Saturday, October 17, 2015

How to Pray: The Collect

The collect (pronounced CAW-lekt) is an ancient form of prayer that can be used publicly or privately. One of its defining features is brevity, which makes it quite suitable for unison congregational praying. That's why the Book of Common Prayer includes a collect for every Sunday, as well as for several other occasions, that can be used in corporate worship. But the collect formula is easy to learn, which also makes it a good model for private prayers. Try it out next time you are called on to pray on the spot. Here is the format, with an example taken from the BCP's assigned prayer for the Sunday closest to October 19:

Address to God ...  Almighty and everlasting God,

Attribute of God or a commemoration of God's activity ... in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations:

Petition ... Preserve the works of your mercy,

Intended result of the request ... that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name;

Final praise and doxology ... through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

That example uses the flowery and formal style of the BCP, but the basic pattern can help you construct even the most informal prayers. Here's another example:

Dear God, you know all things and rule over everything that you created. Send your Holy Spirit to empower and heal those who don't yet know your name, so that the very name of your Son, Jesus Christ, might rule over every nation, people group, and tribe. For your glory and honor. Amen.

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Put on Your Glasses

Movie companies are still trying to figure out 3D technology for films. They are doing a better job now than back when I was a kid growing up. I remember in the 1980s there was one night when one of the big television networks was going to show a 3D movie.
Even though I cannot recall now what movie it was, I still remember the efforts of the TV stations to get the required 3D glasses out to everyone. If I'm remembering correctly, our family got several pairs of glasses from cereal boxes. These were only glasses in the technical sense -- in actuality they were just a piece of cardboard with green and red "lenses."

That night, on that TV channel, you could only enjoy that one program if you were watching with the right glasses. The technology is not that complicated: one side screens out the greens and blues, while the other eyepiece screens out the reds. With both eyes working together, a 3D movie can give the impression that the images are coming out of the screen at you.

Sometimes we need to understand the Bible in a similar way. Different passages give us different perspectives needed to understand how God is working in our lives. Take the problems of suffering and evil. If you read the first three chapters of Genesis, it's pretty clear that Adam and Eve's pain and disappointment come as a result of their own decision. God created a beautiful garden for them, put them in charge, and then commanded them not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve chose poorly, and as a result they were cast out of the garden and had to live in a fallen world.

But the scriptures also give us another "lens" from which to understand pain and suffering. Take the book of Job, where the main character suffers untold devastation to his family and possessions and then, on top of everything else, gets sick himself. The Bible is very clear that Job did nothing wrong to deserve his suffering.

This is why we need both lenses in our glasses. Sometimes we suffer as a result of our own poor decisions. But at other times we suffer through no fault of our own. One of life's greatest challenges is figuring out which is which. In some cases it is obvious -- there is no doubt about the consequences of some sins. But at other times we need the discernment of others, the wisdom of God's Word, and the power of the Holy Spirit to work out if we need to change something in our lives.

All this gets especially complicated in our relationships with others. Think about the marriages represented in these two Old Testament stories. Understandably, Adam and Eve's relationship was strained forever as a result of their sin. But even Job and his wife, who were simply victims who did not cause of their suffering, quarreled as a result of the evil that surrounded them. When you are in the middle of suffering, you can't always tell what caused it. Some of you are living in the wake of your own mistakes that you have been unwilling to own up to. But others of you are blaming yourself for suffering that is actually not your fault at all. That's the nature of this broken world -- it's not easy to figure out.

The good news is that Jesus came to save us from both kinds of suffering -- that brought on by our own sins, as well as that which comes from the evil that victimizes us. Christ gave himself as a sacrifice to atone for your individual and personal sins. He also came -- and promises to come again in order to complete the work -- to heal all the ruptures and faults that evil has brought to this world. (Check out Hebrews 1:1-4.) When Jesus Christ returns he will bring all things under his authority, and we won't need to wear glasses anymore. We'll just need to look at him.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

How to be a Christian: Wesley's General Rules

John Wesley, several decades after first
writing the General Rules
How does someone become a Christian? Is it only a matter of saying a creed, thereby meeting the minimum requirements of Romans 10:9?:

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (NLT)


Well, even that seemingly simple formula requires the interaction of heart and mind -- that is, the seats of both emotion and reason. John Wesley's concern for the group of people called Methodists was that they would let God purify their hearts and minds, which would lead to increasingly Godly actions in their daily lives. As more men and women responded to the spiritual awakening that was being unleashed in England and elsewhere in the middle of the 18th century, they wanted to know how to be true Christians. Was it enough to be baptized into the Church of England? Was their salvation contingent on regular attendance at worship services in the local parish each week?

As these early Methodists began to ask John and his brother Charles how to grow in their commitment to Christ, the Wesleys responded by organizing them into groups, also known as Societies. These Societies grew into different forms as the movement spread into different areas: there were classes of initial followers (or what we might call seekers today), bands for the more serious, and even select societies for the leaders of the classes and bands. The point was that these early Methodists should be connected to each other -- Christian discipleship is not intended to be a solo journey. The connection between these groups was a bedrock of the growing movement, and the classes and bands in the same geographical region would even meet together as United Societies for fellowship and worship.

In order to keep that connection unified, the Wesleys established three sets of guidelines, known as the General Rules, that kept everyone moving toward the same goals. Here is how John Wesley described the three rules as a fundamental way to understand the expectations of a faithful Christian life:
There is only one condition previously required of those who desire admission into these societies: "a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins." But wherever this is really fixed in the soul it will be shown by its fruits.
It is therefore expected of all who continue therein that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation,
First: By doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind...
Secondly: By doing good; by being in every kind merciful after their power; as they have opportunity, doing good of every possible sort, and, as far as possible, to all men...

Thirdly: By attending upon all the ordinances of God 
Check out the link above to read all the details of each of the three rules. Wesley didn't just say "do no harm" -- he specified that Christians should not fight, gamble, or own slaves. Likewise, "doing good" was spelled out as feeding the hungry, visiting those in prison, and helping others. The third rule declared that Methodists should attend worship services (especially Communion), read the scriptures, and pray.

The Wesleys' system of organization into small groups, guided by simple and powerful spiritual guidelines, helped provide a foundation for spiritual growth that combined the emotions of the era's spiritual revivals with the strong doctrine of the Church of England. It's no wonder that the United Societies became so effective that their members started to see them as a form of church itself rather than just a supplement to their own local parish services. Wesley never meant for the Methodists to strike out on their own and separate from the Church of England, but the forces of history in the colonies set the Methodists, and later The Methodist Episcopal Church, on its own path. Today's United Methodists still hold to the General Rules. Anyone seeking to live faithfully in service to Christ would do well to start with these three simple rules.

