Tag Archives: Pastor Thoughts

Doctor of Ministry, Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

Redefining ministry in 2024 – Pastor Thoughts

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This week (for Sunday October 6th), the gospel of Mark covers an uncomfortable passage about divorce, where Jesus gives no reason that makes divorce palatable. The passage certainly feels like divine judgment hurled on something pretty common in our world (if you want to know why Jesus’ comments on divorce meant something very different than we may think, see this sermon from 2021). Whatever Jesus might actually be saying about divorce, the bigger question might be about the place of faith and religion in our world. There is the general question about the secularity of our North American culture but also the place and input that our faith has in our lives. 

It is a question that I have been circling for the past month or so. Topics that have to do with faith in society and the church in the world include colonialism, Christian identity, how we talk among ourselves and others about the Church and so on. The question at the heart of my doctoral research is grounded in how we understand the role of Christian ministry in our lives.

On the surface, my research is asking about how people understand the work of clergy and the expectations out there that are placed on clergy. Deeper down, this is about exploring the place of Christian ministry in the world, as the work of clergy is done, along with, and equipping lay folks to be the hands and feet of the Church in the world. This, in turn, means digging into how contemporary Christians understand ministry and our collective work of ministry as the Church. 

Perhaps more simply put, asking people what they think the job of a pastor is has to do with how we understand all of our roles in the work of ministry. 

Answering this question is interconnected with another question facing many churches, including Sherwood Park, these days: What is our place and purpose in the world around us?

Like my research question, discerning our place and purpose in the world is a multifaceted question. There are lots of ways to begin answering it and lots of pieces that impact how we answer. What are we called to do and be as a community of faith in this time and place? Do we have the resources we need to carry out this ministry? Are there possible ministry partners around us with whom we can do more together than alone? What would happen if we didn’t carry out this ministry here? What would be lost? How can we change to faithfully entrust the legacy of our ministry to the next generation and into the future?

These questions take time to sort out. To answer them well as congregations requires us to put on the hats of researchers exploring all avenues of wondering, not knowing what answers might be out there. It isn’t easy to ask these questions because we aren’t used to the circumstances that we are in. Even if the Church has taken a few decades to slide into this situation, it feels new and uncertain and nothing like the version of being church that we know. All the things that we are talking about these days are not the things that pastors and church folks talked about in the past… at least that is not what I remember. 

But on the longer time scale of the history of Christianity, questions about our place and purpose in the world are not new. The Apostle Paul addresses these questions frequently in his letters. The early Church had to deal with similar questions as it navigated living in the Roman Empire. The Reformers had to reinterpret the Church’s place in the world during the Reformation. Today, we are being called into another moment to ask this question – What is our place and purpose in the world?

Photo: The modern chancel set into St. Mary Cathedral in Erfurt, Germany founded in 724 CE.

Doctor of Ministry, Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

The weird and surprising history of 10 Commandments Monuments

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On Thursday last week, I got a call from a CBC staff reporter asking for my opinion on a news story that I hadn’t heard of until that very moment. She asked what my thoughts were on removing the 10 Commandments Monument from Assiniboine Park – 5 years ago. The monument had been removed and placed in storage in order for The Leaf to be built in the same location. 

I stammered out some thoughts about religious freedom in Canada, meaning that public spaces shouldn’t play host to objects that promote one religion over another. The removal of the monument didn’t seem like a big deal, so if the city wanted to put it in storage or return it to whoever donated it to the city in the first place seemed like a good idea to me. I mentioned that history is much better studied in books and museums, as evidenced by my doctoral work. Whatever thoughts I cobbled together seemed of enough interest to CBC that they asked if I would be willing to be interviewed on the afternoon radio show, which I agreed to. 

But something was twigging me about this story. A lot of religious symbols and images on buildings and public spaces in Canada come from an earlier colonial era. As we know, there was a long period when the church and government were working together on various projects. Many Anglican and Roman Catholic Church buildings, in particular stone ones in the middle of cities and towns, were built with government funding because churches at the time were believed to be central to the public good of communities – that is, if you were Anglican in English Canada or French in French Canada. The other thing the church and government collaborated on at that time was Indian Residential Schools. Something which we are still learning and unpacking the traumatic effects of today. 

My initial thought about this monument of the 10 Commandments was that it likely came from that colonial era, but I wasn’t sure. One fact that bothered me was that in Germany, I hadn’t seen a single Ten Commandments monument, and nor could I remember one in any church I have ever been to anywhere. I needed to know more. 

So, in the time between that first phone call and the later afternoon interview, I did some real research rather than hypothesizing. I guess doing doctoral work is training me to do the research and uncover the real story. 

