NEXT Retrospect: Charlotte

The fourth NEXT Church national gathering is next week in Minneapolis. I’ve been to each of these gatherings so far, and I’ve come away each time with lots to think about and experiment with. This week we’ll look back at the first three NEXT gatherings and suggest things I’m looking forward to at this year’s gathering.

The NEXT experience in Charlotte was rich in worship (led by Theresa Cho and her merry band). It was also the first national gathering run by a National Director, the incomparable Jessica Tate. Top to bottom, Charlotte was as good as it gets.

My two posts about the gathering are here and here.

A year on, the thing from the Charlotte gathering that has made the most difference in my work is the worship stuff. Ashley Goff’s plea for a more improvisational sensibility in preaching in liturgy has been in my mind every time I’ve preached in the past year. I tried her “Yes! Let’s!” benediction the very first chance I got. Also, Casey Wait Fitzgerald’s performance of Biblical story telling encouraged me to bring something of a Godly Play feel to Scripture reading in worship and in my work with students, and I put that to work right away.

Pleas for creativity, risk-taking, and even failure were abundant in Charlotte, and I expect that trajectory to continue next week. NEXT has always succeeded at putting those sensibilities on display though, and not just dangling them as ideals that most people (and churches) can’t reach. When people like Aisha Brooks Lytle and Joe Clifford describe the things they’re trying, you come away with concrete ideas. It’s constructive.

What I’m most looking for in Minneapolis is the development of a school of leadership within NEXT. I’m eager to hear distilled some broadly agreed upon ideals and practices among people leading churches in a NEXT-y way. Chad Andrew Herring, I’m looking at you.

The Gospel Is Not At Stake. It’s Just Not.

I’ll finish up my NEXT Retrospect series tomorrow, because today I want to say something about the World Vision controversy.

If you haven’t been following, World Vision announced earlier this week that it would lift its ban on hiring Christians in legal same gender marriages. Supporters reacted swiftly and vigorously, accusing World Vision of everything from harming children to not believing the Bible to trivializing the cross. Many supporters either threatened to pull child sponsorships directly or speculated that lots of people would (in one of those predictions meant to bring about the thing it predicts).

Amid that wash of evangelical furor, bloggers like Rachel Held Evans defended World Vision and gaped at the pitch of its now disillusioned supporters. Evans even urged people to sponsor a child through World Vision who never had before.

Now World Vision has reversed course and asked for its supporters forgiveness for what it is calling a mistake.

In a statement that sounds like it was written at gunpoint, World Vision President Richard Stearns said

“What we are affirming today is there are certain beliefs that are so core to our Trinitarian faith that we must take a strong stand on those beliefs. We cannot defer to a small minority of churches and denominations that have taken a different position.”

Clearly, threatening to abandon children in poverty works. An international evangelical aid organization cannot hope to survive if the John Pipers and Franklin Grahams of the world are against it. In a culture that disdains clerical authority, these men function as the closest thing evangelicalism has to a pope, and their public denunciations are utterly damning. They know that.

But they’re wrong. They’re not just wrong in their threats and their contempt for gay people, but they’re wrong in their belief that the gospel is at stake in these disputes over sexuality.

It’s not.

It’s just not.

I’ve written about the gospel here, and what I want to say about it now is that it is both the good news about God’s salvation for all of creation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the good news of liberty for captives and sight for the blind that Jesus himself preached and called “gospel.” Neither of those things are threatened by a posture of acceptance towards same gender romantic relationships.

Is something critical at stake here? Yes. But not the gospel.

Evangelical leaders have chained their understanding of the good news of salvation to an edifice of Biblical literalism. That’s what is at stake in the church’s understanding of same gender affections–the fervent belief that, unless you uncritically import patriarchal, idolatry-fearing, and misogynistic Biblical prohibitions against same-gender sex into a contemporary setting full of committed, faithful same gender romantic relationships, you have no part in Jesus. What’s at stake is a posture that makes the whole of our “Trinitarian faith” hinge upon a context-free interpretation of seven passages of scripture.

