Stirring Hope: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace Christmas in November

Dear WRC,

I saw my first Christmas tree this year on October 31. More than a few people have mentioned that theirs went up the first week of November. I’ve been hearing Christmas music in my own house now for weeks. The Christmas creep is real.

I’ve long been one of the voices crying out in the wilderness against the idea of Christmas before Thanksgiving. There are a number of reasons for that, all of which are still valid. Within the Church I’m nervous about the way we’ve smothered Advent out of our lives to get past the uncomfortable waiting and cover it with a thin veneer of cheer. In the marketplace I’m fairly sure the cause of Christmas creep is just greed and consumerism. Within our own psyches I wonder if the desire to have more of Christmas isn’t just a form of escapism by way of nostalgia.

That all may be so, but this year I’m hearing something else in people’s voices when they’re talking about decorating their houses earlier than they ever have: yearning. I actually think I heard it for the first time in 2020 when people put up Christmas lights out of season in order to shine some light into the darkness of the pandemic-stricken world. Something in this sounds like that. Some are people who were fatigued after the election season. Some have spent much of their year dealing with diagnoses and surgeries and treatment protocols. Some are just tired parents who are doing their best to keep up at work, at home, with friends, and with their spouse.

I think each one, though, hung their lights and set up their trees searching for something. They’re looking for something different than their current experience, something deeper and better. They’re yearning for the experience of joy and cheer and rest and grasping after Christmas music and decorations to find it. If it all ends there, then it’s all a bit of a waste of time—inflatable Santa’s and LED twinkle lights make pretty lame idols. But I think we should pay attention to that yearning, because I think we know who it’s reaching for.

C.S. Lewis wrote often about that longing. He referred to it sometimes as joy. In some places he settled on the German word sehnsucht, an inconsolable longing. It was the longing for a far-off country we have never visited or the scent of a flower we have never found. There is something within us that longs for something more and better. In Mere Christianity, he wrote, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” It reminds me of what the writer of Hebrews said in commending the titans of the faith, “They were longing for a better country—a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16).

What if, instead of policing the boundaries of the Christmas Season, we saw its creep as evidence of our longing for that better country? What if we labelled it yearning and, instead of bemoaning it, learned to coax it into flames? What if we found some ways to point our neighbors past the warm glow of Christmas lights, the joy of hearing their favorite Christmas playlist, and the coziness of a well-appointed mantle to the reason underneath them, to the only one who can satisfy our longings, to the only source of real and abiding joy?

So, from here on out, I say we give up complaining about when Christmas music comes on the radio or when our neighbors put up their lights, and instead make sure not to miss their desperate hunger for Jesus in this season that’s all about him anyway. Maybe we can even join them and, between sips of hot chocolate, tell them about the brighter hope we’ve found.

Merry Christmas, friends! There’s a lot going on this month at church at in your own life. Don’t miss the opportunity to remember what we’re really doing in all of this. Check out the rest of the Bellringer for a few ways to do just that.

In Christ,
Pastor Andy

“As the Eyes of a Dog”

Dear WRC,

This morning I came into my study, straightened a few things up, got settled, and sat down at my desk to begin my day in prayer. My intention was to pray for you and to spend some time attempting to just listen to God. I got about 5 seconds in when I was interrupted by a cold, wet nose being jabbed into my hand, then a warm, fluffy face was plopped onto my arm. When I opened my eyes I was met by a set of sad, sweet, brown eyes begging for some attention.

Maybe I should explain that my dog Finn often accompanies me to my study on days when I don’t have meetings set up and he would otherwise just be sitting at home alone. He usually just lays down somewhere with a deep sigh and settles in to be largely ignored while I work. I like to think he’d rather be ignored and here with me than at home alone. He hasn’t told me otherwise.

Today, though, he wasn’t ready to just lay down and be ignored. He wanted some attention, some love. He wanted to interact with me at least for a few minutes. He wanted to be petted. Maybe he wanted to hear my voice. And, shameless dog that he is, he was willing to interrupt my prayers to ask for it, to demand it, really. He just pushed his way in, locked eyes with me, and insisted that I pay him attention.

Now he’s sweet and cute and all that, but I was definitely thinking: What a needy dog! I mean, seriously, I have more important things to do right now than to pet you. Can’t you be content for a few minutes with your comparably tiny needs while I pray for people who are sick and hurting, whose marriages are in trouble, who are worried about their kids? Can’t you see I’m busy?

But as I looked into his big, brown eyes (and, let’s be honest, gave in and started scratching his neck), I was reminded of a psalm I learned a while ago, Psalm 123:

To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!

As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,

As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,

So our eyes look to the LORD our God, until he has mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,

      for we have had more than enough of contempt.

Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease,

      of the contempt of the proud.

The psalm writer uses the metaphor of servants and maids to give shape to the attention they are paying to God, to their position and need before God. I’ve always thought that metaphor was a little distant for us, but if I could re-write it, I would say, “As the eyes of a dog look to the hand of his master…so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.”

And maybe that is the better metaphor for our praying life: Finn’s shameless need for attention and demand for love and affection. I like to think I am, or should be, above such neediness and desperation. I assume that God responds like I do: rolling his eyes, wondering why I’m not content with scraps of attention, do I even realize all the more important things on his plate?

But that’s just not true! We know that God has infinite attention and power and love. God is for us and God’s desire is to be with us. God’s phone line isn’t busy with more important business—that’s obvious. So why don’t we act like it in our praying? Why am I not a little more shameless? More willing to be needy and desperate? More like a dog with his master?

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"The Truest Story"

Dear WRC,

You may know that I was away last week at Doxology, the annual gathering hosted by the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination. It was the third rendition of the gathering, but the first one I’ve attended. Now that I’ve completed my D.Min., this is one of the ways I hope to stay connected to the Peterson Center and these friendships and conversations that have been so lifegiving and important in shaping my pastoral imagination. One of the gifts was that Sam joined me—shout out to my parents who switched places with us and watched our kids! It was great to receive and digest all of this with her. 

Winn Collier (I’m sure I’ve mentioned him before, he’s the Director of the Peterson Center and was my doctoral advisor. I hope you have a chance to meet him some day!) gathered us in on Monday afternoon by launching into singing the Doxology. After some opening comments he began to talk about what Doxology is and what their hope was—and wasn’t—for our time together. In the midst of these remarks, Winn offered us this line, which sent me frantically searching for my notebook to open and scribble it down: “What God has done in Jesus Christ is the truest story ever told.”

Winn tends to say things like that, and to say them with the conviction of one who believes them to be absolutely true. I find that most of the time I think that that’s true, but Winn believes that it is. One of the gifts of being with him is that I find these things slowly moving down from my head into my heart.

Winn went on to tell the story of being a pastor in Charlottesville, VA during the Unite the Right rally in August of 2017. That Sunday their church faced a number of difficult questions, but the most pressing one was whether or not anything they were about to do—singing songs, praying psalms, preaching the Gospel—mattered at all in the wake of what had just happened around them. Wasn’t the worship service they were about to enter a waste of time in the midst of death and violence and trauma? Were they completely out of touch with reality?

We might ask some similar questions. We’re quickly approaching another election day with a speed that seems sure to end in a multi-car pileup. It’s the first anniversary of the October 7th attack in Israel and there appears to be no offramp for the retaliatory violence that is spilling further and further into the Middle East. Another hurricane is preparing to pummel Florida while much of the southeast is still crippled from the last one. There are tragedies and struggles and heartache in our own lives that seem, most days, insurmountable.

Could it be that what God has done in Jesus Christ is the truest story ever told? Looking around, it seems so clear that the story we’re living is one of violence and trauma, struggle and destruction, that death gets the last word. I sometimes need help remembering what I believe is more true than these realities. I need someone like Winn to stand up and say God’s name in a way that calls me out of my myopic view of the present moment and into the much larger story that God is telling in Jesus.

What God has done in Jesus is the truest story ever told because none of these other stories have yet reached their conclusion. It’s in his story that we see the true ending of our own, and only when viewed from the end can we put our present in the proper context. God is so much bigger than we had imagined. There is a throne and Christ is the one seated on it.

I’m grateful for the reminder that I was given. I’m grateful, too, for the opportunity to stand with you every Sunday to offer our praise to Jesus and extend this same reminder to one another. We don’t gather to praise God naively—we understand the realities that surround us—we just know which story we’re in: God’s.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Jesus is Here"

Dear WRC,

It’s been quite a day. This morning Owen and Hannah headed off to Washington School for their first day of second grade, bravely entering a new door to meet new teachers and new classrooms. We saw the Leaches, Wards, and many Nursery School families also excitedly stepping into a new adventure and a new year. Later in the morning the copier in our office decided to go on strike, throwing a large wrench into the finely tuned machine that is our office and school. I’ve been working on Sunday’s sermon about how to deal with enemies. We’re trying to nail down all of our plans for the fall so we can get this Bellringer out to you. Then, this afternoon, I got to spend some time bedside with a former member entering her last hours beside two of her children.

Beginnings. Endings. Frustration. Celebration. Something about this time of year seems to bring up so many things. Life begins to get exponentially busier as the calendar turns to fall, and with all those renewed activities can come a whole host of other experiences and emotions.

I don’t know how you’re doing today or what you feel as you survey the next month or two on your calendar. However you’re doing, I want to remind you of this: Jesus is with you!

He was there this morning as little friends held hands and walked bravely into the unknown. He was certainly there this afternoon in the nursing home as the gaps between breaths lengthened and death continued drawing near. He’s always with us, if we only have the eyes to see him. That’s what he promised you, remember? “And remember, I will be with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

There’s nothing new or revolutionary that I have for you this month, but I am in constant need of this same reminder so I offer it to you again and again: Jesus is right here with you!

God, give us eyes to see!

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"The Shape of the Cross"

Dear WRC,

I noticed something last week that I’ve never noticed before. I’ve been your pastor since October of 2012 and have spent, at this point, tens of thousands of hours in our Education Building. I’ve walked the halls for years now to go to meetings, sit down to pray or study, grab a cup of coffee, check in on another staff member, or visit a classroom, but it wasn’t until last week that I noticed that our building is laid out like a cross.

 I have no idea if that was intentional when the first phase of the building was constructed in 1953, or if it was part of the considerations in 1958 when they added the third floor, classrooms, and Heneveld Hall, but the main floor of this building is clearly laid out like a cross. There are two intersecting lines that run from the main entrance to the end of the Nursery School hallway and from the office suite to the Memorial Room. The proportions are even roughly accurate to a traditional cross. Whether or not it was intentional, I’m just going to assume that it was and run with it.

It wouldn’t be that out of the ordinary, you know. Western cathedrals and churches from the Middle Ages on have largely been laid out in the shape of a cross. In a classic Gothic cathedral, you entered on the western end into the “nave” (which is Latin for a boat and could be its own letter). The nave is long and narrow and is where the people gathered for worship. The nave generally ran west to east and was intersected by the “trancept” which went north and south. Where the two crossed was called the, you guessed it, “crossing.” This is generally where the altar was located. Beyond the trancept, opposite the nave, was the “choir” and the “apse”. Whether or not you have any idea what any of these words refer to, if you had a bird’s eye view or architectural drawing you’ll quickly see the cross-shaped design.

Some people assume that this design was more functional than theological, but I’m not so sure. For Christians in the Middle Ages, these cathedrals were understood to be images of the Celestial City (Revelation 21-22) as well as something like a model of the cosmos. If you were going to spend your life to build the perfect church, what better model could you have than God’s self-revelation, Jesus? If a cathedral is to give shape to the truth of the cosmos, what better shape than a cross? What better way to conceive of reality than in the shape of God’s sacrificial love poured out in Jesus? If, as Paul says, “All things have been created through him and for him…and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17), then reality is cross-shaped. And gathering within a cross-shaped cathedral, we learn to integrate that truth into our lives—accepting the gracious gift of Jesus’ life given on that cross and learning to live with the same sacrificial love.

Which is why I am having all sorts of fun realizing that our ministry in this building—from the menial tasks of answering the phones, receiving the mail, and making another pot of coffee, to the more obvious like praying together, writing sermons, and teaching Bible stories to children—all of it happens on the cross of Jesus Christ. All of our life and ministry together is cross-shaped. Isn’t that beautiful? Everything that we are and do is made possible because of that cross, and our task is now to fit everything we are and do onto it, as well. I’m curious to see how this realization will shape our life together, knowing that every step we take in this building is pressed into the image of Jesus and his cross. I wonder how we can continue to mold our life and ministry into the shape of sacrificial love and grace?

But it’s also now fully summer and many of you won’t set foot in the Education Building for a couple months. So, I pray that wherever you are and whatever you’re doing this summer, you, too, would find your life being conformed more and more into the image and likeness of Jesus—with arms wide open to God and to neighbor. Amen, Lord. May it be so.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Beauty"

Dear WRC,

I’ve seen some beautiful things over this last month that I wanted to tell you about. In no particular order:

-Last month I saw a group of women—young and old—working for hours together under threat of rain, managing a less-than-ideal situation with a vendor, all in order to offer a big fake check drawn on poster board to the directors of our food pantry, who received it with tears in their eyes. Isn’t that beautiful? It wasn’t the $1800 or the impact it will have on the food pantry space. It’s the lives involved and the love so freely given.

-While preaching on friendship, I noticed several people in the pews turn to look at each other with knowing smiles. These are friendships that I know would not exist outside of this church and if not for their shared love of Jesus. There was gratitude in their eyes, mutual affection.

-I saw a young man come forward to receive communion for the first time, and I saw not only the glow on his face, but the pride and joy on his parents’!

-I saw our Family Ministries Director take a 6-year-old from the church to the softball game of an 18-year-old in order to show her love for both and create a new bond between them.

-I saw several people crowded around another in the back of the sanctuary before worship one Sunday to offer their loving presence out of genuine empathy and care.

I’ve seen some beautiful things over this last month. Beauty is one of the Transcendentals that philosophers sometimes talk about, right up there with truth and goodness. Beauty is something you know when you see it. It’s connected to truth and goodness and enhanced by them. It calls out to us at a level deeper than just cognition. Our desire for beauty is, I think, a longing for what should be and some lingering sense within us of the God we were created for. Truth and goodness get much of the press, but don’t sleep on beauty! There is so much that is beautiful around here. I hope that you’re noticing it. I hope that you’re bearing witness to it.  You don’t see this kind of stuff outside of the church community. This beauty may just be the most important thing we can offer the world today.

So, as we enter the summer together, here’s a challenge for you: do something beautiful. Use what God has given you and do something beautiful. Maybe you’ll make something. Maybe you’ll live something. I hope you’ll tell me what you did afterwards!

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"On Friendship"

Dear WRC,

I suppose there are a lot of different reasons to pursue a terminal degree like a Doctorate of Ministry. Perhaps it could open up some doors professionally. Being able to throw around a title like Reverend Doctor still has force in some conversations. There’s also the learning—it’s an opportunity to develop mastery over a body of knowledge and expand your learning in a way that will build up and bless the Church of Jesus Christ.

My biggest takeaway from these last three years, though, has been friendship. Friendship may not seem like nearly so lofty of an accomplishment as the academic and professional acclaim, but these new friends have lifted my heart and buoyed my soul in a way credentialing never could.

We don’t often talk about friendship within the Church, but it’s good to note that on the night he was betrayed, when the hour of his glory had finally come, as he celebrated his Last Supper with his disciples and shared his final words with them, Jesus made a big deal of calling them friends (John 15:15). This is what Jesus has done in and for us: made us now his friends. Friends of the Word made flesh, in whom all things came into being, the very light of the world. Can you believe it?

And it’s that friendship with God that allows us to enter into deep and abiding friendships with one another (“As I have loved you, so also you ought to love one another.” John 13:34). These friendships don’t revolve around us—what we get out of it, what another can bring to it, the affection we feel toward another—they blossom out of a shared love of God. I can’t remember if it was Augustine, Aquinas, or Aristotle (it started with an A…), but one of them pointed out that true friendship is always based on a shared love. The depth of the friendship corresponds to the depth of that shared love. If we both love baseball, have kids in the same school, or share an appreciation for craft beer and tacos, we may bond over that shared love and find our hearts warmed on receiving a text about a new taco joint or the latest web gem. Loving the same thing breeds an affection between us that may even deepen into sacrifice and service. But the weightier and deeper that shared love, the deeper the friendship that it fosters.

We have been welcomed into the deepest of friendships by Jesus. “No one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends” (John 15:13-14). Entering into that friendship with Jesus, we find ourselves working and worshiping shoulder to shoulder with others of Jesus’ friends who in turn become our friends! Our shared affection of Jesus opens us up to love one another in deep and profound ways—not only in sacrifice and service, but in rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep.

I didn’t begin this program searching for new friends, but I supposed I needed to be found by them. It has been such a holy joy to pray with them and be prayed for by them; to help bear their burdens and have mine borne; to struggle together with what it means to pastor faithfully in an age that sees the church through the lens of the marketplace; to laugh and cry and even dance together. It has been a blessing in the truest sense of the word: a gift unforeseen and undeserved. I need the blessing of these friendships for this journey.

I think many of us long for these kinds of deep and selfless friendships. Our age is conspicuously lonely and disconnected. Thankfully, many modern sources can add to what Augustine (or whoever) had to say about how to make friends. Seems like I’ve seen a number of videos and posts over the last few months about how to make friends in your 30’s and 40’s, and they all boil down to the same idea: be a friend. Show interest in others; learn their name and say it; ask questions and listen intently when they respond. The worst way to make friends is sit back and wait for them to find you. When Jesus sought to befriend us, he came to find us while we were still lost.

Want friends? Give the love Jesus poured into you to others. Love as selflessly as he did. Show up when others need a friend. Do it not for what you’ll get out of it, but for what you can give. I’ve seen this kind of love shared among you. I’ve watched people be “befriended” in our midst, and it’s as beautiful to watch as it is to experience.

My D.Min. is now over, but I’m eager to continue to give away this gift that I’ve received. Wanna be friends?

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Prayer Together"

Dear WRC,

Easter morning starts pretty early for me. I’m up and ready and out the door by 6am to setup for our sunrise service. When that service finishes, it’s home briefly for more coffee, a few minutes with the kids, and back to the sanctuary to get ready for the next one. There is always a lot to practice and prepare—especially on Easter!—but at about 9:20 something happened that happens almost every Sunday at that time. A couple elders politely interrupted what I was doing and asked if I was ready to go pray with them before the service.

I’m so grateful for these invitations to let things be and go do something far more important. We headed in a line back to the quiet room. After some Easter greetings, we began to pray. I started, and when I finished, around the circle we went. Each heart responding in a different way. Each voice lifting up a different prayer. Some were short, some were long, all were genuine and integrated. Each one was a gift.

As your pastor I am often looked to when it’s time to pray, but boy do I love to hear you instead. It’s not because I don’t want to, but my heart is so blessed to bear witness to the conversation you’re having with our God. It’s a window into your heart, into your soul. Beyond the privilege and intimacy of it, though, it is also just heartening to me. It gives me joy and encouragement. It’s hard to put into words, but like a good Easter dinner, afterwards I felt full. God was with us in the room and together we had fixed our attention on him. I wasn’t alone, but was in the company of saints who also knew they needed God if they had any hope of anything. Saints who want to pray, not to make God show up, but to help each other remember that he’s already here.

I thought you should know that you have Elders who pray for you, for me, for our worship and witness. I thought you should know they don’t take any of this lightly. I thought you should know that they regularly do what Jesus did with his disciples, pulled them away from the hubbub to be alone together in prayer. But mostly, I wanted you to know that it was beautiful and a profound blessing to me.

I hope your Easter was filled with joy, good food, and good company! I was grateful to see so many of you in worship over the course of the weekend. I pray that those services were a blessing to you. I pray, too, that you’ll catch a glimpse of God’s resurrection power in your life this week so you can scoff in the face of the Dragon.

In Christ,
Pastor Andy

"Just Receive"

Dear WRC,

The other day I was on a walk with Finn. I was spending the day fasting so I took my lunch break as an opportunity to walk through the neighborhood and pray. My prayers, though, were jumping all over the place. The prayers were coming out rapid fire and leaping from one thing to the next. Have you ever had that, where you can’t seem to pray in a straight line? As I turned the corner by Washington School I found myself praying in rapid succession for all of this: Cyndie who had just driven past me and stopped for a moment to chat; Edna whose house I was passing; Oden the German Shepherd who also lives on that corner (and his humans); my kids, their teachers, the other students, and some of the issues I know of in the schools these days; and all of that was an aside from whatever it was I had been praying about as I walked up the hill from Dunkin. In that moment I felt my anxiety rising, not receding. As I prayed, I wasn’t handing these concerns over to God but finding more and more to be concerned about. Something seemed off, and the moment I named my praying as anxious and frenetic, I realized that it felt familiar

I had prayed like this before, a couple years ago as I began a silent retreat. I was coming out of a really busy season and was nervous about how it would go, if I’d do it right, and if I’d truly meet God in that space. The lesson I learned on that retreat was to stop and just receive the reality of God’s presence with me. God was always there; it was me who had run away. The peace and rest and joy that I found in that space was remarkable, and I found my praying relax and slow down, too.  I guess I needed to learn that lesson again.

I often think that the way to be faithful to Jesus’ command to not worry about anything is to carefully lay out all of the concerns and worries that I have in prayer and volley them over the God’s side of the court. Now, if there was ever a place to do an anxiety dump like this, it would definitely be in prayer (check out Philippians 4:6-7), but sometimes I find that praying a laundry list like this actually just makes me more anxious. Trying to control all these situations through prayer, I’m actually just reinforcing my anxiety.

I’m reminded of something Pastors Keith and Wes both pointed us to at the Ash Wednesday service this year: it’s really easy to take up our Spiritual practices and a life of faith as means of controlling God and the situations around us, instead of places where we are broken open to God’s presence and path.

I wonder how often in my praying I am still holding onto control over things and just demanding God work it out according to what I think would be best. No wonder my anxiety was rising on that walk! Prayer is enjoying and responding to God’s presence. Whatever I was doing, it wasn’t prayer.

I guess I have some work to do this Lent. There is more to give up; there is so much more to receive. God is right there, with you always. When is the last time you took a few moments to just receive God’s presence? To delight in your creator and redeemer? To feel God smiling upon you and return it with your own?

Writing this letter has been an invitation for me to take a break from just listing things at God that I want him to do something about and instead receive the gift of his loving presence. My hope is that reading it may offer you the same invitation.

In the Sermon on the Mount, shortly before telling us not to worry, Jesus has this to say about prayer: “The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need” (Matthew 6:7-8, The Message).

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

“I Passed!”

Dear WRC,

I passed!

Most of you know at this point that toward the beginning of January I was back in Holland, MI for the final residency of my Doctor of Ministry program through the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary. This time our agenda for the week was quite simple: it was time to defend our doctoral projects. “Doctoral defense” is a term from the guild that probably doesn’t help you to imagine quite what happened. We generally assume that if someone is on defense, then someone else must be on the offensive, working to attack and poke holes. Instead of these metaphors taken from battle, we were invited to take up the metaphor of pilgrims returning from their journeys to celebrate and bear witness to all they had seen and experienced along the way. While all the appropriate academic rigor was maintained, that week was an opportunity to celebrate with each other and share what wisdom we had picked up along the way.

I was the first to present on Tuesday. I’m pretty sure that was the best slot available—I had recovered from the travel, picked up a few tips from the brave souls who went on day one, but could still get it out of the way early in the week and before everyone’s first cup of coffee wore off. I had 20 minutes to share from the 125 pages I’ve written, and then the faculty and other students had 25 minutes to ask follow up questions and clarifications. At the end of the day, the faculty would retreat into the dark catacombs of the seminary somewhere to discuss the day’s projects and return a little while later with their determination. On Tuesday afternoon, January 9th , I passed without revisions and now need only to submit my project for a review of its formatting by the library and walk in graduation on April 27th to receive my Doctorate in Ministry!

It’s weird to be finished, if I’m honest. I’m feeling a lot of things about it. I’m not necessarily relieved to be done—this program was a joy and a gift on so many levels and I’d love to keep it going. I’m honestly a little sad it’s over. My friend’s wife has come to call our residencies “Pastor Summer Camp” because he returns home every time with a big smile on his face and tells her all the new stories of these friends he spent the week with. I’ve written before about the gift of these friendships, but that isn’t all I’ll miss. This program has been a holy space. I’ve met God in all the readings and conversations and work. Eugene’s writing and our Director, Winn’s, blessings have helped to name a hunger—a longing—as well as the reality of God’s presence. I am so blessed to have been part of this! What a gift of grace it has all been. At the end of it all I’m feeling grief tangled up in gratitude and joy and hopefulness.

One thing I wasn’t really feeling, though, was pride. I don’t know if it’s my midwestern upbringing, the fact that I’m a middle child, or what, but I have to confess that when I returned home and was met with such exuberance from you all at the news that I had passed, I was taken aback. For whatever reason I hadn’t really given myself permission to celebrate what I had done, to take pride in it. On one level I was just so close to it for so long that now that it’s done, it’s hard to zoom out and get a sense of the whole. On another I may be so allergic to self-promotion that I end up at self-deprecating. Who knows, but when one of you asked if we’d do anything to celebrate together, my first thought was, “Why?” You helped me to come around, though, so, why not!? I’m so grateful for your excitement and pride in me; it’s helped me find excitement and pride myself. I haven’t really talked to Sam about this yet, but we should totally throw a party! I want to celebrate what God has done; I want to rejoice with you. I want to mark this three-year journey as grace, as a gift.

Celebration, itself, is a witness, you know. Jesus was known to hang out at all the best parties. I have a friend who loves to say that Christians should throw the best parties. We should, not because we should embrace debauchery, but because we have more to celebrate! We are those who have seen the deep darkness of our situation, and yet know that this story is a comedy, not a tragedy. It’s no coincidence that the Kingdom of God, itself, is so often described as a raging party.

So, after graduation in April, let’s throw one. A party to rage against the darkness. A party to rejoice in the grace of God. A party to celebrate all that God has done through this doctoral program, and all that God will continue to do in our life together.

Details to follow.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Not at Home"

Dear WRC,

The Holiday season is here! Somehow, we’ve passed Thanksgiving and are already on our way to Christmas. The preparations are well underway, the parties have begun, and I want to talk about nostalgia.

Nostalgia is everywhere this time of year. It struck me the other day when I discovered Disney+ is streaming all the “Home Alone” movies this year. Growing up in the ‘90s, “Home Alone” was quintessential Christmas. I have great memories of watching it with friends and family and am so excited to watch it with my kids. It’s been at least 20 years since I’ve seen Kevin take on the Wet Bandits. I’m not sure how well it will hold up to my memories. Nostalgia often doesn’t.

 Christmas movies aren’t the only place we experience nostalgia. We swim in it as we set up our decorations—remembering the trees and lights of our childhood or of our children’s—as we plan our menus—mouths salivating at the memory of dishes-past—and even as we gather for worship—lighting our candles and singing “Silent Night.” Because it’s a season of such rich meaning and experiences, those memories hang on and shower us with their warm glow, calling us back to times that were simpler, happier, slower. We find ourselves yearning for something that’s gone—the time, the place, even the people.

The problem is that if we could go back to visit those memories and live them again, we’d surely find them lacking. I’m sure I’ll still love “Home Alone,” but I’m going into it aware that I’ll probably find Kevin a tad annoying this time around, be horrified by the depiction of parents, and roll my eyes at some of the classic ‘90s camera work. For all the fondness with which I remember spending Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house with all my cousins and aunts and uncles, if I squint hard enough, I can see the family drama in danger of boiling over. I can remember being bored some years and wanting to just go home. I can feel my disappointment in some of the presents. If we went back in time, we’d realize that our parents were fallible, that the lights never quite twinkled like we remember, and that there never was a golden era when everything was the way it should be. We’d discover that our nostalgia is just the best bits of our memories, distilled by time, and warmed like chestnuts over an open fire. That doesn’t mean none of it is true, though. We just need to recognize that our nostalgia isn’t pointing us back but forward.

One of the fascinating things about human beings is that we’re never content with our lot. Within every human being there seems to be this sense that things aren’t the way they should be. Maybe it’s a desire for justice in the world. Maybe it’s a restlessness telling you that if you only had a better job or a nicer house or lived somewhere more exciting (or with more ideal weather), THEN everything would fall into place. Maybe it’s a sense that there was a time past when things were just as they should be, and it would all be alright if we could only get back to it.

I’ve been challenged recently to consider that ALL of this is good. These aren’t desires to be squashed with stoic realism, but to be coaxed and stoked. The problem only comes when we don’t recognize where this discontent is truly pointing. The truth is that we won’t experience real justice until Jesus returns, the next job or house or city will only quell your restlessness for a season, and the past was never as rosy as we remember. But the discontent, the dis-ease, that’s what I want to pay attention to. Friends, your nostalgia and your restlessness and even your righteous anger are there to point beyond themselves to something so much better.

C.S. Lewis talked about this perhaps better than anyone. In his sermon, “The Weight of Glory,” he said:

It was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

 So, friends, this Christmas pay attention to your nostalgia, to your longings and your restlessness and your discontent. The desire for something else, something better, something more is not a desire to stamp out, but to breathe into life and aim toward its true source. At its heart, it is the desire for God and God’s country, and following that scent will bring you home to Jesus.

 It’s a little early for it, but I want to wish you a Merry Christmas. I know that for many of you this is not an easy time of year, it’s filled with pain and grief and loneliness, but that may actually bring you closer to the heart of Christmas than tinsel and Bing Crosby ever could. God sees our tears, God hears our cries, God feels our pain. That’s why Jesus came, to meet you right where you are and bring you home.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Thank You"

Dear WRC,

I want to write to you today in order to say, “Thank you!” Not because it’s November and Thanksgiving is around the corner but because of something that happened at the Annual Congregational Meeting last Sunday.

As you know, for the last few years we’ve held our Annual Meeting within our morning worship service instead of afterwards. We didn’t want to perpetuate the fake division between worship and business, and wanted to carry the work of our Annual Meeting—celebrating what God has done in the past year and looking toward the next—into the praise and petition of our worshiping life together.  I love this! It’s exactly the kind of thing I want to be a part of as your pastor.

This combination isn’t without its challenges, though. Some things we need to do fit neatly into our worship; others feel a little less natural. Then there’s the timing consideration. Even though we’ve grown more comfortable with a worship service that is 70-75 minutes long over the last 10 years, I still start to get nervous as we eclipse that hour-and-fifteen-minute mark.

And I need to confess that that’s what I was thinking about for half of our Congregational Meeting this year. From the moment I stood up to begin the sermon, I knew we were in trouble. I cut some sections of my sermon and quickened the pace of everything else, but there was no way around it: we were headed for an hour-and-a-half at minimum. I was trying to avoid panicking inside and thought I was sensing the anxiety in the room growing; a restlessness at each passing moment.

I finished the service at 11:00 and breathed a deep sigh. I expected you to bolt for the doors and was ready for snarky comments over coffee in Heneveld Hall. But that’s not what happened. Some of you stuck around the sanctuary to sing the final song that had been bumped to the Postlude; there was a decent crowd at coffee hour; and the feedback I’ve gotten has been overwhelmingly positive. A few of you have gone out of your way to comment about how great the service was and how wonderful it was to be there and celebrate it all.

It took several of these comments before I realized that I had almost missed it. I was right there with you, breathing the same air, hearing the same words, singing the same songs, but if not for your reminders I would have completely missed it: God had been with us. That shouldn’t be surprising (especially for a pastor…) and it isn’t novel, and yet here we are. I was stuck on how each part of the service fit together, on how long it was taking, and meanwhile God was drawing back the curtain and offering us a glimpse inside.

Thank you for inviting me to see how beautiful it all was. Thank you for reminding me of God’s presence within and beyond the minutiae and details. Thank you for paying more attention to the beauty God is working than the hands on the clock. Thank you for the nudge to lift my eyes and see God-with-us.

Like I said, I almost missed it! Thank God we have each other.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Accidental Catechism"

Dear WRC,

It’s hard to believe that at the end of this month it will have been 6 years since we gathered and baptized Owen and Hannah. It’s very likely that no one noticed that morning, but I actually made one small mistake when baptizing Owen. After baptizing someone in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Pastor is invited to make the sign of the cross on their forehead. In my joy and balancing everything else at the moment, I completely forgot. I realized it in time to make the sign of the cross on Hannah’s forehead moments later, but Owen missed that small part of the sacrament.

Now, according to our best theologians, that little mistake doesn’t make an ounce of difference. It isn’t mandatory, it isn’t part of the formal baptism, and as far back as the Donatist Controversy in the 4th century it was settled that the efficacy of the sacraments was rooted in God’s work, not the worthiness of the pastor (thank God!). But as a new parent, I wasn’t quite as sure. I knew better, but my heart was anxious—if Owen grew up to reject the faith, I would know the exact moment where things had gone wrong and whose fault it was.

Thankfully, my efforts to make up for that one small mistake have given us one of our best bedtime rituals. To cover over that one cross I missed, I began to make the sign of the cross on Owen and Hannah’s foreheads every night as I kissed them and said goodnight. When they were a little older and could talk, I began to ask them a question: “Why do I give you this cross every night?” inviting them to answer: “Because I belong to Jesus.”

Night after night we carried out this ritual. The sign of the cross, “because I belong to Jesus.” At some point they wanted to reciprocate and began to insist on also giving me a cross and making sure to remind me of that same good news: I, too, belong to Jesus.

The other night as Owen, half-asleep, poked me in the eye while muttering, “You belong to Jesus,” it struck me that this is actually the most important thing I want my kids to know. This ritual started as a way to appease my own anxiety but it is working into our bones the most important thing I could hope to pass on: They belong to Jesus.

I want this to be worn into their skulls. I want them to know it in their bones. I want it to be one of the deepest truths of their lives: They belong to Jesus. If they’re scared at school or trying to figure out how they fit in, I want them to remember that they belong to Jesus.  When they head off to college one day and step out into the unknown of new relationships and places and independence, I want them to remember that they belong to Jesus. When they’ve failed or messed up in a way that seems too big to come back from, I want them to remember that they belong to Jesus. When they’re fighting to breathe in a darkness that is swallowing them, I want them to know that they belong to Jesus.

And I want you to know that, too. It’s the best news I could ever possibly share with you. You belong to Jesus! He bought you at great cost, and he would do it again. He loves you; he desires you; you are his. You belong! There is nothing you did to earn this love. There is nothing you can do to exhaust it. You can’t run too far. You are not your own; you belong.

He marked you in your baptism. He set you apart as his own. Like a cattle brand that cross sets you apart and can’t be removed no matter how hard you scrub.

I don’t know what you’re dealing with this week. I don’t know what you’re celebrating or grieving. I don’t know the darkness that clouds around. But I do know this: you belong to Jesus. Don’t ever forget it.

 In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Be Present"

Dear WRC,

Over the summer I was lucky enough to have two opportunities to head to the Met and enjoy the exhibit they had of Van Gogh’s Cypresses. Wheat Field with Cypresses is one of my favorite paintings, so I was quite excited to hear they were going to host an entire exhibit all about his fascination with cypress trees and the paintings and drawings they showed up in throughout his career.

I entered the exhibit with pretty high expectations—I will never get to see some of these paintings again and definitely not all in the same room! Within minutes, though, I found myself annoyed. This is where you find out I’m really just a grumpy, old man inside. As I stood before the first few paintings, people kept crowding in front of me, holding up their phones, snapping a picture, and then moving on to the next painting. I stood back and watched a few people step up to priceless painting after priceless painting only to snap a picture on their phone and move along to the next one.

Here we are in the presence of beauty and greatness, a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit of masterpieces and all these people were content to experience it through the lens of their smartphone, “capturing the moment”, and moving on to the next thing. I wanted to yell: “BE PRESENT!” The thing itself is right here! Take a moment to be here and actually look at it! No picture will every capture these pieces--the color, the texture, the light—especially not one hastily taken with your phone. Are you really going to look at all these pictures later? Why not just put your phone away, live in this moment, and experience the real thing!

Boy, do I need to practice what I preach. I may have done well at the Met that day, but my screen time stats tell a different story. Brian Kennedy and I have a long-running joke about how Apple finds it necessary to give us our weekly screen time notification 5-10 minutes before worship starts every Sunday so that we have something to confess. I may be annoyed by my fellow museum-goers, but I do the same thing when I’m sitting with Owen and Hannah or Sam or a friend. Instead  of being present in this moment with these people, I’m somewhere else. I miss what’s right in front of me for the promise that something better could be.

I need to be reminded often to just be here, to receive this moment, even if nothing much is happening in it, as a gift from God. I assume I’m not the only one. It’s easy to take for granted what is right in front of us and miss the holiness of these moments, their goodness and beauty.

It’s good to be reminded every once-in-a-while to take off your shoes, to be told that you’re standing on holy ground. The ground we stand on together is holy. The love and fellowship that we share is the gift of Jesus and his presence among us. This congregation is being shaped into one of Christ’s masterpieces, before which Van Gogh’s pale in comparison. There is immense beauty on display if you are willing to just be present.

I think that many of you know this. It’s why you keep showing up. I’m aware that there are 1,000 other things you could do on a Sunday morning when we gather for worship or a weeknight when there’s a meeting or a class. But you’ve seen something of the beauty Christ means to paint among us, you’ve sensed something of God’s presence here. I see it every Sunday after worship when we’re gathered over baked goods and cold lemonade on the patio, sharing the joys and struggles of life. I hear about it from guests who join us and tell of the warmth of Christ’s welcome they have received. I smell it when a dozen of you are working away in the church kitchen preparing a meal to feed the hungry in Hackensack.

We’re about to launch into the fall and things are about to get really busy, so here’s the reminder that I need to hear—and maybe you need to hear it, too: be present! Show up with eyes and ears wide open to the presence of Jesus. We are standing the midst of beauty and goodness, don’t be content to snap a pic and move on. Don’t take it for granted. Be here. Linger. Watch. Christ has painted something remarkable. 

 In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"God Sightings"

Dear WRC,

I first heard the term “God Sighting” during my first VBS here at WRC. While the term “sightings” conjured images for me of UFOs, yetis, and the Loch Ness Monster—none of which I was eager to equate to God—I immediately loved the idea. The curriculum created space every day for children and leaders to name where they saw God at work and to do so publicly in order to bear witness to it together. In a world where God is not only invisible but seems less and less “believable,” what could have a more profound impact on faith formation than practicing looking for God!?

I’m not sure what I was expecting from those VBS God Sightings, but I remember feeling disappointed. Someone gave thanks to God because they found their keys or cell phone. Someone else was nervous about something but it turned out in their favor. There weren’t many and they were all essentially just strokes of good luck. Was this what God had been reduced to? Helping us find the keys we’d misplaced? I’m sure God cares about such things and I don’t really believe in luck, but was this the best we had?

The more I thought, though, the more I wondered what it was I expected to hear. News of a miraculous healing after prayer and laying on of hands? Resurrection? The heavens being torn open and God audibly instructing someone to move to the other side of the world and serve the poor? I believe those are possible, but I also believe they are extraordinary and rare. Short of that, I had trouble imagining what it would mean to see God at work. And I think that is precisely the problem: a shrunken imagination.

 We believe God is at work everywhere. We’re starting a new series this summer through the Apostles’ Creed and we’re beginning by proclaiming: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” God made everything that is. God still orders and rules it. God is almighty. Yet for many of us God seems miles away and disconnected or irrelevant to our daily lives, if He’s there at all. What does it mean for God to be at work in the world and in our lives? How do we learn to see it? To live like it?

 Maybe this is letting the cat out of the bag a little bit, but that’s what I’m trying to do with these letters—one of the things anyway. I want to help build our collective imagination for what it means to believe in God. Each of these letters is something like a God Sighting. Maybe that sighting seems as banal as finding your keys (seriously, though, we lost a key to our Mazda and would love some help finding it. Nothing about finding it seems banal at this point), but I still want to look at it long enough to find the face of God in the stroke of good fortune and turn thanks and praise to the giver of all good gifts. Maybe the sighting is a growing sense of God’s presence in our life together. Maybe it is something grand and wonderful like a healing. Maybe it’s the grace of a killdeer. Whatever it is, big or small, I want to practice naming it God. I want to grow my imagination. I want to learn to see anew. I want to live in the world “charged with the grandeur of God,” as poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said. Winn Collier writes, “To have a spiritual imagination is to have eyes to see God’s world for what it truly is: the ground where God fills the whole earth with his glory. When God fills the world, we discover every conversation and vocation and human endeavor to be a burning bush. Holiness everywhere. God everywhere.”

 That’s what I want to see every morning when I wake. Don’t you? I hope you do. If so, I hope these letters have been helpful practice, but I wonder how else we might practice together. I’d love to know what you think. Maybe someday you’ll even write back—these are letters after all!

 I’m grateful to do this work with you. May God open our eyes, dispel all darkness, and give us the grace to see Him everywhere, always.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Iona"

Dear WRC,

My recent trip to Scotland and London with the cohort of students from my Doctor of Ministry program was awesome. The Isle of Iona is drenched with both beauty and history. We ate great food, discerned the local spirits (code for: drank the Scotch), worked on our projects and shared our progress with one another, and, of course, explored Iona Abbey—founded in 563 when St. Columba landed on this little island with 12 other monks. The absolute, without a doubt, highlight of the trip, though, was the time spent together. We often stayed up late telling stories and laughing; we shared joys and burdens; we joined together for prayer and worship; and, in all of it, continued to build an uncommon bond across denominations, traditions, and geographies that don’t often mix.

There was, though, one looming disappointment of the trip. Iona is often described as a “thin place”. A place where the dividing line between Heaven and earth seems especially thin and porous. That’s what has drawn pilgrims to a little island in the Inner Hebrides since the 8th century or so. The Iona Community, which has stewarded the worshiping life of the rebuilt Iona Abbey since the 1930’s, is similarly well-known for its profound worship services, creative liturgies, and rich music. I expected the island to be dripping with a sense of God’s presence.

But I just didn’t feel it. Worship at the Abbey seemed haphazard and disconnected. Tourism seemed to be the driving force of the island’s life, with fresh herds of tourists arriving each day in matching jackets to explore the island from cruise ships moored in the sound. I was being blessed and filled and calmed by the landscape and the company, but I felt like I was missing the thing that had brought us there.

When we got to our last day and I still hadn’t “felt it”, I made a beeline after breakfast for the Abbey itself. I intended to spend our free time before Sunday worship in silence in the cloisters or the chapel, giving the Abbey another chance and doubling down on trying to find a thin place. I wondered: was it me? Did I have too high of expectations? Was I being a snob about the worship services? Had I been too concerned with not missing out on this precious time with friends that I had paid God too little notice? What had I missed? Why couldn’t I see it, feel it?

Fittingly, one of the Scripture passages assigned in the lectionary for that last day on Iona was Acts 1:6-14 where Jesus ascends into heaven.  As the disciples are standing there staring up into the clouds, suddenly two angels are there with them asking, “Why are you just standing around staring up into the sky? Jesus left, but he’ll come back. In the meantime, get out there. He sent you on a mission. Don’t just stand here staring up toward heaven trying to milk the last few ounces of glory.  GO!”

I couldn’t help but see myself standing among those disciples, wondering where Jesus had gone and what I could do to catch another glimpse. I thought of Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration offering to build tents so they could stay and keep the party going. But that’s not what Jesus had in mind. Only 10 days after the Ascension was Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on those same disciples, forming them into a new community with an uncommon bond and sending these few believers out to turn the world upside down (Acts 17:6).

In searching for a thin place on Iona, was I looking in the wrong direction, too?  Was I staring into the clouds looking for Jesus when the extravagant gift of His Body was being given in every conversation, laugh, meal, and drink we shared? Were these friendships, this uncommon bond in the Spirit, the place where the boundary lines between Heaven and earth were fading?

I needed to hear the angels’ words: “Why do you stand here looking into the sky?” The gifts of God were all around us—beauty, adventure, friendship, stillness. We don’t find God by looking outside of God’s creation or seeking some abstract notion of the sacred. Christ stands willing to give himself to us everywhere, always, if we only have eyes to see him.

My time on Iona wasn’t what I had expected, but it was a greater gift than I could have ever anticipated receiving.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"On Finding Shark Teeth"

Dear WRC,

A few weeks ago, Sam, I, and the kids had the wonderful gift of spending a week in Juno Beach, FL. Over the first few days we spent plenty of hours on the beach soaking in the sun (read: trying not to get burned), looking for interesting seashells, and doing some rudimentary boogie boarding in the surf. Then, halfway through our trip, we ran into some friends in North Palm Beach who happened to mention to the kids that if you know where to look there were shark teeth to be found all over those beaches. That changed the trajectory of the next few days.

Searching for shark teeth can be hard work. It demands patience, time, and dedication to the task. We started with a few tips: look for the black triangle, look in the shell beds, and if the tide is right the waves will be a big help—turning over the shells and giving the teeth a sheen. It was enough to get us going.

It took a while to find the first tooth. I’d love to say that after that they came in spades, but they just didn’t. It took a lot of work to find each tooth. It took time I might have rather spent doing something else. It took perseverance against the eyestrain, scouring the mix of shells that littered the beaches after several storms. There was a constant temptation to space out, to look away, to walk on down the beach and give up on this patch—or altogether. But we worked, and worked, and worked, and then one of us would exclaim with joy, “I found one!” or “Come, look at this one!” Each discovery was a gift, totally unexpected even with all the work we’d put in. Then each new discovery would push us back into the work with greater resolve, renewed energy and focus.

It’s possible to just stumble upon a shark tooth while strolling the beach. Some people even happen upon them more often than most. Everyone will probably find one at some point, but then there are those who train their eyes, discipline their bodies, wake early and go out for the hunt. I’ve heard they can find hundreds. The work, the discipline, it’s all training them, preparing them, to receive those gifts in greater abundance than any of the rest of us thought possible.

Could it be that discipline is all about tuning our hearts to receive the living, holy fire of God, the greatest of all gifts? Everyone stumbles upon small pieces of God now and then—bits of excess, glory, and grace, whether or not they know what to call them—but if you want God in abundance, that takes patience, determination, hard work, obedience. It’s tempting to look away, to give up and go do something else, to take the small glimmer you might catch by accident here or there and call it enough. But if we’re willing to keep at it, slowly we train our eyes. Slowly we learn to see it. We may work and work, but it is never not pure gift when the holy one appears again.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Beauty"

Dear WRC,

A couple weeks ago I saw something beautiful, and I want to tell you about it.

It was a Thursday, and at the end of a long day toward the end of a long week, families started to arrive in our new Family Ministry Space for dinner and some time together. The kids immediately began running around with huge smiles on their faces. The parents wore that look we have by Thursday evening of any given week. The Family Supper Clubs are new, but we’re figuring them out together. We gathered for some praise and a prayer, shared supper together, then sent the kids downstairs for their lesson and activity while we settled in around couches to talk. There weren’t a lot of us there that night, and it was slow to begin, but what happened next was holy.

The groundwork was laid, the space was carefully prepared, and then one parent after the other bravely stepped into it and spoke honestly and openly about areas in their lives in which they need God. Parenting is not easy. Being married is not easy. Being a human is not easy. But the difficulty and struggle and shame are often things we desperately try to hide, to bury down deep in an attempt never to be found out. We plaster on a smile, feign competence, and pray we hold it together until we’re at least back in the car on the way home. But not that night. That night I saw brothers and sisters be honest about the struggle, talk about the difficulty, and name the ache for God, for wholeness, for a way forward. That night they chose to be vulnerable, to be real.

And what happened next was even more beautiful. Instead of others jumping in on top of them to say, “Me, too!” and launch into their own story or jump straight to offering advice, solutions, and suggestions to “fix,” they just listened. I watched as parents just opened their hearts to each other, listened deeply and truly, and, when the time was right, prayed for one another.

There will be times for us to help each other, share resources, or offer advice, but that wasn’t it. The moment was far too holy for such things. When someone bears their soul the most practical thing you can do is to simply help them hold it and hold it before God. This is one of the great privileges that we have as the Body of Christ.

The moment was beautiful. It was a sign of God’s presence and work among us. Isn’t that what beauty, real beauty, is?

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Remember you are dust"

Dear WRC,

Last week we launched our way into another Lenten journey. I grew up in a church that marked Ash Wednesday as the beginning of Lent, but didn’t actually impose any ashes. I have since come to deeply treasure physical practices like the imposition of ashes. Anything that gets our faith and worship beyond our heads and into our hands and feet and embodied existence is such a gift. Jesus left us two key practices as signs and seals of his covenant grace—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper—but there are plenty of other lesser practices like ashes that also become visible and enacted pictures of otherwise internal or invisible realities.

Several years ago, this power of this practice was hammered home during an Ash Wednesday service in our sanctuary. We came to the part of the service when the congregation is invited forward to receive ashes. The line formed. One by one you bowed your heads to receive this reminder of your mortality, and I declared over you the same well-worn words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return

It is a powerful thing to speak this over someone. I do not lightly remind you of your impending demise. I don’t want to think about it any more than you do.

 I noticed a new family in the church had joined the line. They had joined WRC that year and had brought their newborn daughter Jessica to the waters of baptism to be joined into the family of God. As they now waited patiently in line, they held Jess in their arms with all the delight and caution of first-time parents. They made it to the front of the line. Erica bowed her head and received her cross. Mike followed suit. Then something happened that I didn’t expect. Mike didn’t step aside and let the next person come forward. He stood there with his baby in his arms looking at me expectantly. It took me a moment to realize that he expected me to mark Jessica with those same ashes, to speak over her those same words.

 Everything in me recoiled. Do you have that same gut response? This child was a symbol of joy and life, even in this fragile state—especially in this fragile state! We were struggling to have kids at the time. I knew the improbability of life and the absolute darkness of death. Here was a tangible symbol of the triumph of life amidst all the obstacles. Here was a child with so much life ahead of her, God-willing. How could I mark her with a symbol of her death? How could I announce confidently that she too would die one day and return to the dust from which she’d come? 

 Inside I screamed at Mike, “DON’T MAKE ME DO THIS!” I didn’t want to say those words. I didn’t want to speak that truth. I wanted to deny it and hide from it and pretend it wasn’t so. Mike didn’t hear me, he just kept looking at me. He was insisting that I tell the truth, insisting that I remember the hope that we profess, trust the power of the ashen cross that accompanies those words. He held Jess out to me.

 I couldn’t delay any longer. I didn’t know what else to do. I recited the words: “Jessica, remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” and I sealed her with the cross of Jesus her savior.

 Not an Ash Wednesday has passed when I haven’t thought about that moment and about the remarkable joy, peace, and freedom that are available only on the other side of those ashes.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Nearer"

Dear WRC,

I had the great privilege this past week of attending the latest Confirmation class, and I want to tell you a little about what happened.

Sara and the students invited me to join them for a session to get to know each other a little better. It was my own little version of an Ask Me Anything, and as you can imagine, that’s a little daunting. Giving a group of teenagers the reins to ask you whatever they want comes with some fear and trembling.

There were a few random questions asking about my favorite color (blue), food (tacos), and animal (Great Horned Owl). My personal favorite asked how I felt about pickles, specifically dill. There is a story there. Also: I’m for them.

For random questions, though, that was it. They didn’t really mess around in the shallow water; they went for it. What struck me, though, was that they also didn’t dive into tense political or ethical arguments. As a pastor these days, you sort of expect to have to answer for all the Church has ever done wrong or be thrust into the center of a raging public debate about whatever hot-button topic is in the spotlight. But they didn’t do that. Their questions went right to the heart of some of the most important things they could have possible asked. Questions like: “How did God find you, or how did you find God?” “When did you start truly believing in God?” “How often do you pray?” “Since no one knows for sure, what gives you confidence that you’re right about life after death?” “How did you get so close with God?”

Their questions point to the quest that they’re on, to a yearning, a searching, hidden just below the surface of their teenage lives. When given the opportunity, they didn’t mess around, they went right for what matters most. This is something we can learn from them. There is so much else that distracts us. There is so much else that starts to cloud up this business of being the Church here in Wyckoff, or of being Christians in the world. So many other things begin to seem so important, begin to cause us to worry. We need reminders now and again to focus on what really matters.

They didn’t need that reminder. They weren’t distracted. They went right for the jugular.  Because if this isn’t what all of this is about, then what are we even doing?

How do we get near to God? How do we grow up in Jesus? How do we recognize and receive God’s presence, nearer to us than we are to ourselves?  Aren’t those THE questions?

In Christ,

Pastor Andy