The Listening Ear

A Guide for Modern Pilgrims–

As we continue to reflect on the book The Journey: A Guide for the Modern Pilgrim, Maria Scaperlanda expands on the notion that we need to decide what things we need to leave behind as we carry our pack. One way to do this is to focus on the present rather than being weighed down by regrets or hurts from the past or anxiety about the future.

“The key to true freedom is learning to live in the present moment,” she writes. This means to choose to open ourselves to the healing, the hope and the love that we receive by trusting God.

This is an important skill to learn both as we make special pilgrimages and as we continue this journey called life. Sometimes this can be difficult for us because it seems like we are surrounded by darkness. Yet, our spiritual journey is not a decision to leap away from, but directly into the darkness. It is the radical decision to stay with the pain because we trust in God’s healing and loving promise.

That’s the difference between living as a tourist as opposed to living as a pilgrim. For the tourist, the journey is always external. For the pilgrim, the most important journey takes place inside us. That journey involves a conscious decision to live in the present moment and saying ‘yes’ to the graces that God has for us today and each day.

Facility Needs Team Looking For Input

The Facility needs team met again last evening with our consultant, Jim Nord. At the end of the meeting, they decided to invite members of our ministry teams along with any other interested members of the congregation to a meeting on Thursday, October 1. At that time they will go over the various options that they have been exploring and the advantages and disadvantages of each as they see it.

At that meeting, they are looking for feedback from the various teams regarding how each of the options would meet the present and future needs of their ministries. Input from the teams and the congregation may help them determine which option to recommend to the congregation.

What's Great About Confirmation

I know that I have spoken before about how much I enjoy our confirmation ministry. Admittedly, there’s work that needs to go into this ministry, preparing for learning events, leading the confirmation team (along with the great help I get from Helga Calkins), writing letters for parents and mentors. There are a lot of details that need to be managed.

Last night I met with the students and their parents. We acknowledged that pressures on adolescents have grown and that the support systems for our kids have weaken in many ways. We try to carry out a ministry to our confirmands that fosters relationships—with their peers, with significant adults, with the church and most importantly with Jesus.

I’ve said many times, if we don’t accomplish anymore that teaching kids how to pray regularly, we’ve made a significant impact on their lives. Jesus becomes real to them, someone with whom they can have a significant relation.

Of course, we try to do much more than that and one thing that’s important to us is to try to enlist parents in our efforts to encourage faith in our kids. A simple activity that can yield a host of benefits is something we call the home huddle.

Basically we encourage parents and youth to covenant with each other to spend 10-15 minutes each evening with each other. During that time, we encourage them to talk about their highs and lows for the day. What’s the best thing that’s happened and what’s the worst thing that has happened.

We also encourage them to reflect briefly on a verse of Scripture. Finally, we ask them to pray together—to thank God for the highs and to ask God to help with the lows.

This is a simple process, but if it is done over time, it can yield great benefits. It draws parents and kids closer to each other and to God.

We tell parents, you don’t have many years anyone that your junior high youth will be living in your home. The next years will go by quickly. Why not make the most of the time you have and one way to do it is to have the nightly home huddle.

A Guide for Modern Pilgrims-3

In The Journey: A Guide for the Modern Pilgrim, Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda tells a story of how she discovered a new metaphor for understanding something important about pilgrimage.

When she and her husband reached 50, they decided to take a backpacking trip with their kids through Europe. She found that at that age it was a challenge to carry everything she needed in a backpack.

At one point they were on foot and having trouble locating the convent where they were going to stay in Siena, Italy. At last she sat down, complaining that it felt like she was carrying bricks and that she wasn’t going to carry her pack another step until someone could tell her how far they had to go. As it turned out, the convent was only a few yards.

Later as she looked through her pack to see if there was anything she could discard to lighten the load, she realized that the biggest load she was carrying was her bad attitude.

She goes on to observe, “I often choose to see the day-to-day events of my life as bricks that make my load impossible to carry. Everything become a burden, like the backpack of negativity I carried through the streets of Siena. Everyone becomes a nuisance. Every surprise is an interruption...”

Maria found that rather than trusting God for ‘daily bread,’ she goes through the day hungry, tired and feeling old. She has come to realize that the biggest burdens in her life aren’t physical objects, but the mental attitudes , the spiritual burdens that she has allowed to weigh her down.

Its a good question we all can consider: what’s in my pack? Is there anything that is weighing me down that I would be better off without? How can I let go so that is will be easier to continue life’s pilgrimage?

What is Evangelism?

I think most people in the church know that evangelism is supposed be a central task of the church. Unfortunately, we don’t always know what the term really means. I was sorting though some notes on my computer and found something I wrote for myself some time ago. 

As I reflected on this wonderful challenge of handing on the gospel, I was drawn back to a favorite book: Walter Brueggemann's Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism. Brueggemann focuses on three different constituencies for evangelism:

• Helping outsiders become insiders (what most of us think of when we discuss evangelism).
• Helping forgetters become rememberers (the essential task of re-evangelizing members of the church, "insiders to the faith who have grown careless, weary, jaded, and cynical about the faith."
• Helping beloved children become belief-ful adults.

These are three important aspects of the evangelistic task.

Saturday Night Light Launched

We held our first Saturday Night Light worship a couple of days ago. I think we are off to a good start with 54 persons attending the first time. I think the Saturday service will be a reentry point for those who have drifted away from the church and are looking for a way to get back into worship again. I am hopeful that it will attract some new folks to our congregation. And I think it will be a good option for people who have schedule conflicts that keep them from worshipping on Sunday morning.

I am also pleased with the musical team who are leading the service and the type of worship we’re using. It will be interesting to see how this new service develops in the coming months.

This is also a great time to invite others to any of our worship services.