Archive | ministry. RSS feed for this section

Retreat success.

8 Sep

There are a few words I could use to describe how I’m currently feeling:

sleepy, exhausted, delirious, dog-tired, worn out, tuckered, and happily fulfilled.

It was a crazy weekend.  It was overnight-confirmation-retreat weekend.  Seven youth from ROG went along with me to Good Earth Village camp to meet up with six of jD’s youth from his two churches.  Together we were 13 which, wouldn’t you know, is the perfect number with which to reenact the famous Last Supper painting:

IMG_2699

The topic of the retreat revolved around the two Lutheran sacraments – baptism and communion – along with some intentional conversation about grace.  We communed together, baptized a gnome [ … for real.  Kind of.  His parents named him Norman James.], team-built, played life size Jenga, did skits [the creativity of the skits blew me away – the awesomeness of these kids continually exceeds my expectations], and had boatloads of fun.  jD’s kids had fun.  My kids had fun.  We all had fun.  Our churches will have to plan to do more things together throughout the year; it worked out so well.

We shared highs and lows with each other before we left camp.  Every single high from every single confirmation kid was along these lines: My high is making new friends and being here.  At the same time, every single low from every single confirmation kid was along these lines: My low is that we can’t stay another night and we have to go home.

I’ll call that retreat success.  In addition to having fun, we also hope they left with a definition of grace seared in their brains.  Something like … the unconditional love of God that is free, forever, and for all.  That would be good.

With what I’m about to say next, I want you to listen really super closely because I never say things like this.  Ready?  I love confirmation. [Okay.  That was a joke.  I actually say it all the flippin’ time.]   I love my confirmation youth.  I love middle schoolers.  Weekends like this – kids like this – that’s why I love this job.

Pastor Evan officiates a gnome baptism.
“I baptize you …”
Milk and cookies snack.
life size Jenga
marble track teambuilder

Today was not my favorite. But then –

3 Sep

Today was eh.  Office work and some work that I kinda feel shouldn’t be within the realm of pastoral duties.  Work like climbing into a parked semi trailer to take photos of auction items.  [Did I miss that on my job description?]  And this weird work – there’s lots of it.  With the school year beginning [wait.  summer is over?  how did that happen?], church work doubles as it is.  Rally Sunday, confirmation kick-off retreat, annual meeting [ours in in September.  it’s best not to even ask.], schedules, plans, pull-out-my-hair.

So today in the office was not my favorite.  I told Marilyn and Bob-the-treasurer that I was going to cry.  But then –

For confirmation this year, instead of one big informational meeting that half the families can’t make anyways, I’m visiting with each family one-on-one.  Tonight I headed just down the road a mile and a half to visit with my ninja friend, Elly, and her family.  Coming to confirmation this year will also be her younger sister.  They’re just a super warm family and even though I promised them that my visit would only be 15 minutes, I was there for an hour.  We talked about confirmation and then the kids went away while their parents and I talked about all things vintage.  Pyrex, Nancy Drew classics, mason jars.  For a living, they go to auctions, snap up stuff, and then sell it on etsy and ebay.  They showed me their goods and talked about their business.  Super interesting!

They also told me a neighborhood secret.  About three-quarters of a mile from the church is a road.  A secret road.  Okay.  It’s not secret at all but I always just assumed it was private property and only used by farm equipment.  Turns out this access road is fair game.  It’s gravel and dirt but so much more relaxing than walking Mabel on the road.  We found our new walking route and explored it tonight.

On our way back from the [not] secret road, all of a sudden, one of the neighbor kids is sprinting towards me.  He was running just to, you know, chat.  And show me his new wallet.  The neighbor family had been gone for two weeks on a road trip and things were really kinda lonely without them around.  It was weird to walk past their house and not see them outside playing, or see lights on in their house.  So Alex ran to say hi and tell me that the favorite part of his trip was seeing the beach where The Goonies was filmed.  Then his older sister, Rachel, rode her bike down to join us.  Soon the younger brother was there, along with the mom and the dog, and we stood in their driveway for a good 45 minutes catching up on summer.

Now I’m home.  I ate farm-fresh eggs for dinner [thanks to administrative assistant and chicken farmer extraordinaire, Marilyn] and the day will end on a high note by watching Netflix and basting hexagons.  Today was not my favorite … but then it turned out to be quite okay.

