and demanding work.  When we take membership vows we agree that we will live together in community and we know that sometimes it feels like we live in one of those rock tumblers:  we get swirled around in the grit of others and sometimes we allow that bumping to polish us into something unknown even to our own imaginings.

To those who follow soul rumblings into community, I say “welcome”.  We need your grit in order to shine in ways that make for grace in the world.

Welcome indeed.

 

wow

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Today Minnesota United Methodists voted to speak publicly against the marriage amendment coming before voters in November.

This is no small thing.

We join the ranks of Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and the United Church of Christ in Minnesota; all have voted to speak out against this attempt to legislate oppression.

What makes this decision poignant is that unlike the above named denominations, our denomination corporately holds a stance on homosexuality much like that of the Catholic Church.  Many of us work hard on seeking change in that regard.

For the MN Annual Conference to overwhelmingly support public opposition to legislative oppression means that we claimed our call to advocate for justice.

I am a hope filled woman.  I am moved by the witness and advocacy that has taken place for decades in order for this church I love to step out and speak out.  I am aware of the work yet to be done and the wounds yet real.

But today.  On June 1st in St Cloud Minnesota, United Methodists spoke their hearts.

And I do believe we are a changed people.

Thanks be to God.

 

shout out!

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I wove my way out of church tonight.

There was a fourth step training going on.  There was a band practice and an Adult Council meeting and piano lessons and connecting and church was doing what it is meant to do: hold people as they unfold.

Our church is alive for so many reasons.  One of them is because we have an amazing staff.

We’re in the blessed season of asbestos abatement and new boiler(s) installation and new pipes and summer program launching and community carnival hosting and each of these things is midwifed by the best staff a church could hope to call their own.

Our staff encounter all manner of things in their work.  They handle walk-ins and myriad requests.  They strategize and equip and pray and laugh and field grumblings and all of this they do knowing that at any given moment the things they had planned to do could get sidelined by what might come through the door or over the phone.

To a person they are committed and generous gifts.

It’s good to work with people you like.  It’s even better to team up with deep souled folk who lend heart and grit to Richfield United Methodist Church in order for grace to shine.

Oh, we are blessed.

 

prep

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Leaving town is a spiritual practice.

Whenever I am making preparations to be gone for a time, the worries raise their voices.

For example, I seem to be convinced that if I am in close proximity to my beloveds I can keep them safe.  It’s a fine fantasy.  If I’m in my zone, somehow my people are safer.

Church details feel monumental.  Our church has the best staff bar none and a wondrous crew of retired clergy.  There should be no worry.  Should is the operative word.  Worry I do.

Like so many other things, I suspect thriving happens when space is made.  Offspring turn to each other or their step-Coop.  Pets are tended.  Church folk know the power of community.  All these things are good.

And for me?  Stepping out of my self-appointed role of keeper of well-being is flat-out crucial.

I’m off for five days.  Preparing to leave has lessons to lend.

Perhaps the spiritual discipline most necessary for digesting a magnificent Holy Week is the sacred revel of fun.

I can work with that.

hard work

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Palm Sunday is a lot of work.

I don’t mean planning for it or soaking in the wild good of children processing with palms waving.

I mean it is hard emotional work, because it is so very real.

We begin worship singing the wild hopes of the gathered – now and then.  Surely this Jesus will save us.  We join in the singing of “Hosannas” and feel ourselves swept into the shout of it.

And then the rest of the story commences.  The part about betrayals and silencing.  The part about the slinking away of the hopeful and the firing up of the machine of fear prompting the very ones who shouted hope to shout death.

It’s hard work.

Because it is so real.

Newspapers are packed full of this drama as it unfolds day after day after day.  We want our President, our mothers, our please-God-SOMEBODY to save us when all along the answer to our heart clamor can be found within and among us.

A figurehead who does all our work for us will never save us.

Jesus came to teach us a new way, a way grounded in the hard work of lived compassion and justice through our very selves and we seemed then and seem now to prefer that he would do the work for us.  The work seems too hard.

It is.  But we’re not alone in it.  The power and presence that took to the back of a donkey is in our midst yet.

Oh, may we be a people who take to our hearts and actions the living of “Hosanna”.

The world is sore in need of a break from “Crucify”.

circles of life

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I spent the day with United Methodist clergy from throughout the state.

The goal?  The goal was to celebrate the powerful call we share.  We named our grinches and glories, and re-membered the sense of wonder and promise that is sharing the gospel.

It was flat-out fun as well as soul tonic.

Tonight, I got an email from a friend.  She wrote to tell me that for some reason over the past few days I had popped into her mind as she was in prayer.  She wrote to tell me that she had been praying for me.

Some times the slogging gets thick, doesn’t it?  We get bogged into a sense of the immense of what we seek to midwife, no matter what it is we are called to do.  Work commences, the days pass, and somewhere along the way the sacred juice that is joy gets  parched out of us.

And then we get reminded that we are blessed blessed blessed.  The circles of love that hold our hearts and lives are alive and vibrant and present, slog or no.

 

 

 

full

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My head and heart are full.

My head is full of fluids intent on silencing my world.  I’m on the second go-round of antibiotics for ear infections.  So it goes.  It’s brought to my heart a whole new compassion for those with hearing loss.  Restaurants are brutal, as is any place where ambient noise reigns supreme.  Reality feels swaddled.  I’m learning new things.

And my heart?  My heart is full of wonder.  Love is an amazing force for healing.  At my uncle’s funeral, the pain and joy that comes with family and loving was named, the holding of story was shared, and the power of healing and gratitude was passed from heart to heart.  I share family with an amazing crew of varied explorers.  From grandparents Keith and Helen came four children full of soul and zest and they made families and together we each hold a piece of our shared story.  It’s a wonder.

Church too is a coming together of each of our stories.  When we gather to name our dependence upon and grounding in the Holy, we swirl our beings into a weave of remarkable strength.  Each of our bumps is held, each of our triumphs is present, and our questions and wisdom conspire to lead us into the story larger than our own in order that we might know it to be our own.

How wonder-full is that?