tr.v. sal·vaged 1) To save from loss or destruction. 2) To save (discarded or damaged material) for further use. Welcome to the blog of Rev. Katie Z. Dawson, pastor at Immanuel United Methodist Church
This summer, my church began a series exploring the work of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. One Sunday, I asked them to begin imagining what could happen in our community and in our church if we truly let the Holy Spirit guide us and transform us. Here are their responses:
We would be a church on fire… people couldn’t help but join in the infectious joy!
our church would “glow” with love – unbelievable!
The “church” (people of the church) would be more committeed to each other, the church, the community and the world.
a wonderful and peaceful world
the church and community would be stronger
community outreach and invitation to visit so we have a growing church
I believe the spirit exists in all of us – we need the key to unlock the heart, enjoy the treasures above.
more peace and good will towards all peoples.
love and compassion
everyone would come to every worship, bible study, help at VBS, nursing home, MOW. No one in the church or community would go hungry, be cold. Everyone would feel blessed, and loved.
we would be able to do any thing there would be nothing we couldn’t do as God’s disciples and as a church
we would all live in love – all anger, hate, jealousy and evil thoughts would be gone. We all would be brothers and sisters in love – true disciples of Christ
we would be a united church in discipleship
we would be more connected when we were not confined to the walls of the church alone once a week
miracles could happen within our church and beyond
we would have more personal reflection and accountability
anything and everything
move us closer in knowing and doing His will for each other
People would truly care for one another
Prayer
we would be one – working for the glory of God
community coming together, working with everyone
spread the love and compassion among all – Pass It On
become true Christians
we may get along better
be more tolerant
tithe could fund people who are hungry, homeless, ill, etc.
The word of the Lord would be better understood by all of us.
Our lives would truly be in the service of the Lord.
peace & satisfaction
joy and comfort
It would set the church on fire to go out and serve others – we would be Christ’s disciples in word and action!
That is a beautiful list…. I want to be a part of this church!!! I want to be a part of a group of people who are dedicated to truly letting the Spirit into their lives and living out their discipleship and I’m so grateful that I am among people who are ready and excited to take this journey seriously.
This has been an insanely busy summer… vacation, a new nephew, mission trips, fundraisers, cleaning at the church…
So I have tried to make my summer a bit easier by working through Romans with the congregation.
Ha.
In some ways, it hasn’t been that bad. Each piece kind of follows on the one before it, so I am continuing a train of thought about grace and mercy for us and others all summer long.
But last week, I combined chapters 9 and 10 and talked about how Paul was just aching in his bones with grief for his brothers and sisters who had rejected Jesus Christ.
I asked the church to think of their friends or family members who were resistant to the gospel or had left the church or had never been told about the good news of Jesus Christ. I asked them to think about the people their own hearts ache for.
I know that there are many who have personally expressed to me concern about a loved one. I have commiserated, having a husbad who isn’t really into God himself(see “Lost My Religion“).
But there was something about what the Holy Spirit did in that sermon that really moved people. Everywhere I looked, people were wiping their eyes, trying not to tear up, or digging out a tissue.
I think there are so many people in this world who really want to share their faith and share the love of God and they just don’t know how. They are afraid of rejection, they are unsure of their own story, and they “know” their family too well.
Just watching those tears come last Sunday opened my eyes to the real need for a group who is interested in learning about faith sharing. In practicing faith sharing. In having a community who is just as genuinely heartsick as they are to tell others about the love of God they have found.
I have one lesson plan that I have written about evangelism and the gospel of Mark, but it is more of a thinking sort of study, than a heart/practical look. Any suggestions of places to start?
I must admit that growing up, I was a bit of a science nerd. What can you expect from the girl who wanted to be a meteorologist? But I think the best part of science were the experiments – the hands on exploration of concepts. Because I saw it happen, I believed it. Because I was able to be a part of it happening, I learned it. It was the combination of not just hearing the words spoken, or reading them in a book… but actually doing it… that helped these concepts to be not just in my head, but also in my heart.
And I realized… faith is much the same way. Unless we are actively practicing our faith as we are learning about it… unless we are out there loving people and helping folks and praying and seeking God – then all of the stuff that we read in the bible or hear in a sermon are just words. But when we have hands on learning… when we have the chance to apply what we hear and read to our daily lives… then anything is possible.