I'll be adding to this pile - the weekend's productivity.

I’ll be adding to this pile – the weekend’s productivity.

Monday @ MISA.

22 Jul

Hello again from the island.

photo-108

It was a picture-perfect day on many accounts.  Classes began today.  There are three going on at the school this week – a painting course [with the hot instructor who again today only buttoned his shirt halfway], a writing course, and the one I’m taking.  What am I taking?  Good question.

I told people who asked before I came that it is a writing class.  That’s half true.  It’s writing and it’s art.  It’s all about journaling and honesty and creativity and approaching our inner-critic.  [You know, that voice that tells you you’re not good enough or your work sucks or you’ll never be as good as so-and-so.  We all have them.  Mine seems to come out a lot around my ministry so this is the perfect continuing education class for me.]  I’m not sure how it all comes together yet but we will learn one new art technique and one new writing technique each day.  It should be interesting and hopefully helpful.

If anything else, it is simply grand being here in this location.  Our class [held in the barn pictured above] ended around 3 this afternoon; we had free time to do practically anything.  We could have done our homework but me?  I took to the road.

There are a stash of bikes that hang out at the school.  First come, first serve.  I took one with a low seat; it was a cruiser, ie just one speed.  It’s a cool looking bike and I felt retro-awesome riding it but the one-speed aspect may have made the ride a bit harder than it needed to be.  Nonetheless, I took off.  I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going to go.  I turned left into the bike lane.

About 4.5 miles later, I ended up at Big Bay State Park.  I biked some more and when the roads ran out, I walked the trails alongside my bike.  A deer to the side of the path startled me and biting flies attacked me.  The view was stunning, as one can only imagine.  Four and a half miles back to the art school and my butt was beat.  It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden a bike – especially that far – and that seat was not super comfy the last couple miles.  That’s not saying it wasn’t worth it – it was.

I went into town for dinner and ended up at the same restaurant as my class instructor so we had dinner together.  [Plan A was to have my kindle as my date.  Conversation with an actual person was probably better.]  After that, I sat on a pier and watched the sun go down before returning to pajamas and last night’s Endeavour online.

Why can’t this be real everyday life?  *sigh*  Enjoying it while I can.

a-punch-to-my-introvert’s-stomach.

5 Jun

“Pastor Lindsay seemed quite shy and had difficulty engaging in conversation with others.”

There it is again.

This isn’t the first appearance of such observations.  When I was going through candidacy [the process through which the ELCA approves pastors for ordination], I was required to take a psych eval and meet with a psychologist to go over the results.

I remember driving to this strange office building in Madison and sitting in a sterile room with this doctor.  He drew a line on his white board.  On the left side of the line, he wrote Introvert.  On the right, he wrote Extrovert.  Then he put an X where I had come out on the exam I had taken.  It looked something like this –

  _x________________________________________________
Introvert                                                                        Extrovert

He told me engaging in the world as a pastor and such an extreme introvert would be difficult.  In a candidacy meeting that followed, the committee told me I should “work on my introvert nature,” which I took to mean as change.  Being an introvert wasn’t acceptable for a pastor.  I had to talk more and be more extroverted is what I heard them telling me.  Introvert became a dirty word.

The first line of this post comes from an evaluation I just received.  It came from people whom I only met once; that was their first impression of me.  Quite shy with difficulty engaging in conversation.  You know, maybe I was.  But that certainly wasn’t my goal.  I tried so hard not to be.

And the truth of it is, I met with this group of people one night for a couple hours and I was exhausted for the rest of the week afterwards.  Literally – the rest of the week.  I spent so much energy to be – what I thought was – talkative and out-going for those couple hours.  [Because that’s what an introvert does – becomes exhausted from being with people and doing their best to play an extrovert.]  And still, my version of talkative and out-going was their shy and disengaged.  *sigh*

I am an introvert and sure, I suppose that sometimes might come across as shy or disengaged.  That’s not intentional  Sitting in silence doesn’t bother me one tiny bit, neither does listening more than talking.  Sure, I will avoid small talk when I can [Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, calls small talk a horror for many introverts.  In certain situations, I could agree.]; if I see someone I know in the grocery store, I just might go down a different aisle  to avoid a hello and how are you.  [That’s sad but true.  But, of course, I’ve never avoided you.  Promise.]

