A DMin “Ministry Ted Talk” – Pastor Thoughts

June 10, 2023 The Rev. Erik Parker Leave a comment

As we begin our calmer and steadier summer season of Ordinary Time, I am writing to you from the shores of Gimli. Clergy from across the MNO are gathering with Anglicans from Ruperts Land Diocese for a few days of study, renewal and collegiality.

I have been sitting on some news for a few weeks, not wanting to overshadow Pentecost Baptisms or Holy Trinity Confirmations. But I am excited to share it with you now.

In September, I will be starting the Doctor of Ministry (DMin) program in Contextual and Practical Theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Saskatoon Theological Union.

Before anyone gets worried, I am not going anywhere! The DMin is a program meant to be done while clergy are serving full time in their contexts. In fact, a significant piece of the program is research done amongst and with the people one is serving. So in a way, you will be doing this work with me.

I am very excited for to do this work expanding and growing my knowledge, skills and expertise to be of use to the people and congregations I serve, to the greater church and maybe even one day have some opportunities to teach others preparing for ordained ministry.I will have more to share in the coming months and over the next three years throughout the program; but I am happy to share more, if you are interested.

Below is the text of a “Ministry Ted Talk” that I gave about my research topic at Study Conference this week.

If you were to get 10 clergy people in the same room and ask:

What is a minister?
What is a Pastor or Priest?
What is a Deacon?
What is a Bishop even?
What do they do?
What are the most important parts of their job?

What are the kinds of answers we would get?

Preachers, worship leaders or liturgists, administrators, care givers, event planners, life milestone commemorators, counsellors or really good listeners, social workers, justice seekers, facility caretakers, project managers, youth leaders, teachers and educators, spiritual advisors, confidants and life coaches, grant writers and professional government paperwork filers and on and on and on.

How MANY more answers would you get? At least a different answer for every person, most likely.

Now, not to put you all on the spot (but I will)…

How many Lutherans would cite one of our confessional sources and (the correct) article?

How many Anglicans would cite one of the 39 articles? It is article 23 I think? Correct me if I am wrong.

And for the Lutherans, a reminder from Confessions class in seminary: it is article 5 of the Augsburg Confession.

“That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and Administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, ² the Holy Spirit is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear ³ the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ’s sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake.” – Augsburg Confession V

So why am I quizzing you on long-forgotten pieces of things learned in seminary?

Well, ever since graduating from seminary, I have been wanting to return to school for more education, but life kept getting in the way. Finally, 15 years later, I decided to begin exploring various options for further education – okay, let’s be real, my wife Courtenay insisted I start looking at doctoral programs.

So after a year of exploring a variety of schools and applying to a few programs, I am happy to say that I am going to be starting the Doctor of Ministry program (or DMin) in Saskatoon at the Lutheran Theological Seminary and Saskatoon Theological Union.

And my proposed research topic is in the area of the office of ministry.

The question I am looking to explore concerns the understanding of what a clergy person is and does. We all do this job, we all live this vocation… and yet the work we do and the responsibilities we carry can vary wildly from cleric to cleric and context to context.

So what do those confessional and foundational articulations of ministry from the Reformation era mean in the 21st Century? And how does that compare to the operating definitions that exist in our pews and pulpits?

Everyone in church on Sunday morning or those whom we encounter throughout the week has a mental image of a clergy person in their minds…. But how clear are they really? Judging by the long list of jobs we do, I’ll bet that even our own images are fuzzy around the edges, if not largely opaque.

We all know that the host of expectations placed on us would have us running in all directions. If we tried to live up to them all, we would have 17 or 25 number–one priorities that would run us into the ground week after week (oh… wait!). And our ability to organize our own work and focus on the essentials first while pushing the secondary and tertiary things down the to–do listwould become difficult.

When we cannot fully articulate what is at the core of our own callings, what is the foundation of the vocation that we are called into? …. It only leads to frustration and resentment.

But it isn’t just the operating understanding of what a clergy person IS that is found in the pews and pulpits these days… because we know that those definitions are also often terribly out of date. We aren’t serving in 1963 anymore; we are nearly 25 years into the 21st Century. Many of us are serving in a different church and a different world than we grew up in, and even a different church than we were trained to serve in.