I jumped into the rabbit hole that is the history of 10 Commandments monuments in North America and discovered some interesting facts. Beginning in 1951, a member of the Fraternal Order of the Eagles (essentially a social club that did some charity like the Lions or Kiwanis), a Judge in Minnesota sentenced a youth convicted of stealing a car to learn the commandments with a pastor, rather than jail time. He believed that learning morals might turn wayward youths around. He expanded this vision to posting copies of the 10 Commandments in Juvenile Courthouses across North America. A few years after this, a certain Hollywood movie director heard of this campaign by the Order of the Eagles and saw an opportunity – a marketing opportunity. This director had a movie coming out in 1956, also called The Ten Commandments. The director was none other than Cecil B. DeMille. So DeMille got in touch with the Judge and helped the Order of the Eagles to place stone monuments in parks, courthouses and city halls across North America. The campaign kept on going for ten years, which is the time when Assiniboine Park got its 10 Commandments monument. In 1965, no one objected to the idea. But as early as the 1970s, objections began to arise on the grounds of the separation of church and state. 

CBC interview:
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-111-up-to-speed/clip/16095755-reverend-says-ten-commandments-monument-put-back

Follow up: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-29-information-radio-mb/clip/16096976-a-religious-monument-removed-assiniboine-park-hopefully-displayed

Certainly, the monument here in Winnipeg is not the first to have a debate around its appropriateness in a public space. Debates around these monuments have been in the news for years. As you will recall, last week, my eNews article spoke to the idea of being surrounded by the symbols and images of a given religion and not being a vehicle for knowing the faith, even when those things have a deep historical connection to a place. 

In fact, during the Reformation, the topic of statues, paintings and art was a hot topic. Many thought they were graven images. While Martin Luther admitted that people did not have to venerate crucifixes or statues of Mary, he did say that these art and symbols could be helpful for people in their faith journey by communicating the gospel. 

However, Luther was clear that the gospel was not about telling people what to do, and nor was faith a matter of living morally. In fact, he didn’t see the 10 Commandments as primarily about morals at all. While they did have this basic function of drawing the line between right and wrong, their real function was to show us – human beings – our sinfulness. The commandments reveal to us the ways in which we do not put God first but rather try to be God in God’s place. They also reveal the myriad of ways in which we harm our neighbour by failing to care for those around us. The Commandments show us our sinfulness and need for salvation – but they are not in and of themselves the gospel. Rather, the gospel is Christ. Christ given for the sake of sinners. God’s love, mercy, forgiveness and life given through Christ for sinful humanity. 

So, to me, our 10 Commandments monument doesn’t speak to our history in Manitoba, even if it is a weird quirk of Hollywood marketing history. Nor do they represent the essential proclamation of our faith, the good news. In fact, they tell us the bad news. Bad news alone. But as I wrote about last week, learning our faith and learning the good news happens in conversation. The gospel is proclaimed in the things we communicate to the world, and Luther would add in how we love and care for our neighbour. 

Sources:

https://religionsmn.carleton.edu/exhibits/show/tencommand/tencommandhistory

https://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200109/10_schmitzr_laxten-m/

Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

Memories that blindside – Pastor Thoughts

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About a week ago, we toured our son’s new middle school. While Grade 5 isn’t technically middle school or junior high, moving grade 5 students to the middle school was the solution to overcrowding at the French Immersion elementary school l in our neighbourhood. 

I don’t remember the last time I was inside of a middle school, probably about 20 years ago when I played Basketball on an adult recreation team. But certainly, the last time I really explored a middle school, poking around classrooms, the music room, art room, cafeteria, drama stage, computer lab etc… well, I think it might have been since I was last in middle school. That’s about 30 years ago to my math. 

And yet, it was amazing how quickly all the memories of my own experiences starting Junior High School came flooding back. There is a certain formative freedom to that age, where you go from the hands-on nature of elementary school to being responsible for getting yourself to from class to class, navigating the complex social dynamics of teenage years and learning that with new freedom comes responsibility. 

There was something about walking down the locker-filled hallways, looking into classrooms filled with desks, imagining the hustle of in-between class periods movement. It almost felt like I was the one back starting at a new school, getting ready for a new school year. 

What struck me was how powerful the memory of those emotions was, the emotions and feelings of middle school: the stress and anxiety around fitting in, the uncertainty about the future, and the complexity of the transition from childhood to adolescence. 

Memories and emotions from significant and formative experiences often blindside us at unexpected times. 

It is an experience that I think might happen more often than I think at church, and that I frequently miss, whether it is long-time active members being in church buildings filled with a lifetime of significant and formative memories, or folks returning after being away and having all the memories come flooding back of earlier life experiences. Like a teacher whose relationship and experience of school change through the experience of teaching, as a pastor, my relationship with the church has been changed through the experience of ministry. 

The other thing I noted on my tour of the middle school, was that not everything was the same as I remember middle school. There was new technology (with lots of posters about the school cell phone ban), but also signs of a changing world with an emphasis on inclusion and diversity, care for the climate and efforts to teach kids how to be caring and responsible community members. 

Though certainly churches have changed too, with new technology and updated ways of working together, I wonder if someone who hadn’t been in a church in 30 years would find similar new and relevant cultural emphasis as well? I am not sure, and I am genuinely curious to find out. 

