Teaching Minister

In the United Church, there are two streams of ministry.  A person can be ordained to word, sacrament, and pastoral care or commissioned to a diaconal ministry of social justice, Christian education, and pastoral care.  For a while now, I have struggled with what that means for me.  I feel like I straddle a line between both.  If you've read past posts, you know that I feel a deep calling to diaconal ministry and the many nuances of what that means, but what I struggle with is this named differentiation of function between the two streams.

In the beginning, I chose diaconal ministry because it does not name a focus on the word.  Preaching terrified me.  Standing in front of a lot of people and sharing the gospel and my truth was something beyond my scope of thought and skill.  Christian education, on the other hand, called to me.  For a time, I had studied to be a teacher and I had always wanted to work with children. 

I soon learned that, just by virtue of being a candidate for ministry, people wanted to hear from me.  They wanted me to share my experiences and my learnings from behind the pulpit.  Also, through my studies at the Centre for Christian Studies, and its dynamic and transformative model of education, I began to find my voice.  I began to learn that I had something valuable to say and that others actually wanted to hear me say it. 

During my last year of studies, I decided that it would be best for me to be placed into a church where I was the solo minister, doing word, sacrament, and pastoral care.  I needed to learn how to stand on my own two feet and find my identity as a minister in the church.  The church settled me in Saskatchewan, where I stayed for five years, and preached almost every Sunday, and offered pastoral care to a small community. 

After five years, I decided that I wanted to try team ministry, where I was not in the pulpit every Sunday and doing pastoral visitation, but following my original call of doing Christian education, leading adult groups, Sunday School, and youth group.  I have now been doing this for almost six years.

What I've discovered is that I love what I'm doing but that I miss worship and preaching.  So although I'm not ordained to word and sacrament, I do feel called to do this work.  A term I heard recently is "teaching pastor," which seems to fit my calling.  I love my small group work with adults and young people, but also love to share my teachings in a larger space, within worship.  I love sitting one on one, talking about faith, our struggles with it, our doubts, and our fears.  I also enjoy creating programming or liturgy that engages people in growing their faith and sharing together as a community.  I also love learning together and teaching each other.  I learn most from the youngest among us and those who are different from me and the more I learn about myself and my faith, the more I can teach and share with others. 

I will continue to identify as a diaconal minister but I will function as a teaching minister, one who leads worship and preaches, leads small group studies with adults, creates programming for children and youth, and continues to seek knowledge and gain valuable experiences and grow in my own faith.  And who knows?  I've got many years before me.  That call may continue to change and grow.  For now, it's where I am. 

The Next Generation

In the bible, Moses led his people out of slavery in Egypt and across the dessert to a land promised by God.  It took so many years that by the time they were ready to enter this land, it was a new generation of people with a new chosen leader.  Moses is revered and well-known for his part in this story, but the leader who followed Moses had some big shoes to fill.  Joshua was the one to lead his people into the promised land.  How did the people view Joshua?  Did they fully accept his leadership or did they mourn over the loss of Moses and repeatedly compare Joshua to their past leader?  Was Joshua encouraged and embraced by his community or did they continually criticize him and look for ways to work around him?

As far as I know, Joshua was not a young person when he came in to leadership, but I often wonder how we, as a church, support our up and coming young leaders.  When the church was evaluating me before I was commissioned as a minister at the age of 33, people questioned my readiness based on my age.  As a church, we've grown more used to seeing the older generation in leadership as young people become more rare in the church.  Unfortunately, this also means, people have come to see young people as less capable of leadership.

Here are recent three stories about this next generation of leaders.

1. I talked with someone who was part of a church that had hired a minister who was in his early thirties and had no experience of being a minister in a big church.  She told me that being a minister at this church was a steep learning curve for this person and that he was struggling.  She also told me though that it was going to take time and that the church community was doing all they could to support him during this transition.  How refreshing to hear about a church community that, instead of criticizing their minister for the work he was not doing, was encouraging him and lifting him up as he learned and grew into this new experience.