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Radical or Ordinary?

In October 2014 Christianity Today reviewed a book called Ordinary by Reformed theologian Michael Horton, whom I first encountered through the weekly White Horse Inn radio program. I initially liked listening to Horton and his friends because their panel discussion format stood out from a lot of interview-based shows, but eventually I had to stop because the lively group discussions too often took an angry tone that tended to move toward ranting. Horton and his co-hosts were determined to identify and counter non-Reformed versions of Christianity, and it was just too much for this Wesleyan-Arminian United Methodist to take.

So when Horton decided to take on David Platt's best-selling book Radical, I didn't rush out to buy a copy. Not that I am a huge fan of Platt's book. In fact, I saw in Radical way too much earnestness about changing the world. That desire of "I must do something" can be an untamed beast that rages in the soul of do-gooders, ready to be unleashed on anyone identified as a target -- usually someone considered poor, lost, or different. This is something I saw first-hand in certain missionary colleagues who made their ministry more about what they were doing (or giving up) than about following Jesus. Also, Radical is really not that radical; it is not actually calling Christians to re-evaluate the consumerism that pollutes most versions of Christianity in the United States. Take the subtitle: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream. This doesn't call into question the assumption that my faith is "mine" to spend as I like. Platt's not challenging the underlying consumerist, individualistic perspective of evangelical Christianity; he just wants you (singular pronoun, not plural) to "spend" your faith doing things that will change the world. As much as Horton's tone makes me cringe, I recognize that Ordinary offers a needed corrective, warning the church against a consumerist version of works righteousness on steroids.

This is an old debate, one that also tore at the fabric of early Methodism as it was getting started in the middle of the 18th century. John Wesley, not unlike Platt, wanted to urge the people called Methodists to do all the good they could, and he formalized the importance of service and acts of mercy in the second of his Three Rules, which the United Methodist Church still subscribes to. This was a clear call against the tendencies of some European pietists like Philip Henry Molther, who said that people should not do anything to grow closer to God. This emphasis on "quietism" taught that one could only wait for God to show up and be revealed -- there was nothing you could do in your own power to experience God in a deeper way. Wesley was concerned that this waiting around would encourage antinomianism  and that people wouldn't be concerned about what they did in this life. Wesley was so worried that quietism might lead to spiritual lethargy (or outright sinfulness) that he harshly denounced it in his Rules:
...trampling under foot that enthusiastic doctrine that "we are not to do good unless our hearts be free to it."
Wesley said we couldn't simply wait around for God. He believed that God is always present and that there are "means of grace" available to help us experience God more deeply. Those means are listed in his third rule and they include things we would expect any spiritual leader to endorse: prayer, reading scripture, public worship, and the sacraments of baptism and Communion. Those from the Reformed camp accused Wesley of work righteousness because he urged the Methodists that they had to do something to grow in faith. I wouldn't be surprised if Horton would make the same argument against Wesley today. But Wesley never wavered from teaching that faith is a gift received from God; his theology centers around the belief that our worship and our works are a response to God's gift of grace. This response is by definition a free offering of love -- it is not a currency to spend.

The debate about how much work one has to do to find faith in God goes to the heart of what it means to live a Christian life. It's why Martin Luther wrestled to understand the epistle of James. Trying to find that balance between waiting for God and doing good things is part of the daily pilgrimage of discipleship. These two books come from two different perspectives, staking out extreme claims on either side. You could read both of them and then try to find a middle ground that works for you. Or you could just start with Wesley and his Three Rules. He already wrestled with the relationship between faith and works, and his balanced perspective can help the rest of us who come after him.

Saturday, September 5, 2015

The Bugbear of Sustainability

In my years as a mission administrator I never quite came to terms with the language of sustainability. From the 1990s onward there has been a suspicion of development projects that are started by foreigners and run by outside money. Most experts in the field will grant you that good initiatives have to start that way, but the conventional wisdom nowadays demands that the running and funding of projects has to come from the inside -- that is, from stakeholders in the community (or communities) being served.

That's all well and good. Except that some excellent things will never be sustainable. Take, for instance, Bible translation. The book publishing industry in rich economies is in trouble, and that's with a scale of potential readers that numbers into the millions. Imagine producing a book hundreds of pages long for no more than 10,000 people -- and that's if everyone in the language group buys a copy. Publishing Bibles for minority language communities will never be financially sustainable. You can't sell enough books to even pay for the paper, much less cover the other costs of publication and distribution.  Hence my discomfort with development models that push for sustainability.

In a book review in the Sep/Oct 2015 edition of Books and Culture, Naomi Haynes has named some of the problems that underlie these assumptions about sustainable development projects. Her review of the book Having People, Having Heart by China Scherz largely blames the modern Western concept of autonomous personhood. The book contrasts two different charity organizations in Uganda -- a struggling local NGO which is arguably sustainable, and an effective-yet-unsustainable Franciscan house for the poor. Scherz argues that the individualistic, time-centered ("your funding runs out in X months") post-enlightenment model undermines traditional patron-client relationships, through which many of the world's peoples define and understand their sense of self. In other words, dependence is built in to the structure of many societies. Charities that work within those structures sometimes do more good than ones which set arbitrary timelines for local leaders to take over projects on their own and find their own funding.

The language surrounding sustainable development often seeks to right the wrongs of colonialist attitudes in which the rich world's leaders dictated their own goals to the less powerful. However, the insistence on local stakeholder ownership that severs ties between the donor and client may be just as colonialist as the previous models, in a 21st-century way.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Where does the Trinity Show Up in our Worship Music?

This semester at Duke Divinity School I am taking Introduction to Christian Worship with Lester Ruth, who has written prolifically about Christian worship practices past and present. One of his current research emphases is the corpus of contemporary worship songs that have topped the CCLI usage rankings since they began keeping records in 1989.

In a recent article in Artistic Theologian, Dr. Ruth compares the content of these newer worship songs with those of evangelical hymns that were published in American hymnbooks between 1737 and 1969. Since there was no licensing agency to track which songs were actually sung back then, this is not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the methodology for creating these two similar lists from different eras is quite sound.