Progressives make the same mistake when we claim that the gospel is at stake unless the church unconditionally accept homosexuality. That’s because both evangelicals and progressives have far less power than we think to put the gospel at stake. The gospel is gospel: good news– news. An announcement–that the oppressed are delivered, the last are first, the poor are made rich, the kingdom of God has come near, the dividing lines between Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free have all been overcome in God’s triumph of reconciliation over sin and death. That good news is not at stake in disagreements over homosexuality.

The church’s witness to the gospel is at stake, for sure. And here evangelical leaders have just done serious harm to the church’s witness to the gospel, and not just because they forcibly stomped down the humanity of gay people and held hungry children at gunpoint. But also because, more than the good news of little children being welcome and outcasts brought back in and the sick made well, these leaders have witnessed to the efficacy of bullying and financial threats to get what you want. That’s a witness to something, but it ain’t the gospel.

In reversing its decision, World Vision is equating truth and goodness with the volume of the majority. That, too, is a witness, although, again, not to the gospel.

NEXT Retrospect: Dallas

I posted two reflections on the 2012 Dallas gathering here and here. They were heavy on prototypes and process modalities.

A prototype is a rough-and-ready incarnation of an idea. It’s not fine-tuned. It’s still riddled with bugs. It’s a learning tool, a beta test. The prototype sensibility seems to me to have very rapidly lodged itself into our cultural consciousness, mostly through our experience with digital technology. Every new technology is a beta, and the frequency of updates and bug fixes is the most critical factor in its success. It’s the opposite of healthcare.gov. It’s local, small-scale, and, often, by invitation only (by the way, I have four invites left for the private beta of the Aviate launcher for Android. Let me know in the comments if you want one).

NEXT 2012 lifted up a bunch of prototypes, mostly experimental Christian communities in mid-Kentucky. But a prototype doesn’t have to be a new community. It can be a new expression of Christian education in a particular church. Or an Executive Presbyter job description. Or a Synod-wide Youth Ministry Coaching Program cohort, like the one I’m agitating for in my synod. It can be a sermon. The critical components are 1) invitation and 2) intentional learning.

NEXT is itself a prototype.

I’ll be looking for examples of prototypes in Minneapolis, for sure.

NEXT Retrospect: Indianapolis

[Also, as I’ve said before, I love Chad Andrew Herring, and he’s one of the event’s organizers]

The inaugural gathering was held at Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis in 2011. Its timing coincided with the publication of a white paper by a group of pastors that later came to be called The Fellowship of Presbyterians and that, within a year, had launched an alternative Presbyterian denomination. Many assumed that NEXT was a reaction to those developments. It wasn’t, but it may as well have been.

I wrote three posts related to the 2011 gathering. A basic summary, a testy defense, and throwdown with Landon (there was also this comparison of NEXT with The Fellowship) There was a great deal of hand-wringing at the lack of racial, gender, and officer diversity on display, and some participants criticized NEXT’s ambitions as too “like-minded.” I wrote in response:

…I don’t think any association of individuals who are trying to change an institution can get very far with an unlimited plurality of opinion. It just won’t work. I’m no slave to the mantra of efficiency, but conversations like NEXT and the Fellowship PC(USA) are after some kind of concrete change. That requires a modicum of like-mindedness.

The concern for diversity has been front and center at the three subsequent NEXT gatherings, and I expect nothing less in Minneapolis. The diversity of participants in this movement is one of its great strengths, even as it remains a constant need.

The 2011 event broadcast NEXT’s intended direction in Tom Are’s opening remarks, when he asked, “Why don’t Presbyterians build hospitals anymore?” Speakers then shared insights gleaned from community organizing and entrepreneurship to suggest that institution building need not simply be a chapter in the denomination’s past. This trajectory has characterized NEXT from day one: movement toward the building of structures, processes, and relationships that are constructive. From alternative ordination tracks to administrative commissions, NEXT has largely been about sharing ways of building infrastructure for a church fit for the 21st century.

I’m eager to see how the fourth gathering takes this trajectory forward. The workshop schedule features conversations about leadership, which is where you’ll find me.

Were you in Indianapolis in 2011? What do you remember about it?

Are you going next week? What are you anticipating?