Will you pray with me?
First off this morning – to engage you with more than just your ears, I want to give you a visual demonstration of this thing we are going to talk about this morning: Potential Energy!
Already the children have helped to explain some of these concepts to us… but I thought that Wiley E. Coyote might be able to help as well:
Well, there we have it, energy that is stored up in something – whether it is an object or a person – is POWERFUL. Just like a mousetrap that is spring loaded – or an actual coiled spring- all that energy is there, just … waiting… for the right…. Moment… to… SNAP – to release! To let all of that bundled up and constrained potential energy loose!
Well, I look around this morning and I see a whole lot of potential energy. I see a whole lot of bodies waiting… sitting… storing up… a whole lot of energy that can be released on this world!
{Well, inside… the energy is inside… Sheesh – some of you look like you are ready for naps already! Let’s make sure none of that energy goes to waste! }
The apostle Paul looked out on the communities he ministered to, also, and made a similar statement. Especially in our epistle for today. Today, we start to explore Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth… a church full of potential energy for the future.
“To the church of God that is Corinth,” he writes, “to those called to be saints… Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
“I give thanks to my God always for you… not because of anything that you have done – but because of the grace of God that has been giving you in Christ Jesus. And you have been enriched in every way by the Spirit of God, but especially in speech, in knowledge and in testimony.”
Paul starts out this letter with some praise, with some encouragement, with a reminder – that God has blessed them, God has equipped them, God has stored up in them a whole lot of potential energy and resources and talents and spirit… This is a church FILLED with the potential to truly set their city on fire with the love of God.
In particular, God has blessed them with three spiritual strengths. They have been gifted with speech, knowledge and testimony. They are a community that knows how to share their faith with words. They aren’t afraid to tell other people about God and maybe more importantly, they know what they are talking about. They have been taught well.
They have been blessed with speech, knowledge, and testimony. Are they using them to their full potential? Is all of that stored up blessing being used to its fullest extent? We’ll talk more about this in the coming weeks – but it is pretty safe to say that the answer is, no. They have everything they need… but much of their blessing is still waiting to be unleashed.
I was asked this week, if Paul were writing a letter to this community, gathered here on Sunday mornings, what three things would be lifted up as our spiritual strengths? What has God gifted and blessed this particular community with?
I have to admit… it didn’t take me very long to answer this question. And that is because as a community, we have done some work to discover who we are.
Back on October 31st… just two and a half months ago… we gathered as a community downstairs for worship. We broke bread with one another, we sang, we told stories. And we celebrated with one another who God has called us to be. We celebrated the things that have brought us together to this moment.
“The Family Meal 2” painting by De More
And if I had to pick out the three things I saw as our strongest gifts out of that Celebration of the Past they would be food, fellowship, and openness.
We are a church that has often brought people together around food. Whether it is a funeral supper or feeding RAGBRAI riders, a potluck or a progressive dinner… meals are one of our greatest passions and strengths!
We also have a strong fellowship with one another. We meet in small groups during the week, we take time to be with one another after weekly worship, we are a community and a family.
We are also open in many way. We often talk about how our communion table is open to all who wish to come. We have been open to going and serving in new ways – like when we answered the call to clean up after flash flooding in other communities and took with us folks who were not connected with our church. We are open to new people and to going to new places.
To heck with Paul… I’m writing a letter to you this morning and I say that “ I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in your desire to break bread with others around the table, for the fellowship that you form through study and prayer, and for your openness to whomever the Holy Spirit sends your way… and wherever the Holy Spirit sends you.”
Now, we could have some debate on other fantastic and amazing gifts God has blessed this church with. Contrary to popular opinion, there are many. This church is so gifted, you can’t breathe without drawing in some Holy Spirit. All around us are financial resources, resources of time, a beautiful space with a roof that doesn’t leak anymore… people who can paint, people who can sing, people who can sew, people who can build things with their hands, people who garden and farm, people who can use computers, people who pray… people who love God and want to serve him and who have all come together to this place.
I look at that collage and I see amazing huge potential.
Lots and lots and lots of potential energy stored up. The Holy Spirit flowing within this church just waiting to be released onto the world!
I do not, for a minute, want to suggest that there isn’t some kinetic energy going on here as well… In so many ways, we are out in the world, living out our faith… the potential energy is being turned into kinetic energy and we are active! We serve all over the place, we respond when there are needs, we care for one another.
But…
Like the Corinthians we also have some obstacles in our way. We have some things that hang us up and get us stuck so that we can’t move.
Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to hang out with these Corinthians. We are going to learn about their troubles and their problems and think about whether or not they are things that get in the way of our ministry too. Think about ways of removing these obstacles so that all of that potential energy stored up inside of us can be unleashed on the world.
But, I think another reason why our potential energy sometimes doesn’t get unleashed is that we aren’t sure where to use it. We aren’t always sure what the needs are. We don’t know where our gifts and talents and strengths are needed.
For the next month and a half, as a part of our “Come to the Table” journey – we are going to be listening. We are going to open our ears to folks in the community as they come and share with us the ministries they are engaged in. The first one of this is right after church today, as Terri Schutterlee from the Iowa County Food Bank shares with us what they are doing to help fight hunger right here in Marengo and how we are and can continue to be a part of their work. We want to invite you to especially stay after worship on these Sundays to have a cup of coffee and a treat and to ask questions about what more we can do.
There is so much potential here. And when this energy gets unleashed… when we figure out exactly what God wants to do with us… world – you better watch out!
As a pastor, funerals are a part of my life. I help families and friends say good bye to loved ones all the time. This year, I also acted in some ways as a family chaplain and buried two people in my husband’s family. We really do have an important gap in the family Christmas now that his great-grandmother is gone. She was a tiny, tiny woman with an opinion as big as Texas. She let you know what she was thinking, all the time. She was ninety-nine years old and hospice care was such a blessing for her – pampering her and comforting her in those last couple of weeks of her life. We let go of her peacefully and with little pain in our hearts.
December 5 – Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?
In my pastoral life this year, however, it was not the deaths, but the goodbyes that impacted me the most. One good-bye in particular…
Photo by: Margan Zajdowicz
This summer, a stalwart of our congregation moved south to be with family. Wilda was always at the church. Always. She’d be tidying something up, folding bulletins, moving things around, making sure things were just right. She has a great little laugh and everyone always says she must be on roller skates – she’s able to get around to so many things in so little time.
While there are a few others who have that same kind of commitment to the congregation, losing any one of them leaves a gap in what we are able to accomplish. They often say that 10% of the people do 90% of the work… well, I know that is true and when you are a church as small as we are – those 10% are vital!!!
We get lovely calls from Wilda and her life is warm and good down south with her family. But we do miss her colloquialisms, like ” in a coon’s age.” And we miss her morning glory muffins and her peanut butter pie. And the youth group misses her sliced apples (they really are just sliced apples… but I never seem to have the time to get the whole big bowl of them ready).
This congregation has become a family to me, and anytime we say goodbye to someone, there is a small bit of pain and longing. But it was our time to let go of her and let her retire and be among her family and watch her grandkids and great-grandkids grow up.
One of the reasons I have been avoiding blogging lately is because I have a lot of things I would love to write about, but I can’t.
A couple are topics and discussions that are confidential on a professional level. Some are just things that hit too close to home for myself and I’m not willing/able to take that leap of faith and just put out there for all to read what is close to my heart. They are things I need to deal with in person before I am able to properly reflect upon them. Or maybe I really do just need to take that leap, get over the fear, and put it in writing. Leave it out there and maybe that will give me the courage to have the harder face to face conversations I have been putting off.
What I am able to talk about is the touchy subject of financial outreach.
Everyone I talk to has their own take on how to best provide real financial resources to folks in need and in the past few weeks I have whittled the differences down to three categories:
1) Contributions to a community fund that pastors then refer folks to. This method is very connectional, allows for a sharing of resources, and takes the burden off of any one congregation or pastor… especially if they are not the ones actually managing the funds.
2) Congregational “Love Funds.” This money is held by a particular congregation, folks make donations to it and disbursement is at the discretion of the pastor.
3) Connections to outside agencies and networks of support. This takes a lot of legwork and knowledge by the pastor to have these contacts built up in the first place when the need arises.
4) Personal time/energy/money. Every now and then there is someone who needs a tank of gas or a meal and when we can and are able – pastors are extremely generous folks. As a colleague wrote me: what is needed and is it within my capacity to meet that need? I know of a lot of folks who go above and beyond and their mental health, energy and family suffer for it… your capacity is a lot different than your wallet.