One of Ruth's main findings is that both eras of worship music -- the older evangelical hymns as well as the newer contemporary songs -- emphasize the person of Jesus over the other persons of the Trinity. Christianity Today wrote a profile of these findings titled "Yes, Jesus Has Always Been Our Boyfriend." There is much one can say about deficiencies in today's body of popular worship music, and many people argue that the songs in American churches were better in previous eras. As the CT article title hints, some complain that there is an overly-familiar tone in today's music, making God seem too chummy. But we have never been that great at worshiping God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and our song choices show that a close and personal Jesus has consistently been more important to us. Ruth's study shows that American evangelical churches are actually being quite consistent in their song choices over several hundred years.

Ruth delves into several possible reasons for this emphasis on Jesus. He notes that the very nature of the incarnation makes Christ more tangible than the abstract notion of three-persons-in-one. Indeed, Jesus is a personal name, which makes him approachable, and his role as savior has been a cornerstone of theology in America since the beginning. I have written elsewhere about the earnestness that pervades most contemporary worship. Dr. Ruth has shown us that this tendency to project emotion toward God, through Jesus, is nothing new.

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Why I Love the Rural Church


Another school year begins at Duke Divinity School next week -- my third of four years in the M.Div. program. One of the things I most look forward to every August is the addition of an important entry on my student account statement -- one that reads "Rural Ministry Fellowship," followed by a large four-digit dollar figure. That is thanks to the Thriving Rural Communities Initiative of the Duke Endowment, the organization that covers the full cost of my tuition. James B. Duke set up this endowment in 1924 to benefit four main areas of emphasis in North and South Carolina. Rural United Methodist Churches are one of those beneficiaries. My commitment to the Endowment's TRCI program is to serve in a rural UM church after I complete my degree.

Why would I want to serve a rural church? Because I love the rural church. Why is that? For the same reason that I love my parents. I was born and raised in a rural church in western Pennsylvania. That's where I learned to live in a Christian community. At Sheakleyville UMC I was taught to read the scriptures, pray, and sing hymns in a congregation that rarely had a Sunday attendance of over 50 people. It was there that I first felt the call to cross-cultural ministry, and it was that group of people who affirmed my calling to ordination as a pastor. I'm not sentimental or naïve -- small churches certainly have their share of problems. But I love this church in spite of its imperfections.

I also love the rural church because I love the church, period. Rural churches are not just important for their collective historical value. These are congregations that constitute the actual living church of Jesus Christ. They aren't primarily sentimental curiosities or problems to be solved. Every Sunday millions of people gather at small churches to pray, ask for forgiveness, take Communion, and baptize new members into their fellowship. Most rural churches are small, and when they are at their best small churches care for everyone in the congregation. Carl Dudley describes this work of the small church as the "single caring cell." (See his book Effective Small Churches in the Twenty-first Century.) Everyone knows everyone else in a small church, and this is both a strength and a weakness. It's a strength because members enjoy a high sense of belonging. But it can be a weakness when the small cell of members becomes afraid to adopt new members for fear of growing beyond its capacity to care for everyone. Check out Dudley's book to read how this desire for togetherness defines much of what happens in a small congregation.

Thankfully, I don't have to wait to serve a rural church sometime down the road. I am already the pastor of two great churches. I can't wait to worship with them again on Sunday.

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Grumbling Can Turn You Into Nothing

This week I attended a conference where Christine Pohl shared insights from her book Living into Community: Cultivating Practices That Sustain Us. The four main practices she describes -- gratitude, promise-keeping, truth-telling, and hospitality -- all have deformations that weaken a community's ability to thrive.

One of the corruptions of gratitude is grumbling. God's people have always struggled with this sin, perhaps most memorably in the desert between Egypt and the promised land. Remember when the people complained about not having meat to eat, so God sent so many quail that they were overwhelmed by the sheer mass of them? (See Numbers 11.)

Pohl used one of my favorite books to illustrate the spiritual danger of grumbling. In The Great Divorce (which is not about marriage), C.S. Lewis describes a woman who grumbled so much that she actually transformed into what she did -- she moved from being a grumbler to being the very essence of the sin itself -- a "grumble." This danger shows the negative side of what Pohl teaches: what we do makes us into different people. We can choose to do things that make us more like God, such as offering gratitude. Or we can choose to do things that make us whither away to nothing. Let me use Lewis' own words here (from pages 74-75). The questioner sees this miserable woman on a bus of people coming from hell. He asks the teacher about her condition.

Questioner: I am troubled, Sir, because that unhappy creature doesn't seem to me to be the sort of soul that ought to be even in danger of damnation. She isn't wicked: she's only a silly, garrulous old woman who has got into a habit of grumbling, and one feels that a little kindness, and rest, and change would put her all right.
Teacher: The question is whether she is a grumbler, or only a grumble. If there is a real woman--even the least trace of one--still there inside the grumbling, it can be brought to life again. If there's one wee spark under all those ashes, we'll blow it till the whole pile is read an clear. But if there's nothing but ashes we'll not go on blowing them in our own eyes forever. They must be swept up. 
Lewis' view of hell is not embraced by all. But his larger point -- that grumbling can actually destroy our souls -- is an important warning against neglecting to be grateful. Let's be so thankful that our very souls turn into a "thanks."

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Eat and Do Laundry

The book of Revelation has been a puzzle to the church since John first recorded it. His visions contain many images and symbols about God and creation, and people over the years have offered different interpretations of the book's most difficult passages. For example: What are Gog and Magog, exactly? (Rev. 20:8) When is the thousand-year break from Satan going to happen -- or did it already come and go? (Rev. 20:3) What will the mark of the beast look like? (Rev 13:16-18) Who are the two witnesses described in chapter 11? Then there are questions about end-times events that don't even come up in the book, such as the rapture and the Antichrist.

John knew that the images from his prophecies would be hard to understand. So all throughout Revelation he places short reminders and wake-up calls about his main points, such as:

"This means that God's holy people must endure persecution patiently, obeying his commands and maintaining their faith in Jesus" (Rev. 14:12).

"Worship only God" (Rev. 19:10 and 22:9).

As we try to read Revelation today we too can get caught up in the meanings of current events, searching the scriptures for how they might fit into predictions about the end of days. But when it comes down to it, God's requirements are not that difficult to understand. The final chapter of Revelation describes the Christian life in terms of two main activities: doing laundry and eating.

