Jesus said, “I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them.
That one is like someone building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock;
when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it…. ~ Luke 6:46-48

I was in Nashville for the Festival of Homiletics (May 13-17) and found the topics of the sermons and talks fascinating. They were very telling about what we are experiencing in this place and time as “Church.” Barbara Brown Taylor talked about “walking in the dark”; Barbara Lundblad spent some time talking about “making hope as tangible as despair”; and Walter Brueggemann gave a sermon on “Ministry in the Asylum.” (I found the title alone of this one strangely comforting–glad to know I wasn’t the only one thinking things were getting a little crazy.)

Within the congregation I serve I know that people are feeling the effects of a church in transition. I sense that people are tired. More and more is asked of our committee chairs and leaders. United Church Moderator, Gary Paterson, recently wrote: “Faithful volunteers are spending more time on meetings and paperwork than on ministry.”[1] A reality echoed at a recent board meeting where one committee member shared, “It used to be that church was my oasis. Now the oasis is feeling more like work.”

I get it. As a church leader I’m feeling it, too.

But you know what I also feel? Appreciative. Appreciative because of what these circumstances by their nature are forcing us to consider. They are forcing us to get down to basics (which is good, frankly, because we don’t have the time or the energy to deal with the non-essentials). Who are we? Why do we do what we do? What is really important? Are we a social club, here to offer entertainment or do we have another story to tell? (And how well do we know our own story?)

I think the circumstances we’re in force us to realize we just might need God. And I’ll be honest, I don’t think the church has always acted as if it believed it needed God. More often than not, it seems, we’ve believed we’ve needed programs and power and prestige in the community. We’ve favoured competitive and attraction-based models of being church, always looking for the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. I’m not saying it isn’t good to be thinking of new ideas and acting on them but I don’t think it’s the approach needed in all circumstances, all the time.

How about the approach of standing firm in that which we are[2] and actually feeling the rock beneath our feet; to stand as the waters come and the rivers burst knowing that there is something greater that holds it all? How do we experience that quiet confidence if we’re constantly kicking our feet? And how do we trust the presence of the Rock if we’ve not stayed in a place long enough to dig down and discover its depths?

So church friends, you’re feeling anxious?  It’s normal.  Frustrated? Also normal.  Exhausted and overwhelmed? Completely normal.

Maybe all of this gives us a clue.   Perhaps now is a time to stay in one place for a while, to get down and deep…deep…deeper still….and listen.

Jesus said, “I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. That one is like someone building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it…. ~ Luke 6:46-48

As the church, if we know the Rock on which we stand maybe we can be a place where people don’t have to kick so hard to stay above water.

I’ve learned a few things about myself in creating this blog.

First:  A good idea can be difficult to put into practice

Second:  A blog poses challenges when you’re a private person.

Over lent I participated in 40acts, a campaign out of the UK that challenged people to do Lent generously.  It was a way of engaging creatively with lent by being active with my faith.  I really enjoyed the practice.  Each day a new challenge arrived in my inbox.  It was exciting getting that email with the day’s challenge, especially in the beginning.  Then as the days progressed the lenten assignments became relentless…one after another, after another.  Of course, I added to the difficulty by deciding I would try and blog about the experience.  Then I added even more difficulty when I told my congregation I was blogging….and gave them the web address.  I don’t know what I was thinking.

It wasn’t that the writing part was hard…I am proud to report that I did write something for each day right up until the final week and a half.   It was putting them online that held me up.  In the end,  I just kept my entries to myself.  As a church member pointed out to me, “Michelle, that isn’t a blog, that’s a diary.”

True enough.

We live in a world where everything seems to be so public.  We’re in a Facebook and Tweety (or is that Twitty?) culture that posts everything—what someone ate, drank, thought, breathed, argued, cooked, cleaned, watched, opened, heard, misunderstood. They are predominantly comments for comments’ sake and often deficient in substance.

Egotistically, I didn’t want to add to the noise.  Besides, I preach weekly and there is only so much that people need to be subjected to.  And I’ll admit it, I prefer to keep my thoughts to myself.

Then the other day I was reading the Message and I came across this translation of a familiar passage:

“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”  (Matthew 5:14-16, the Message by Eugene Peterson)

As if they had been highlighted and penned just for me these words stood out:  Be generous with your lives.   By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God.

I reflected.  Maybe I can learn how to put my thoughts out there, not because my thoughts are fantastic but because God just might be able to use them to do some good…

So here are a few more posts from my 40acts experience.  Yep, just a few.

You didn’t seriously think I’d post them all, did you?

Baby steps, my friend.  Baby steps.