Thanksgiving Standing Stones 2013

I have a tradition at Thanksgiving to make a list of “standing stones”—the things that I look back on in the year and say “look at what God has done.”  Last year was full of big and joyful milestones, like being ordained.  This year is a bit more subdued, especially the last few months.  But still, I am thankful for the opportunities and gifts God has given me this year. 


Travelling to the UK for three weeks in January.  I got to experience the church and culture, which despite common stereotypes, caused me to say look what God is doing!





Performing my first baptisms of two young people that came to the United States as refugees.  Their faith is rich, deep, and growing as they have faced many difficulties in their short lives.  I am thankful that I got to be a small part of their stories.




I got to go on lots of short camping trips this Spring, Summer, and Fall.  It was wonderful to spend lots of time outside hiking, eating, reading, watching birds, and enjoying the wonders of God’s creation.  (If you’re curious, the photo is from May in Tahquamenon State Park Rivermouth Semi-Modern Campground.)


My pastoral residency at Church of the Servant, which ended at the end of July.  This one is definitely bittersweet—I really miss being a pastor there, but I am so overwhelmingly grateful for the two years I got to spend there learning, loving, preaching, visiting, baptizing, welcoming, and being loved.




The two weeks I got to spend in Colorado and Wyoming during October.  I spent time with Mary and Jared (my sister and brother-in-law), and my friend Allison and her family.  I saw a whole new part of God’s creation—an exhilarating part.  I even climbed mountains, sort of.  At least I went on a short hike above the treeline.  


Having a spiritual director who helps me each month to see what God is doing in my life.  I am thankful for her support and encouragement that God is working in me, even when I can’t see exactly what God is doing yet.


I am so thankful for the gift of friends who have listened to me, waited with me, encouraged me, prayed for me, discerned with me, and loved me.  I really would not have made it through these years without them.


“Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.”

-- Psalm 106:47

Photo of spiritual direction feet by Michelle Kroll, used under a Creative Commons License.  All other photos are my own.

Autumn Adventures

I’ve been pretty silent on the blog, but I’ve been having plenty of adventures in these autumn months.

Canning my mom’s famous salsa with four generations of my family (Grandpa, Mom, Cousin, Cousin’s son)

I spent a few hours exploring ArtPrize in downtown Grand Rapids.  This was one of my favorite pieces, called Cascade.

 

I headed west for a couple of weeks.  First, I spent time with my sister and brother-in-law in their new home in Colorado.

Mary and I drove up to Independence Pass, about 40 miles of mountain driving from their house.

It was peak color season for the Aspens and their vivid gold against the deep evergreens was spectacular.  For anyone wondering, late September or early October is an excellent time to visit—the weather and trees are beautiful and it is considered “shoulder season” so things aren’t so busy.

Mary is talented and made a video of our time together.  It features lots of footage of mountains, aspens, their canine companion, a gondola ride, and me awkwardly crossing a footbridge.  You can see it on her blog.

Next stop: Laramie, Wyoming.  This was a new state for me, and it was like no other place I’ve been to.

My reason for going to Wyoming: visiting my friend Allison, her husband, and infant son!  It was so good to see them!

Back to Michigan: an impromptu lunch at Crane’s Pie Pantry with my mom—apple dumpling and apple cider…yum!

An afternoon hike to Hoffmaster State Park

Lake Michigan from Hoffmaster’s Dune Overlook

Goodbye, Grand Rapids

Tonight is the last night I will sleep in my apartment in Grand Rapids.  For the foreseeable future, it is the last night I will stay in GR as a resident, and not someone’s guest.  This is a sad night for me.  This is the place I became an adult.  I have lived here for 3/4 of my adult life.  I went to Calvin College here.  I went to Calvin Theological Seminary here.  I had my first call at Church of the Servant here.  Living in Grand Rapids has shaped me in so many ways. 
People love to hate Grand Rapids; some call it “bland rapids.”  It is not as big or as cosmopolitan as New York or Chicago.  But Grand Rapids has its own charm.  There are lots of wonderful places and things to do in Grand Rapids.  Let me share a few of my favorites with you:

• Calvin College—where I learned how to be a thinking Christian mindful of the broader world
• Oakdale Park CRC—the church I attended while I was at Calvin
• Ice skating at Rosa Park circle
• Little Africa Ethiopian restaurant—a favorite place my friends would go when we were at Calvin
• $5 student tickets to the Grand Rapids Symphony
• Calvin Theological Seminary—where I did the formal education part of becoming a pastor
• Monroe Community Church—the church that loved me through seminary
• Kava House
• Art Prize—most interesting and fun thing that has started in GR recently
• The Green Well—a favorite with some of my seminary-era friends
• Peking Wok (which has very sadly closed)
• Eerdman’s Bookstore—they have a great selection of discount Eerdman's books
• Concerts at Calvin College—why didn’t I go to more when I was a student?  They have really interesting artists
• The Festival of Faith and Writing—so many wonderful readers and writers gathered together
• Church of the Servant—where I became a pastor
• Summer concerts at the Fredrik Meijer Gardens Amphitheater
• Bethany Refugee Services and the hundreds of refugees that are resettled here every year
• Baker Books and Icons Coffee—wonderful bookstore and coffee shop really close to my house
• Kentwood Public Library