All throughout Revelation John mentions the importance of keeping one's clothing pure and spotless: "Blessed are all who are watching for me, who keep their clothing ready" (Rev 16:15). The countless number of worshippers before the throne are wearing white robes (Rev. 7:9). In the book's final verses John sums up faithfulness in this way: "Blessed are those who wash their robes" (Rev. 22:14). This is clearly a call for purity and holiness. Each one of us knows there are certain activities, people, and places we should not be tied up with. But how do we resist these daily temptations? We do our laundry. That is, we stay busy with the tasks at hand. God has given you a job, or a role in your family, or a position in your church. If you pour yourself into these roles, then you won't have time left over to chase after temptations. You also won't have much energy to fret or worry about the circumstances of life.

The second activity listed in Revelation 22 is eating. To those who stay busy and keep their robes clean, God says: "They will be permitted to enter through the gates of the city and eat the fruit from the tree of life" (Rev. 22:14). God has always described fellowship in terms of food. The Garden of Eden was designed to be a place where humans could eat in God's presence and in fellowship with one another (Genesis 2:15-16). Eating together is one of the most holy aspects of our earthly existence, and it foreshadows the kind of relationship God intends to have with each one of us. Do you eat regularly with others? Does your family sit down to share meals on a regular basis? Does your church congregation? Do you invite other people to come and eat a meal that you have prepared?

Do you want to fulfill God's plans for your life and be ready for the next life? Then be faithful to do your laundry -- that is, what God places before you -- and invite others to eat with you.

Saturday, August 1, 2015

What Scouting Taught Me About Ministry


Summer reminds me of the great times I had as a Boy Scout. It was during summer breaks from school that we did most of our camp-outs and completed much of the work towards our merit badges and rank requirements. While visiting my parents recently I came across my old Boy Scout books from the 1980s (see photo). It was fun to flip through their well-worn pages and reminisce about my days in Troop 78 in Hadley, PA.

These memories got me thinking about how Scouting is great preparation for life as an adult. The Boy Scouts also taught me a few things about ministry. Here are some ways that being a Scout has helped me as a missionary and a pastor.

1. Packing. Most people associate Scouting with camping. Sure, it's great fun to swim in rivers and hike through the woods. But those experiences are only possible if you bring the right gear. Scouting taught me that camping is 90% preparation. Most of the work happens before the campout. A Scout has to pack his own personal effects, but the troop also works together to pack and load up shared materials such as tents and cooking equipment. The 1983 Handbook has a template for an individual packing list (see photo to the left), which is how I learned to pack from a checklist. At one point in my career as a missionary I traveled more than 15 weeks a year. If I hadn't used a list, which I printed out before every trip, I would have spent a couple of extra days each year just figuring out what to pack.

Packing for a campout is a concrete way of learning the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. Leading worship on Sunday mornings is similar -- 90% of the work comes before the event. Picking songs, working on sermons, and practicing the scripture readings all have to happen prior to Sunday at 10:00am.

2. Paying Attention.  In order to earn the Environmental Science merit badge (at least back in my day) we had to sit in the woods for a total of 8 hours (over 4 different sessions). Then we had to write a 500-word essay about the animals, plants, and geological features that we observed. At that point in my life this was the longest, most boring activity I had ever undertaken. Never before had I sat in one place for so long with nothing to do. But it taught me to pay attention to what is going on around me.

It is easy to make ministry into a list of things to get done each day. But unless you take a break from working through your to-do list, you will miss some of the most important things that go on around you. The spiritual disciplines of prayer and Sabbath-keeping are meant to keep us focused on what is happening -- and especially on what God is doing in our midst. Here are some quotes on this topic from theologian Karl Barth. These statements are found on pages 162 and 163 of his book Evangelical Theology. (I modified them slightly to make them more gender inclusive.)
The purpose of the Sabbath is not to eliminate the working days or to divest them of their proper tasks, but rather to obtain for them precisely the light from above which they lack.
For in prayer a person temporarily turns away from his or her own efforts. This move is necessary precisely for the sake of the duration and continuation of one's own work.
A person prays, not in order to sacrifice the work or even to neglect it, but in order that it may not remain or become unfruitful work.

3. Actions create habits that build character. To kids the thrill of Scouting comes from all the new experiences: sleeping out under the stars, playing Capture the Flag in several acres of forest, canoeing across miles of lakes. These things are all great. But Scouting is actually about using these experiences to form character and to nurture virtues. When I was a teenager I wasn't excited about packing or sitting in the woods alone for hours on end. At the time those activities were just something to endure on the way to the "real" fun. But I realize now that those very activities built skills of patience and preparation that have made me into a better person.

This is not unlike what congregations do every time they come together for worship. I came of age in an era when children were not encouraged to take communion. We were taught that we should be old enough to understand the sacrament before participating. I still respect parents who make this decision for their children, but I've learned to see it differently. Instead of waiting until someone can grasp the significance of Holy Communion (and who can, at any age?), I see it as a way to form who we are. By taking Communion regularly we are creating habits that help us become more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. The order of worship leads us in actions that teach forgiveness (passing the peace), gratitude (the prayer of thanksgiving), and hospitality (the invitation). A child who participates in these liturgical practices is learning virtues by doing them and by watching others do them. In this way their actions precede and create understanding.

It's true that going to church doesn't by itself make someone into a Christian. Faith is required for that. But in response to the gift of faith, participating in worship services helps us to form habits, which in turn create virtues that make us into better followers of Jesus.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

The Role of a Pastor

The pastoral ministry is a haven for multitaskers. Running a church is a great remedy for those who tend to get bored with their work. No two days are the same. There is a wide variety of things to be managed and looked after, and at the end of each week there still remains an enormous amount of work to be done. Hospital visits, sermons, Bible studies, committee meetings, weddings, printing bulletins -- these are (almost) all thrilling activities. That doesn't even touch the personal spiritual work of prayer and contemplation, which most pastors would rather do more of.

Some pastors may have formal job descriptions, but I doubt that most do. It would simply take too long to list all the things that one has to attend to. Besides, what church board or committee would want to actually wade through that long list on a regular basis when doing an evaluation?

Instead of providing a detailed job description, the United Methodist Church lists four main areas of responsibility for its pastors:
  • Word: preaching, teaching, and counseling
  • Sacrament: communion, baptism
  • Order: administrative oversight, financial operations, budgeting, reporting to the denomination
  • Service: extending the ministry of Christ into the world
The explanation of these four areas takes more than two pages in the Book of Discipline (Paragraph 340). While this kind of broad overview is helpful, it doesn't help to create focus. In fact, it can even be discouraging, especially when a pastor might feel that they have to excel in all these different areas.

