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Follower of Jesus/Pastor/Singer/Teacher/Wife&Mom

Thirty years ago today …

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… we rode in the back seat of a huge old car, to an empty church. My husband’s brother and his wife stood beside us as we exchanged vows on a Saturday morning. There was no music, there were no flowers. The pastor’s wife sat in the back pew and knitted, and my four-year-old son played with a bottle cap he’d picked up from the street. After the ceremony, we ate quiche. I had learned from my mother to roll out the unused piecrust dough, smear it with butter and sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar, and bake it with the pie, so that was our “wedding cake.”

That was thirty years ago, and I have learned a lot from walking beside this amazing man through three decades. For instance,

  1. It really is better to bite your tongue than to give your partner a tongue-lashing (even when I deserve one)
  2. The marriage comes first. Kids grow up and move away, but we promised to be together until death parts us. Invest in that.
  3. Give up the fantasies. There is no such thing as a perfect spouse. I can’t be one, and I’m not married to one. What we have may not always be pretty, but it’s real, and it’s ours.
  4. Decide that this is what you want, and do everything in your power to keep it strong. This decision is closely connected to giving up the fantasy that there is such a thing as a perfect mate. The day I decided to want what I have was the day I knew this marriage would last.
  5. Look for the good stuff. This person by my side has so many amazing qualities. He has integrity. He’s patient. He is utterly dependable. He’s curious. He likes my cooking. He reads. He listens. He is as determined as I am to keep growing. I could go on and on. The truth is, every person on earth has some good in us somewhere. A spouse is the one who keeps reminding us of the good in us, and the one whose goodness we need to keep bringing to light.
  6. Keep the bad stuff in perspective. Yes, he snores, but it’s good to know he’s still breathing in the middle of the night. I find his snoring rather comforting, actually. There was something else… hmm, I can’t think of it right now. (Get my point?)
  7. Make the big decisions together, but trust each other for the small stuff.
  8. Make a budget. Keep it.
  9. One bookkeeper in the house is plenty, but that person needs to know all the data. Don’t hide expenditures from each other, and don’t hide income from each other.
  10. Be honest. Your spouse is not your confessor, but your spouse deserves the truth from you, even when it’s bad news.
  11. If you have children, always be united in your approach to raising them. Do not ever let your children play you against each other. (See number two, above.)
  12. Whoever cooks doesn’t have to do the dishes. Whoever doesn’t cook cleans up the mess.
  13. Someone has to fold the stupid socks. Someone has to clean the stupid toilet. Someone has to take out the trash. Someone has to mow the lawn. Someone has to change the toilet paper roll. Someone has to unload the dishwasher. Someone has to buy groceries. It doesn’t really matter who does it, but it has to get done …
  14.    … Do not keep score.
  15. Find a way to talk through your disagreements. If you are too angry to talk reasonably, go for a walk to get yourself reasonable, then talk.
  16. Listen, listen, listen. With your heart as much as your ears and brain.
  17. Remember that you promised to uphold this person no matter what, so uphold this person no matter what.
  18. Pray for your spouse every day. Give thanks to God for the person who shares your life.
  19. Do something spontaneous every once in a while, just to prove to yourselves that you still can.
  20. Be dependable.
  21. Your spouse is not a mind-reader; ask for what you need. Be specific.
  22. Read aloud to each other.
  23. Spend time together doing nothing, saying nothing. Just be together.
  24. Take turns being the leader, the bread-winner, the main parent.
  25. Discover anew the person who first attracted you all those years ago.
  26. Hold each other every day.
  27. Say, “I love you” every day.
  28. Laugh together every day.
  29. Pray together every day.
  30. Love one another.

Hoarding God

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We used a prayer of confession yesterday in worship that comes straight out of The Covenant Hymnal. I should probably mention that we do not, as a rule, include a prayer of confession in the order of worship. Confession might be part of the monthly Communion liturgy, or a regular feature of Lent, but it isn’t a weekly element of worship in our church. Sometimes I wish we did, but we don’t.

We added it this week, because the preaching text was Isaiah 6:1-8, in which the prophet Isaiah had a vision of God in his temple, and Isaiah’s reaction to this experience is to cry out, “Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips…” A seraph touches Isaiah’s lips with a burning coal from the altar, and the passage concludes with God asking “Whom shall we send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah answers, “Here am I! Send me!” Pastor Ryan wanted to draw a parallel between our order of worship and Isaiah’s worship vision, which moves from praise/adoration to confession, then forgiveness, and finally commissioning. It was good worship, and many people commented on how well it flowed, how meaningful it was to them, and how all the elements worked together.

But there was one line in that prayer, #909 in the hymnal, that stuck with me through both services, and I’m still grappling with it as I prepare an early Thanksgiving feast for my son (who will not be with us on Thursday, when we travel to his grandmother’s house).

Consider this:

“O Lord, we have conserved the bounty of your love as though it could be exhausted, and we have wasted the bounty of your universe as though its resources were imperishable.”

We have conserved the bounty of your love as though it could be exhausted. Conserved, saved, put away in a dark cupboard like jam and jelly … hoarded. And I realized, to my dismay, that this was true. I have been trying to hoard God.

Just like those folks wandering in the desert who thought they’d better collect a little extra manna “just in case, you know, we run out or something,” I try to save a little extra experience of God’s love for some time when I don’t feel so loved. And just like those folks wandering in the desert, I find that whatever I thought I was saving cannot be held in reserve. God isn’t something you save for a rainy day. God is here and now.

