March 10th, 2010 | 
Author: Back in the good old days, a funeral in a rural church was also a feast day. Women from the church brought in their best casseroles and desserts. It was the communities way of saying to the family that they are loved and cared for. At the end of the meal, all the extra’s were sent home, to remind the family that they were still with them in their mourning.
Those days have long gone, except when a life-long member dies. But some people haven’t realized that. A while ago I had a funeral for a family who hadn’t live in the area for more than six decades. No one in his family was a member of the church since Grandma and Grandpa. The only reason the funeral was at our church was because the family had one spot left on the family plot and decided that since it was already paid for they might as well use it.
Following the funeral there was a luncheon in the basement. Near the end of the lunch one of the family members came up to me and shared how disappointed he was in the meal. There were hardly any casseroles and only four or five desserts, he pointed out to me. He then went on to remind me how the church used to supply the family with a full buffet.
I was visiting one of the shut-in’s, a wonderful ninety-two year old woman who is filled with love for people and her church. She asked me how a particular family in our congregation was doing. I told her I was worried about them. I’ve noticed the family slowly slipping away. As one Christian song-writer put it, “It’s a slow fade.” Along with the slow fade, some family members that gotten them into some trouble with the law.
In response to my concern, she said, “They’ll be back.” It was as simple as that. “They’ll be back.” She then added, “It may be because of something good that happens in their life, or maybe something really bad, but they’ll be back.”
I left that day feeling so much better about that family. I will continue to touch base with them and pray for them. But what my ninety-two year old pastor reminded me of was God’s long view of things. I was looking at everything from a short-term perspective. She helped me to sit back and see things from the long view.
Her years on earth have given her this long view of things. No doubt she has seen many families like this. She has seen God work with families that wander like this, and she isn’t panicking.
In the instant society we live in today, its easy to lose God’s long view of things. I really thank her for sharing her wisdom and knowledge with me. And I hope she can help you too in your ministry, to see situations not just from the immediate, but from God’s long view.
Blessings, Dan
I’m reading Eugene Peterson’s latest book, Practice Resurrection. In it he tells about growing up in Montana and each Sunday worshiping with his family in a weather beaten little wood church out in the middle of nowhere.
He told about when pastors would walk into the pulpit and paint for him a picture of how beautiful the church is to God, that he would suddenly feel like he was in the most beautiful building in the world, even though the bottom of the front door was starting to rot out.
And yet, he went on to say, each one of these pastors would leave in two years or so, telling him and the congregation, that they just didn’t think there was much there.
I love how Peterson paints these two visions of the same church and it sets before me a challenge of how I’m going to look at Apple Grove and Yellowstone.
From the perspective of God and the Bible, I look at the two churches and I see the beautiful bride of Christ. Called to gather each week to praise God and unite together to play our part in expanding nothing less than the very Kingdom of God
When I look at it from an earthly perspective, I see two congregations that need some nails and some putty, and I see a community that needs more than that. I see two churches that aren’t going to shatter attendance records, nor put me on the cover of Outreach magazine as a pastor of one of the hundred fastest growing congregations in the United States. And from this perspective I begin to wonder, like Peterson’s pastors of long ago, if there is really much here and therefore much to stick around for.
Same church two visions. Which vision is going to guide our ministry today?
God bless, Dan
What is there to worry about? That was the question that entered my mind as I went into prayer this morning. The answer is – the things to worry about are infinite. Think about it: how many hundreds, nay thousands of things can I worry about in my personal life. I just had a physical and the doctor called back and said, “Everything is fine.” She said the word fine in a higher tone than she ended it with, which prepared me for the next word, “but…” One more thing to worry about.
There is my family life. My wife works hard and has important decisions to make each day at work and in her personal life. I have two boys in college, enough said! My dog has a tumor. My mother has Alzheimer’s and I see my dad looking so tired in trying to take care of her.
Luckily I can come to the office each morning for refuge, after all, there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to ministry!
Here is an article I wrote almost 10 years ago for “Leadership” Magazine. It speaks on the issue of being committed to the churches we are at. I hope you find it helpful.
