Arise, Shine

One of my favorite Christmas memories as a kid was piling into our old school Dodge Caravan after dinner to head over to a neighborhood in town that was known for its Christmas lights. I remember the massive line of cars that slowly snaked its way through the neighborhood. It seemed like everyone had their house decorated, with each house more impressive than the last. We bounced from the windows on one side to the windows on the other, beckoning one another: “Look at those lights!”

Christmas lights are magical, aren’t they? I love the accidental tradition we’ve created of putting them up at church in Advent. A number of you helped last Saturday as we strung them up in the greenery inside the sanctuary, on the bushes out front, up the trees and down the walkway. The beauty of those tiny lights invites a childlike sense of wonder and awe. Every night the church now glows with the warmth and sparkle of thousands of tiny lights shining defiantly in the cold and dark of winter.

What a picture for us in this Advent season! As we prepare ourselves for Christmas, this is the image I want to carry with me. We’re descending into the darkest days of the year, and that darkness seems at times to be both literal and metaphorical. The darkness would seem to swallow us whole but for this: a tiny light burning brilliantly.

That’s the thing about darkness, it doesn’t really exist. Darkness is only the absence of the light. What seems at first so threatening is revealed as laughable once the light shines. Even the smallest of lights drives the darkness from the room. As the light shines, it draws our attention away from the darkness that once seemed so fearsome and draws us into its warmth. We find ourselves standing in the darkness, and, though we are surrounded by it, it’s not the darkness we see, but those tiny lights—the beauty, the wonder.

Isaiah promises that there’s a day coming when, “Your sun shall no more go down, or your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended” (Isaiah 60:20). Each Advent we remember that we’re still waiting for that day. In our world the sun still goes down and the days of mourning go on. But in these cold, dark nights we have seen a light shine, a light which the darkness could not put out. The darkness still surrounds, but we now know it for what it is: an absence waiting to be filled, a promise waiting to be kept. We’re no longer transfixed by the darkness, but by the light shining radiantly.

But there’s more, because the picture isn’t one giant light but a thousand little ones. Beholding the light and glory of Christ, it’s our faces that begin to shine. It’s you and it’s me strung up out there around the church, reflecting Christ’s light and love into the darkness of the world. It’s you and me that our neighbors will see as they drive past, craning their necks in awe and wonder at the light of Christ that shines defiantly in the darkness.

This is how Isaiah said it: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn” (Isaiah 60:1-3).

     In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"TEN YEARS"

Dear WRC,

Ten years ago, October 17, 2012, Samantha and I packed up our VW Passat wagon, waved goodbye to family and friends, and rolled out of Holland, MI.  We set out for the foreign land called New Jersey filled with excitement, expectation, and a healthy dose of uncertainty.  It was 3 or 4am on the 18th when we dragged ourselves up the steps of the Klomburg parsonage to collapse for our first night’s sleep in our new home, only to discover that the full-size air mattress we packed to survive until the moving truck arrived in a few days was actually a twin.  Sam let me sleep on it so that I could get into the office at 8am to meet Sue Fasano and my first bulletin deadline.

We had no idea what we were getting into, but God did. God had been long at work creating a path for us, a place for us, a people for us. How could we have known all that was to come, let alone be even remotely prepared for it? Hindsight makes it clear that that was never what ultimately mattered—our planning and preparation. What mattered was God.  What always matters is God, the definitive reality of our life and being. And for a decade now in this calling there has been one place more than any other where we have seen God working clear as day, one place where God has showed up over and over and over again: you.

Thank you. God has been so good to us through you. You have been there for us from the first day until now, partnering in this work of the Gospel. It is in you that we have seen and heard and tasted that the Lord is good.  It is through you that we have felt God’s love, care, and provision. It is from you that we have received God’s grace. In each thank you card or encouraging voicemail, each offer to watch our kids or work on our house, every meal delivered or dog walk after the kids were born, every prayer offered and song sung, every meal shared and tear shed, in every single one God was working among us. In each of those moments you likely had little idea of the weight of your actions nor of the tapestry you were weaving, but after ten years the picture is clear: the Kingdom of God has come near.

“I thank my God for every remembrance of you, always in every one of my prayers for all of you, praying with joy for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

Philippians 1:3-6

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

“GIVE US THIS DAY”

Dear WRC,

This past Thursday, Glenn Dykstra and I brought communion to Ruth Perrotta. It’s one of the remarkable privileges of my job—not only being welcomed into people’s homes and lives but to bring this visible sign of invisible grace into their lives as well.

Ruth was quiet during our visit. She still looks great but is 96 and starting to feel it. Dementia has been slowly setting in, too. It was clear she heard and understood us but that day she was slow to reply and offered only short answers to our questions. Our visit was a fairly one-sided conversation. Glenn and I telling Ruth about things going on at church, and remembering Ruth’s beautiful singing that blessed our congregation for decades. Ruth didn’t really respond; she didn’t really seem to have much energy.

I asked if she’d like to have communion with us. There was a pause. “Yes,” she said softly. Her voice isn’t what it once was, weakened by age and no longer able to soar to the heights of glory. I began to set out the crackers and juice before us. I got out the communion liturgies. I asked if Ruth would like one to follow along or if she’d like us to do all the reading. Again, a pause. “You,” she said softly, again. So, we began. We worked our way through the liturgy for “The Lord’s Supper in Home and Hospital.” I led. Glenn read the responses. Ruth listened quietly.

 Dementia is cruel, as anyone who has encountered it knows full well. It robs you of your memories, which is a way of saying that it robs you of your self. There are good days and bad days− days when memories flow freely and days when everything is a fog. I was thinking this was a bad day for Ruth. I didn’t know how much she was really even with us, or how much of her was still her. Through the conversation and now through the liturgy she sat quiet, still, with a slightly distant look in her eyes.

Right before we receive communion itself, the In-home liturgy invites us to pause and pray the Lord’s Prayer together. I invited Ruth and Glenn to join me. I paused for a moment. As we began to pray it was only Glenn and I: “Our Father, who art in heaven.” We continued through the prayer, perhaps more perfunctory than I would like to admit. But as we rounded the corner “on earth as it is in heaven,” and began to ask for daily bread, I heard something. I leaned in as we prayed for forgiveness and it was there again. A third voice had joined in our prayer. It was soft and quiet, but it was there. Ruth prayed right along with us as we prayed against temptation and evil, and she seemed to gain confidence as we closed together, “For thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen.”

 It was one of the most beautiful things I have heard in a long time. I wasn’t sure if Ruth was with us through most of that liturgy, but the old and sure words of the Lord’s Prayer, words she has prayed thousands of times, called something out of her—called her out of her. They brought her back to us. Their familiarity created space for her to lift up her heart with us in worship.

 Dementia has stolen much, but it hasn’t yet stolen the grooves these words have worn between her synapses. And even if it does one day, those very words point us on to a hope that will never crack or fade. Our hope isn’t located in ourselves. It isn’t our knowledge, it isn’t our effort, it isn’t our net worth, it isn’t our ability, it isn’t our memory or anything located in our self. Our hope is Him, our Father, who art in heaven. We have hope because His is the Kingdom. His is all power. His is all glory. We are His, and He is faithful.

 That still, small voice was a reminder that God was with us in that holy moment. That third voice, woven into ours as a reminder that God does not see what humans see, looking at outward appearances. The prayer itself a reminder that we live every day—from weakness, to strength, to weakness again—relying on the faithfulness of God for every breath, every day’s bread, every thing. We had brought the bread and the cup, but it was Ruth’s voice—like it has so many times before—that opened our eyes to something so Holy, right here under our noses. God. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

In Christ,

         Pastor Andy

Resonance

Dear WRC,

Well, somehow school starts next week. I’m not really sure how, but we’re here already. And if the whiplash of realizing summer is over isn’t enough, we’re about to step hard on the gas pedal of our collective lives as we lurch into this new season. It seems like things are just moving faster and faster and faster, doesn’t it? Like a camp song that speeds up with each new verse until no one can keep up anymore, every time we feel like we get a handle on things they hit a new gear. There is constant pressure to keep up, to become more efficient and productive, and to adapt to an accelerated rate of change technologically and socially. Technological advancement continues to save us time, and yet more than ever we feel the sense that we need to catch up. And the result of all of this is a growing sense of anxiety and guilt. German social theorist Hartmut Rosa calls the result “alienation.” Life is moving so fast that we feel more on the surface of it than in it. Things are moving so quickly that we don’t necessarily know how to live the good life in the present, but we have a sense that if we can just gather enough resources now (money, experience, degrees, capital), then we can live whatever full life we want to in the future. The result of this unfettered acceleration is a sense of disintegration, of alienation from community, relationship, God, and even ourselves. Do you know that feeling? It’s a sickening and disorienting feeling that leaves us feeling anxious and lost. Rivers Cuomo sang it well: “The world has turned and left me here.”

If this alienation is caused by unbridled acceleration, then you might be tempted to think that the solution would be to slow down. That may be the case, but Rosa is careful to point out that the problem isn’t specifically the speed, but the alienation from connections to the world and others. The solution then isn’t necessarily to slow down, but to find ways to relate differently to the world, others, ourselves, and even time itself. The path forward is to cultivate what Rosa calls “resonance.”

Have you ever had an experience where your whole being seems to resonate? When time isn’t sped up or used more effectively but made full and thick? For many, these are experiences when relationships are attended to, when we reconnect with God’s creation, when we get back into our own bodies, when we find ourselves moving with the grain of God’s ways. In fact, our unique Christian contribution to the conversation may be to point out that what Jesus describes as his “abundant life,” is the way that living in his ways moves us along at the resonant frequency of the universe he so lovingly created, sustains, and is working to redeem.

As things speed up again this fall, how can we work to tune ourselves to resonance? Well, the first step is recognizing it when it happens, and the second step is seeking it out. I’d love to hear about some of the places you’ve experienced resonance this summer. Here are a few places where I have in the last couple weeks:

·                     Gathering for breakfast with six of you at Country Café to laugh and share life.

·                     Singing loud and dancing out the motions of VBS songs with parents and kids alike.

·                     Sitting around the Memorial Room and talking with other parents about the joys and

                    difficulties of parenting and getting to pray with and for them.

·                     Stand up paddleboarding with Owen at Camp Brookwoods, feeling the rhythm of the

                    water, balancing together, and laughing every time we fell—whether it was on purpose or not.

·                     Gathering for worship with friends and singing an old song, long-imbued with meaning.

What would be on your list? How can you pay attention to spaces of resonance this fall? What

would it take to find a few more?

In Christ,

    Pastor Andy

Dear WRC,

I’m back! These past three weeks away for rest and revitalization were wonderful and I’m brimming with gratitude. I’m excited to be back and dive back into life with you, catching up on what God is doing in your lives. If you’re around, reach out! I’d love to see you. I’d also be remiss to not thank all those who stepped up to fill gaps while I was away, from worship leading to pastoral care. Thank you for using your gifts to build up our community and give glory to God!

I’m continuing to process my time away and will end up writing a lot more about it for my D.Min. project, but I wanted to share some brief things I learned/remembered:

·         Being part of a church family is a sacred and beautiful gift – I missed you and gave thanks for you and our life together while I was away. I also worshiped at another church for 3 Sundays in a row and was hit between the eyes with profound gratitude for the gift of a local church. I saw grandparents worshiping beside grandchildren, friends laughing and catching up, parents coaxing their children forward for a Children’s Moment, saints rising to sing together. I also felt the immediate bond between us for no other reason than that we belong to Jesus and share a deep love of God. What a beautiful thing the Church is, and we ignore that beauty at our peril.

·         I love my family! – I didn’t discover that for the first time, nor had I forgotten it, but there are times in life when we need to be invited deeper in, right? When we need to be reminded of all the ways it’s so, of all the reasons why, when we need to say it out loud, bring it back to the front of our awareness. Sam is such a gift, always ready to give and put others before herself. She is open to wonder and beauty, passionate in her love and convictions, compassionate and courageous. My kids are sweet and beautiful. Owen is goofy, smart, and more confident than I’ve ever been. Hannah can be so tender, curious, and relational. I love ‘em!

·         God is more present to us than we are to ourselves – That’s a rough paraphrase of St. Augustine of Hippo that I use quite often in preaching and conversation. I believe that; I know that; but I don’t always feel that and live like it. I entered my silent retreat somewhat anxious about the time, wondering if God was going to show up and how and if I was going to “do it right” and if my worrying about that was going to be the thing to actually sabotage it all. Then I shut up, and as the distractions and noise faded away, I was left with God: quiet, patient, intimately present. In swirling thunderclouds, in a tree of goldfinches, in skipping stones, in a field of fireflies, in a silent, ancient oak, in simple meals, in the tides of the Hudson. “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge” (Ps. 19:1-2). God is here. God is with you.

In Christ,

    Pastor Andy

Sabbath

“Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses of the Negeb.”

— Psalm 126:4

Dear WRC,

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

This next month is going to be… interesting. I wrote to you a few months ago to announce that the consistory had blessed my application for a Clergy Revitalization Grant that our denomination was offering through a generous grant from the Lilly Foundation. I had been awarded a grant and the accompanying three weeks for that time of revitalization. Well, those three weeks are here. Starting on July 11, I’m going to stop doing and be for three weeks.

I’m approaching this time as both excited and nervous. The excitement seems more obvious. This is an incredible opportunity and gift as well as something that I need to care for my mind, body, and soul in order to return and help care for yours. But I’m also nervous. I'm nervous because I've never done anything like this and have no idea what to expect. I am also nervous because I want so much to happen, but trying to force it is precisely the way in which to thwart its happening.

 The truth is that, like so much else in the Christian life, I can’t make happen what needs to happen. I can’t generate intimacy with God and force an awareness of God’s presence. I can’t renew my soul. I can’t manufacture rest and restoration. The Gospel is not a self-help manual with 10 steps to self-actualization. This is not the realm of pulling yourself up by your boot straps. What needs to be done is what God alone can do. Jesus used a really helpful metaphor in John 15: “I am the vine and you are the branches…apart from me you can do nothing.” We can’t make the fruit grow. We are not in control of our spiritual lives.

But there is one role in all this that is ours, the most important verb in John 15: abide. We abide in the vine, in Jesus. Abiding means giving up any illusion that we are the captains of our souls, that we are in charge of things. It involves surrender to the will of the vine and the vinegrower.

 Spiritual Disciplines or Practices seem to be all the rage in some parts of the Church these days, but my fear is that they are being taken up as techniques to control and improve our spiritual lives, instead of what they are: a means of surrender, of abiding in the vine. My teacher and mentor, Tim Brown, once described practicing the Disciplines as digging irrigation ditches. We can’t force the rain to fall, but we can work the soil of our heart so that when it does, that rain doesn’t just flow over us but waters our souls and produces a harvest.

 With all that in mind, I’m trying to enter into these three weeks in order to sabbath: to cease. To stop working and striving and all my anxious attempts to be in control and instead to surrender. To patiently attend to God and trust that at some point the rains will fall.

WHAT AM I ACTUALLY GOING TO BE DOING?

I’ve been working with a spiritual director over these last couple months to give some shape to this time and to how I will be entering into silence and prayer during these weeks. I’ll meet with him again on day one to start things off with time in prayer together and doing our best to listen together to what God is doing in me. From there, I’ll head off on a four-day silent retreat at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY. Week two will include another appointment for spiritual direction and five nights in a little cabin on Lake Champlain just north of Burlington with Sam. We’ve only been away from the kids together for one night in five years and are looking forward to some space to be together, to pay attention to our relationship, and to rediscover some habits of prayer together (special props to Esther who is coming to watch the kids!). Week three is largely unplanned. We’ll all be together, likely here in Wyckoff, and the goal will be to rest and continue to make space to listen to and be with God. I’ll meet with my spiritual director again this last week.

 The rhythm of the whole thing moves from the center out and is like a giant reboot button for all my most important relationships. I’m beginning with God alone in prayer and silence, then spending time with Sam, then the kids, and in the fourth week back to work and to this community. All along the way trying to saturate each of those spheres with prayer and with an awareness of the presence of God.

 While I’m off doing this, I want to invite you into three things. First, practice sabbath, too! From the very beginning of creation God has invited us into the rhythm of work and rest. In six days, God created the heavens and the earth and on the seventh day God rested. Over this next month, how is God inviting you to stop? To surrender? Where are you convinced that you are absolutely necessary and that things would fall apart without you? How could you step away, not entirely, just one day every seven to practice wonder, delight, and the fear-of-the-Lord?

 Second, don’t contact me. Haha. Seriously, though, one of the requirements for the grant is he church’s committing not to contact the pastor during their time away. If anything comes up during that time there are Elders and others standing by to offer pastoral care. There will be a pastor on-call at all times, too. Reach out to the church office if you need anything. I can’t wait to catch up with you when I return on Aug. 1.

 Third, pray! Please pray for me, for Sam, for Owen and Hannah. Pray for God’s blessing on this time. Pray for restoration. Pray for God’s presence and faithfulness to be known. Pray!

I’m still not sure what this month is going to be like, but I believe that the discernment and the preparations were faithful, so I am entering into it patiently expectant to see what God will do.

 In Christ,

Pastor Andy

Really Real

Dear WRC,

What a week. The shooting in Buffalo is still pretty raw.  The 2nd anniversary of George Floyd’s murder reopened that wound.  Then the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas where 19 elementary school children and 2 teachers were murdered and another 17 people injured.

In our consistory meeting on Tuesday night we began, as we always do, by dwelling in the Word together, looking at Matthew 28:16-20.  Lindsay gave voice to the question on all of our minds: where was God today?  As we prepared to close the meeting in prayer, Dave asked another question we were all feeling: how do we even pray right now?

Where was God on Tuesday? Or May 14? Or May 25, 2020? Or during countless other tragedies in our lives and life together? And how do we pray when the grief is still so thick? When we’re still grasping to understand what and how and why?  When patterns emerge of brokenness so deep we can’t see to its bottom or imagine a way across? 

Last week I was in Montana for my Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) program and made sure to take a number of opportunities to get out on Flathead Lake on a kayak and just float on the turquoise glacial water and soak in the expansiveness of the place and the glory of the snow-capped Mission and Swan Ranges towering over the eastern horizon.  We gathered at Flathead because this place, like no other, shaped Eugene Peterson’s life and work, faith and imagination.  It was easy to see how transcendence had been baked into his soul, how he came to understand the expansiveness of Christ’s playing in the world.

I’m now home and trying hard to hold on to that deep sense that was so apparent as we gathered to sing and pray, work and laugh in the shadow of ponderosa pines: God is what is really real.  God is what is really real. 

I don’t mean that we should just ignore the tragedies and suffering of this world.  I don’t mean that this evil, injustice, and violence isn’t real.  I don’t want to downplay the horrors of this week one iota. 

But I also don’t want to allow them to define reality.  I don’t want to be so drawn into the news cycle that I lose sight of the God who is far more grieved and far angrier than I am.  I don’t want to forget that God, in Christ, is reconciling the world to himself (1 Cor. 5:19).  That God is somehow, someway at work even here, even now, to restore and renew and redeem even this.  I don’t know how.  I can’t even imagine how.  But I don’t need to for it to be so.

God is what is really real.  To know that and to trust that is to be given the gift of knowing that as horrible as these acts of violence were, they are in reality only penultimate truths.  They are second-to-last truths, not ultimate or final.  There is a truth that goes deeper, that stretches wider.  And far from leading us into apathy toward others’ suffering, knowing this actually calls us deeper into it.  It frees us to look it square in the eyes, unflinching.  It allows us to truly weep with those who weep, to be fully present with those who suffer. 

We may not know where God is, we may not know exactly how to pray, but we know that God is here—somewhere, somehow—working. So we continue to pray, even if the best we can muster are tears and groans.  And we continue to show up expecting to see Jesus somewhere in the midst of all this pain and suffering, because the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it

Lord, have mercy,
Pastor Andy

Of Grace and Killdeer

Dear WRC,

This past week has been a study week for me.  That means I’ve spent the last few days reading and feverishly writing, trying to crank out the 30-50 pages that I have to turn in next week that will eventually become the first two chapters of my Doctor of Ministry thesis project.  I’ve been thinking deeply about complex concepts and trying to clarify my own understanding of the thousands of pages that I’ve read, but what I really want to tell you about is the killdeer that I saw yesterday.

I was right in the middle of my afternoon writing session when I realized that the book I needed was at home.  I threw on my coat and ran home, grabbed it, and started to read as I came out my side door and went to cross the street.  I looked up from the book to check traffic and that’s when it caught my eye: a bird I had never seen before there on the sidewalk next to the sanctuary.  It was about the size of a robin, maybe a little bigger, light brown coloring on its body, but with a large white band around its neck and a pointier beak.  It was the way it ran that was so intriguing.  It put its head down and tail straight out behind and didn’t hop or bounce, but ran, fluid and level.

It ran around behind the sanctuary.  I followed.  It kept going around into the cemetery.  I followed again.  Each time it would allow me to get no more that 25 feet away and then would run a little further, pretend like it didn’t see me, bob its head up and down almost like it was hiccupping, and wait to see if I followed.  I did.  It ran again.  We repeated our little dance until we were halfway across the cemetery and I conceded.  

I came into my study so I could find out what this new bird was.  Google knew in one try: killdeer.  Killdeer are shorebirds in the Plover family—those legs and beaks perfect for scouring mudflats and sandbars—but they are also known to inhabit other wide-open spaces with low vegetation like golf courses, athletic fields, and, apparently, cemeteries.  While I had never seen one, they are fairly common birds that range across North America.

Still, there’s something about that Killdeer that I just can’t shake.  Part of it is how unexpected it was.  I had no intention of birdwatching.  I was fully engrossed in something else and then: there it was.  There was also something new about it.  I had never seen, or at least identified, a killdeer, and had never seen that beautiful white ring or the way they ran.  It was the way it ran, the motion fluid, yet swift.  It didn’t just fly away.  It almost seemed to want me to follow it.  Such grace.

That’s what it was: grace.  Unexpected, interrupting, new, beautiful, swift, fluid, inviting.  It was grace that met me Wednesday afternoon as I crossed the street with my nose in a book and my mind far, far away.  Grace brought me back to myself, to creation, to wonder.  It made a grown man stalk a bird through a cemetery in broad daylight.  Grace.

“If we are not to simply contribute a religious dimension to the disintegration of our world, join company with the mobs who are desecrating the creation with their hurry and hype in frenzy and noise, we must attend to what we have been given and the One who gives it to us.  One large step in the renewal of the creation today, this field upon which the resurrection Christ plays with such exuberance, is to not take the next step: stand where you are, listen to our Lord: attend…adore.” (Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 118).

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

STOP.

Dear WRC,

I’ve never been very good at knowing what I need, and I’ve often been even worse at asking for it from those around me.  Maybe it’s because I’m a middle child who internalized a need to make and keep peace, not to disturb or inconvenience others when I could just bear it myself.  Maybe it’s because I’m a 5 on the enneagram and tend to live in my head—I’m seldom aware of my feelings—always watching the world and attempting not to be seen myself.  Whatever the cause, I’ve been feeling for a while like something was off but haven’t known what to do about it.  First, I noticed that my mental bandwidth had shrunk—I wasn’t able to keep as many balls in the air and remember and juggle things the way I was used to.  Then I noticed that my emotional bandwidth was disappearing, too—in some places I noticed my fuse was shorter, in others I noticed apathy or disconnection.  More recently I have noticed that my spiritual bandwidth has also been sapped—I struggle to sit in silence, it is hard to sit down and pray. 

The more I began to notice these things creeping in, the more I began to wonder what to do about them.  I figured they had to do with the toll of the pandemic, but I didn’t really know what to do about it all.  The Doctor of Ministry work provided some reprieve and energy, but it felt like a band-aid on a larger wound.   With the worst of the pandemic seemingly behind us, I assumed that if I just kept going my “tank” would slowly refill, but, just as it sounds, that wasn’t a very hopeful direction.

Then I got an email.  It was from an old friend of ours, Billy Norden, our former Associate Pastor who now works for the RCA’s Board of Benefit Services.  It was a mass email to churches and pastors announcing that they had just received a grant from the Lilly Foundation to offer something they were calling “Clergy Revitalization Grants”.  These grants would fund 2-3 week “Mini-Sabbaticals” for pastors in 2022 to help fight against the growing wave of clergy burnout as a result of these last two years. 

Suddenly there it was clear as day: this is what I needed and this was how to ask for it: sabbatical.  Not a vacation, not just a break: sabbatical, “A Sabbath to the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:10).  There’s not room here for a thorough explanation of the concept of Sabbath but it is essentially an invitation to stop for God.  Eugene Peterson writes, “When we work we are most god-like, which means that it is in our work that it is easiest to develop god-pretensions.  Un-sabbathed, our work becomes the entire context in which we define our lives.  We lose God-consciousness, God-awareness, sightings of resurrection… We must stop running around long enough to see what he has done and is doing.  We must shut up long enough to hear what he has said and is saying” (Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 117).  My soul screamed: “THAT is what you need!” To stop running around long enough to see what God is doing; to shut up long enough to hear him, too.  To stop.

With great hesitation I approached our Personnel Committee and then our Consistory with the idea.  It is even harder to ask for what I need than to know what it is, and you have already been so generous and supportive.  I told them I needed someone to care for my soul for a little while, space to seek God.  We talked about what that would look like, what it would mean. The conversation was filled with love, encouragement, and support.  They encouraged me to apply and several reached out afterwards to show even more love and a desire to help.  Even just by talking about it, hope began to spill in over the horizon.

There are two points to this letter—and neither is a backwards way of inviting sympathy.  First, I want you to know that I was awarded one of these grants and will be away on a mini-sabbatical from July 11-31 in order to stop and listen and seek God.  The second is actually more important: to invite you to wonder what you need and how you can ask for it.  Maybe you need something like a sabbatical, too.  Maybe you need a more firmly established weekly practice of Sabbath.  Maybe you need to talk to someone and be cared for—a therapist, a spiritual director, your pastor.  Maybe it’s something else entirely.  Maybe you don’t even know what you need.

God used an email to give me the gift of seeing what I couldn’t see, to answer prayer.  Maybe this letter can do the same for you.  Or maybe God will use something else this week.  Or next.  God is always working and always up to something, if we have the imagination to see it. Whenever and however that invitation comes, I hope you’ll take it.  I hope you take it as an invitation deeper into the heart of God, to come to the one who offers rest, real rest, to all those who are weary and carrying heavy burdens.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

Knocking Off the Plaque

Dear WRC,

This Monday I went to the dentist.  I don’t know what your relationship with the dental profession is like.  Many don’t like going to the dentist, some are ambivalent, and only the crazy few really love it.  I tend to be somewhat ambivalent.  My dentist and his team are great (shout out to our own Brian Marino!) and I tend to have healthy teeth, but I still don’t really look forward to going.  I know they’re taking care of me in really important ways, but I don’t love having to confess that I try to floss every night but that I don’t actually do it as often as I know I should, leaning back in the chair while they pick at your teeth with those sharp tools, cramming that thing in your mouth so they can take x-rays.  If not painful, much of it is at least uncomfortable.  And I have pretty good teeth!  There’s nothing wrong with them, yet still I go every six months for them to be checked and scraped clean because even though they’re healthy and I take pretty good care of them, plaque still forms around the edges and if it isn’t taken care of it will slowly but surely become something worse.

This Monday I went to the dentist.  This Wednesday we began Lent.  It strikes me that the two may actually be quite similar.  Some people don’t like Lent, some are ambivalent, and only a few crazies love it.  But it’s an opportunity every year to stop and pay attention to something really important that most of us take for granted the rest of the year: not our teeth but our souls.  It’s an opportunity to be asked the question: “How are you taking care of your soul?”  We may shuffle our feet, avoid eye contact, and respond: “Well, I try to pray every night but I don’t actually do it as often as I know I should.” We get to remind each other that it’s okay, there is always grace, but also that it’s really important for our long-term health if we want to follow Jesus. 

Thankfully we don’t have any of those sharp dental tools to poke and scrape you or big x-ray machines to stick in your mouth, but in Lent we’re invited into some specific spiritual practices that may feel just as uncomfortable.  On Ash Wednesday we put ashes on our forehead to remind ourselves that we’re all going to die, that life is shorter and we are more fragile than we like to admit.  We’re invited to fast—maybe from food one day a week or from social media, screens, or alcohol for all 40 days.  Fasting is actually quite a bit like a soul x-ray.  Give up food for a day or one of your avoidance strategies like your phone or that glass of wine, and before long you’ll come face to face with what’s in your soul—worry, fear, anxiety, sin.  Maybe you’ll even find a cavity and need to come back for some restoration work. 

Why do we do this? Not because we’re sadists, but because even if we’re healthy and taking good care of ourselves, plaque grows up around the edges of our souls and if it isn’t taken care of it will slowly but surely become something worse.  None of this is really fun, but neither is going to the dentist (sorry, Brian!).  We do it anyway, because it’s important and going in for some help now beats a root canal later. 

When I was in seminary, I didn’t have dental insurance, and it took a few years after moving before I finally found a dentist here.  I think it was about six years since I had seen a dentist.  It got to the point where I felt so ashamed about how long it had been that I was actively staying away.  I think I was afraid they’d take one look at me and say, “It’s been HOW LONG? What’s wrong with you? Well, let’s get in there and start pulling.” When I finally did make an appointment, they were surprisingly gracious and kind.  I had a cavity that needed to be filled.  It didn’t feel good and I missed part of a day of work to have it taken care of, but I’m glad I did (don’t google: “what happens if you just leave a cavity?”). 

Maybe you feel the same way about church, or Lent, or prayer, or Jesus.  It’s been a while.  For one reason or another you fell out of the rhythm and more time has gone by than you’d care to admit.  You know it’s important but you’re scared about what they’re going to find or how Jesus will respond when you finally show up again.  Well trust me, Jesus is more gracious than any dental hygienist.  He has no interest in shaming you, only healing and helping.  No matter how long it’s been or how you feel about it, Lent is a great time to step back in for some soul care.  Take it as an invitation to think about how you want to care for your soul, to step into some spiritual practices to knock some of the plaque off and take a look inside your heart.  Lent isn’t necessarily fun, but it’s incredibly important for life following Jesus.  In the weeks to come I hope you’ll take the invitation for a checkup.  Join us for worship, spend 30 minutes in solitude and silence journaling about how you want to take care of your soul, consider fasting in some way, join one of our discipleship opportunities, or just stop by some time and talk with me.  I promise it will be better than a root canal.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy   

D.Min. Update

Dear Wyckoff Reformed Church, 

I returned recently from my second week in residence at Western Theological Seminary for my Doctor of Ministry program, “Holy Presence: Eugene Peterson and the Pastoral Imagination.”  Upon returning I am filled with gratitude for the opportunity to do this, to be with these other pastors, to be in on these conversations, to devote time and energy to this task.  I was also struck with the sense that I have not done a great job of including you in what I’ve been doing and studying.  To be honest, I have wanted to include you but haven’t really known how.  This letter—and those that will hopefully follow—is an attempt to remedy that.

First, the details.  I was in Holland, MI from Sunday night, Jan. 9 to Friday night, Jan. 14.  Like last time, I stayed with my parents in Jenison, about 25 minutes east, and borrowed one of their cars for the week.  Our meetings began at 1pm on Monday, designed to give our group of 20 pastors time to travel and then get some rest and decompress before diving in.  Our cohort is comprised of pastors from all over the country and from a wide variety of denominations and traditions, but the sense of community and friendship has run deep and fast.  Our churches are all very different but we are here because we share a common vision of what we want to be about as pastors, how we want to live this pastoral life, and that has proved a strong bond.

We had the opportunity throughout the week to pray together, discuss various pieces of the five books we’d read over the last few months, share the 20-page papers we had written as we begin to discern what our individual projects will be, and hear from our guest lecturer, Rev. Dr. Tyshawn Gardner, pastor of Plum Grove Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, AL and Vice-President of Student Affairs at Stillman College.  Dr. Gardner led us in a discussion of “Sacred Anthropology and Social Crisis Preaching”, essentially: how do you preach and pastor in a world that is not okay?  Some of the most meaningful times, though, were the informal discussions we had over lunch, gathered around hors d’oeuvres at our director Winn Collier’s house, or over a drink at Butch’s Dry Dock after our sessions had finished.  A personal highlight was getting to have dinner with Jacob Carlson and Liam Naumann, freshmen next door at Hope College, on Wednesday night at New Holland Brewpub (they’re doing great, by the way)!

Where our first gathering felt like going to summer camp—Will they like me? Will I fit in? Do I belong? How is this going to go?—this time felt more like going back for your sophomore year of college—you’re settled with your friends, know where everything is, and have an idea of what you’re studying and why you’re there.  As I think about the overarching takeaway from the week I’ve come back to a growing sense of gratitude for this work and this life and for you.  One of the things Eugene Peterson sought to do was recover the dignity of pastoring and to call pastors back to the holiness of their work.  I’ve felt that call deepen and a growing sense of awe in your presence because of God’s presence with us.  I hope you stop to pause some time to realize that these people around you any given week in worship are no ordinary people, but sons and daughters of the King.  You are in the presence of royalty, in the presence of the Holy Spirit, alive and aflame in each of us.  It’s a beautiful and remarkable thing.

Now that I’m back, these next few months will be made up of more reading (I already finished another book!), continued research for my dissertation project, a formal submission of a project proposal, and showing up to Flathead Lake, MT—where Eugene grew up and later retired—in late May with the first 1-2 chapters of my project drafted.  I would appreciate your prayers during this time, not just for the work that needs to be done but for the formation God is working in my soul as I do it.  Pray for discernment as I narrow the options for my project and begin to write.  And if you want to know what I’m reading, let me know!  I’ve wondered about how to read one of these books with you at some point but I’ve had to go through them so quickly that I haven’t been able to stop and figure out how!

Thanks again for supporting me through this adventure.  I can tell you without a doubt that this is exactly where God wants me and what God wants me doing.  Now let’s see what God is going to do with it!

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

Thank You!

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! 

As followers of Jesus our lives are lived in the landscape of gratitude. Thanksgiving is our fundamental posture in all things. How? Why? Because the defining reality of our lives is the grace and peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That grace is the first word, and every word of ours is a response that begins: “Thank you!”

There are times when that gratitude comes more naturally than others.  Times when it is easier or harder.  This is one of those easy times.  As we prepare this year’s contribution statements, we are so aware of how richly blessed we are, that behind each one of these statements there are not just financial gifts but prayers and time and talent used for Christ’s ministry in our community.  These gifts themselves are acts of thanksgiving, and as they cascade out, like the gracious waters of baptism itself, they resound, filling our life together: “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

Another thing of which I am conscious this year is that The Wyckoff Reformed Church is not an abstract, impersonal organization that you have chosen to support like you would a community organization or public radio station.  This church is our life together.  It is this network of relationships and experiences.  It is the worship we offer every week.  It is the presence of God and the action of the Holy Spirit in one another on Sunday as well as Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday.  It is our shared grief and longing, as well as joy and celebration.  This is a holy thing, hiding just beneath the surface of the seemingly mundane.  Wyckoff Reformed Church is us, called out and gathered together in the name of Jesus to be His living presence in the world. 

Thank you, Jesus, for such a gift! Thank you for being part of such a holy thing!  Thank you for supporting it!  Thank you for being us! Thank you!

In Christ,

Pastor Andy