2.  I sat at a table in a restaurant with people with whom I had been in school to be a minister.  One was the new principal of a theological school and the other had just accepted a position to be principal at another one.  These schools are looking for new ideas and new ways of being and are willing to bring in people from a younger generation who might bring new ideas and new ways of being.  Many of us sitting around that table know that, in the United Church, many have reached an age of retirement, and that we will need to step up into new positions of leadership and responsibility.  

3.  Last summer, at a gathering of diaconal people from around the world, one denomination had invited young people to come.  It was an opportunity for those young people to experience a different kind of ministry and to hear the stories of people doing ministry around the world.  I thought it was a wonderful idea so I decided to invite two young people, who I know are dedicated to living out their faith in the world, to our next United Church diaconal gathering in Winnipeg.  They have the opportunity to hear stories of courageous risking, including a story about forgiveness, social enterprise, truth and reconciliation, visiting the Human Rights museum, and hearing the stories of ministers in the church, their joys, their struggles, and their hopes.  

All of these stories express to me the importance of empowering the next generation of leaders.  In the story of Joshua, I'm sure he had his leadership struggles, but the story tells us,  in the very first chapter of the book of Joshua, the people said, "We will do all you command us to do, and we will go wherever you send us.  Just as we followed Moses, so now we will follow you.  May Yahweh your God be with you, as God was with Moses!...Only be strong! Be courageous." (The Inclusive Bible)  

May we also be strong and courageous enough to risk letting go of our worries and fears, to support and encourage the next generation of young leaders who step forward to lead, and may we have the wisdom to find opportunities to invite young people into training opportunities, leadership events, and learning opportunities that will help them to grow into their calling, whether within the church or as the church in the world.

The Lenticular Cross

On Friday, I worshipped with a small community in a movie theatre.  Although, I"m on sabbatical, attending worship during Holy Week felt important to me and this community extended a warm welcome during this most holy of weeks for Christians. 

During worship on Friday, the pastor mentioned a term that I had never heard: lenticular printing.  Many may be familiar with this kind of print, where as you move, the picture seems to change.  The picture included here holds an example, displaying just one picture from three different viewpoints. 

The pastor talked about the cross as a lenticular image.  The more I think about the idea, the more I like it, especially in view of the weekend just passed, which included Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter.

When I was at a silent retreat at February, the only image of the cross, the dominate image, was that of the crucifixion.  In the worship space and the chapel, you faced the cross with the crucified Jesus.  Behind us in the worship space and down both sides of one of the residence hallways, and in at least three different places and mediums outside on the retreat grounds, were the 14 stations of the cross, images that begin with Pilate condemning Jesus to die and end with Jesus being placed in the tomb.  Experiencing the story of the crucifixion can be emotional.  It's a story of betrayal, denial, and abandonment by friends, being judged and condemned to die by those in power, a slow and excruciating death, filled with feelings of guilt, horror, and grief.  It's a powerful and complex story and usually, people can find their own experience somewhere in the story.

Sometimes people get stuck on this part of the story.  They forget the stories of his ministry and sometimes even forget his victory over the grave.  But there are also those who skip from Good Friday to Easter, and sometimes even skip Good Friday, preferring the feel good story of the resurrection and the disciples' stories of meeting the risen Christ.  As with all opposites, there is an in-between.  From young to old, is a lot of growing.  From black to white, there are many shades of grey.  From top to bottom, there is a whole space in between.  From north to south, there is a whole lot of east and west.  And from Good Friday to Easter, there is Holy Saturday, a time when the disciples hid from the authorities, when Jesus' loved ones, including his mother, grieved his death, when people ceased their comings and goings to honour the Sabbath, a time when Jesus' body lay dead in a tomb. 

It's the time where most of us live our lives.  Most of us don't live in the highs and lows, the valleys and the mountain peaks.  We live in between.  Thank God.  I would not want to live my life in a constant state of tragedy or non-stop celebrations.  Most of us do our living here, in the space between, in transition, or, what I like to call, the journey.  From birth to death, whether we are on this earth for a few minutes, a few years, or decades, it's the space in between where we experience this journey of life.  The image of the lenticular cross reminds me that that there is hope during times of suffering, that there is joy in times of triumph and redemption, and that there is love through it all.  May it be so.  Amen.