And of course, the people are such an important part of Grand Rapids and my experience here.  Professors and friends from Calvin College.  Professors, staff, and students at Calvin Seminary, where I was enfolded into community.  Other wonderful friends that I made during my seminary days.  Colleagues and congregants at Church of the Servant.  I wouldn’t be who I am without all of you all.
I don’t know where I am going to land in the future, but I am thankful for the ways Grand Rapids has shaped me, and I am excited to take that with me to my unknown destination.  Thanks, Grand Rapids.  Its been great!  

Sunday Afternoon Prayer: Great is Thy Faithfulness

This weekend my family is celebrating my maternal grandfather’s 90th birthday.  My grandpa has been following Jesus for his whole life and would be the first to say that God has been faithful.  Life has not been without challenges, but God has been with Grandpa and used him to bless many people.

Loving and Faithful God,
For keeping a child of your covenant, baptized when he was an infant, safe in your hands,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For his parents who loved him and taught him about you,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For keeping Grandpa safe while he was deployed in the Navy,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For giving him a beautiful wife who loved him until her dying day,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For three children that he loved and supported (and is still very willing to help weed gardens or repair their homes),
Great is thy faithfulness.
For helping him to become a great teacher and principal,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For blessing him with grandchildren—both adopted and biological—that he loves deeply,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For saving his life from cancer,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For Grandpa and Grandma’s consistency at showing up at their grandkids events—church programs, piano recitals, sports games, etc.,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For the hours of volunteer service at Desert Christian High School, World Renew (formerly CRWRC) Disaster Response Services, Bibles for Mexico Thrift Stores, and other places,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For the love he shows his great-grandchildren through creating toys and babysitting,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For the love of and commitment to the church (there are few times I’ve heard him complain about it!) that he demonstrates to all of us,
Great is thy faithfulness.
For 90 years of following you,
Great is thy faithfulness.
Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
all I have needed thy hand hath provided.
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Personal photo of my grandpa and me at my ordination, January 2012.

Everything That Rises Must Converge

Two years ago this week, I started working at Church of the Servant.  I had just graduated from seminary a few months earlier and it was my first pastoral call.  I was nervous.  I wasn’t completely sure I would actually like being a pastor full-time.  And I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant that I was now a pastor.

Throughout seminary, I felt torn.  Before I went to seminary I taught English in China.  That had been an interest of mine since I was in high school.  I went to college with that in mind.  I was an English major and Chinese minor.  And I loved teaching English.  If I had chosen my life’s path I would have gotten an MA in TESOL (teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).  Instead, God called me to seminary, to the world to theology, Biblical languages and studies, church history, and pastoral care.  And there were lots of moments that I felt lost and out of place.  I would hear people talking outside of class and have no idea who or what they were talking about.  I grew to enjoy seminary and had wonderful internships.  But I still felt like I had two parts.  I had the English teacher part of me and the pastor/seminarian part of me.  And they didn’t go together.

Then I started at COS where I became the primary pastor for the Basic English Service.  As I prepared sermons, I needed the skills I learned teaching English of explaining abstract or difficult concepts with simple words.  I needed the skills I learned in seminary of how to read a Biblical text well and understand what it is saying.  I needed the skill of speaking slowly naturally and articulating words carefully.  I needed the systematic theology I learned to help explain what Christians believe.  I needed all of the cross-cultural skills that I had developed.  I needed to know how to structure a sermon effectively. 
  
In this call, the English teacher part of me and the pastor part of me started to come together.  The threads of my life started to get pulled together into one strand instead of being separate.  My spiritual director shared a phrase with me, the title of a Flannery O’Connor short story, “everything that rises must converge.”  This has been true for me in the last two years.  Everything that had risen in my life converged, and I am so grateful.
I am grateful for the opportunity to preach in this unusual environment and the ways that it has shaped my preaching.  Preaching regularly to a community has helped me form a rhythm of sermon preparation and become comfortable with preaching.  It is still always a little nerve-wracking somewhere in the process, but it also feels like this is what I do, because I am a pastor now.  And preaching in this unique service helped me to hone in on being clear and having one point in mind.  It helped me to think through what is most important in the given passage and leave lots of interesting but not essential information in the study.  It was a privilege to preach to many people that were hearing the story of the Bible for the first time, and I hope that I keep that in mind even if I am in a church where they are a lower percentage of the congregation.