Punch to the gut or not, I’m owning it.  This is who I am.  Hello, my name is Lindsay and I’m an introvert.  Let’s have an in-depth one-on-one conversation and then have quiet time by ourselves.

Dear Lindsay of middle school,

24 Apr

As a pastor who loves working with confirmation-aged kids, I catch glimpses of my own past middle school experience as the confirmation kids share their own experiences.  I slightly remember* what it was like to be awkward and a seventh grader.  It wasn’t easy.

I was so incredibly lucky to have awesome friends.  More or less the same awesome friends I still have now.  [Dancing Banana shout-out!]  But there was still drama.  There was judging.  There is terrible shit that goes on in middle schools.  And I can’t imagine it if one doesn’t have awesome friends.

There are a couple gals in my confirmation class that often only have lows to share in the rounds of highs & lows.  A lot of time, those lows are there’s just lots of drama at school.

Ugh.  Drama.

What I want to say to them is much like what I would say to my own middle-school self –

Dear Lindsay of middle school,

Being popular doesn’t matter for shit.  Forget those queen bees.  They suck.  You should just be nice to everyone.  [And probably not say people suck.  That wasn’t nice, future Lindsay.]

Be friends with the people who make you happy and people with whom you can be yourself and silly.  Form a gang.  Call it Oatmeal.  Make cardboard necklaces for everyone in the gang with raw oats glued to them.  Your name as gang leader shall be Raisin. **

The boys are pretty cute, aren’t they?  But don’t worry about them.  Just because they’re eye candy doesn’t mean they’re worth crying over.

School work is important but trying to get straight A’s isn’t worth sick stomachs and sleepless nights.  And hey – good job on that newspaper writing competition.

Please, quit wearing the over-sized flannel shirts and carpenter jeans sooner than later.

That one day, after school, when marching band rehearsal gets out late and everyone sprints back to the band room – hold onto your flute a little tighter.  Trust me.

The drama will end.  It will be okay.

Signed,

Future Lindsay

I started to write this post before confirmation met tonight.  I finish it after confirmation.  After the one confirmand who-never-has-a-high-and-her-low-is-always-drama had a high that the drama has ended.  Hallelujah.  Confirmation was awesome tonight.  Not only did every seventh and eighth grader have a high – if not many – we threw out our lesson for the night because all they wanted to do was ask questions.  About God.  About the Bible.  About doubts.  We tackled a few tonight the best we could and they made a list for next week.  Here’s to the freedom to ask questions and doubt in church.  Important stuff.

* I quite literally remember NOTHING about my seventh grade year.  It’s a blur to me.  I remember some of sixth grade and some of eight but seventh?  Nada.

** True story.

This week –

9 Apr

I’m trying to be a better, healthier, more whole-food eater and trying all sorts of things as a result.  Salads in jars, more Thai chicken quinoa, date-and-peanut-balls, and HOMEMADE GRANOLA BARS.  That’s in caps because – holy shit – they are delicious.  It might be the coconut oil.  And the dried cherries.  And a little bit of sesame.

The other part of my better, healthier being is figuring out my sleep.  Goal: In bed reading at 10.  Lights out at 10:30.  That goal has failed in execution more than it has been successful.  The early bedtime was instated because I can’t. get. out. of. the. bed. in. the. morning.  Ever.  But really I just end up sleeping more because I go to bed early and still stay in bed just as late.  Enter new app.  It’s pretty cool and wakes me up within the best place for waking in my sleep cycle.

The better, healthier Lindsay is also – thanks to awareness from her counselor – becoming aware of her distorted thinking.  Distorted thinking is when I am hard on myself, when I assess situations to be all or nothing, when I discard compliments I receive as not true.  Distorted thinking is basically how my brain works so it’s being aware of my negative thoughts, turning them around, and “telling the negative committee inside my head to shut up.”

That’s my week, along with meetings, two-hour long pastoral visits [I need to work on leaving.], rain, and hanging with confirmation kids.  How’s your week?

Coffee with ladies and egg crafts.

26 Mar

After a busy Sunday morning of palm waving, hosanna singing, and personal care kit assembling, I went to the local care center to lead a worship service.  I gave them palms and then had coffee with a couple of ladies.  They fought and interrupted each other often.  [In the middle of one woman telling me about her great-granddaughter the other woman asked her loudly, “Are you going to get cremated?”]  It made me very uncomfortable.

Sunday night we [you know – we] gathered in our usual place at our usual time.  I was even early enough to read a story to a cute little almost-one year old before he went to bed.  We [you know – we] ate supper and then dove into egg crafts.  We had traditional dying on one end of the table [after we figured out what colors the pesky little tablets were] and filling hollow eggs with candy at the other.  It was egg-citing, egg-cellent, and an all around egg-ceptional time.

DSCN0302

 

Hey. It’s the favorites of Friday.

22 Mar

[Hey.  It’s the favorites of Friday.]

Favorite tea: Apple cinnamon.   It’s now part of my bedtime routine.  Tea + a chapter of Pride and Prejudice.

Favorite blog post: This post is by the former pastor at my home congregation.  It resonated with me and where I’m at currently.   Worship is a contact sport.  I probably wouldn’t be a pastor if Pastor Clint hadn’t nominated me for a scholarship at seminary … before I ever said I would even go to seminary.  Funny how that worked.

Favorite craft: It’s quite nearly Easter.  I love Easter.  Loved it since I was a child.  [Fun Lindsay fact #396: I used to host “Easter parties” at the farm for my friends.  I would plan elaborate Easter games and my brothers & cousins would hide Easter eggs for us to find, usually under dead birds or with the candy switched mysteriously for dog poop.]  Sadly, I have little energy or people with whom to have Easter parties these days … but if I did, we might dye eggs in these trendy ways.

Favorite story: I visited a gentleman at the care center.  I was getting ready to leave, shook his hand, and told him I should be on my way.  Good, he said.  I was going to ask you to leave because I have to pee.  Perfect timing.

Favorite pin: A quote from Lemony Snicket.

Favorite videos: This Sunday is Palm Sunday.  Prepare yourself for Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem with these two videos.  Please.  They’re awesome.

This video was made in part by the talents [both media and harlem shaking as Jesus] by Kevin, the brother to my bestie, Sara, and a former coworker of mine from Stillwater.  We shared a basement office with no windows together.

Nothing like a little liturgical dance by Stephen Colbert. 

It’s not going to be easy –

11 Mar

It’s not going to be easy to listen to God’s call.  Your insecurity, your self-doubt, and your great need for affirmation make you lose trust in your inner voice and run away from yourself.  But you know that God speaks to you through your inner voice and that you will find joy and peace only if you follow it.  Yes, your spirit is willing to follow, but your flesh is weak.

You have friends who know that your inner voice speaks the truth and who can affirm what it says.  They offer you the safe space where you can let that voice become clearer and louder.  There will be people who will tell you that you are wasting your time and talents, that you are fleeting from true responsibility, that you fail to use the influence you have.  But don’t let yourself be misled.  They do not speak in God’s name.  Trust the few who know your inner journey and want you to be faithful to it.  They will help you stay faithful to God’s call.

Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love

Tags:

I give thanks.

17 Feb

[I give thanks.] A post written in the rhythm of @UnvirtuousAbbey without the awesome humor and retweets. Read mine and then add your own. What do you give thanks for this day?

For a mandoline to quickly and uniformly slice sweet potatoes for the week, I give thanks. It’s like the guillotine. For yams.

For members who one day are seemingly against anything I say and the next day are the ones volunteering to pray and bringing bars of soap for our LWR care kits, I give thanks.

For completely sincere, supportive, and loving emails from a sincere, supportive, and loving friend, I give thanks. [That’s all you, broken mothership.]

For dark chocolate sea salt popcorn, I give thanks. For the P90x cardio dvd to offset the dark chocolate sea salt popcorn, I also give thanks.

For internet that finally works without powering down the router at church every six to eight hours, I give immense thanks.

For a double dose of The Bachelor this week, I will give thanks. [No judging. Sometimes the prospect of trashy tv gets me through my day.]

For Hannah who made me a tissue paper flower and helped me set up for worship, I give thanks. [Hannah -6ish years old- made tissue paper flowers with her grandma. Her grandma asked, “Who do you want to give this to?” certain the answer would be her mother. Unprompted, her response was Pastor Lindsay. I melt.]

photo-74

Your turn.

← Older Entries

%d bloggers like this: