Will this be me in 40 years?

So I'm preaching today -- T-minus 2 hours and counting.

This will be the first time I have ever preached for a church, preached for anyone outside of an artificial "preaching lab" setting. In some ways, I'm less nervous since I'm not preaching for a grade! Seminarians are often the harshest critics when it comes to sermons...

That being said, I'm still nervous -- especially because I'm supposed to limit the sermon to 15 minutes, tops. Since I hate practicing sermons, I haven't read it out loud, so I actually have no idea how long it will turn out to be... I suspect it's too long. That probably means I will end up talking too fast, as I usually do. :)

However, fundamentally I'm excited! I get to preach! Plus, my family's here to celebrate Thanksgiving with me and the in-laws to be (!), so my family will be in the congregation to hear my very first sermon. I've already decided that my sermon won't be "perfect," and it's certainly not your typical "three points and poem" sermon (since I'm NOT a linear thinking type of person...), but I'm still excited.

The process of writing the sermon has been quite freeing, actually. A lot of the ground work for my sermon was handed to me, because it "just so happens" that the lectionary passages for the day include TWO -- that's right, not just one, but TWO -- passages that I have already studied in depth recently. I taught on the Gospel passage in our Sunday School a few weeks ago, and the Psalm for the day is the exact Psalm on which I preached last Spring for a seminary class. Oh that God... It feels like He's smiling on me in this process.

In fact, this sermon is part and parcel with much of what God is teaching me right now: trust in Him and not in myself. I've had the strangest sense of peace (well, most of the time) as I've prepared for this sermon, and it's not because I've spent billions of hours preparing (I haven't). But for some reason, I have been able to trust God with this sermon. And that's pretty darn cool.

On my own, I'm not capable of this type of trust. So.... thanks be to God for His care for me!

He must increase; I must decrease

Ministry has quite a learning curve. We can read books about ministry, talk about ministry, think we know how to "do" ministry, but when we enter into ministry, sometimes the reality is much different than we expected. We learn that what pleases God is often different than what would please us. We learn that God often moves much more slowly than we wish He would (and think He should).

For me, one of the biggest battles in the first months of my ministry has been an internal battle, the battle between "being" a minister and "doing" ministry. I tend to be a "doer," someone who measure my success in terms of what I do: keeping up with emails, taking the initiative to meet with people, going to the prayer services, leading the small group, supporting my fellow staff members, etc., etc.

However, ministry is about more than just doing: ministry is about being. It's easy to "do" out of our own strength and talents, but it is impossible to fully "be" without reliance on the Spirit. And "being" requires taking time to not "do" -- to engage in contemplation rather than action, to rest and spend time with others, and above all, to recognize that GOD is the one who truly "does" His work, not me. If I can't take time to simply be because I am afraid to cease my doing, I have a problem: I'm putting myself in the place of God.

Consider John 3:27-30 (which is a great passage for lectio divina, by the way). In the context of this passage, the disciples of John the Baptist come to him, alarmed at the way the crowds have transferred their attention from John to Jesus. In response, John says:

A person can receive only what is given from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, "I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him." The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.

John recognizes that his role is much, much different than that of Jesus. He could have chosen to be jealous of Jesus and to act as Jesus' rival. But John knows that the "bride" -- the people of God -- belongs to the "bridegroom," to Jesus Himself.

The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The Church belongs to Christ. Not to me. I have a responsibility to serve the church, but ultimately I must remember that God is the one who brings about His kingdom. THAT is why I can rest without fear. THAT is why I can choose to "be," rather than "do," humbly accepting my human limitations and trusting that God works even when I do not. My "doing" far too easily becomes a way to try to make myself greater, but in resting, in simply "being," I learn to trust in God's power to accomplish His own purposes, and to listen and discern my place in the midst of His plan rather than assuming that I already know what I ought to do.

He must increase; I must decrease. Simple. Difficult. Essential in ministry. I suspect that as I learn to be a minister of the Lord, I will experience more of the joy John mentions -- the joy of hearing God's voice and seeing Him at work. May it be.