Monday Morning Quarterback

Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a recurring post that examines personal and pastoral events of Sunday.

5:00. Alarm. Yeah, that’s not happening.

5:30. Awakened by a lack of preparedness and a persistent fear of failure.

5:58. Facebook text from a pastor friend on the east coast:

didn’t know who else to send this to… but this morning’s thought: Dear Parishioner, Sometimes, it seems that I don’t want you to come into my office. And that’s true. But it’s not because I don’t like you or I don’t want to talk to you. It’s because I just farted. TRUTH. You can put that on your blog… but it didn’t come from me. Ha. have a great Sunday.

No worries, Steve VerBuelen of First Presbyterian Church in Stinkytown. Your secret is safe with me.

6:12. Double batch of granola going into the oven.

6:48. Preparing the Lenten Group, which I’ve yet to lead or even attend. Decide for style over substance; PowerPoint it is.

6:55. PowerPoint and this scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Ahh, there’s some substance.

7:37. Granola turned out well.

8:11. Arrive at church, go straight for sanctuary and set up laptop with announcement slides.

8:20. Proceed to Sunday School classroom. College student is presenting today about her trip to Israel and Palestine, and I need to make sure our newly-donated HDTV is ready to receive her computer. She told me yesterday her computer had an HDMI port, so we’re good. I. Got. This.

8:37. Head of Staff proposes a video clip at the end of her sermon. Go to sanctuary laptop, download the video, check the sound, and cue it up (it’s this thing about wolves, and we’ve cued it to begin at some serious howling) Some days it just seems too easy.

8:45. College student arrives with her mom and sister, ready to set up her presentation. I try not to gape as she unsuccessfully pokes the HDMI cable at the side of her computer. No, no, no . . .

8:46. There is no HDMI port, so we’ll have to use the projector. Good thing I have one of those Apple projector adapter things in my office.

8:48. Disassembling projector in the sanctuary to relocate to Sunday School classroom.

8:51. Return to classroom with projector and adapter. It’s already half full. Performance anxiety.

8:52. Adapter doesn’t fit.

8:53. Class now troubleshooting the problem. “Shut it down,” I say. Tell the college student, “You’re the most interesting thing in the room. Let’s go with that.”

9:24. College student’s presentation is soaring to a packed room without the projection system, and I feel like a proper dummy for stressing so much about it.

9:58. Time for worship to start. No acolyte to be seen, so I’m lighting the candle.

10:03. Daughter and her playmate are slow dancing the Prelude.

10:12. Children’s Time. Re-enacting the miracle of the coin in the fish’s mouth by sending kids into the congregation to find the fish I’ve planted on a worshiper. They race back to the chancel with it, and I act shocked to discover–what’s this?!–a coin inside! They marvel.

10:29. Notice the laptop has gone to sleep at the start of sermon. Note: I’ll need to wake it up a minute before the cue for the clip, because I’ll need to enter the password. No problem.

10:38. Cue approaching. Cooly walk to laptop and hit space bar to wake it up. Only, it wasn’t really asleep. Suddenly, the sound of howling wolves fills the sanctuary. Space bar! Space bar! Space bar!

10:39. Stand at the laptop like a post throughout the clip.

10:53. Fight the urge to respond to the Benediction by howling like a wolf.

11:11. Greeting people on the patio after worship. There’s a young man here today with a huge backpack strapped to him and a guitar. Never seen him before. Ask him where he’s coming from and he says, “Here.” Oh, okay. I just thought, you know, because of the backpack . . . hey, have some coffee.”

11:48. Lenten group is happening. Throwing my theological convictions into the gears of the lesson. Baffled looks.

11:56. Re-enacting Monty Python clip is a good, good move.

12:58. Home. Wife is down with a migraine.

1:28. Wife and Daughter enjoying Daughter’s favorite past time: watching Cupcake Wars.

1:33. Making Monday’s lunch for Wife and me: curried chickpea salad.

2:00. Decide to go for a run. Last run felt great, and I’ve got a bright orange running shirt I’m dying to show off, so I’m looking forward to this.

2:12. Run not going well. Every stride a struggle. The shirt looks good though.