Let alone, consider if the church was prepared for us as we were trained to serve. And how long ago have congregations forgotten the essentials and purpose of the church, and the essential core of what ordained ministry is in partnership with local expressions of the Body of Christ?

So, the final piece of my project topic is exploring these questions related to the office of ministry (what a clergy person is and does) given the definitions of our foundational documents, given the operating definitions at work in the pews and pulpits. Howdoes that all compare with what we all actually do in 2023 and beyond?

Because as we all know, the Church was changing long before 2020; and since then those changes accelerated and transformed us into the places where we find ourselves now – looking for places to find our footing and get ahold of where this thing called Church is going.

My hope is that as I begin this research in my congregation, and probably with other congregations over the coming threeyears, and with you my colleagues, and that this topic area and resulting thesis project will create something of interest and of use to the wider Church as we navigate our future together.

Pastor Thoughts

What is confirmation really? – Pastor Thoughts

June 3, 2023 The Rev. Erik Parker Leave a comment

At our last council meeting, we briefly detoured into a discussion about confirmation. Several folks shared their memories of being confirmed.

Let me see if it sounds familiar to you: Confirmation classes began with two years of regular instruction with the pastor where long and boring lectures were combined with the requirement to memorize the entire Luther’s Small Catechism and a significant number of Bible verses. At the end of the two-year instructional period, the confirmation class was brought before the congregation to be grilled in pop-quiz style, only to be then confirmed if they passed the quiz. And finally after this point confirmands were allowed to commune and/or drink coffee and/or vote at congregational meetings.

I have heard versions of this story from folks in every congregation I have served. Some have recalled their experience wistfully with nostalgia (and the observation that confirmation students today have it easy) while others have not been so positive about their experiences.

To me, that version of confirmation classes and Confirmation Sunday sounds traumatic. No wonder the Baby Boomers (currently between ages of 57-75) were the first to leave the church in droves. I would honestly like to know what was being taught in seminary at that time and I would like to have conversations with professors and pastors of that era to hear them explain themselves.

My own confirmation experience was much different. Our friendly and caring (though somewhat disorganized) pastor of that time had classes where we had the chance to have excellent conversations about faith. I remember reading our textbook, Free to Be, as a 12 year old. It was the first non-fiction non-school book I had read with interest. I wanted to understand God’s grace and how it had been freely given to me.

We weren’t grilled in the front of the congregation; but I do think we played a fun quiz show style game against our parents. (I think we won!) And we shared faith statements at the potluck after worship on Confirmation Sunday.

In seminary, I had the chance to study and more fully understand just what Confirmation is as well as its historical roots, which may be surprising.

Believe it or not, we will have had two Sundays of Confirmations and 3 confirmands over these past two Sundays. Last Sunday as two new members were baptized, they were also confirmed as a part of the baptismal rite. Isabella was already ‘confirmed’ as a part of her baptism.

Because technically, the act of confirmation is the laying on of hands and prayer (similar to ordination) that follows just after the dousing with water. In the Early Church, baptisms (and confirmations) were always done by a bishop. Then, as the Church grew, bishops began delegating baptisms to priests, though they retained presiding at confirmations. So baptisms would happen throughout the year, but confirmations would be saved up for the bishop’s visit once every few years.

Fast forward a thousand years to Martin Luther and the reformers; pastors became the ones chiefly responsible for teaching and doctrine – sort of like mini-bishops in each congregation. So the baptismal and confirmation rites were re-combined.

Yet, we know that the technicality of the rite for laying on hands is only part of the picture. A big part of our hope for confirmands is not that they “graduate from church,” but that they enter more fully into the life of faith. Hence the other term we often use for confirmation: Affirmation of Baptism. As Lutherans we ardently assert that Baptism is an act of God – forgiveness, life and salvation freely given to the one baptized. And yet, we recognize that there is a place and time for us to acknowledge our awareness and gratitude of this gift given to us. We also combine this with a time of instruction and study, so as to come to a fuller understanding of the faith into which we have been baptized. This time of study is technically called catechesis. So two years of catechetical study, affirmation of baptism in front of the assembly of siblings in Christ and the laying of hands in prayer, all combine to make what we call ‘Confirmation.’

Our hope is that the young people who go through then process of confirmation will move from a Sunday School faith (“Jesus loves me, this I know”) to a more adult faith that deals with the questions of what it means to be in relationship with our siblings in Christ, what it means to live out our faith in the world, what it means to be loved, claimed and forgiven by God and how that changes us.

In the end, it is my hope as a confirmation teacher that confirmation is not a traumatic hazing or an experience that causes confirmands to flee the church in droves, but a beginning of growth into a more mature practice of faith that lasts a lifetime.

Theology & Culture

More Busy and More Tired – Pastor Thoughts for Pentecost

May 28, 2023 The Rev. Erik Parker Leave a comment

As I was driving with Pastor Courtenay to a pastors’ meeting this week, I mentioned that folks seemed tired these days. She agreed.

[And yes, I know that whenever I talk about being tired, I am probably getting close to needing a vacation. And that is probably true; I am certainly looking forward to vacation time coming up this summer. ]

I have been noticing folks lagging in many different corners:

A good friend who is a pastor mentioned that he was meeting with some folks in his congregation to talk about the challenges of finding volunteers.
The dance parents that I hang around with are counting the weeks until dance is over with big tired sighs. The dance school is looking for volunteers to be back stage with the kids for their big year-end recitals.
The Parent Action Committee at school is still looking for more members with a month left in the school year. The parents at School Pickup often remark at how tiring the end of the year is.

Everyone is looking for more volunteers these days, though those same people are all simultaneously running on fumes themselves.

And yet, the world hasn’t fully ramped up from the pandemic. We all remember a busier even more hectic normal time pre-pandemic. Every year felt busier than the present one. As we enter into a decidedly post-pandemic era (where COVID is endemic, meaning everywhere), I wonder if we are questioning the pace at which we all used to live life pre-pandemic. If 70%, 80% or 90% of the level of busy-ness compared to the “before-times” is exhausting, can we even go back to full steam ahead?

As we approach Pentecost Sunday, I cannot help but think about the tired disciples who were also wondering who was going to do the work of their new community. Fifty days after the Resurrection, they too were exhausted in all the change that they were facing without Jesus among them.

Then, in their exhaustion, the Holy Spirit sent them out into the streets to preach the Gospel in many languages and to preside over 3000 baptisms! [Two Baptisms this Sunday feels like a lot – 3000 is unimaginable!]

Of course doing more wasn’t the answer to the tiredness of the disciples. Pentecost lasted only one day – the chaos of 3000 baptisms wasn’t the new normal. The Early Church slowly became small groups of 10 to 15 folks in one city, 15 to 25 in another. These became the little communities that we have heard of: Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians, Thessalonians, Colossians and so forth. Little communities that, over time, discovered new ways to be faithful people and slowly grew into something more.

I have a feeling that finding our way in 2022 and 2023 has been more of a temporary Pentecost moment, which might last for a while yet. We are still just at the beginning of this reality of what it means to be Church in this age. And our time for slowly-growing communities of faith time is coming.

Se let’s endure the busy-ness and tired-ness for now, knowing that the Spirit has new ways of being in mind for us soon.

Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

Finally Some New Easter Life – Pastor Thoughts

May 21, 2023 The Rev. Erik Parker Leave a comment

At this time of year, one of the things that I usually find myself on the lookout for are the first signs of the greening that happens in springtime; the brown grass and leafless trees begin to sprout new life. In the past few days, I have really noticed the grass turning green, the trees and plants beginning to show little buds and blossoms of life. Living in our new neighbourhood we are seeing all the things happen for the first time. We moved in one day after the first snowfall in November, so we barely saw our green yard. Now it is kind of like little daily surprises to see which plants are budding each day.