"Prayer when words won't come"

Wow... I just ran across this quote, and it really resonated with me -- particularly the last sentence:

Oh my Father, I have moments of deep unrest--moments when I know not what to ask by reason of the very excess of my wants. I have in these hours no words for Thee, no conscious prayers for Thee. My cry seems purely worldly; I want only the wings of a dove that I may flee away. Yet all the time Thou hast accepted my unrest as a prayer. Thou hast interpreted its cry for a dove's wings as a cry for Thee. Thou hast received the nameless longings of my heart as the intercessions of Thy Spirit. They are not yet the intercessions of my spirit; I know not what to ask. But Thou knowest what I ask, O my God. Thou knowest the name of that need which lies beneath my speechless groan. . . . Thou knowest that because I am made in Thine image I can find rest only in what gives rest to Thee; therefore Thou hast counted my unrest unto me for righteousness, and has called my groaning Thy Spirit's prayer.

~ George Matheson, in Mosaic Holy Bible, 179 ~

I am a person who has trouble resting, who indeed fears resting lest I fail to "keep up" with my relationships and responsibilities. I love the thought that because I am made in the image of God, I can find true rest only in the things that please God. This gives me hope that in seeking rest, I am not lazy or irresponsible, for in seeking rest, I am seeking God and His righteousness. In seeking rest, I am seeking godly being.

Scary, but worth it (or so I am told...).

The number one enemy of Christian spiritual formation today is exhaustion. We are living beyond our means, both financially and physically... According to numerous studies, the average person needs approximately eight hours of sleep in order to maintain health. This tells me that God has designed humanity to spend nearly one-third of our lives sleeping. This is a stunning thought. We were made to spend a large portion of our existence essentially doing nothing...

Sleep is a perfect example of the combination of discipline and grace. You cannot make yourself sleep. You cannot force your body to sleep. Sleep is an act of surrender. It is a declaration of trust. It is admitting that we are not God (who never sleeps), and that is good news.

~The Good and Beautiful God, 32 & 34~

What do you say when words are not enough?

I imagine all of us have been in situations where the answers we've been given to life's tough questions simply aren't sufficient. Sometimes the truths we know, the truths we cling to -- like the fact that God is completely good, and faithful, and loving, the fact that He provides for our every need -- seem ludicrous.

I spent some time yesterday sitting with a couple who are facing a really, really difficult scenario -- the type of scenario that could completely destroy their hopes and plans. When I received the woman's phone call and decided to drop what I was doing and go be with her and her husband, I realized that I would be walking into a situation for which I was ill-prepared -- at least, for which I didn't have answers. Being in ministry, I suspect that this won't be the last time that happens...

So what do you do when you don't have answers? You sit. You listen. You encourage people to talk, you encourage them to be honest with themselves and with God. If needed, you ask hard questions. If not, you just... sit and be present with them. And you pray -- silently and aloud, for them and with them. Sometimes, answers aren't what people need. Sometimes, people just need you to be with them and to have faith FOR them. That's a huge part of ministry, whether formal or informal: believing for one another when we can't manage to believe on our own. Upholding one another when we need it most. Faith is the act of a community, not just an individual.

Last night, the woman faced an overwhelming situation, one that seemed to have the potential to crush her utterly, with honesty about her own lack of faith -- the disparity between what she knows about God (God is good) and what the situation seems to say about God (God is cruel). But even in the midst of her despair, anger, and confusion, she responded in faith: she desperately sought to turn TO God rather than away from him. And that's why she called me -- because she knew she didn't have the strength to turn to God on her own.

We often think that faith has to be unshakeable in order to "count" as faith -- we think that faith means that we ALWAYS have to believe whole-heartedly that God is who He says He is, who we've been taught that He is. But sometimes, a response of faith is simply wanting and trying to turn to God rather than away from Him.

Her response was honest: "I cannot believe."
Her response was faith-filled: "I desperately long to believe!"

And I had the privilege of being the one called to believe for her.

Sooo... I've been pretty busy in the past few weeks. And, as you can infer from this picture (slightly weird b/c I took it on my computer), I'm not likely to be any less busy in the coming weeks and months!

Ok, I couldn't resist posting this link:

Why Men Shouldn't Be Ordained.

Very tongue-in-cheek, good parody of the type of silly arguments used in debates about ordination.