When the Apostle Paul was feeling sorry for himself, God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).  There is no need to hoard that grace. It is sufficient.

How do you hoard God? What will it take to let go, and depend on that all-sufficient grace he so willingly offers?

Ground Rules and A Clarification

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Thanks to all of you who read yesterday’s inaugural post, and especially to those of you who offered encouragement for this endeavor!

Now for some ground rules as we move forward:
1. I promise to post regularly, but never on Sunday.  Probably not on Wednesdays, either.  I’m a part-time worship pastor, and these two days comprise 70% of my workweek hours.  In other words, I’m kinda busy on Sundays and Wednesdays, and that ministry is my first priority.

2. Yesterday’s post was an anomaly: I won’t be using old material, as a rule. “God sings!” seemed a good introduction to my personal theology of music and worship. It tells you a lot about who I am, and who I think God is. I wanted to get that foundation laid right away, but now it is my hope to build on that foundation with new bricks.  One by one.

3. This blog is not about me.  I have avoided creating a personal blog (until now) because I know how easily I can be sucked into narcissism, and expounding daily about my personal inner life seems oh-so-narcissistic to me.  But this blog is really an invitation to conversation, so I invite you to leave me comments and interact with what you see here.  I especially invite you to disagree with me – we all need more frank discussion in our lives, I think.  “As iron sharpens iron… (Proverbs 27:17).” I promise to respond.

4. That said, let’s keep our discourse civil, shall we? I am blessed to serve in the Evangelical Covenant Church, and one thing we affirm is something called “Freedom in Christ.” You can learn more about it here. That freedom allows us to differ on non-essentials while we agree on this fundamental belief: Jesus Christ is Lord. (We agree on some other stuff, too, but this is enough to get the conversation started.)

Four Rules is plenty.

Clarification:

Yesterday I mentioned that Luther Seminary had “announced that it is eliminating it’s graduate program in church music next year.” That was a mistake.  They are not eliminating the Master of Sacred Music program, but they do plan to suspend it while they figure out how to move forward after Paul Westermeyer retires.  Here is what they posted on the Luther Seminary Facebook page on Thursday:

Luther Seminary’s Sacred Music program has been very influential in equipping excellent leaders for worship, music and the arts. We are proud of this contribution. In recent years, we’ve seen significant changes. Churches tell us their worship and music needs are changing. We’ve also experienced a decline in the number of students coming to Luther Seminary’s Master of Sacred Music (M.S.M.) program. And, Paul Westermeyer, our respected colleague and leader of the Master of Sacred Music program at Luther Seminary, has announced his plan to retire in June 2013.
Given the changing congregational needs and Paul’s upcoming retirement, we have decided to not recruit new students for our Master of Sacred Music program for the 2013-2014 school year. We will, of course, ensure that our current students continue to receive an excellent education at Luther Seminary and complete their degrees in the M.S.M. program.
The faculty at Luther Seminary is committed to establishing a vision and moving the study of worship, music and the arts forward at Luther. As part of our overall curriculum revision work, we will take this next year to explore ways to proceed and build on the excellence we’ve established in equipping leaders to meet the critical needs of worship and music in the church.
Please keep this process in your prayers as we seek God’s guidance for how we can best respond to the changing needs of the church.

Please do keep this fine program in your prayers, and pray especially for those who have worked so hard to build it into an exemplary training ground for church musicians.  I lament that Bethel Seminary, where I received my MDiv, offers no courses related to worship planning, worship elements, or music in worship.  I hope Luther recognizes its important role in the broader faith community, and handles this transition well.

What should be included in a pastor’s musical training?  What is the best way to teach pastors how to lead worship? Please share your thoughts!

God sings!

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As I embarked on my journey into ministry, a singing colleague commented, “the world needs more pastors who can sing!” This thought has stuck with me as I ponder the ways God constantly prods me toward a broader view of worship. I’m reminded of something I wrote a few years ago:

Hear the beautiful five-part blessing in Zephaniah 3:17:

“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

He will rejoice over you with singing. I remember the first time I read these words and realized, “God sings!” In worship, we do a lot of singing to God and about God. But consider the idea of God singing. If we are made in his image, and we sing, then doesn’t it make sense that our voices must be an echo of God’s voice?

The whole idea of ruach – God’s breath moving through our own lungs and vocal folds as an expression of his Spirit – shapes my theology of singing. Singing is putting pitch to breath. Singing is sound we make during the process of respiration. As we inspire breath to sustain a singing tone and expire that breath in a stream of sound, we conspire with others who sing alongside us. What transpires has the power to transform us, as we sing praise, prayers, scripture, and hymns that stay with us long after the song ends.

There are over 150 references to singing in the Bible. Only this verse has God doing the singing, and when God sings, he is rejoicing, loving, and protecting his people. That means you and me. Singing is a pleasant endeavor for God.

Listening means paying attention to what you hear. It is a conscious decision to focus attention, and to filter out the sounds that do not belong to that focus. I think God is singing all the time, maybe even right now singing into your heart. The challenge is to truly listen, and to join in the song.

So, how does God sing into your life through his Word, and through the music that weaves together our corporate worship experiences? How are you paying attention to what you hear, and how is God using your voice to enrich the harmony of the whole? I hope in these posts, you will find some encouragement to lift your voice, even as you listen deeply for God’s voice singing over you.