But it isn’t just the plants and trees and grass. The whole neighbourhood seems to be coming alive. After being cloistered in our homes all winter, people are coming out into the streets, sidewalks and parks. Most evenings there are kids riding bikes or playing street hockey, families out for walks and playground adventures, schoolmates to be found at newly explored parks, soccer and baseball teams practicing at local fields. The Harte walking trail is so busy there could almost be traffic lights required.

It is a wonder to watch the whole world seemingly come to life out of the winter depths. I know the same resurrection is happening all over the city, probably all over the prairies.

I don’t know about you, but I have noticed it too at church. Maybe not as dramatic the transformation of our outdoor world, but this winter and spring there has been noticeable new life growing in our midst. There are a few more folks in the pews most Sundays; we now even sit on both sides of the sanctuary, instead of clumping all together on one side. Our online views have remained strong (often in the hundreds!) and yet there are just a few more folks consistently at church. Not to mention the life found in our Lenten study, our music groups picking up a great deal of our musical leadership, and the cautious optimism that we shared in our town hall.

Of course, soon summer holidays, campground reservations and weekends at the lake will be calling out to us… but I suspect that we are taking a step into a new kind of stability (I won’t say “normal” just yet). Sure there is still COVID-19, inflation, war, Artificial Intelligence (like ChatGPT) taking jobs, forest fires, climate change and so many more things to worry about.

But maybe, just maybe, in our fourth Easter since going into those pandemic lockdowns, we are actually experiencing a shift towards more tangible and visible signs of communal resurrection around us. I think that might be part of what it going on.

As we come to the end of the Easter Season for this year, I have a feeling that the resurrection vibes and the feeling of being an Easter community might carry on.

Of course, after a couple years of pouring ourselves into coming out of the pandemic tomb and into new life, it is only after we begin to accept and come to terms with who and what we are now as a community of faith that God begins something new with us again.

Whether we like it or not, I think this may be what it looks like to be an Easter People – a little bit messy but with new life appearing in surprising ways.

Christ is Risen Indeed!

Sermon, Theology & Culture

Choosing paths with Jesus – A Sermon for the 6th Sunday in Easter

May 7, 2023 The Rev. Erik Parker Leave a comment

GOSPEL: John 14:1-14
Jesus said to the disciples:] 1“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me…

*Note: Sermons are posted in the manuscript draft that they were preached in, and may contain typos or other errors that were resolved in my delivery. See the Sherwood Park Lutheran Facebook Page for video

“How can we know the way?”

This is the question that is asked of Jesus this week in the gospel lesson.

We have arrived at the 5th Sunday of Easter. After 3 weeks of resurrection stories, and then a week to uplift Jesus as our Good Shepherd, we now start to head away from Easter Sunday and orient ourselves towards Pentecost. Towards that moment when the rag tag group of Jesus’ followers are driven by the Holy Spirit out into the public square. There they become the visible community and body of Christ in the world. But before we get there, this aimless group of disciples needs to figure out what it means for them to become the Body of Christ – without Jesus leading the way as he had done for the 3 years prior.

So we go back a bit in the Gospel of John. We hear a conversation between Jesus and the disciples that is taking place around a table. The table of the last supper on Maundy Thursday where Jesus is giving final instructions for the community he intends his followers to become – even though they still have not fully realized that within hours Jesus will be arrested, on trial and nailed to a cross.

In a passage that is the most common gospel reading heard at funerals, Jesus promises that there is a place for his followers in his Father’s house. Thomas, ever rationalizing may be sensing something ominous behind what should be a promise of welcome and belonging. Thomas interjects,

“Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

How can we know the way?

Then Philip, speak out loud the anxiety of all of Jesus followers. He wants Jesus to just show them the father. Thomas and Philip want to know the way, the destination. They want the roadmap, they want to be able to get there themselves. If Jesus can provide the directions and a destination, maybe the journey won’t feel so scary to imagine.