These past two months, I am realizing how small the tanks actually are when it comes to financial assisance in our area.
I recently became the treasurer for our county ministerial fund and as soon as the cold weather hit, our funds went out faster than they could replenish themselves. We are at the point now where we can only provide assistance when we recieve a new donation, and the need really is great out there.
Our local community fund has resources, but we have limitations on how those resources can be used. Time and energy need to go into revamping our guidelines and extending our reach… yet at the same time, as soon as we do so, I know that they will be used and gone. Used for good of course, but used all the same.
My congregational fund is not yet a separate and distinct account from the rest of our finances… I am not entirely sure how previous pastors handled the situation, but since I have been there I have budgeted for a set discretionary assistance amount. I think we exceeded the amount budgeted halfway through the year and asked for a bit more to be set aside… but even if we had ten times the amount of money, we would still have folks we would need to turn away.
I reached the point recently where I almost cashed in my paycheck and gave half of it to someone who really needed it… I’m young, I have a roof over my head, I thought… but I also have a marriage to think of, and my own bills to pay (higher now that our own heat is turned on), and setting myself behind isn’t going to help anyone in the long run.
I felt so guilty that we couldn’t do more as a church or as a community. I felt personally guilty. I didn’t want to call and say no.
I think I was feeling convicted by the idea from James that if you say you will pray for someone who is hungry but don’t give them any food, then you aren’t doing anything for them.
But I think I reached a place this past week where I realized that we already were giving so much. Even if it wasn’t the money needed to pay the bills, we were giving of our time. We were praying. We were listening. We were connecting. We were building relationships. We were doing what we could with what we had. And even extending ourselves beyond those points. We were sharing the love of Christ with folks as much as we could.
Money isn’t everything. Sometimes it feels like that, but its not.
This Sunday, we lit the first candle on the advent wreath as a reminder that the hope of the world is Christ and Christ alone. Not a bank account. Not a fundraiser. Not a paid bill. But Christ.
And things out there are tough – all around they are tough. People are hurting because of broken relationships and they are struggling because of a lack of work and lack of funds. They are angry with systems that fail them and they are disappointed in the outcome of their work. And we sit and wallow in this muck and in the words of Rob Bell: yell at the darkness for being dark.
Sunday – we preached texts that told us to wake up. To stop lingering in the dark and to look towards the light. To remember that our salvation does not lie in these things. To live in the light of Christ right now. To be a community. To walk together. To live right now as if Christ had come again.
And when we do that… we have the strength to answer the phone call when the next creditor calls. We have the peace in our hearts that enables us to hold the hand of a loved one and tell them goodbye one last time. We can let go of the guilt and simply love the best we can, right here and right now.
I have been trying to read more. There are far too many books on my shelf – delicious books – just waiting to be picked up and devoured. So I decided to start with Rick McKinley’s “This Beautiful Mess.”
The writing style just draws me in… it’s conversational and pulls me in. But even more than that, he speaks to the core of my longing for the Kingdom of God. As he starts out the book, he describes it as a “permission slip… get out of religion free.” He invites us to recieve the book “not as the last theological work on anything, but as a well-intentioned, God-loving invitation to go and grow and be where you haven’t before.”
And then, McKinley takes those pithy sayings that drive me nuts and transforms them into solid truth in a way that I wish I could do. For example:
…when our lives are all about us, the appeal of that kind of bumper-sticker dumbness is irresistible. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” gets turned into a tool of the self to assure my business success instead of a promise that brings peace to my soul when all hell breaks loose.
Peace to my soul when all hell breaks loose. That’s what I’m craving. Yeah, it would be nice for the hell not to break loose at all. But it does and it will and Christ never promises that we won’t have trouble. Maybe that’s what I was getting at a few weeks ago when I blogged about my car accident. I never expected that an accident wouldn’t happen. I never expected to be so protected by the hand of God that no trouble would ever befall me. I do expect that Christ will be with me through even the darkest valleys, however.
I have now been in ministry to the congregation I serve for two full years now. Maybe it’s because I’m young, or don’t yet have the self-confidence in my own vocation, but it’s taken me this long to be able to challenge some of those simplistic and pithy characterizations of God. I find the confidence to do it in sermons – mostly because the Holy Spirit is at my back… or rather, I pray over my texts that she will be. I just don’t go into other conversations in the same way… and I should! Perhaps with more prayer and with more confidence in the God who gives me the voice to speak, I can continue to affirm the faith of my people while at the same time giving them a “get out of religion free” card. I can give them an invitation to think deeper and to go where they haven’t been before, to move beyond Jesus and me in heaven by and by to Jesus and me and the poor with my sleeves rolled up here and now.
It’s not an either/or. I’m foolish to paint it that way. It’s a both/and. Breathing IN and Breathing OUT. Letting Christ be King… but King of his own Kingdom and not the ones we create for him. Changing our allegiances. Challenging the politics of it all. And doing all of that with grace and humility.
Even though our congregation is small, I try to have two different services for Ash Wednesday. We have an older congregation and it is still wintery outside, so if we only had an evening service – many of our faithful wouldn’t venture out in the dark. But we also have a number of people who work and so if we only had a noon service, they would be missing out as well.
We had a pretty good turnout for our noon service. There were some technical difficulties as we tried to worship and sing without our usual pianst – but as someone said – that’s what makes it special!
I had all of the kinks worked out by the time our 6pm service rolled around. I had the candles lit and the words of repentance and transformation and discipline scrolling across the screen and music for contemplation playing in the background. I was waiting for the people to come.
And only one came.
I stood awkwardly near the back doors and let the opening sequence cycle through again. Maybe others are just late?… should we just go home?… ugh, singing with just the two of us isn’t going to work very well… alright, here we go!
“Well, J, it’s just you and me brother”
We read responsively the lyrics to the opening hymn and we heard the scripture proclaimed. We talked about what the ashes signify and spent time together, though silently in our prayer of confession. We marked one another with the sign of the cross. We dustied our foreheads to remind ourselves that we are mortal, we are brittle as year old palm branches, and we need God. We sat together going back and forth with joys and concerns and held hands as we prayed. We talked about the peace that we had found and the peace that we are taking with us into the world for others.
That worship wasn’t at all what I had expected it to be. But it reminded me that worship is an acting out of relationship. Our relationship to God, our relationship to one another, our relationship to the world. In our intimate encounters with one another, we can worship our maker. We can praise our Lord. We can repent of our sins. We can recieve forgiveness. We can offer back a part of ourselves. We can hear the words of grace and gospel. We can honor God. We can send one another forth.
Wherever two or more are gathered in my name… says the Lord. My prayer for Lent is that I make room for more of those holy and intimite experiences of relationship.
That experience last night has caused me to think much differently about my practices for this entire season, and so one of the things I’m giving up is the hours I spend in front of the television set, alone, wasting time. I’m allowing myself to watch when I exercise – b/c it’s what keeps me motivated, and if my husband wants to watch one of our favorite shows with me – because it is something the draws us close and we can have conversation about. But no more mindless hours in front of the t.v. set. I’m seeking out relationships with people and relationships with ideas and my relationship with God through conversation and game nights with others, and through dedicating myself to read some of those “God” books that have been sitting on my shelf for a while now and spending time in prayer and reflection around them.
Random thought came to me tonight. How it came to me is the subject of my next blog…. but in any case.
Every week, people all across the world use the exact same texts to tell the stories of scripture. We start with the exact same thing. And then we take those few words, those phrases, those verses and we transform them into “emergent” sermons.
As pastors, we borrow and we beg. We look at what others have done successfully. We rely upon the expertise of others. But then, when Saturday night comes (yes, I’m a saturday night writer) – it’s just me and my laptop and the concerns and hearts of my congregation that I’m thinking about. So we take all of the wisdom and advice that’s out there and we adapt and we mold and we shape and we transform what is in reality a very structured institutional thing like the revised common lectionary and we create very different, very contextual, very powerful messages for our local congregations.
That’s what we do with emerging church. we take the core of the Christian faith and the way of discipleship and we beg and borrow and wrestle and share with others – but at the end of the day it’s about how we live all of that out in our local contexts. It’s about how it makes sense for the people we work with on a day to day basis.
Just a thought.
If anyone has had it before – I would love to read more and discuss it. If you want to borrow it – with it’s short, blinding light of brilliance – just let me know =P
This summer, my church began a series exploring the work of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. One Sunday, I asked them to begin imagining what could happen in our community and in our church if we truly let the Holy Spirit guide us and transform us. Here are their responses:
