Maybe you can go home again

When the Town & Country Commission decided to hold their fall meeting this year in Sugar Grove, PA, just 15 minutes from my hometown of Warren, I jumped at the chance to tag along. I get back home so infrequently anymore, and a free trip there was too good to pass up.

The anticipation was building as we drove down from the airport - it's been a year since I was last in Warren. I was going to stay at my sister's house, and it would be nice to see her, but because the meetings would be held in Sugar Grove, I'd also be able to see several cousins there who still live on the land they grew up on.

I had forgotten about the fall colors, and wouldn't have dreamed what strong feelings they would evoke in me. Reflecting on it, I realized it's probably been almost 30 years since I was last in Warren at the height of the autumn brilliance. Turn after turn of the road revealed heartbreakingly beautiful reds, oranges, yellows, greens and browns of deciduous splendor.
I was desperate to stop and capture it on film, but we needed to keep moving, to get to our destination, and I didn't want to scare the passengers in my car with my drive-and-click method of photography (which yields admittedly questionable results). :)

The next unexpected joy was waiting for me at the church. The pastor, Brian, had told me that my carpenter-contractor cousin Bob was working on a construction project in back of the church. This church I have always thought of as a sleepy country church is almost doubling the size of their building! We arrived in time for me to talk with him for a while and catch up a bit, then we were off to his big brother's buffalo farm.

I'd been there last year at the reunion - I knew the buffalo would be cool. But when my cousin John started telling us all about the animals, from breeding to feeding to disease prevention to behavior patterns, and more, I was tremendously impressed with how knowledgeable he is. Things like this: they buy bugs, actually import specialized insects that prey on the kind of flies that plague the buffalo, and can cause eye disease. And how buffalo are so intelligent, that, unlike cattle, they don't hurt themselves by overeating.

I was glad that we'd arrived just in time for me to see cousin Barb and cousin-in-law Sherry, as well!

The whole weekend, although a bit crazy busy, was wonderful! We were able to tour two other local businesses, including a lumber mill (with the biggest, scariest saw I ever wish to see!), and a diesel engine plant where they make two products - a big engine and a bigger engine! (Now who would have thought assembly line work could be so fascinating!??).

Best of all, of course, was the people. Our commission invited four area pastors and their spouses out to a nice dinner on Friday, and all four pastors are friends of mine. It was very special to spend a bit of quality time with them, and hear how their ministries are going.

The reason the commission holds one meeting a year at a town & country church is two-fold: to learn about the individual churches, and to encourage the pastors and congregations. We always pick locations where there will be a cluster of several T&C churches. And while I think we did encourage the pastors by our interest in them and our visit, there's no question in my mind that I was on the receiving end of some big time encouragement by being there.

All of my trip photos are here (as well as explanations as to what they are), but below are several of my favorites from the weekend. Enjoy!

What is the Key? The RENEWED MIND!!!

Okay, it was really funny (in a horrifying way) the first time I saw this video.




Oh, man, but it was funnier still when I saw what The Soup had to say about it.




Boy, my worship team almost never has matching spangly dresses and choreographed dance moves, including (gasp) the moon walk. (Of course, since I'm the only one there not sitting or holding an instrument, I guess it would have been up to me...)

Repeat Witness

So, in February, I wrote about being a witness. It's happening again, right now. I'm in the same place, even, with some of the same people. We're talking about who we are as Christians, who we are as the Covenant, who we want to be as the Covenant, what challenges we will face in coming years, what responsibilities we have to God, to our churches, to our pastors, to our communities, our conferences, our country, the world.

Just a small conversation...

The setting is interesting. We're at the University of St Mary's of the Lake in Mundelein. It's the same place we held the meeting where we talked about being intentional about ethnic diversity. It's the same place where we held a meeting to look at the implications of our numeric growth on our current structures. Not to mention countless other retreats and meetings we've had here.

This is becoming a very meaningful place for the ECC. Who would have thought that a Catholic seminary / retreat center would be so instrumental in the direction of our church?

OMG My pastor said SUCK!!!!!!

My pastor said suck. In front of everyone. From the pulpit. During the sermon. Ohmigoo-oosh!

Here's a more-or-less quote: "How do we stay pure to relationships even when things suck?" It took my enough by surprise that I had to write it down in my notebook. [p.s. disclaimer at end]

Here's the thing. She gave a fabulous sermon (no surprise there, she pretty much always does). To put that quote in context, she was preaching on faithfulness, in a series on the fruit of the spirit. And she used this great term to describe our culture: A Culture of Impermanence (that's from the book Life on the Vine by Philip Kenneson). It's all about how everything is disposable, planned obsolescence, undependable, untrustworthy... and that extends to our relationships.

We are amazed when we hear about marriages lasting 20, 30, 40, 50 years. The idea of growing old together is a thing of the past. Therefore, what makes us value those relationships enough to honor them, to honor the vows we take that are meant to give those relationships a strong base? Being bound to anything (house, job, possession, person) is something our culture resists. So how do we stay pure to relationships even when things suck?

Oh. There's that word again. It reminded me of that famous Tony Campolo quote: "I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."

I leaned over to our sound guy and whispered, "pastor said suck!" He kinda cracked up and nodded.

Here's the thing. Our language, our vocabulary is also one of those victims of the culture of impermanence. When I was young, that word in particular was pretty nasty. It came about, of course, as a sexual reference.

I think using suck as a vulgarity started gaining popularity in the Sixties, and by the Seventies, was hugely widespread. But it was not something you said in front of parents, teachers, youth group friends. It was not something I said - it was dirty.

Okay, I'd better make a DISCLAIMER here. I've used it since. Sometimes to express myself, sometimes to shock people or make them laugh. But I have used it, and it doesn't seem as dirty as it used to when I was young. But it still feels like I'm saying a bad word.

Here's one result of my pastor saying suck from the pulpit. I REMEMBERED HER SERMON. Yes, I had to go back into my notes to get a few more details about it, but the point is, I remembered what she said.

Random Act of Kindness

I love my church. I love that we have air conditioning. I love singing in my church's worship band. But I don't love that while we're on stage, we're under the fry lights, out of range of the AC, and I end up sweating like crazy.

Today's sermon was on Kindness (already done Love, Joy Peace, Patience, the rest are yet to come). Good sermon, talked about the difference between Being Nice and Showing Kindness. At one point Pastor was talking about the idea of random acts of kindness that was made popular a number of years ago.

As I sat in the back pew, listening to her speak, someone tapped my shoulder. It was a guy (who'd been sitting in the comfy chairs in the way back) with a wet paper towel for me to put on my neck. He'd seen me fanning myself, then twisting up my hair to get it off my neck, and decided to do a li'l random act of kindness right then and there.

Nice. Kind. :)

A sign of blessing

Last week we were in Plymouth Covenant Church, outside Minneapolis, for an assessment center. Not for church planters - well, there actually was one for them going on in the other rooms - but ours was for revitalization pastors.

It was an exciting time, partly because of what this will mean for lots of our churches, but also because it marked the culmination of a dream that has been several years in the making. While our processes and tools still need plenty of work, the fact is that we held an assessment, put two candidates through the paces, and were able to come up with an end result. In November, we'll be ready to try it with five candidates.

Now lately there's been a lot of talk about what the ECC is going to look like in the year 2020. And for a number of years, we've been bringing out the charts that show how the ECC has grown since 1993, mainly due to church planting - that's when the big CP initiative started.

So I can't wait till 2020 to be able to say, "look where the ECC is, look at these charts, and see how we've grown and become stronger and healthier because of revitalization!" And we were there at the very beginning!

On Friday evening during break, someone happened to look outside and exclaimed, "Wow! Look at this rainbow!"

It was a complete arc, from one edge of the horizon to the other, and impossible for me to capture entirely in one photograph. We still had hours of work ahead of us, but everyone stayed outside for long minutes gaping at the beauty of this sign in the sky.

Now, I know that a rainbow occurs when there is the right amount of moisture in the atmosphere at the same time that the sun is shining.

But this seemed more than that. This seemed like a sign of blessing for us that in this whole business of revitalization, there would be rain, but it would be followed by the rainbow.

Part of a Family

During this past week of Midwinter, I realized something. At some point in the week, I connected with people from every decade and every phase of my life.

• Becky and John E have known me since I was a year old, and Karen H was my pastor's wife at our church in the mid sixties. (Of course, I could also name my own sister, who attended Midwinter, and whom I've known since, well...)
  
• I met Keith S, Bob A, Pete H, Bruce L, Rick M all at Camp Mission Meadows in my early teens in the seventies. I would have been at Scandia Cov at the time.
  
• I met Eric Sparrman, Dave G, Dave K and Lana H at North Park in the late seventies. I went first to North Park Cov, then Iglesia del Pacto de Albany Park.
  
• Baxter and Margie S let me live in their home in Medellin, Colombia in 80-81. I also met Carol B that year (in Ecuador), and Ray D, who was head of World Mission at the time. In Colombia, I mostly attended house services.
  
• I had classes with Noel C, and knew who Pat G was at North Park in the early eighties. Back to IdP Albany Park.
• Bob S, Dave and Laurel G, Eric H, Steve and Mary Jane D are all friends made at Grace Covenant in the early nineties. Stuart M and Deb G were my two pastors during the nineties.
• The list of people met since 2000 is simply too long to name - people both at Grace and through work, and who were all at Midwinter.
  

This list is just people I know; if I expanded the list to include people who knew Mom and Dad, or siblings, it would be huge. (And I run into people who knew my sisblings from their camper days or working stints at Mission Meadows, or those who know my siblings from the churches they've attended, or from their time at North Park.)
Family. Awesome... gives me a warm feeling inside.