For the pastor who needs things to be boiled down, let me recommend what Eugene Peterson has written on the subject. Peterson says that the real work of a pastor is to cure souls. Even if the day-to-day responsibilities of running a church involve a variety of other activities, the basic job can be boiled down to these three things: teaching prayer, developing faith, and preparing for a good death (The Contemplative Pastor, page 59). Those responsibilities aren't easy, but I find that Peterson's short list keeps me focused on what really matters.

If you are a pastor, I encourage you to focus on the three-fold task of curing souls. If you are on the committee that evaluates your pastor, then encourage him or her to stick to what matters.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

The Call to Servant Leadership

Jesus taught his disciples that the one who serves the others would be the greatest among them. These moments in the gospels happen as Jesus announces his own impending death, even as the disciples jockeyed for positions of authority amongst themselves (Matthew 20:17-28; Mark 9:30-35, 10:33-43; Luke 22:22-27). Jesus’ pathway of suffering inverted his followers’ expectations about what it meant to be revered and honored: the path to “greatness” includes a cross and a tomb. But it also demonstrates what service should look like -- it is about imitating Jesus. Just as his initial call beckoned them to watch how he fished for people, their ongoing discipleship should also be about doing things the way he did them (Matthew 4:19; Mark 1:17). This calling to discipleship is still about following Jesus, especially in two essentially sacramental ways: we follow him to the river and to the table.

When we follow Jesus to the river to share in his baptism, we are reminded of the commonness of our calling. Through our baptism we become a part of the family of various others. As Rowan Williams puts it in Being Christian, “to be a Christian is to be affected -- you might even say contaminated -- by the mess of humanity” (p.6). Our initial calling is to be baptized, and in doing so we plunge into the chaotic waters of this world and join with God’s other creatures. Only after we accept this general calling of baptism do we receive a specialized, individualized calling. It is quite easy to invert this, as James and John do in Matthew 20:20-23, and assume that as called ones we are necessarily entitled to specialized positions of privilege. Instead, by following Jesus into baptism we are reminded that our individual callings are for the sake of others. Os Guinness writes in The Call that we have individual giftings for the very purpose of giving them away -- that specific and individual callings must be balanced by our general calling to serve others (p.48). It is only within the context of worshipping and serving with our baptized brothers and sisters that we can flesh out an individual calling.

This is one of the things I love most about being a pastor, and it is also one of the role’s biggest challenges. It takes work to invite others into new roles and responsibilities, especially if they haven’t yet caught a vision for how God is calling them. If pastoral leadership was about racking up individual accomplishments, it would be easy to run everything as the pastor. But centralizing everything in the pastor’s own individual abilities would fall short of the responsibility to “build the body of Christ as a caring and giving community, extending the ministry of Christ to the world” (United Methodist Book of Discipline, p.270). As one who shares in Jesus’ baptism, I’m forced to see my primary accomplishments in what we do together. It is at the baptismal font that we lay aside aspirations for authority and position that come at the expense of others, because our calling is for those others.

The servant leader also follows Jesus to the communion table. In celebrating the Eucharist we are reminded that all are welcomed, and the leader imitates Jesus by extending this invitation to everyone. Jesus instructs the disciples to welcome even little children, and he does this in the middle of his discourse about his death and inverted leadership style (Mark 9:36-37). Who could be more on the periphery than a child? Without marketable skills, a young child isn’t even worthy of being a commodity -- only an expense. There is nothing to be gained in a consumer society by including children. But in imitating Jesus we learn that his welcome extends to all whom we might consider unlikely disciples -- the unmarketable, the inconvenient, and the annoying. Rowan Williams remarks that the sacrament of communion “obliges you to see the person next to you as wanted by God” (emphasis his, p.51 in Being Christian). God’s invitation is not simply an acquiescence that we need to accommodate the less fortunate. It is a call to desire to be with the other in the same way that you invite your friends to a dinner party.

It can become easy to see someone else as a project to be fixed. My own call to cross-cultural mission was, at least in part, motivated by a concern for those who did not have what I have. In a position of relative power and wealth, I thought that being a missionary was about choosing to surrender my privilege in order to provide people in developing countries with what they lacked. My value came in what I could give away, and on the surface this seemed to be like real service. But this concept broke down at the point of invitation. In order for me to be a missionary, I had to be invited to enter into the lives of the people I was trying to serve. As such, I found myself receiving many more invitations that I was able to extend. More than once I dined on a family’s last chicken so that they could serve their best meal to a guest. People with relatively few resources were giving them to me -- not the other way around. The communion table reminds us that Jesus not only inverted the sense of who is important, but he also turns upside down conventional ideas about who is desirable. He personally accepted invitations to the homes of people who were not well-liked (Matthew 9:10-11). And then he rebuked his detractors for trying to fix things instead of living into the hospitality that is behind every invitation: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (9:13, NRSV). As ones called by Jesus, he invites us to follow him to where he is (John 12:26). At the river and at the table -- that’s where we learn from him how to serve.

Sunday, July 5, 2015

What is Universal about Music?

I've gone on record saying that music is not a universal language. That's a foundational belief for people in my line of work. If I thought that one song could communicate the same thoughts or conjure up similar emotions in each and every culture, then I wouldn't have spent most of my adult life helping people create new worship songs in their own language and musical styles. Indeed, the discipline of ethnomusicology itself has been dedicated to proving that music is meaningful only within its own particular context -- that is, that people understand and give meaning to music (and other art forms) according to their own systems of language and
behavior. Moving a song from one culture to another is like using words from one language and hoping they will communicate the same thing to a different group of people.

The field of ethnodoxology was also built on the principle that music does not communicate universally. Some of the church's worst historical moments happened when worship songs and liturgical practices were thought to carry universal meaning. Songs and rituals were imported to new places under the assumption that if they worked in one place (usually Western Europe or the USA) then they could work just as well in another (usually Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, or Asia). Even worse, that mindset was usually coupled with a colonial attitude that missionaries were bringing a better form of music (or art or culture) to replace inferior forms. People who say that music is a universal language are usually implying that their music is so great that everyone in the world should be able to appreciate, enjoy, and understand it. Ethnodoxologists instinctively stay away from the search for universals in music because they don't want to encourage this kind of musical superiority. Western pop music is doing enough to wash out indigenous and traditional music; the worship of the church should not add to the extinction of local songs.