Either way, the signs of change and new things are coming – in fact God just may be placing them right before our eyes. Even as we remember the past, God is doing a new thing with us.

Doctor of Ministry, Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

Yes, we can learn from our past.

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The summer has passed us by quickly this year. It felt like just yesterday the school year had ended and we were making plans for what our family would do in the first week of July. In just the blink of an eye, we are now into the first week of a new school year. 

This summer my family traveled between BC and Alberta. During that time, spent a week at Camp Kuriakos on Sylvan Lake, Alberta just outside of Red Deer. There, Pastor Courtenay and I served as resource people along with a good friend and seminary classmate. 

I took on the role of facilitating the Adult Study portion of the week, using material from my recent research paper on Martin Luther and photos from my trip to Germany in May. I named my study sessions, “Death, Life and Community: Martin Luther’s Thoughts That Changed His World.” 

As I advertised the topic on the first night of camp, a few folks commented on not knowing too much about that “history stuff” or jokingly wondered if we were going back to school. Certainly, not everyone is of the mindset to be a historian, but I also think that these comments revealed a common mindset that these “academic” topics are beyond most folks. A sentiment with which I strongly disagree with. 

While our family drove across Western Canada these past weeks, we also listened to podcasts, about history, scams, and the science of reading (literacy education). Amazingly, our kids were just as interested in these podcasts as they were in Disney movies on their iPads. The Science of Reading podcast ( Sold a Story) is one they have asked to listen to again, as it is about how reading is taught in the early grades. One of the points in the podcast is that children love learning history or science. Greeking Out, a podcast about Greek mythology is a hit in our house right now. It is usually teachers or adults] who believe that certain topics are uninteresting… yet children often love learning science or history which allows them to feel like experts on a particular topic.

Similarly, the stories about Martin Luther and his ideas are easily understood by anyone, even those who haven’t learned anything about him previously. All that is required is a little imagination about what 16th-century Europe might have been like.

We live in a world that is often oblivious to history or even afraid to think about it.  Some claim history is “too boring.” They may actually be hiding a feeling of inadequacy or of not knowing enough. Often when we discover we don’t know something about a certain topic, it can easily feel as though we unintelligent or somehow inadequate. We can fell as though we could never learn more either. 

Of course, the opposite is true. The stories of our past can be easily understood and learning them anew at any age only helps us to understand the world better. Knowing our history also helps us to understand our circumstances of the present. Our stories of the past provide insight into our present story. Learning the stories of our faith from the past, and understanding where we have been only serves to deepen our faith today. 

Photo: Wartburg Castle Mosaic of St. Elisabeth of Thuringia who lived in the 13th century,

Doctor of Ministry, Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

Crying out to be seen – surrounded by community

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One of the paintings that I saw in Wittenberg has been returning to my mind as of late. It is a rather unremarkable painting on the back side of the altarpieces at St. Mary’s church in Wittenberg. St. Mary’s is the congregation that Luther served as pastor. 

The panel I am thinking of is the one unrestored panel on the bottom. The most notable thing about it is not really the artwork, but the fact that 16th-century confirmands used to clandestinely try and etch their names into it. One prominent name stands out: H. Luther. Hans Luther was Martin Luther’s son. 

Over these past couple of weeks, I have thought about that painting a few times as my family has journeyed through my own father’s death in July. 

I am sure it was not easy being Martin Luther’s child, as Luther was one of the most significant people in Europe by the time Hans came into the world. Martin Luther had a lot going on in his life. By all accounts, he was a good and devoted parent, but I am sure there were times when Hans felt it hard to gain his attention with all that Martin was attending to. I am also sure that Hans did not anticipate that his deep etching would stand out for centuries and become perhaps the most memorable aspect of the panel! 

Martin himself had sought his father’s attention, but not in the way he expected. His father had planned for Martin to attend law school. But Martin had theology in mind for his studies. 

In moments of grief and change, transition and endings, whether it is the death of a parent, marriage, divorce, job change or retirement, we are forced to evaluate our lives (or at least it is a good idea if we want to manage grief and other emotions). We are forced to contemplate what was and what now will be. Though I have often said the same about churches and congregations facing change, it served as a reminder this year, when I was faced with the death of my grandmother and now my father, that the emotions and grieving process don’t always give you the bandwidth for a lot of good self-reflection. We have also been engaging in this work of facing grief and change as people of faith, and we know that communities and congregations around us are also working through their experiences of grief and change. Nothing is straightforward, through all of this, nor is it easy.

When I think of little Hans Luther etching his name on the altar painting, I also think of all the art and symbols that surround his cry for recognition. Images of baptism, communion, preaching – Word and Sacrament, the tangible promises that God gives to communities of faith. These are the things that help us navigate difficult times and changes in significant relationships. 

Even among timeless pieces of art such as those that adorn St. Mary’s Church in Wittenberg, there is room for the pastor’s son to leave his mark and to be remembered by history. Perhaps reminding us that even in these imperfect and complicated parts of life, God makes room and holds us in God’s promises.