1) sleep in
2) eat a late breakfast/lunch
3) work out (because I promised myself I couldn’t do #5 until I did)
4) surf the web / blog / facebook
5) play skyrim
6) cook an awesome dinner
7) chill, preferably in front of the tv (tonight it will be the ISU bball game)
8) SLEEEEEEEEEEEEP (because Sunday mornings come early)
Did you notice what isn’t on there?
Yeah, writing sermons.
Because days off should be days off!
Yesterday I posted about this article I read on the ENFP personality and one characteristic absolutely jumped out at me:
9. Being a HUGE, UNSTOPPABLE FORCE of creativity and productivity… an hour before the deadline.
I am such a last minute person. I always have been. I can set aside all the time in the world to work on a project, but somehow in the moment of carefully carved time, my mind wanders. It flits about. I get stuck.
In the past year I have probably done more professional writing than I ever have before. I worked on two manuscripts and have re-engaged with preaching on a weekly basis.
That first manuscript experience was another one of those crazy, down to the wire, I’ve got it all in my head somewhere but haven’t actually put it into the computer yet, situation. Once I did get it roughed out, I had a couple of all nighters finalizing and editing and moving the pieces around. It is just the way I work. And it gave everyone, including myself, a big old fat headache.
So when the second opportunity to write came along, I was determined to do it differently. For my own sanity, for my relationship with my husband, for the quality of the work. I went away for a whole week to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. I made a plan to study and write a chapter a day, every day during my time. And you know what, I actually did. I got all of that hard work done on that trip. But I think for the most part it was because I treated every section of work (each chapter was in four parts) as if I only had three hours to complete it. In order to stick to the schedule, that’s how it had to be. I would have breakfast and study for three hours. I’d take a walk and bang out the introduction. I’d have lunch and then work on the next section. I’d take a walk and then write some more. I made dinner and then before I could go to sleep, the final words had to be done and I did a preliminary read-through. I was able to merge that procrastination and last-minute productive energy with an intentional plan to get work done.
In my return to preaching, I’m working towards doing so as well. Thursdays are carved out as sermon writing days and I’m trying so very hard to instill that same deadline for 5pm that afternoon. I like to believe that if my sermon isn’t finished, I’m not going home.
When I actually sit down to write on Thursdays, I tend to get the worst writer’s block ever. I rearrange books. I listen to quiet music. I get another cup of coffee. I read the texts again. I check out facebook. I stare at the computer screen. I check in with my staff. I do everything BUT actually type out the words.
And truth be told, it’s because I’m struggling with creating the same sense of urgency that my creativity demands. I’m allowing myself to make excuses. I keep thinking I’ll find time on some morning before my husband gets up (you know, on my days off). I tell myself that if all else fails I always have 6am on Sunday morning (a time some of my best sermons have emerged).
I think for my personality, for my style of working, what I need is to hold myself deeply accountable to that 5pm deadline. I need to create consequences for not getting there. I need to remind my administrative assistant that I can’t go home until it’s done (she’s good about things like that). I need to ramp up the pressure for a firm Thursday deadline. And if I’m able to do that, I think writer’s block will be a thing of the past. At least in my life.
Written for today’s prompt from BlogHer: Have you ever had extended writer’s block? How long did it last? What did you do to break out of it, and do you have tips for other bloggers?
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 have decided to journey through the book of Romans with my church folks this summer.
a) it’s the lectionary
b) I haven’t spent that much time with Romans before
c) it is fitting in nicely with our visioning process
d) it has absolutely positively hit me right in the gut and there is A LOT to preach about
I started off with confession… about one of the worst days of my life recently. Not that bad things happened, but that I was a terrible, awful person that day. Those verses in Romans spoke directly to my life and so I used my life as a lens for the good news to shine through.
This might be a very difficult summer of preaching if every Sunday asks so much of us… but I think in the long run, it’s going to do amazing things in this church!
I’m going to link here the weekly installments, just to keep them in one place:
P+3 – June 26: STOP… in the name of Love.
P+4 – July 3:
P+5 – July 10: LIFE in the Spirit
(vacation and youth mission trip took up a few weeks)
P+8 – Aug 7:
P+9 – Aug 14:
P+10 – Aug 21:
I’m not sure that I really consider myself a writer.
Or at least, I haven’t considered it before.
When I make a list of hobbies and things I like to do, writing never makes an appearance.
When I talk about the things that I am good at, I have never thought to include writing.
But, dammit, I am a good writer! (or should that be “I write well” – ugh – I have never claimed to be an expert grammatically, and probably never will)
Over the last three years as a pastor, I have probably written more pages worth of thoughts than I did my entire college career. I wrote a lot in seminary – so I probably haven’t overcome that work yet… but I’m getting there!Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?(Author: Leo Babauta)
And if I don’t think of myself as a writer on a daily basis, then I do not practice my craft. I don’t work on it. I don’t give myself time to write. I see it as something in the background, rather than a central part of who I am.
What I appreciate the most about this whole reverb10 enterprise is the fact that I am discovering so much about myself. I’m letting go of doubts and self-denial and I’m just taking the risk. I’m putting it out there. And it feels so freakin’ good to say it!
I am a writer! And I can’t wait to see where this realization takes me.
So – my last post kind of cryptically talked about growing and stretching and being challenged and stressed. As I’m wading around in all of that still, I thought it would be good to talk about some of the things that Im learning about what it means to be a pastor in the midst of it.
1) It’s okay to not answer your phone. At our Healthy Ministerial Relations workshop we talked about boundaries and many people shared that they turn their phone off on their sabbath days. I wouldn’t do that simply because my cell phone is also my personal phone – but I did remember that advice when I recieved five phone calls from church folk on Sunday afternoon. I didn’t have my pastor hat on then – I was being a sister and was helping paint my brother-in-laws new house. So I let the calls go to voice mail. And then I listened to see if they were important. And then I let it wait. When I started my day on Monday – I called each one of them back. And while initially I felt kind of guilty about doing so, it was a reminder that I don’t have to be “on” 24-7.
2) Why do pledge drives/stewardship campaigns have to be in November? With how busy our lives are right now it just seems like one more thing on top of every other thing. I think for the most part we like the connection of offering and thanksgiving and consecration all going together, but there is no time left. We are now talking about pushing all of that back to January. We don’t use our pledges to make our budget anyways because we don’t have enough history with them. What difference would it make if as a congregation we commit to support the church at the end of January instead of the end of November? Plus – it gives us the opportunity to really push our small group study and having a “new year, new finances” kind of focus might work out really well!
3) Rookie mistake – don’t talk to reporters. And especially don’t talk to people when you really don’t have time. As I was finishing up the funeral orders – about 15 minutes before the family was scheduled to arrive – I got a phone call that I really didn’t have time to answer. I told him I didn’t have time to talk, and was trying to show that I had no information that could help him, but in my rush to get on with my business, and because I had no idea what he was talking about I said something that was taken out of context in the article. Note to everyone else: just say no comment. (see also #1 – it’s okay not to answer the phone and screen the calls through voicemail)
4) Your support network keeps you sane… or at least helps you let off steam. Without my best friends and facebook, without my brothers/sisters (in-laws too), and without being honest and vulnerable with my congregation, some of this week might have been unbearable. But because we talked (and typed) and prayed and hugged and watched football, we got through it.
5) You have to keep the joys and thanksgivings at the front. I carried around the pictures of my new nephew and showed him to lots of people this week – it gave me a chance to celebrate in the midst of the stress.
6) Sometimes you can get away with swearing during a sermon. At the funeral this week, the family didn’t want to get up and speak, but had some things that they wanted me to include. And so I said them – and it cut to the heart of who this guy was and everyone understood and I didn’t get any snide looks from anyone who thought it was inappropriate.
7) Once you use powerpoint in a sermon, you may never go back. I preached on the three major atonement theories in worship on Sunday and used visuals/bullet points. I had so many positive comments that now I’m wondering how we can adapt the technology in our worship space to make it easier to continue doing so.
Earlier this week I found the Internet Monk blog and in particular this article about sermons. Most of what was said was very helpful advice, but one thing really struck me.
In the discussion especially there was a lot of talk about how long it takes to prepare a sermon. My first introduction to this question was from my homiletics professor – an esteemed preacher in the Black church tradition who told us it should take 40 hours to prepare a sermon… 20 hours in one week spent preparing and writing, and 20 hours the next week rehearsing and memorizing the text to be performed. (yes, performed). To which our obvious response was: where on earth is your time for your pastoral duties?
Photo by: Terri HeiseleHe comes from a very different context than I find myself in. In his tradition the preacher is called – and then the preacher equips the laity to do the work of the church. The elders care for the congregation, the preacher speaks God’s word.Then comes the writing. On a good week, the writing happens quickly. One warm sunny afternoon I sat down and wrote the manuscript -one shot, straight through – on a picnic table in the time it took my friends to shoot 18 holes of disc golf (an hour +). And then I played the next course with them. Sometimes it happens in fits and spurts – with ideas coming here and there, phrases coming to me in dreams that I desperately hope I remember in the morning, paragraphs being written that then have to be woven together and edited and cut.
I almost never rehearse my text. I take a full manuscript into the pulpit but I tend to write my manuscripts as I would say them. I had lots of terrible experiences with outlines and extemporaneous speaking in high school – trust me, I need a manuscript. That being said, I never read my manuscript – I talk to and with my congregation. I may speak the words on the page, but they come from somewhere beyond the page. And I don’t let the page limit what I’m going to say or what the Holy Spirit wants to do. If I could get those past experiences out of my mind, perhaps I could be freer to do the work of prepartion and write an outline and trust that the Holy Spirit will help the work I’ve done and the Word of God to come across. But I’m not there yet. I still need my “blankie.” On the other hand, I feel blessed that I have been given a gift that doesn’t require me to spend countless hours rehearsing and memorizing – time that would take away from my family, my own sabbath time, and my congregation.
As I think about both ends of that spectrum – both the preacher who sees it as their responsibility to take care researching and preparing to proclaim a text… and the shepherd who may use few words on a Sunday but sees their primary job as spending time caring for the flock, I wonder about how to find a balance that does not rest solely with the person of the pastor.
What I’m worried about is that maybe the protestant tradition has overemphasized both the shepherd and the preacher models. Sunday worship is seen as the time where we come and listen to a sermon (for better or for worse). But even outside of that time, the congregation looks to me to speak the word to them – whether in bible study, or in administrative board meetings or during worship. While I’m not the preacher in the same way that my homiletics professor is in his congregations, I have become a shepherd that leads the sheep, rather than the shepherd who in a more eastern understanding walks with the sheep.
I am not called to be a figurehead or a dictator. While I am a natural leader, my ministry is to be a servant. I am called to empower my congregation. I am called to give them voice – to help them hear the Word of God that lives amongst us all. I am called to listen to the stories of people who walk through my church doors and to the stories of people who would never set foot in the church on their own. People like the young man who came with friends to help me move a couch on Wednesday afternoon and then came back to youth group the next night and then felt comfortable enough to ask me for help when he needed it later in the week.
Maybe a first step is bringing worship back to the table instead of the pulpit. Making communion a part of our worship every week – making it the focal point of worship every week. I know my congregation is resistant to that idea – but I wonder what doing it for even just a season might do to change minds.
A second place to begin is changing the way I work with teams/committees in my congregation. I want to spend a lot more time working one on one with the leaders and a lot less time talking in meetings. I need to help people claim their voices and their gifts, and (something that is really hard for me) not fill the silence in a conversation or the void in leadership. I need to wait and pray for God to bless someone to emerge. Because my people are not sheep… they are children of God who are called and sent just as I am.
I should probably also post about the amazing experience it was to PREACH in Spanish!!!
Thanks to Adrianna, our translator, I was able to take my sermon for our bi-lingual pentecost service and preach it in BOTH languages.
I was nervous, but really just more excited about the opportunity to do it. And when I got up there, it all just rolled off my tongue. Well, except for the r’s because I can’t roll my r’s yet.
I know I made tons of mistakes, but I did it!
I think what was also amazing about the service was that for the first time in a while I felt like I was really worshipping. I felt like the music and the words and prayers and even my own preaching just flowed over me. The Spirit was ABSOLUTELY there and I felt so at peace and refreshed afterwords.
Bill Cotton sent out in his weekly preaching memo today something about the two pentecosts – the noisy clamor filled one from Acts, and the quiet breath of peace from John. There may have been multiple languages being spoken – but I absolutely felt Christ’s breath of peace as the Holy Spirit washed over us.