But that's not to say that there are no universals in music. Obviously, for music to be distinguishable from a set of random sounds there has to be some sense of rhythm or pitch and a structure that sets it apart from noises that happen by chance in nature. And the fact that every culture group has some kind of music leads us to wonder if there is something musical that is fundamentally built into humanity. Dear Reader, this may seem obvious to you. But for years this assertion -- that there might be something universal about music -- has been theoretical thin ice in the fields of ethnomusicology and ethnodoxology. Both of these disciplines have been committed to studying a culture or people group on its own terms -- that is, not comparing (or ranking) them to others. This desire to undo the cultural superiority that often lies behind the assertion that "Music is a universal language" has made us very passionate. It has also made it very hard for ethnomusicologists to even want to look for features that all music system have in common. And it makes it nearly impossible for us to have conversations with other scholars who are earnestly searching for ways to compare music across different cultures.

Of those who have attempted to systematically compare music systems, some have relied on dubious methods and assumptions. Alan Lomax, a renowned curator of traditional music, launched a music comparison project that tried to find connections between songs found in different parts of the world. But unfortunately this Cantometrics effort got correlation and causation mixed up. For instance, Lomax determined that people sang with constricted throats (or sang "rough") because they were prudes. These methodological missteps kind of spoiled the whole idea of a doing global music comparisons for a while. But more recently some ethnomusicologists have been trying to use other methods to discover and describe universal features of the world's music systems. This is the hard part. How does one test and prove that anything about music is consistent across all places and culture groups? Some researchers like Judith Becker have tried to use brain scans or changes in the skin (think of the technology behind lie detectors) to measure individual physical responses to hearing music. (See Becker's article "Ethnomusicology and Empiricism in the Twenty-First Century" in the journal Ethnomusicology, Fall 2009 (53.3) edition.) These studies still assume that the physical responses of listeners come from within specific cultural contexts that make the music meaningful.

Others have tried to analyze the musical sounds themselves, attempting to break them down into fundamental building blocks that can be found everywhere. Recently a group of scholars studied 304 different musical samples from around the globe. (See their article "Statistical Universals Reveal the Structures and Functions of Human Music.") The gist of their conclusion is that there are definitely some aspects of music that are in almost every (if not quite all) of the world's music systems. Granted, that claim may not blow your mind, but it is a significant statement that goes against the grain of the very particular and limited studies that ethnomusicologists tend to do. Michael Tenzer, himself an ethnomusicologist, has also proposed that we find new methods for studying and comparing music from different cultures. In a recent article in the journal Ethnomusicology, he called for a reckoning with the wide-spread sense that there is something innate within music that all humans share. (See "Meditation on Objective Aesthetics in World Music" in the journal's Winter 2015 (59.1) edition.) He states that this is probably most evident in the way that humans experience time, since music seems to be a phenomenon primary linked to and defined by the passage of time. He even suggests that music may be, like mathematics, an aspect of the universe that reveals some deeper significance to life itself.

I hope that ethnodoxologists will follow these recent movements in ethnomusicology and open themselves to exploring universals in music. While comparative music studies should never be used to rank some cultures as better than others, I believe that the time has now passed to let this fear dominate the discussion. Today we live in a post-colonial era when any claims of superiority are automatically suspect. Now is the time to engage with others to look for universals in music systems and see if these can reveal something about our shared human experiences. People in other disciplines have already been doing similar work on music as a universal phenomenon. It would be nice to dialogue with them and learn together. Specifically, I would like to see ethnodoxologists engage with theologians like Jeremy Begbie who are critically and carefully examining how music and theology can reveal things about each other.

Music is meaningful in its specific context. This is what ethnomusicology taught me. It's a principle that also guides my work in ethnodoxology. The fact that music is not a universal language should be a bedrock principle for those engaged in global comparisons and the search for universal features in music. If ethnomusicologists and ethnodoxologists don't engage in these studies, then the research will just go on without us. Those searching for the significance of universals in music will be left without the benefit of this wisdom that cultural systems create specific systems of meaning.

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Walking as a Spiritual Discipline

I serve as a pastor of two churches. The first one is three miles from our home, and the second is just three more miles down the same road. On Sunday morning it takes ten minutes to drive the six miles. Lately I have been wondering how long it would take to walk the entire twelve-mile round trip.

Besides the physical challenge of making that journey, I remembered hearing about Christians who practiced walking or hiking as a spiritual discipline.
About thirty years ago I saw a photo like this one of Pope John Paul II hiking in the countryside. As a kid I was struck by seeing the white robes in the woods and being surprised that the pope would do something so ordinary.

Later on in life I learned about the basic spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditation, reading, and fasting. Most of these activities involve sitting in a room alone, trying to concentrate on God. I'm all for concentration, and I attempt to practice at least one of those alone-time disciplines every day. However, I also like the idea that God can work in our lives while we are moving around. So I recently I tried combining walking with prayer.

"Prayer Walking" is not something you can read about in the Bible. Jesus certainly walked around a lot, but the gospels never say he prayed while doing it. The closest we get is the story of Joshua walking around the walls of Jericho, but that was in preparation to kill everyone inside -- not exactly the kind of activity I had in mind. Instead, I was thinking about walking as a way to pray for the people in the neighborhood. In our churches we have been asking God to open us up to the needs of our neighbors, so I thought that walking past their homes would provide an opportunity to pray for each household.

Last week I took my first prayer walk. (I'm proud to say that I shaved off 40 minutes from the time that Google Maps said it would take -- 3:30 instead of 4:15.) It was a nice chance to have something to do while praying, and I found that the physical activity made the time go faster. But, unfortunately, walking was not a magical formula to make praying easier. My mind still wandered. It was still hard work to actually pray for the houses and cars that I passed.

But here is something that helped me stay focused: I found a passage from a Psalm that brought a mental image to mind to use in my prayers. For instance, yesterday I read Psalm 102:25 before setting out: "Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth and made the heavens with your hands." So for each house I walked past, I prayed that Jesus Christ would be the spiritual foundation (or cornerstone, also borrowing from Ephesians 2:20) of the people inside. It might seem agonizingly repetitive to use the same image for dozens of prayers, but I actually found it helpful to have one organizing idea. When praying for lots of people at once -- especially ones you don't know -- a central theme can keep you focused. Trying to come up with original prayers for each house would be really difficult, especially in neighborhoods where the homes are close together.

