This post coming from my phone and typed in a church pew.

Partnering is a non starter for church leaders now. There are too many talented people in our communities doing powerful work with no reference to our churches for us to just stay over here and watch.

We need to meet them and learn from them. Artists. Teachers. Restauranteurs. Volunteers. There is nothing stopping us from getting curious about the work they’re doing and then telling others what we notice.

Maybe they’ll even invite us to help.

The difficult thing you’re trying to do won’t always be difficult, but don’t mistake a present lessening up of the difficulty as progress indicating that it’s going to be easier from now on. Meaningful work is hard, and not just for a little while.

I learned this as a parent of a toddler. Time after time I collapsed into the arms of relief when my daughter reached some milestone–say, toilet training–as if the difficult work of getting to that milestone was now done. But it’s not. It’s just different now. You’ve visited the promised land. You just don’t live there yet.

I’m constantly doing battle with my expectations for the difficult things I’m working on. “We’re not out of the woods yet” is going to be my new mantra.

Besides, the woods aren’t so bad, right?

 

 

Seven very brief responses to Carey Neiwhof’s post, “7 Reasons You Should Speak Without Notes.”

[Note: I’m taking “speaking” in his context to be “preaching” in mine, and what he calls “notes” I’m calling a “manuscript.”

Reason 1: Your favorite communicators don’t use notes

My favorite communicators are preachers, and almost all of them use manuscripts.

Reason 2: You seem far more sincere and authentic when you don’t use notes

The appearance of sincerity and authenticity is not the goal. Speaking truth is. And a manuscript well-prepared compromises zero sincerity or authenticity.

Reason 3: You will be far more natural

The appearance of naturalness(?) is not the goal. Speaking truth is. Few things are more painful than listening to a speaker or preacher who is trying to be natural. 

Reason 4: You can make eye contact

If it’s prepared properly (I use 18 point font; .5 inch margins at the top and sides, 2 inches on the bottom; no paragraph longer than three sentences), you can make lots of eye contact with a manuscript.

Reason 5: You will read the room better

A manuscript delivered from a pulpit is a great vehicle for reading a room. As long as you’re preaching and not reciting, reading the room is not a problem. 

Reason 6: You’ll own your material more deeply

Ownership of the material does not depend on the presence or absence of notes, but on how much work you’ve done to prepare. Drafting a manuscript creates deep grooves of ownership for me. 

Reason 7: You’ll be more vulnerable

I have shed tears on manuscripts. Also, vulnerability seems a slippery goal for a preacher to me. Don’t run from it. But maybe don’t aim for it?

 

 

 

My new church puts quotes on the front of the worship bulletins each Sunday, and since I’m preaching this Sunday I was asked if I’d like to supply one. As exegesis would have it, I had just wrapped up a little jaunt through some Biblical commentaries on the week’s sermon text when the request came, so I was ready with this:

“Could it be that our own abundance has been given to us in an effort to lead us to bear fruit, to share those resources, to share of ourselves?”

That’s from Justo Gonzalez’s terrific Luke Commentary in the “Belief, A Theological Commentary on The Bible” series published by Westminster John Knox Press. 

It’s not the best quote I could have used, either. I kinda chickened out.

This week’s lection includes the parable of the barren fig tree from Luke 13. If you’re not familiar, it’s a story Jesus tells about the owner of a vineyard who has a fig tree growing there and who, after three years, is fed up with its lack of fruit. He instructs his gardener to cut it down. It’s taking from the soil and not producing anything.

But the gardener pleads with the owner to give him one more year to care for the tree, dig around it, throw some manure on it, and then, if its still fruitless, the owner can cut it down. Tree saved. For a year at least.

Gonzalez reads this as a story about privilege (his commentary was published in 2011, before “privilege” was the ascendant topic du jour among social commentators and academics). He points out that the barren fig tree is privileged with extra resources and attention not because it earned those things but because it requires them.

“The tree that has produced no fruit receives extra attention and added fertilizer, not because it is so good, but rather because it is so poor. The fig tree is receiving special care because it has yet to give the fruit it was meant to bear.”

Privilege=an accommodation given to those who would flounder without it.

His analysis concludes with this whopper, which, had I more courage, I would have put on the front of this week’s bulletin:

“Could it be that the reason why some of us have been given all these advantages is that otherwise we would have great difficulty bearing fruit? Could it be that all these things of which we so pride ourselves are really just so much manure, piled on us because otherwise we would be such lousy fruit trees?”

I’m going to let that one sting me for awhile.

Daughter will accompany me to the office today while her mom knocks out a Pediatric Advanced Life Support Course. She’s used to this gig. She knows how to entertain herself in an empty office while her dad is in meetings down the hall. Only now the meeting is upstairs.

On Sunday she had free reign of the place for about an hour and did not fail to take advantage. Her preferred haunt? The massive, empty second floor chapel with the labyrinth painted on the floor and the window overlooking shoppers on Michigan Avenue. It’s where she wants to spend this morning, too.

My soul practically recoils left alone in cavernous spaces like that. Hers expands to fill them.

College students make great youth ministry volunteers.

College students are terrible youth ministry volunteers.

College students’ proximity in age to high school youth allows them to relate in ways older adults can’t.

College students’ proximity in age to high school youth renders their judgment and boundaries weak and makes them a liability.

Youth ministry is a terrific vehicle for developing the leadership capabilities of college students who may be discerning vocations in ministry.

Youth ministry is a vehicle for ministry with youth. College students need to have their own thing.

Okay, so I’ve never utilized youth ministry infrastructure to recruit and train college-aged young adults. I’ve worked with some as leaders, and those experiences have mostly been good. But I’ve never built a collegiate arm of a youth ministry program, even though I’ve always kind of wanted to.

Why would this not be a net asset?

I’m trying not to blow my budget on Chicago restaurants these first few weeks I’m living here. Heading home through the dark and cold, those warm booths and starchy entrees call to me much more loudly than than the empty (yet immeasurably comfortable) apartment waiting for me at the end of the train line. It gently beckons.

It’s not that I don’t like to cook. I love to plan and prepare meals. Only, I’ve grown very accustomed to that as a responsibility, something two other people depend on for their evening meal. They’re not here yet, so it’s just me, and the feeling of responsibility to cook something tasty and healthy is much, much diminished.

So I cooked everything on Monday and have been eating leftovers all week. That totally works.

Coming home to food that you know is already prepared is much more inviting than coming home to ingredients you have yet to prepare and cook.

I wonder in what other ways this is true, that doing work ahead of time makes better decisions easier to make.