Category Archives: Pastor Thoughts

Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

What the church can learn from extra curricular activities – Pastor Thoughts

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With a second week of school nearly complete, many extra-curriculars are starting up. I had the privilege of sitting around a table in the atrium at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB) with some other dance parents for a couple hours. 

Dance parents are like hockey parents, many spend hours sitting outside of dance studios like hockey parents sit in cold arenas. 

I couldn’t help but wonder what was so compelling about dance that these families would bring their kids one to seven (SEVEN!!!) days a week for dance classes for 10 months of the year. Few kids will become professional dancers, maybe some will become dance teachers, but most will dance for as long as they can and eventually move on with life.  

The next morning as I met with clergy colleagues over zoom, the discussion landed on declining volunteer capacity in congregations. Many were lamenting that most churches cannot find committee members, folks for worship roles, coffee makers, and so on.

As my colleagues talked about church, I couldn’t help but wonder what kept people coming back to the RWB week after week (day after day!) and what the church could learn from it. To be clear, the RWB recreational division has suffered a massive decline in enrolment during the pandemic and they have been very open about that. The other dance parents remarked that none of their kids’ classes were full, which was a rare occurrence pre-pandemic. It isn’t just churches that are seeing fewer folks being involved, it is allcommunity institutions: sports, arts, service clubs, etc.…

On top of that Canadians are getting older. 50% of us are over the age of 50. That means that for every family of four like mine, there are two empty-nest couples out there. 

But still, I couldn’t help but wonder what kept folks coming back to dance. I don’t know the answer (if I did, I would get rich selling books!). 

I do have thoughts though:

  • Is it the relative ease in ascertaining the benefit of dance and hockey and piano? Sure; but most kids won’t dance on Broadway, play in the NHL or perform at Carnegie.
  • Is it that there is a value associated with these activities? Should churches have annual fees? (Just kidding of course!)
  • Is it that church has no aging-out process and that adults participate as much as the kids? Most dance, hockey and piano parents don’t actually do the thing they are dragging their kids to. Or did all the kids who attended Sunday School over the past decades “age out” of church, like they did sports, music, dance and scouts?
  • Could it be that Christians have behaved badly lately: cozying up to power, condemning more than offering love, cutting people off more than reaching out? Almost certainly this is a big piece.
  • But also could it be that the free gift of God’s grace, the regular pondering of meaning and purpose in life, and the radical welcome given to imperfect sinners is a little deeper than most folks want to go on a regular basis? I also think this is something significant.
  • Lastly, might it be that churches and church leaders have for a long time assumed that people inherently understood why being part of a church is a good thing? Dance, hockey and all the other extra curriculars regularly “evangelize,” promote and recruit, while citing the benefits of participating. Have we forgotten how to do that? I suspect this might be the biggest piece. 

No doubt, when people aren’t working and taking care of families and households, how people spend their precious leisure time has dramatically changed what people are willing to participate in. And we have not even begun to sort out this pandemic world and its realities. 

Still, in the days, weeks, months and years to come, a lot of what we will be called to do is to let go of the idea that people *should* come to church (because they should know better), and begin to articulate again why following Jesus is a life changing thing for us. 

The whole world is still in the midst of this pandemic reset. As we all slowly rebuild and refashion our lives and what we invest our precious time and energy in, God is calling the church to proclaim again the Good News AND why it matters to us and why it should matter to our neighbour. 

As difficult and scary as this task sounds, it is also exciting. God has big things in mind for us.  

Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

Our Complicated Grief for the Queen – Pastor Thoughts

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I was sitting in the board room at church last week, having just finished two zoom meetings when the people I was meeting with arrived for my third meeting and told me that the Queen had died. 

I had just checked the news only about 45 minutes prior and knew that her doctors were concerned. Her family had been summoned and I had seen the Twitter reports that the BBC news readers were already in their black ties. This didn’t feel like the previous health scares. 

Most of us were either very young or not alive at all the last time a monarch died. While 3/4 of my lineage is Norwegian, a quarter of me is Scottish and Welsh.  

I am also the son and grandson of royal watchers, and so had to endure waiting in crowds for the briefest of glimpses of visiting royals growing up. I also had to watch royal weddings and funerals whenever they were broadcast on TV.  But I am sure that I am not the only one whose family had a love for royal things. 

Many of these images provided some of the touchstone moments of our history. Now we are about to witness another in about a week. 

As we grieve the Queen in the days to come, I cannot help but think of my own grandmother, 98 years old. From the same cohort and stock, she was a women whose life was also marked by service to her community as a Pastor’s wife. I am sure we all have loved ones in our lives who come to mind as we ponder the Queen’s 70-year legacy. As much as she was a remarkable woman, the Queen is also symbolic of an era of rapid innovation and loss, from World War 2 and the invention of TV all the way to the internet and COVID-19 Pandemic. 

As I talked with a parishioner this week, our discussion of the Queen led us to memories growing up in the horse a buggy, pre-electricity era. We compared that reality to the fact that my watch today can show pictures, tell me the weather, send text message and measure my heartbeat.

The Queen’s death is a time to grieve all the that has taken place during her reign and how the world in which she first ascended to the throne is completely different from the world she leaves behind.

Just in the days before the Queen died, we also bore witness to the terrible tragedy that just happened at James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon. Horrible acts of violence that will take a long time for families and communities to heal from. Not to mention that the story of the perpetrators of this violence is connected to Canada’s history of colonialism, most clearly symbolized by the Crown. 

They are reminders that in these days we are experiencing grief upon grief, and it is complicated and messy. 

As we contend with our experience of grief in the days to come, we will be reminded of all the change that happened in the world during these past 70 years. We also be reminded of how that change has impacted us personally. 

In a rapidly changing world, there is so much that we must leave behind, so much to feel as though we have lost. It will be a big change to see a different face on our coins, to sing God Save the King, to change the name of all the public institutions titled after the Queen that will now belong to the King. Reminders of change and loss, and I am not so certain that we are ready to find hope in the ‘new’ either quite yet.  

As we grieve the Queen and a changing world, the thing that we can hold onto is our faith. Perhaps more accurately, and what I often tell to families grieving a loved one, God is holding onto us. 

Even as we struggle with all that is taking place around us, even as we feel as though we are losing much to the pace of change, even as there is much grief to bear these days, God promises that we do not bear it alone. 

Instead, we bear it together, we navigate this changing world in the body of Christ, in community. We given each other to hold on to, and we are held by the love of God. God who knows grief and has walked this path before, and who will see us through to the other side. 

Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

The challenge to Discipleship in 2022 – Pastor Thoughts

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This week Jesus is talking with the crowds about Discipleship. He gives a couple of cheeky examples that overturn our expectations and remind us that Discipleship requires sacrifice. You will have to hear my sermon on Sunday to find out more, but suffice to say the point is that Discipleship, or being a follower of Jesus is a journey for which we don’t know what the end destination will look like.  

And of course, Fall has often been a time when Discipleship and related programs are promoted by many churches. Discipleship is a big church word that we have a very strange relationship with in 2022. What does following Jesus actually look like and mean for our lives today? If you have the answer, I think there is a lot of money to be made as an author and guest speaker!

Discipleship evokes a sense of doing. Disciples sound like people who are out in the world doing things related to following and having faith in Jesus. Identifying where Discipleship is happening in our own lives might be a bit of a challenge. 

I suspect that for many folks, Discipleship is what a lot of people think pastors or other clergy are out doing in the world: praying, reading the Bible, helping the poor, visiting the sick, teaching the young, comforting the grieving, etc. And if we are honest about our history as Lutherans in Canada, a lot of congregations have wanted pastors to do “Discipleship” on their behalf. Not the way that a person of means might have a maid clean the house on their behalf, but more like how a student would rather the teacher finish the math problem on the blackboard than be called forward to write it out themselves.

Of course we know that there are many ways to be a disciple. The super volunteer who makes the coffee, hands out the bulletin, has served on council for 25 years, teaches Sunday school, mows the church lawn and generally is out there making the church keep running is someone who comes to mind. Or maybe the prayerful person who prays for the whole congregation every week. Or maybe the faithful student of the Bible who keeps to a regular reading plan. 

But sometimes Discipleship can also be the overwhelmed family who manages to pull things together enough to show up at church once a month or even every six weeks. Sometimes discipleship is that faithful senior who sings alto in the choir, shows up at church most weeks, puts what they can in the plate even if it is not very much and is simply there even though they are not leading the charge on council or handing out bulletins or mowing the lawn. 

Discipleship looks like different things for different people. For some it is service, for others leadership, for others study, for others caring and compassion, still for others it is presence and consistency.  

But most of all, at this moment in 2022, it is also something that we haven’t been good at for the most part as North American Lutherans for the past 75 years or so. Discipleship today is about asking good questions. Questions like:


Who are we? What is our identity?
What does it mean to be people of faith?
What does it mean to do faith in community?
What does it look like for us to serve the world today?
What is God calling us to be now?
Why is the church important for us today?
Why is it important for the world?

For a long time, it was assumed that we knew all the answers to these questions and that we all had the same answers. Church was simply a matter of providing the space for people who mostly understood collectively that Discipleship meant to follow Jesus and to be good Christians together. 

But I am pretty sure we don’t know the answers to those questions today, or if we ever did. I am pretty sure that if there is one thing above all else that has allowed folks to drift away from faith communities, it is not knowing the answers to why all this church stuff is important and often getting reprimanded for asking. 

While some might disagree with me, I think one of the most important jobs for pastors and church leaders today is to be asking these questions, to be talking about Discipleship and what it means, to be admitting that we don’t know where following Jesus will take us or how it will change us. 

Just like the crowds who will interrogate Jesus about Discipleship on Sunday, we are in between places, on the road and uncertain of where we are headed.

But Jesus knows the way. And Jesus is calling us to follow, even if it means giving up things we never imagined that we would have to leave behind. Because who God turns us into on the other side, will make all the difference. 

covid-19, Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

Dinner parties are not easy – Pastor Thoughts

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This week Jesus gets invited to a dinner party. This prompts him to give some advice on where to sit and how to manage social expectations by avoiding the shame of being sent down from the positions of honour and instead looking to be moved up by the host by starting in the position of humility. 

I am sure for many of us, the idea of a dinner party evokes different feelings within us than it did in 2019. Not to say that there isn’t something nostalgic and appealing about the idea of a big family dinner at the holidays. But that is not what Jesus is talking about. Think more of a wedding banquet where you only know a handful of folks. Maybe a work convention banquet where you might get seated with a table of strangers from BC or Ontario. Or even hanging around for coffee fellowship at a congregation you are visiting while on vacation. 

Let alone the COVID awareness that this brings up, I am sure there are many different and varied feelings that we might have about attending such an event. 

For some, schmoozing and meeting new people is exciting and energizing. For others, making new acquaintances and keeping up small talk is an anxiety-inducing experience. 

For my wife, she loves to work a room. Whenever we are in a situation like that, she cannot help herself from floating from table to table, group to group, conversation to conversation, making sure that she checks in with as many folks as possible, chit-chatting up a storm. 

For me on the other hand, the idea of a dinner party isn’t necessarily my idea of a fun time, but it is also not something I would avoid at all costs. I am much more likely to stick with the first interesting conversation I find than to flit around checking in on everyone. 

And if I am honest, small talk just isn’t my gift (trust me, I try my very best!) and I think that makes me come across as an introvert at times, which can be a bit of an occupational hazard as a pastor. Believe it not, I am basically an extrovert and I am energized by spending time with people. One of the hardest parts of this pandemic for me has been the isolation from community.

Being a quiet extrovert stems from my childhood. The first 12 or so years of my life were punctuated by a lot of ear infections. Twice I had tubes in my ears during that time. When I was sick – which was often – it felt like my voice was reverberating in my skull. I learned to be quiet and economical with my words, to listen and take things in before blurting out whatever was on my mind. I tended to wait for silence, or for the lowest level of painful noise, before adding my voice to the sounds around me. My teachers often described me as shy and quiet. At the same time, I desperately wanted to be part of the group and in with the action. I always preferred being with others then being alone.

For good or for ill, this experience is baked into who I am. I know that it makes me a bit of a contradiction as a pastor. There are all kinds of pastors in the church, introverts and extroverts, though the median or average pastor seems to be someone comfortable filling the silence in conversation and carrying the dialogue. At the same time I would say that a median or average pastor is also still somewhat uncomfortable in front of a crowd and still nervous preaching, even if they are quite practiced at it. 

But for me, when I know my words have a clear purpose, they flow easily and readily. I like to hope that means that my comfort in preaching and leading worship comes across easily. I know that I can teach confirmation or an adult study relatively easily compared to many colleagues. Giving a speech or telling a campfire story or speaking to a reporter for a news interview doesn’t make me feel nervous at all. 

I can entertain a crowd if I need to, but just don’t ask me to schmooze a room. I know this makes me a bit of an oddity among clergy colleagues. Even as a 20 year old working at camp. I knew that people would wonder, “What is up with that guy?” when they would see me tell an engaging, laughter-filled campfire story in front of 150 family campers, only to then stumble my way through small talk afterwards. I have tried my best over the years to work on those schmoozing skills, and I think I have gotten much better from that stumbling 20 year old. But it still isn’t a gift of mine. 

So what do my confessions about my social ineptitudes and/or gifts have to do with Jesus’ telling the story about a dinner party?

As followers of Jesus’ hearing his advice about dinner party etiquette this week, we cannot reserve his advice just for those times when we find ourselves at a wedding or graduation banquet or work convention. Through us, God hosts a dinner party for the community around us week after week. 

And I suspect that as guests to that banquet at the Lord’s table, we all arrive with our particular comforts and discomforts. That we all have our own stories and experiences that make us who we are. And as we gather week after week, our varied gifts and talents, our ineptitudes and failings are intermixed by God into a wonderful table of grace, mercy, community and belonging. Some might be most comfortable serving the food or reading out the specials. Others might be in the back washing dishes or working behind the scenes, with still others welcoming and seating honoured guests. Some might schmooze the room, while others hang back. Some might provide the background music while others offer affirmation and encouragement. Some might be adept at making and fostering connections, while others long to connect but aren’t quite sure how.

My comfort zone is as the emcee or guest speaker. You know what yours might be. 

So does God. 

And with all the parts of ourselves and stories that we bring to the Lord’s table week after week, God turns us into the most wonderful expression of the Kingdom of God. Where there is always a place at the table and role to play no matter who we are

Pastor Thoughts

Take some some time for Outdoor Ministry this summer – Pastor Thoughts

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Greetings from Luther Village!

I am sitting in our cabin at at “The Village” writing to you this week. 

As some of you may know, outdoor ministry and camp is something that I have in my background, though not at Luther Village. 

Lutheran Outdoor Ministry has a long and extensive history in Canada and the US. In many parts of the upper mid-western United States, such as Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin, you can hardly throw a rock without it landing on a Lutheran Bible Camp. 

In my home province of Alberta, there are four Lutheran camps. Camp Kuriakos on Sylvan Lake (the old Danish Camp), Hastings Lake Lutheran Bible Camp on Hastings Lake (the old Norwegian Camp), Mulhurst Lutheran Church Camp on Pigeon Lake (the old German camp) and Wilderness Ranch down in the foothills of Southern Alberta near the Livingston Mountain Range. 

For about 30 years now, some combination of the four camps have been doing their 10 days of staff training together (Joint Staff Training or JST), and supporting one another in their common work of outdoor ministry. 

I was lucky enough to work for two summers at Mulhurst, one at Hastings Lake and two at Wilderness Ranch. After that I continued serving on the Alberta Synod’s outdoor ministry committee (LOMAN) and participated in nine JSTs altogether. I also was fortunate enough to meet the then Executive Director of Luther Village back in 2004 at a Lutheran Outdoor Ministry in Canada gathering. I have served on the boards of two camps and have also served as a resource pastor in Alberta, Saskatchewan and now the MNO at 5 different camps. 

Suffice it to say, since I showed up for work my first summer of camp back in 2002, Outdoor Ministry has been an important part of my life. 

While pastors get most of the training, skills and knowledge they need at seminary, I also credit camp with teaching me a lot of the skills and leadership qualities that I still use in parish ministry today. Camp has a way of turning young adults into life long leaders in the church, whether ordained or lay. 

Camps and outdoor ministries are often important places of faith formation for the folk to who attend. Getting away from the hustle of everyday life and out into nature, participating in intentional Christian community, taking the time to worship, to learn, to play and to grow together is rooted in scripture. God commanded the people of Israel to spend two weeks each year living in tents in the wilderness in order to connect with God, as a reminder of their wandering in the wilderness for 40 years – trusting and relying on God to provide. 

These days most camps work hard to provide a relaxing, activity-filled, worship- filled, community environment for campers to come and experience. To make this all happen, camp staff are often running a behind-the-scenes operation with military precision and planning. It takes long days and exhausting work to be on camp staff. And after my summers of working at camp, there was no going back. Camp won’t ever be relaxing and easy for me again, but that isn’t the point. I love seeing how the camp community and experience can receive someone on Sunday and send them home a changed and renewed person by Friday. 

It has been my privilege to work with the LV staff this week as they, too, reset again in this pandemic world. With new Executive Directors (Ad and Lisa Van Dijk!) and a new staff, there is lots to learn after two pandemic summers where things were scaled back dramatically. Being here to provide some of my knowledge and experience to the staff has been a great chance to relive my camp staff days. The callouses on my fingers are getting thicker again playing guitar at Morning Jam and Campfire every day, but thankfully the morning staff meeting is a lot easier to wake up for at 39 year old (and with two small early-rising kids) than it was at 19. Leading daily adult study sessions has been a great change to talk with folks from across the Synod about faith and life. 

As I look forward to the last few days of camp for us, I would encourage you to pray for Luther Village and all outdoor ministries across the ELCIC. And if it is something that still fits into your summer’s plans, I think there are still open spots this summer to attend family camp (whatever your family looks like!) so come on out and be changed too!

See you Sunday!