THE DAY I BURNED MY GREEN CARD
One of my seminary professors was working as a missionary in Zimbabwe when civil war broke out. He and thousands of others fled the bloodshed. They were stopped at the border. The neighboring country refused to absorb any more refugees. Trapped between the border guard and encroaching rebel forces, not even the missionaries were allowed in. However, each missionary was given a green card. These cards would allow them entrance if the fighting reached the camp.
One day, while ministering to some refugees, my professor said that he understood their fears. He felt justified saying that—after all, he too had been displaced by the civil war, he too was frightened of the approaching rebels, he too feared a massacre. One older refugee looked at him and said, “You will not know how we feel until you burn your green card.”
Our professor’s voice grew quiet in the classroom and his head bowed in shame even years afterward. He prayed all night, he said, but he decided not to burn his card. As much as he loved the people and had become part of their community, he was not able to take the final step and commit to die with them.
When I began my ministry in Argyle, I found in Madison (about an hour away) St. Benedict’s which is a Catholic retreat center. Once each month I would drive there early in the morning, carrying with me only my Bible and my spiritual books. I would spend the day in reading, reflection, and prayer. By the time I got home at night I felt like I had just taken a couple of days off.
Over time, St. Benedict’s began opening up their center to more and more conferences and it became difficult to get a room on the day I needed it. So, once a month, after I got the kids off to school, I would sit in my favorite chair, turn on the coffee pot and the answering machine and have my holy retreat day at home.
I am still doing this once a month and I just want to encourage all of you to do it. I know we all lead busy lives and I’ll even admit after all these years, I still feel guilty when I tell someone I can’t meet on the day I plan on retreating. I also still wrestle with, especially in the morning, the feeling that I should get busy and “really do something.”
But I also know that at the end of each one of these days, I know that I just did one of the most important things in my month – time alone with God.
Give it a try – force yourself to do it. Fight the guilt and know that your relationship with God is your job. I have no doubt that you will find it just as refreshing and rewarding.
God bless, Dan
I was re-reading Steve Bierly’s book How to Thrive as a Small-Church Pastor. It’s a very good book and in a number of places he made me laugh. One of this humorous comments is was this:
Someone came up to him one day and said, “Pastor, I envy you. You must see evidence in people’s lives all the time that God is real!” He replied, “Well, yes, I do, but I also see things that could lead me to believe that God is really absent, or really not as active as we think he is, or really weird.”
I just got news yesterday that another business in Argyle is closing at the end of the month. In the past ten years we’ve lost our only industry, the clothing store, a handful of small businesses, and the bank has changed hands. Even one of the bars has closed – and you know you’re in trouble when that happens!
A comment I got from a member of our church when he heard the news was this, “Just one more empty building to look at each day.” He sounded so depressed.
I didn’t know what to say to him.
I wanted to compare the community to the church and say “Just as the church isn’t the building but the people, so too with Argyle, a building may be empty but the community remains,” but I don’t think the analogy works.
I was in the middle of my children’s sermon. I was speaking about how Jesus was revealed to the shepherds through the presence of an angel and the wise men through a star. All of a sudden one of the kids, five-year-old Ethan stated, “I’m a wise man.”
I remembered that he had played one of the wise men for our Christmas program, so I responded, “Yes, you were one of the wise men weren’t you.”
“I am a wise man,” Ethan corrected me.
The Christmas program was over and all the costumes placed back in the attic until next year, but one thing hadn’t been stored away – Ethan’s identity as a wise man.
I came across this true story told by Max DePree, it really speaks to rural and small town pastors as we sometimes struggle with the numbers game.
He writes: “My brother-in-law came off an Iowa farm and went to seminary when he was around 35. He pastored white Protestant churches until he moved to Bushwick, New York, where he pastored a black church for many years. Then he retired and moved to Grand Rapids where he bought a church building in the heart of the black community.
“The primary thrust of the church is the after-school program for the children of the neighborhood. Over 100 children show up. He recruits many people to teach sewing, accounting, remedial reading – whatever is needed. Then in the summer, he leads a day-long, six-week course concluding with graduation exercises. He’s doing all this – even the janitorial work – though he’s now in his 70s.