2:30. Phone rings as I’m finishing run. It’s Wife. She needs me to get home and take Daughter somewhere. Migraine raging.

3:12. Daughter and I walking to Fat Burger for sodas.

3:17. Good choice at Fat Burger: sparkling water instead of soda. Bad choice at Fat Burger: chicken strips and fries.

3:59. Return home, and Wife’s not well at all. Decide to take Daughter with me to youth group. Daughter is pumped.

4:12. Driving to youth group, Daughter coaching me on what to do with out-of-control Jr. High kids. Her strategies mostly involve stomping the floor and turning off the lights.

4:48. Pictionary. Daughter squealing with delight at all the laughing going on, though she has no idea what the game is about.

5:22. We’re a small group today (two students and three adults), so Daughter is participating in the discussion of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Prompt: “what tempts you?” Daughter shouts, “Sugar!”

5:24. Daughter frantically telling the group about a time when she spoon fed herself brown sugar while I was outside and how she was afraid she would get caught but happy that she never did. When I point out to her that now I know because she’s just told me, she hangs her head. Parent fail.

5:41. Improv game with students about resisting temptation. Why do these scenarios all involve Gossip Girl?

6:12. Running Daughter home before high school youth group. Wife’s head is a bit better, so I can leave with a clear conscience.

7:10. After nobody brought food to last week’s youth group, this week has two bags of chips, two dips, and a plate of cookies.

7:12. Student harassing me to connect the Chromecast so he can play a video from his phone. Nope.

7:15. Student not giving up on the Chromecast. Throwing things at me.

7:18. Student finally gives up and plays video on his phone’s screen. It’s the #McConnneling thing. Yeah, I should have let him Chromecast that.

7:27. Soul Pancake discussion prompt: How Do You Keep Yourself in Check? One student’s answer: I don’t.

7:46. Intern has a new youth group game: Pool Noodle Hockey.

8:22. Intern teaching about the papacy by convening a mock conclave to elect a youth group Pope. “I’m going to get struck by lightning, aren’t I?”

8:35. Pope elected on the first ballot. White smoke rising from the youth room.

8:38. Newly elected Pope takes the name, “Ellen.”

8:55. Suggest that new Pope’s first official act should be to lead us in evening prayer. She’s unfazed. That’s why she’s the Pope.

9:23. Return home to a dark and quiet house. The Migraine won. Tomorrow is another day.

Preaching And Mission: A Response to Dr. Jennifer Lord

This week I participated in PC (USA) Moderator Neal Presa’s third Colloquium on Ecclesiology. It was held at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, and I was invited to respond to a paper given by Dr. Jennifer Lord called, “Preaching To Upbuild And Equip Liturgical-Missional Congregations” (read it here).

It’s a complex paper which I thoroughly enjoyed. I’ll be thinking about it for awhile. Here’s just one intriguing assertion from it, followed by a small piece of my response.

Preaching to the church is different than preaching to an aggregate of individuals. When preachers do the work to prepare the sermon they keep the identity of church at the forefront of their preparations rather than individual persons or even the “bottom line” of shared humanity. This means to be mindful that our gathering as church is really the thing, and preaching serves (among other things) to remind us who we are and whose we are and to calls us again to faith. This requires that preachers think with baptismal sensibilities: we preach to the local manifestation of the body of Christ and also, perhaps, to those not yet incorporated into the body through the sign and seal of baptism

My response:

I’m wondering about the public function of preaching and worship here. Preachers are frequently enough faced with occasions where our sermons need to say something to the world beyond the church, to the culture or to the community. How do we do that missionally? If we can’t assume a shared immersion in a common sacred story in those instances–and we can’t–then how do we understand what we’re doing.

My full response is here.

I found Dr. Lord to be a very gracious conversation partner, and I was honored to interact with her.

What do you think? Is the church the primary audience of preaching?

Monday Morning Quarterback

Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a recurring post that examines personal and pastoral events of Sunday.

4:30. Alarm. Sermon’s not done. Normally I don’t sleep on unfinished sermons, but I fell asleep at the keyboard at 1 am, so up we get.

5:12. Decide to illustrate a move in the sermon by telling of this little boy. Can’t get think my way through it without crying.

6:48. Sermon phrases piling up like a 72 car pileup in the fog. Need to eat.

7:46. Standing in the pulpit in an empty sanctuary, preaching from my laptop and editing as I go. This always takes longer than I think it will.

8:06. Weekend custodian arrives with vivid story of his latest solo camping trip out to the desert, this one complete with windstorms and threats of gunfire.

8:38. Head of Staff comes into the sanctuary. Sermon editing done. Sorta.

8:45. Sunday School guest presenters arrive early. I’m so not ready for them. Also, they’re sick.

8:55. Print Sunday School sign in sheets, visitor signs, and sermon manuscript. Leave signs in the pulpit, hang manuscript on the bulletin board.

9:28. Sunday School presenter tearing up as she relates the loss of her home to the war in Beirut in 1976.

9:31. Other Sunday School presenter urging the church to seek justice in the West Bank. “If you think it’s okay for Israel to bulldoze Palestinians’ homes, fine. If not, then you should do something about it.”

9:47. Setting up the PowerPoint slides with worship announcements. My plan to hand this off to a student hasn’t taken hold yet.

9:51. Text from acolyte: “I’ll be there at 3 minutes before 10.”

9:57. Acolyte arrives. No joke.

10:14. Time with The Children is a race between four unsuspecting worshipers recruited by youth to fold a paper fish bank.

10:27. As Head of Staff reads the first Scripture reading before the sermon, suddenly feel the dizzying weight of sleeplessness. This could be ugly.

10:37. Impromptu sermon joke: the charismatic church I attended as a kid spoke of the saved and the unsaved. The unsaved we called “Presbyterians.” That one killed.

10:48. I’m on the far side of the chancel without a worship bulletin, so I don’t know the hymn number. Cross the chancel to the acolyte, who is holding an open hymnal and singing. Notice, however, that he doesn’t know the hymn either; he’s just singing, “I like cheese.”

11:08. Worshiper relates a recent experience that relates to the sermon: he bet on a horse called “Rise to Faith” and won! “Great,” I say, “So you’ll be donating those winnings to the church then?” No I don’t. I don’t say that.

11:10. More sermon feedback: “You’re going to be hearing from people about this.” Sounds menacing.

11:48. Daughter finishes singing lesson with church’s Children’s Music Director. There’s homework involved, but Daughter’s not talking about it. Secrecy abounds . . .

12:27. Lunch is brunch. There’s champagne involved. Didn’t see that coming. I dunt nurmully drnk affer chrch on Sunday ’cause the fatigue sssets in un the alcuhl–I love you guyz!

12:48. Tweet from Adam:

@yorocko Yo. I need a good game for youth group tonight….got any?

— Adam Walker Cleaveland (@adamwc) March 16, 2014

Recommend “Run on The Bank” with the snide suggestion that he leave the lights on. That’s because . . . this.

1:12. Desperate for a nap. Daughter’s not having it. Instead, it’s “Let It Go” and much dancing.

2:08. Finally drifting off when phone rings. It’s a junior high student. “Hey can I come to youth group at 4:00 today?” I tell him that’s the scheduled time. “Oh,” he says. “I thought it was 3:45. Bye.” Hangs up.

4:49. Junior high outing to the trampoline place. I love this pl–ah! My back!

5:12. Hobbling around now taking pictures.

6:13. Driving back with two junior high guys. One says to the other, “Hey, when did you post that one picture on Facebook?” Other says, “A couple of months ago. In February. Or whenever New Years was.”

6:46. Youth Intern and his fiancee, another Youth Volunteer, going on a coffee run before high school youth group. May they be held in the highest esteem for the remainder of their days and ever after. Amen.

7:14. Showing off the Chromecast for the Youth Intern. Really pleased with myself for integrating technology for the formation of young peoples’ faith. This is how its supposed to work. Really, I’m the best.

7:15. Student hijacks the Chromecast with their phone to show a goat video.

7:17. Another student hijacks the Chromecast with a different YouTube video and declares, “You’re right Rocky. This this is the best!”

7:27. Soul Pancake check in prompt: how are you selfish?

7:39. Share that I’m selfish with information: I want to know things before others do. Share that I do this with my wife, who can’t ever tell me about a viral video without me acting like I’ve already seen it. Volunteer pronounces, “That’s because his wife’s the only one in their family who actually works.” Room erupts. Volunteer demands, “That better be on your blog tomorrow!”

8:01. Taking my own recommendation and playing Run on The Bank.

8:23. Youth Intern showing a highlight reel of Pope Francis. Students are kinda geeked over him.

9:13. Driving home, receive a text from a colleague about something I’m supposed to have prepared for a local conference this week. Totally unprepared. Freaking out.

9:58. Colleague texts me the material I need for the conference. Start to look at it, then fall asleee . . . .

“I Don’t Know How To Lead People”

Last week a friend said to me, “I don’t know how to lead people.” He’s a pastor– been one for 10 years.

Last month an Elder scribbled a note during a meeting of our Christian Education and Leadership Commission and slid it to me: “We’re not training any leaders!”

Yesterday I read this on the blog of ECO, the new Presbyterian denomination full of disgruntled former PC(USA) churches and leaders: “Churches rise and fall with their visions, and the vision usually hangs on the passion of the leadership teams.”

The question of leadership won’t leave me alone. On good days I almost relish the un-heirarchical structure of elected Ruling and Teaching Elders and the checks Presbyterian polity places on the lone leader’s freedom. But on bad days I despair that I’m not really leading and that mainline Protestantism as a whole is decaying from the inside out for a lack of leadership.

I know what I reject. I reject the ideal of the leader who casts a vision for her church, who produces with a select team a vision statement in which the bullet points all begin with the same letter, who pronounces a slogan and then single-mindedly rallies the faithful to follow it. To me, “Vision Casting” just feels . . . yucky.

There are other ideas about leadership out there that tickle me. Peter Block’s thing about leaders crafting and curating space for transformative conversations is compelling. Missional Leadership trusts that “The future of the people of God is among the people of God,” and that feels right. The Adaptive Leadership school’s focus on technical vs. adaptive challenges and the need for leaders to know the difference is hard to argue with. Edwin Friedman’s insistence on self-differentiation as a primary leadership trait rings very, very true. And, of course, the community organizer style of leadership promoted by the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) is concrete and full of powerful potential.

But what is this? A buffet?

I hear my friend’s confession about not knowing how to lead people, and I wonder if our training hasn’t in some sense failed us. On the whole, I don’t see a lot of enthusiastic leadership development in the mainline. Evangelicalism seems much more clear about what its leaders are supposed to do: cast a vision for ministry and rally followers. Frankly, evangelicalism also seems more effective at producing leaders who do that very thing. But that feels to me like a very bland version of leadership. I don’t like it. I want something else.

Is there a style of leadership for the NEXT iteration of mainline protestantism? Or are mainline leaders left to pick from the Amazon “Leadership” section? Is the IAF the best thing going for training leaders in mainline churches?

What’s the model of leadership for the mainline for, say, the next two decades?

Ash Wednesday

I waited in the church parking lot for Barbara and Bill to return for Barbara’s purse, which she had left in the sanctuary after the service. Well, not left it really–she thought she had lost it, and, after about 10 minutes of turning over pew cushions to find it, she and Bill fled the Ash Wednesday worship–only just beginning–to find it.

I had noticed her searching, had heard the first rumbling of trouble before the quake, when she asked (as if to anyone within earshot), “Where’s my purse?” She was only in the second row. I was in the first, along with the three high school students and one Youth Intern who were leading worship. Several searching turns of the head did not produce the purse, and by the Call To Worship Barbara was in a panic. She stooped to scan the undersides of pews. She darted to the side aisle to pace the length of the sanctuary, back to front, broadcasting a desperate search. And then she was gone, so the contemplative peace of youth reading prayers and smudging ashes could resume as I’d planned it.

The purse showed itself from the opposing front pew shortly after the sanctuary had emptied. I put away the microphones, cleaned up the little dishes that had held our ashes, turned out the lights, and then scooped up the purse and proceeded to the office, where I called Barbara at home. As soon as I announced myself into the phone, she announced, “You have my purse! I’ll be there in 20 minutes!” She hung up instantly.

I drove a worshiper home who lived less than a mile down the street and then returned to the church to wait for Barbara and Bill. The night was warm and clear and quiet, and thoughts or inconvenience or irritation troubled me not at all. I was grateful for an unscripted interlude to stare dumbly at passing cars and sing “Come And Fill Our Hearts” to the moon. I was sad when it ended, when searching headlights found me and made straight for me.

I heard the tale then of the confusion surrounding the purse’s disappearance and of how Barabara and Bill had retraced the evening’s steps, from Target to Burger King, and had eventually used Bill’s phone to call and disable Barbara’s cell phone. They were moments from calling the bank about her credit cards when they got my call. Barbara was apologetic. She regretted the disruption to the service. I assured her it was no disruption (which was true; hadn’t the service continued anyway? Can worship be so easily derailed?). Then I excused myself, wished them a good night, and climbed back into my car as Barbara exhorted me to go home and play with my daughter.

“I will,” I said. Then, through the closed passenger side window, I added, “She wants me to bring her home some ashes.” There was an uncovered dish of them right there in the cup holder.

“Ahes!” Barbara exclaimed, testifying to just how far away from the night’s occasion she had chased her purse. “We didn’t get any of those.”

It was the most reflexive thing I have ever done to grab the dish in my right hand, open the driver side door with my left, and round the trunk to stand at Barbara’s window. She hadn’t noticed my approach and only saw my when she turned around to begin backing out of her parking space. When she did, she quietly rolled down the window and lowered her head in observation. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Then Bill leaned over from the passenger seat and received his ashes and his incantation.

“Have a good night,” I said and once again returned to my car.

“You too,” Barbara answered. And then, “We love you.”

“I love you too” I shouted as they backed away, staring forward across the church lawn through a streaky windshield. I paused one more moment to listen, then drove home in silence.

Monday Morning Quarterback

Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a recurring post that examines personal and pastoral events of Sunday.

6:00. Alarm. Grab phone to turn it off and discover text sent at 11:30 last night. It’s from the college student youth leader who had agreed to lead jr. highs today in my absence, and it reads, “Is it too late to cancel? I feel like I’m not adequately prepared to lead it.”

6:01. I’m up.

6:14. Putting on a big pot of oatmeal for the family’s breakfast.

6:37. Putting together a junior high youth group lesson with specific instructions. Clearly the “you-could-do-this-or-you-could-do-that” method of planning has failed.

6:41. Doing that thing I despise in youth curriculum writing: proposing “discuss” as a meaningful path to learning for adolescents.

6:53. I don’t know about you guys, but I love oatmeal with raisins and chopped apples.

7:12. Looking over Head of Staff’s “Communion At The Improv” liturgy, an attempt to inject some improvisation into worship on Jazz Sunday by making the communion litany up as we go. How hard can that be?

7:39. Strapping on my favorite shoes and heading out the door.

8:12. Using a Google Drive Presentation to do announcement slides at the beginning of worship. Want to see it?

8:48. Checking in on adult education class about the PC(USA) 2008 social creed. All systems go.

8:51. Checking in on adult education class about a compassion-themed TED Talk. All systems go.

8:53. Checking in on youth Sunday School class. No, not really. That’s a well-oiled machine; my checking in only jams the gears.

8:55. Checking in on nursery volunteers. All infants go.

8:56. Considering the evolution of my job that finds me now the default Sunday School Superintendent.

8:59. Walking 9th grade a/v volunteer through the projection system. He’s never run it before but seems confident. Don’t even think twice about giving him my computer password.

9:07. Settle into that TED talk class with a cup of coffee the leader has brewed. She’s magic. As the video of Joan Halifax begins, the man next to me (a seminary professor) mutters under his breath, “Oh Joan, who dressed you?”

9:26. Sneaking out after the video to spend some time in the other class. Also, my coffee cup is empty.

9:33. Spy the 9th grade a/v volunteer making his way to the sanctuary as instructed. Also spy his two friends making their way with him, as not instructed.

