becoming (vocation)

Early in August I bought my first clergy shirt. This was kind of an exciting moment for me, and not just because it’s the most expensive shirt I own. Growing up a pastor’s son, these shirts were always in our laundry and in my dad’s closet. They were a symbol, for me, of who my dad was and what he meant for the community. I remember playing with the little white collar that he would pull off and leave on the table next to the couch after he crashed and fell asleep after Sunday services. I would feel the smooth white plastic on the sides and the textured middle as I turned it around in my little fingers. I would wonder why in the world the pastor wears this but never thought to ask this question (I later learned it is to symbolize that we are slaves to Christ—Roman slaves wore a similar collar to denote their lowly status).
When I bought the “Friar Tuck” brand shirt at the Augsburg Fortress store this summer the first thing I did was try it on with my suit and take a picture on my cell phone so I could send it to my parents. I felt like a kid playing pastor, getting dressed up in dad’s shirts and baptizing my GI Joes in a cereal bowl filled with water. It was like I was eight again, imitating my dad during his internship year. This feeling of playing pastor or imitating dad lasted for a couple of months. It returned each Sunday as I got dressed in the morning and made my way to the church. Yet, with each passing Sunday and with every funeral for which I wear the shirt during the week the feeling has dissipated. It is beginning to feel like my shirt, like my calling. And that is good.
I didn’t expect to feel like a kid playing pastor. It disturbed me at first. Even though I’d been told otherwise, I think I figured that as soon as a person is called to intern or called to be pastor for a particular church the pastoral identity would automatically come. Deep down, I figured that having the shirt or having the degree gave me the pastoral identity. What I’ve come to learn, and what I’ve come to treasure is the fact that the pastoral identity is not something given to a pastor like revelation from above or like a degree from an institution. The pastoral identity is earned in the relationships of mutual trust that form within the congregation. A person isn’t suddenly a pastor. A person becomes a pastor. My pastoral identity is formed in relationship with the parishioners of SPLC.
It has been a joy for me becoming a pastor for SPLC and I am so grateful that they have invited me into the trust of such formative relationships.

crying like a church on monday

Contrary to the title of this post (taken from a New Radicals song title--which, by the way is one of my favorites from the 90s and is the only non-weird CCM cds that can be found in our humble little church)...

As I was saying, contrary to the title of this post, I actually really enjoy Mondays at SPLC (St. Paul Lutheran Church). Shannon, our youth director (who also happens to be one of my closest friends since high school), and I kind of run the show on Mondays. Pastor Mark (my supervisor and the lead pastor at SPLC) has Mondays off and our amazing secretary is away today. So Mondays are always rather laid back, a breath of fresh air and a moment to focus and reflect after the hustle of Sunday. Today, like other Mondays, I shut myself in my office all day and did the prepatory work that is such a huge part of being a pastor. This is one thing I hadn't even thought about. I guess I'd always known somewhere in my brain that a huge chunk, maybe a majority, of the work of the pastor is preparation. We prepare for confirmation, for upcoming Sundays, for preaching, for Sunday school, for caroling, for our work with the homeless shelter and food shelf, for our evangelism program, etc. Most of what we do is preparation and Mondays are a great time to really dig into it. Mondays are a time to study and think and pray and read and write and plan, and on and on and on. And since most people hate this second day of the week I actually get a bit of time to work. Still, it is in the interruptions that ministry happens on Mondays or on any day for that matter. The interruptions just tend to be shorter. Even in the midst of all the work I got done today I still had the wonderful opportunity to help a fellow with an immediate housing need and I got to have a great and surprising conversation with a parishioner about theology.

Part of the hardest part of this ministry, and I'm sure at least some other pastors feel this way, is the loneliness. Now I've read Nouwen (and enjoyed it) and I'm well aware that our call to ministry is a call to mutual vulnerability, but bearing your soul to friends is different than bearing your soul to parishioners. I can't say it's harder or easier, but I can say it is different and it is something you have to learn to do. And I'm learning. I'm fumbling and failing all the way, but I am learning.

Today I had one of those moments where the loneliness was alleviated for a time. I really love these sorts of moments. They are like fuel. Part of my loneliness comes from the huge change from being a full time student for 20ish years to being a Pastor/student. I miss the conversations. That is why I was so excited today to have a conversation with a guy from our congregation about Marcus Borg. Now, I don't find myself in agreement with all of what Borg says, but I love his writings. There are pieces of his theology that really speak to my faith and the doubt which is a part of that faith. This gentleman from church was talking about the adult forum a few weeks ago during which we discussed hospitality. He talked about the spiritual practice of hospitality as a way to "see through the dense haze of self." Then he quoted Marcus Borg. This was a welcome break from all the preparation and planning I was doing. I got excited, maybe a little overexcited (as I am prone to do) and lent him the two books by Borg that I had in my study (The Heart of Christianity and The Meaning of Jesus). I'm really hoping to follow up with him and have a conversation about his thoughts on the books.

Mondays are great.

Hypersleep Update

Well, I'm deep into the internship year now here in Minnesota. It's been so long since I've posted I'll have to give a quick run-down of all the things that have happened in the last number of months before I try once again to start blogging regularly. Before I start I need to explain my rationale for trying to blog--after all, it feels like half of my posts on here are updates after months away. Whoops. Anyway, I'm not always one who is very introspective. It's easy for me to discuss high concepts and to pontificate about ideas of which I know very little. But it's not very easy for me to perform the ever important act of introspection or self-reflection. Now, I do journal pretty regularly, but I would like to learn to be introspective in a public way. I kind of feel as though it is my responsibility as a pastor to interpret my own experience for other people, to explain how and where and when I am encountered by God in the world and why in the world I believe that God is present in the human experience at all. Plus, when I journal and I know I am the only one who will be reading it, my writing gets very sloppy and I don't follow through on thoughts. The accountability of the other eyes that will see this help to change that. Besides all of this, I can get whiny and irritating if I know I'm the only one who will read what I have to say and that is tiring. I can really get on my nerves sometimes (insert comment about the importance of the external word here--thank you Dr. Paulson).

So, since I posted in May I finished the second semester of my middler year (that is seminary language for the second year). Last semester I was in what may have been some of the most influential classes for me personally and in terms of vocation and discernment. These included especially middler preaching, Lutheran confessions, and worship. I basically fell in love with Lutheranism last semester and now dorkily read the Formula of Concord in my free time.

Over the Summer I worked at the development office 10 hours every week. Even with my few hours and even though I sincerely liked my job I spent a good deal of time complaining about going to work. Pippi only worked a bit and so we got to spend a ton of time together. I watched a great deal of television and movies on netflix. Every weekend for 6 weeks in a row we were involved in weddings in Iowa and Minnesota, so that kept us pretty busy. I had the amazing privilege of delivering the homily and doing part of the liturgy at Jordan and Alisha's wedding. Really loved it. Got my wisdom teeth yanked out two weeks before internship started. Became really lazy after being in a drug induced stupor for a week and watched quite a few samurai movies. Read a bunch of good books. Pippi was offered a job at the very tail end of summer and took it. She's now a .9-time elementary music teacher.

In September I started internship at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Stillwater, MN. People often ask how it's going. Normally, my response is fumbling and bumbling. You know, church is church. It has its really wonderful things and its really terrible things. It's not a good or a bad experience. It's an experience and one that I like. The call to pastoral ministry is being affirmed, but not uniformly. There are parts that I don't particularly care for and there are certainly other things to which I may be called. Still, I'm really committed to the call, while also realistic about the fact that God may have other things in store too. I'm praying a lot for discernment, for God to guide me or lead me or help me listen or whatever so I can better come to understand what I'm called to be and do. I trust and hope that God is shaping Pippi and me through all of this. Sleep well.