During my walks I also pray for the people in my congregations -- even the ones who don't live along the route that I walk. I have also told them when I do these walks so that they can join me in prayer too. I trust that God will work in our lives as a result of these Prayer Walks.

Here is a three-minute Youtube video from the Salvation Army about Prayer Walking as a way to intercede for people:


Saturday, June 20, 2015

Fighting our Enemies

The story of David and Goliath comes up in the rotation of preaching texts for this Sunday's worship services. All week I've been working through 1 Samuel 17, trying to find the key places that this story intersects with the lives of those I will be preaching to tomorrow. There is something primal about seeing ourselves as David -- the God-favored underdog who defeats godless opponents, all while proving one's self to a sociopathic ruler and skeptical family members. Given the opportunity to "place yourself in the scene" -- a practice that is used in some devotional methods of reading the Bible -- most of us would line ourselves up with David. We all want to be the shepherd with five stones and a sling.

Then on Wednesday a young white man murdered nine black worshipers at a service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. I instantly thought, "He thinks he's David." Admittedly, I haven't heard the shooter specifically reference Israel's boy warrior, but I have no doubt that he saw himself as a savior, fighting alone against the odds. Reading 1 Samuel -- or any part of the Bible -- in the wrong way can be very dangerous. Indeed, trying to make every Scripture passage fit our own personal agenda or situation can lead us astray, especially when we assume that the Bible endorses violence.

We've all read 1 Samuel 17. On the surface it is a  pretty straight-forward account that teaches "trust in God, and you'll defeat your enemies." No doubt that's a part of this chapter's meaning. But many of us take this a step further and assume that behind this story is a God who approves of violence. Here are a few reasons why I think this is a wrong approach:
  • We're not totally sure about David's motivations here. Sure, verses 37 and 46 have David claiming that he's fighting for the Lord. But in the lead-up to his big showdown with the giant, David is promised a reward for winning. Verse 25 says, "The king will greatly enrich the man who kills him, and will give him his daughter and make his family free in Israel." I don't know too many young men who would be able to go into this battle clear-headed and not consider those offers on the table. There is some hint of David's personal motivation in his brother's accusation in verse 28: "I know your presumption and the evil of your heart; for you have come down just to see the battle." Did David have the Lord's best interests in mind, or his own? If he trusted only in God, then would he need to use a weapon at all?
  •  God never tells David to use violence. In fact, God doesn't talk in this story at all. The Lord is not slow to speak in this part of the Bible -- just look at how many times he directs Samuel in the previous chapters. But in chapter 17 God says nothing -- it seems as if David has decided for himself how to resolve the problem of the giant's challenges. This is a life-long struggle for David, and at the end of his life David's violent ways disqualify him from building God's temple (1 Chronicles 28:3).
  • It wasn't a fair fight -- for Goliath. Malcom Gladwell, the best-selling author, has an interesting take on David's fighting methods. In the video clip below, he claims that David craftily shifted the terms of battle into his own favor. Goliath probably suffered from a brain tumor, which caused him to grow larger than normal and affected his eyesight. David brought a gun to a knife fight and killed a man who was being manipulated and coerced by the Philistine armies. (Here's the link to the talk, in case the image clip below doesn't show up in your email or blog reader: https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_the_unheard_story_of_david_and_goliath?language=en)
The Black Church in America has a long history of being targeted by violent racists. While it seems inconceivable that anyone would consider African-American Christians as an enemy, the murders in Charleston are the latest in a long line of similar travesties. We have a long way to go in this country to repent of all the ugly and intertwined sin and evil that have infested our collective psyche and individual souls. As long as people tolerate or encourage violence as an appropriate means for solving problems, then we will be constantly tempted to find enemies -- real or imagined -- so that we can exercise these tools of war. Here's a suggestion for attempting to undo the evils of racism in America: Let's stop interpreting our scriptures in ways that endorse violence. The bigger message of the Bible is that God will bring about a new kingdom of peace. Violence has never been a part of God's plan. God's people are meant to use forgiveness and hospitality to win battles, not the weapons of war.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Itineracy

This is Annual Conference season in the United Methodist Church. Here in eastern North Carolina we just spent four days in Wilmington, where we worshiped together and discussed the business -- or order -- of our denomination in this part of the world.

Part of the ordering of ministry that happens at Annual Conference is the setting of pastoral appointments. On the final day of the gathering the Bishop read out all changes in appointments for the UM churches in her area of responsibility. Thankfully, I was reappointed to Salem and Harris Chapel and will not be moving this year. Of course this came as no surprise -- I would have known beforehand if a move was in the works. The Bishop, through a District Superintendent, collaborates with pastors and churches to set appointments. Gone are the days when the Bishop would surprise the pastors and their laity by announcing changes for the first time during Annual Conference. 

Itineracy is the word we use to describe how pastors are moved around and appointed according to the Bishop's direction. This is one thing that sets the UMC apart from other church traditions. Our pastors move at the behest of the Annual Conference instead of the local congregation. Local churches certainly have a voice in deciding on pastoral appointments, but the ultimate decision resides with the office of the Bishop. As I prepare for ordination as an Elder in the UMC, I agree to accept this aspect of ministry.

This is very different from churches who call or hire their own pastors. It would be difficult to make a case from scripture for one method being right or the other wrong. Methodism has placed such a high value on itineracy because Bishop Francis Asbury saw it as a mark of apostolicity. In other words, preachers who were willing to be sent out wherever needed were following in the same tradition as the early apostles. Many times those pastors were called on to move every year or two. In places where churches were being planted -- where the Methodists were meeting in homes or cell groups -- a circuit-riding preacher might only visit once every few months. Having a "station" or permanent pastor was considered a luxury for more established congregations.

These days the church in America is no longer a frontier movement. Moving new preachers into different pulpits is less important than the stability of leadership over the long haul. It's now rare for pastors to get moved around frequently, and some stay in their appointments for a very long time -- decades rather than years. Of course there are both pros and cons about long-term appointments. In a culture where people trust leaders less than they used to, it takes a pastor a long time to become known and respected in a community. People who study such things say that a pastor needs at least 7 years in the same appointment to see significant growth or change. However, a long-term appointment can also tempt a congregation to build a personality cult around a specific pastor. If a change in pastors causes a church to collapse, then too much of that congregation's ministry was centered in one person. A good pastor is important, but it's not everything when it comes to being the body of Christ.