9:40. Being scolded by the guest jazz group’s piano player for placing our projector on top of the organ. “This is a $30,000 instrument!” he says. “I know, right? Isn’t it amazing?”

9:44. There’s a lone Deacon struggling with communion preparation. I offer to go find another, and she falls to the floor in tears of gratitude. Done.

10:08. Worship has begun and the mic’s aren’t working. Sneak off the chancel to go consult with 9th grade a/v volunteer. These kids are so inexperienced and they pay so little attention to what’s goi–wait. What’s that? Oh, you say I never turned my mic on? Right. Got it. As you were.

10:10. Return to the chancel with the opening hymn in full swing. Not only that, but worshipers have begun skipping down the aisles.

10:12. As the opening hymn is ending, make my way to the pulpit to lead the Prayer of Confession. Only, since this is Jazz Sunday, hymns don’t end when you think they will. Stand next to the pulpit like a dummy for the five additional verses of “I Shall Not Be Moved.”

10:19. Trying to explain communion for the Time with The Children by having the coronet player from the jazz band play something. He chooses a horse race bugle call. Perfect. How will the kids understand sacramentology now?

10:46. The moment of communion improv is here, and I’m not exactly killing it. More like turning The Lord’s Supper into The Lord’s Mutter.

11:19. Elder approaches me on the patio after worship with six words of terror: “I think you should see this.”

11:21. Looking at a pool of water bubbling up from the ground near the fellowship hall. Smelling sewage. Looking for the Head of Staff.

12:14. Confirmation class lesson on “Reformed-and-always-reforming” jumps directly to a student asking me, “So can you do a same-sex wedding?”

1:31. Driving about 40 miles to a meeting of this summer’s presbytery youth mission trip team. En route, hearing a description from a student’s dad of the kind of portable bathroom you have to take with you on a six day canoe trip, how to assemble it, and, of course, how to USE it.

2:14. Seeing students from other churches I know from past events but whose names I’ve forgotten. Greeting them with, “Heyyy, youuuu.”

3:00. For a team building game, my colleague has chosen charades, and the phrase he’s picked is, “Going to the bathroom on the bus.” Decide pretty easily that the price of winning this game is much higher than the price of accurately depicting going to the bathroom to an 8th grade girl.

3:58. On the drive home, student’s dad is trying to explain a math riddle I should do with the students. It involves toothpicks and Roman numerals and OH MY GOD I’M EXHAUSTED.

4:38. Students arriving for jr. high youth group. Even though I made it back in time, I still want the college student to lead. He’s prepped. He’s ready.

4:44. Two boys pummeling each other with pool noodles. Gently cajoling them to stop doesn’t work. Firmly instructing them to stop doesn’t work. Yelling at them to stop doesn’t work. I hate my life.

4:45. Threatening to call parents. Over pool noodles.

5:01. Playing a hide-and-seek game in the sanctuary. I’m volunteering to hide in the hopes that I will never, ever, be found.

5:22. Polling jr. high kids on rules they live by. One student insists on utilizing a hashtag, calling out, “Live life to the fullest! Hashtag!” Accommodate him by writing on the board, “Live life to the fullest hashtag.”

6:23. Running to the store across the street to get food for the high school youth group. Returning with macaroons, cheese, crackers, cookies, and soda. Never shop for youth group snacks when you’re hungry and tired.

7:02. Volunteer arrives for high school youth group with dinner for me: beans, slaw, and a tri tip he made earlier in the day. I love my life.

7:38. Playing The Game of Things with high schoolers. Hamster cancer promptly returns as a hilarious answer.

7:44. Game of Things prompt: “things old people should never do.” Some submitted, “Be a youth pastor” for an answer. Ouch.

8:44. My plan to assemble the Ash Wednesday liturgy with students has run aground on their fatigue and mine. Tongues lolling at the phrase, “penitence.”

8:55. On his father’s orders, student assembles the math riddle with the toothpicks and Roman numerals. Students suddenly come alive trying to solve it.

9:15. Home before Wife and Daughter, who went to an Oscar party. I will most certainly be asleep before they get home.