It is a feeling we share. We all much prefer knowing the directions, having a map, knowing the destination… whether it is a literal trip or journey, or whether it is the journey of life choices and experiences. We want to know where we are headed and how we will get there. Whether its finding a job or vocation, settling down and starting a family, choosing a place to live. Whether it is making sure that the church community we love continues on, or that the Jets don’t leave town again, or if we can let ourselves start worrying less about a 3 year old pandemic and on and on. We are full of wonderings and questions about our futures, our destinations and the paths we will take to arrive at them.

When I was little, maybe four or five, my mother took me to the University of Alberta (UofA) for “an appointment.” We met a kind woman there who took my mother, sister and I on what felt like a long walk through the UofA campus. At one point, she just stopped and looked at me and asked, “Erik, do you think you can find your way back to the office?”

So I started leading our little posse back to the office where we had first met this nice woman. I know that I made a few wrong turns along the way, but I eventually figured out our way back to the office. All along the way, I remember the woman asking me questions about why I had chosen the path I was taking, landmarks I was using, my sense of direction etc…

Years later when I recalled the experience to my mother, she told me that I was part of a study about direction sense in children. There were three groups. The first group was told they were going for a walk and would need to find their way back. They’re also given help and hints as they led their way back. The second group was told about the walk and the need to navigate their way back, but were given no help once they started to lead the way. The third group – the group I was in – were not given any notice about the task and given no help finding our way back.

If on the various journeys we take in life we had the option of getting clear instructions and then help navigating where we were going, or at the very least, the knowledge that we were going to have to find our way to our destination, we always choose to be in group one or group two. We wish that the path to find our way through ministry as a church, and in life in general, had a kind researcher reminding us to make note of landmarks as we travel, and gently correcting us when we make a wrong turn.

Yet, we know that life after a certain point the parental figures, teachers, guides and coaches have to let us figure it out ourselves. And all of sudden we are in that 3rd group where we do not even know that we are getting lost and then someone turns to us and says, “Do you think you can find your way back from here?”

When you are navigating blind, you don’t really know if you have taken the right path or made the right choices until you get to where you are going. Providing a map or turn by turn directions or a guide we can hold onto, is not what Jesus is about. Instead, Jesus has a very different idea of what it means to navigate our way down life’s paths and what it means for us to know the way.

“How can we know the way?”

As Thomas and Philip press Jesus for more than a promise that there is a place where they belong, they are casting about for something that they can do, something they feel like they have some agency. But they have also missed tthat Jesus has shown them everything they need.

Jesus promises them a place in his Father’s house. Jesus reminds them that he is the way. Because they know Jesus, they have seen the Father.

Because they know Jesus, they can make the journey.

Because they know Jesus, they belong already to the Kingdom of God.

The dimples want roadmaps and directions, they want the certainty that the destination is a good place to end up. But that is about their own fears and anxieties, those are just means for their own control.

Jesus provides community.

It isn’t just that there is one room, or one place at the table. It is that there is a whole community of faithful disciples who are now part of God’s house. There is a whole table of siblings in Christ who are on the pathways with us. Knowing the way isn’t so important as is knowing that we are not going alone, we have the people who are walking with us, to rely one, to support one another, to care for each other.

Jesus gives us himself.

It isn’t just that Jesus is a teacher and friend. Jesus is the one whom brings God close and near. Jesus reveals the Father to us. Jesus show us God: God’s face and voice, God’s flesh and image. Because the disciples know Jesus, they know God. And God knows them, in the flesh, face to face.

Jesus is the way.

As we struggle like the disciples to know where we are going, to know what is going to happen to us, what we should do as people living our lives of faith, Jesus reminds us that he is the place, the One, to whom we are going. Faith isn’t a task or job or set of instructions to follow. Faith is relationship with God who promises us new life. In a world that always ends with sin and death, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

And in Jesus the way, we are transformed. God declares that we belong no matter where we are. God goes with us no matter what path we walk.

So like those disciples who were trying to figure out what it meant for them to become the visible Body of Christ in the world, Jesus reminds us that the destinations or pathways that we imagine might not be the point. Instead knowing the way is about God who promises a place to belong, room in God’s house.

Hear again the reminder from 1st Peter”

9But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

10Once you were not a people,

but now you are God’s people;

once you had not received mercy,

but now you have received mercy.