Saturday, May 30, 2015

Pray Like You Mean It

Last year I wrote a short post called 'How To Pray.' It was mostly just a link to the audio file and handout from a teaching session I gave at church. This post fills out some of the details and will also appear in the Faith section of the Henderson Daily Dispatch sometime in June.

Pray without ceasing - 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Most of us know that we should pray more. Paul's command to "pray without ceasing" usually makes us feel like we fall short. Like dieting or exercise, prayer is a discipline that we too often put off for another day, perhaps when we have more time. But just like an athlete who prepares her body for competition by eating well and training every day, we can only become people of prayer by working at it. Praying all the time takes concentrated effort -- it comes naturally for very few people.

How do we pray more often and more effectively? First, don't be afraid to ask for help. Jesus' own disciples had to ask him how to pray: "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1). That's when he introduced them to the Lord's Prayer. There are people around you who are also struggling to be better at prayer. Ask them how they are doing -- when they pray, what they use to guide them, etc. It will encourage and bless the person you ask.

Second, remember that prayer is a response to God's grace. This order of operations is very important. We don't pray so that God will do things that we want. Instead, we pray to thank God for the love that has already been demonstrated for us through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. This means that it is not up to us human beings to "come up with" something to pray for. Rather, we are simply responding to God's goodness and mercy by giving thanks. Our petitions and requests are nothing more than responses to needs in the world. Don't pressure yourself to invent beautiful prayers off the top of your head. Praying is just responding to what you have experienced from God and seen in the world.

Third, be honest. Have you ever read through the Psalms? Notice how straightforward the psalmists are about their needs and discouragements. If they feel let down by God, or that the Lord has abandoned them, they are not shy to shout it out! God can handle it when you feel disappointed, ashamed, or let down. Don't feel like you have to clean up your prayers into nice tidy statements. Tell God how you really feel.

Fourth, pray with others. Prayer is not meant to only be a solitary activity. Indeed, it is one of the most important parts of what happens when God's people gather together. If you need help learning how to pray, go to church more often. Go to all the services that your congregation offers, and then attend some others at nearby churches listed in your newspaper. Worship is about prayer, and worshiping more often will help you pray more. If you don't believe that, I challenge you to try it!

Finally, remember that you always have back-up. Romans 8:26 says that the Holy Spirit will pray for you when you don't know what to say. God is not interested in giving you a grade for how well your prayers are structured. Instead, God will actually help you pray when you struggle for words, or even when you lack the faith to pray on your own.

Saturday, May 23, 2015

When a Mission Trip is not a Mission Trip

Last week I went on a mission trip. Except that it wasn't really a mission trip. In fact, we didn't accomplish anything. No houses were built; no church buildings were painted. The name of the trip itself indicated that doing something wasn't the purpose of going: Encuentro was about meeting people and hearing their stories related to immigration at the border areas of Mexico and Arizona. If something was changed as a result of our trip, it wasn't because those of us from North Carolina accomplished a specific task.

Short-term mission (STM) trips have been more than trendy for the past 20 years. It's actually de rigueur for young people in many Protestant churches to go on an overseas excursion each summer. Indeed, my own faith journey has benefited greatly from mission trips, beginning with a STM to Paraguay in 1991 led by a group called Go International. It's hard to imagine that I would have become a missionary and a pastor without these cross-cultural experiences to South America, Haiti, and the Solomon Islands.

But when every Christian young person in the US expects to go on a mission trip, these experiences can become more of an industry than a ministry. Several folks have already written on this subject, and you can check out some summaries of those critiques here in Christianity Today and Christian Century. (I think that second article requires a subscription.) As these authors suggest, STM trips can be very effective if they result in meaningful encounters between guest and host -- where listening is the bigger part of doing.

On Encuentro 2015 our team did just that -- we listened as our hosts shared their experiences as migrants. At Casa del Migrante in Tijuana we ate supper at a guest house, along with 50 men who were staying there in transit between the US and Mexico. The ones I spoke with personally had
Men at Casa del Migrante (Photo from migrante.com.mx)
recently been deported from the US and were trying to figure out what to do next. They had grown up north of the border, having moved there with their parents at a young age. Now they found themselves removed from the US because they lacked proper documentation. These men had to find their way in a strange city in a country they don't know, separated from their families. These stories are numerous, especially as the US has increased deportations over the past 10 years. Many ministries and churches have responded to this crisis of dislocated families. We also visited Padre Chava, which houses and feeds migrants, along with a Salvation Army shelter. North of the border we met with workers from Samaritans, BorderLinks, Neighborhood Ministries, and the United Methodist Church. All of these groups help migrants to survive the physical and legal perils of living in the US without documents.

Looking through the fence into the US
It was difficult to hear these stories about deportations, especially when they involved men who where forcibly separated from their wives and children. As a visitor to Mexico, there was nothing I could do to help these families. It would have made me feel better to paint a room or build a church fellowship hall, but it wouldn't have helped. In fact, a STM work team might have taken employment away from some of these migrants who were stuck in Tijuana without a job. All we could do was listen. And worship.

One of the most meaningful things we did on Encuentro was to celebrate Communion at Friendship Park in Tijuana. For a few hours on Saturdays and Sundays the US Border Patrol lets people approach the border wall. That allows people on either side to see their loved ones face to face. In many cases this is the only way these families can visit each other in person. It is very difficult for Mexicans to get papers to come to the US, even as tourists. And many on the US side are stuck in the years-long process of obtaining documents, which prevents them from leaving the country. During our afternoon at Friendship Park, we saw a family reuniting -- that is, looking at each other through a metal barrier -- after 15 years of not seeing each other. It was in that place that we had Communion. Two pastors presided over the service -- one in the US and one in Mexico. The pastor on the northern side preached in two languages and consecrated the elements. Then we on the Mexican side lined up and received them. Although a wall separated the worshipers from each other, we realized that God's grace was not limited by borders and walls created by human governments.

STM trips can be heart-breaking. Encuentro certainly was. I couldn't fix anything in the 6 days I was there. All I could do was listen and pray for the people whom God has called to minister to migrants. In the meantime I can keep praying and celebrating the risen Christ who is in the business of reconciliation and barrier-busting.

Receiving the body and blood of Christ at the border fence




A Manual for Personal Piety: The Book of Hours

Book of Hours manuscript kept at Harvard University People have always encountered God outside outside of the times and spaces designat...