I am grateful for the opportunity to work with the wonderful staff at COS.  They respected me as a colleague, encouraged me when things were difficult, modeled practices of Christian ministry, and loved me.  I learned a lot from spending time with them in the church kitchen and work room, listening in to conversations about the budget, handling pastoral situations, and picking curriculum for kids.  The high rate of turnover with residents is hard for the staff because they get attached to us and then two years are over and we leave, so I am especially thankful that they took the time to get to know me and allow me to learn so much.
I am grateful for the many cups of chai (both Nepalese and Sri Lankan versions) I drank in people’s homes.  I was welcomed into people’s homes with such gracious hospitality.  I don’t think I was ever told I couldn’t come, and it was a rare day when I wasn’t offered chai, or juice, or fruit.  Americans (and I am not an exception) are not that good at being hospitable to strangers.  I hope that I will be able to share some of the hospitality I received with others.  It was a privilege to be welcomed in to homes, to hear the stories of people in my congregation (most of whom were refugees), and walk alongside them in life.  I am thankful for their love and their prayers.
 
I am grateful for the strong volunteer base at COS.  Every program I worked with had strong volunteer leaders—people who dedicate hours of their time and energy to serving the church and community.  I’ll admit, sometimes this was frustrating and sometimes those leaders were frustrated with me.  But I am thankful for the relationships that formed and that we ended on a good note.  I feel at peace that even relationships that were sometimes tense ended well, and I am so thankful. 

I am grateful that many of my experiences, gifts, and interests have risen in my life and converged together in becoming a pastor.  In these two years, I became a pastor in an important way.  I am not wondering if I can do it anymore.  I am not trying to imagine how I would face pastoral situations the way I was two years ago.  Although my time being a pastor at COS has come to an end, and I don’t know where I will be called next, I am a pastor now.  I look forward to the (yet-to-be-determined) day when I start my next call, when I can take all I learned at COS and be a pastor in a new congregation. 

Everything that rises has converged.  Thanks be to God!   

Sunday Afternoon Prayers: For a Bittersweet Day

Today is bittersweet.  It was my last Sunday morning with my congregation.  I am so thankful for these two years, and it is so hard to say goodbye.  And so today I offer two prayers.  Both of these prayers originate in Africa and came to me in An African Prayer Book.

My prayer of thanksgiving, for the people I have had the opportunity to know from around the world and for the ways that they have shown that church can be like a big family.

Our Churches Are Like Big Families

Lord, we thank you that our churches are like big families.
Lord, let your spirit of reconciliation blow over all the earth.
Let Christians live in your love.
Lord, we praise you in Europe's cathedrals, in America's offerings, 
And in our African songs of praise.
Lord, we thank you that we have brothers and sisters in all the world.
Be with them that make peace.
Amen. (West Africa, pg. 65-66).

And my prayer for the people that I am leaving, that God will continue to be at work in and through them and will continue to hold them in the palm of his hand.

The Privilege Is Ours To Share In the Loving

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, the privilege is ours to share in the loving, healing, reconciling mission of your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, in this age and wherever we are.  Since without you we can do no good thing.
     May your Spirit make us wise;
     May your Spirit guide us;
     May your Spirit renew us;
     May your Spirit strengthen us;
So that we will be:
     Strong in faith,
     Discerning in proclamation,
     Courageous in witness,
     Persistent in good deeds.
This we ask through the name of the Father.
(Church of the Province of the West Indies, pg. 96-97)


Prayers from An African Prayerbook, selected and with an introduction by Desmond Tutu, Image/Doubleday books, 1995.
Photo by John Flanigan, http://www.flickr.com/photos/82369865@N00/5414528258/in/photolist-9fsSBu, used under a Creative Commons License

Bones and the CRC Synod

One of my favorite TV shows is Bones, a show about a FBI agent and forensic anthropologist who team up to solve murders.  The FBI agent, Seeley Booth, is a tough guy with an instinct for reading people.  He is a practicing Catholic who believes there is more to life than what we can see.  The forensic anthropologist, Temperance Brennan aka “Bones,” is a committed scientist.  She thinks with her head through the scientific process and believes only in what can be proved scientifically. 

These two opposites have to learn to work together.  In the first seasons, they fight a lot.  As time goes on, they learn to appreciate each other’s strengths.  Brennan can tell things from the bones of murder victims that Booth would never be able to.  Booth can tell when a suspect is lying and pick up subtle social interactions.  Together they make a great team.  After a few seasons, they start to rub off on each other.  Booth starts to appreciate what science can tell them about the murder.  Brennan starts to become better at people interactions.  Getting to that point is not without its conflicts, though.  Booth and Brennan fight and hurt each other, again and again.  But they stick to it; they forgive each other and keep working at it.

This week is the Christian Reformed Church’s Synod, our highest governing body.  They have covered many topics this week: homosexuality, capital punishment, the role of deacons, ethnic diversity in leadership, and how to live with our decisions on women in office.  These are big issues that we do not all agree on.  As I watched the discussion that related to the ordination of women, I was struck with how thoughtful most of the dialogue was.  The issue at hand this year is what classis (regional group of churches) two churches who do not believe in women in office should belong to.  Our official denominational position is that you can read scripture with a good Reformed hermeneutic and come to two valid interpretations of the Bible—that women either can be ordained or should not be ordained.  This sounds like a wonderful compromise, but it is often difficult to live out, for people who hold both positions.

Three years ago, these two churches asked synod to move from their classes in Michigan, both of whom seat women as delegates to their classis meeting, to a classis in Minnesota/South Dakota that does not seat women as delegates.  At that time, synod said no for a variety of reasons.  This year, they came back with a new overture (proposal) to create a new classis in Michigan for churches who do not believe in women in office.  Synod denied their request to create a new classis but did permit them to move to the other existing classis.  

The overwhelming majority of speakers who spoke were most concerned with how we can live together despite our differences.  These churches don’t want to leave the denomination, and I am thankful for their commitment, even though I disagree with their interpretation of scripture.  At the same time, I don’t want to have to leave the denomination because no church will call me, because I love the CRC, too.  We need each other, like Booth and Brennan.  Our differences can make us stronger.  We don’t all have the same gifts.  And it is hard to work together.  Delegate Rev. Doug Bouws said it well: “Doing church together is a whole lot harder than doing church by yourself.”  We fight.  It is hard.  But we need to find unity in Christ and forgive one another.  I also really appreciated the comments of Rev. Timothy Howerzyl of Classis Zeeland, which I know has struggled hard with this issue.  He said, “I hope there are not churches thinking about leaving our classis…In our classis we have a great diversity of opinions, but we’ve forged a careful policy of holding together.”

I pray for our denomination, that we would continue to work together for unity in our diversity.  I pray that we will continue to work together, even when we don’t agree with one another on this, or any number of other issues.  I pray that we will offer grace and forgiveness to each other, even on those days when it is hard and we just want to leave.  I pray that we will stick it out and do church together, even when it is the harder thing to do.

Photo from amazon.com

We Will, God Helping Us

I just came home from a vacation to the U.P. (Michigan’s Upper Penninsula).  One of my best friends got married in St. Ignace (just across the bridge) this weekend.  We had all of the usual wedding “stuff”—pretty dresses, special hair, a rehearsal dinner, wedding party photos, a ceremony, reception dinner, cake cutting, and dancing. 

The happy couple!

The thing that really stands out to me about this weekend is community.  Liz and I are part of a group of friends that she also asked to be in the wedding.  We all lived in Grand Rapids for a while, but many have moved away—Chicago, Laramie, St. Ignace.  We miss spending our Saturday evenings watching TV and having deep discussions with each other (yes, those two things can happen simultaneously, but are not necessarily related).  We miss having holiday parties together and celebrating birthdays (birthday dinner before a Good Friday service and birthday cake after, yes we did that once).  We miss laughing and crying as we did life together.  We have walked together through the rigors of grad school and ordination, finding and starting new jobs, and relationships progressing from dating to marriage to pregnancy. 

This weekend was a beautiful reunion for us.  Four of us drove up north together and then we stayed in a hotel suite together.  We watched parts of random movies on cable, explored St. Ignace, celebrated the coming children, and laughed together.  It was a wonderful continuation and renewal of our friendship and the community that has meant so much to us.  

     

Friends with the Mackinaw Bridge!  (I'm behind the camera)

This community is important for my own life in many ways.  And it is also important for the health of the new marriage that we witnessed and celebrated.  Even though our culture often says that marriage is all about two people, marriage doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  Marriages need community, too.

The groom had a group of friends and family gathered, too, along with many people from the churches that he serves.  Together, I hope all of these communities take seriously the promises we made as part of the wedding:

“Families, friends,

and all those gathered here

with Jeremy and Liz,

will you support and care for them,

sustain and pray for them

in times of trouble,

give thanks with them

in times of joy,

honor the bonds of their covenant,

and affirm the love of God

reflected in their life together?”

We promised “we will.”  We will, God helping us, live out these promises.  We will be a community that will support this couple in their marriage.

As their symbol of unity, we celebrated communion together.  This is common in Lutheran weddings (Jeremy’s Lutheran).  It was a beautiful act of worship to celebrate how Christ brings us together in love.  We are united with Christ in baptism.  And through Christ, we are united to each other.  Some are united in matrimony, and we are all united in the Church.  This unity was the joy we celebrated this weekend in a wedding ceremony and late night chats.

The St. Ignace lighthouse outside the reception site

Photos from several friends, shared on Facebook, except for the final photo which is a personal photo, all May 2013.