Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Professional Jesus People

Somewhere down the road (although it scares me), I may wind up as a senior pastor or even a solo pastor at a church. At some points, this is really exciting....something I really look forward to. At other times, I think I'd like to keep the job I have forever.....hanging out with teenagers and playing my guitar for a living.

What perhaps frustrates me most about being a pastor are some of my future colleagues. To be sure, this is no slam against my senior pastor, who is one of the most laid back and socially adequate pastors I've ever met. What drives me crazy, however, is the constant flow of pastors who come back to my seminary classes and try to impress the professor or us as seminarians with their large storehouse of knowledge. A couple semesters ago, we had this guy in one of our classes who we called "Professor Student". He was obsessed with sharing every bit of knowledge he had ever acquired and pumping up his own abilities in Greek and constantly reminding us how we were still in seminary and "not there yet". Yesterday, one of these guys just reeled off four sentences in Hebrew while he talked about how he uses it so effectively in his ministry.

I know the church he comes from...its floundering. Maybe try some English.

There's a catch 22 here. Having feet in two denominations has opened my eyes about the necessity of seminary education. Its obvious that certain pastors and leaders in my current denomination would have benefited (some just a little, but some huge amounts) from a mandatory seminary education. Firstly, the Biblical knowledge and theological perspective would help. However, exposure to ministry in different settings and the cross-fertilization of ideas would benefit them greatly. On the other side, ministry in the CRC seems to be defined by intellectuality, and it drives me crazy! When churches want to call you as a pastor, they want to hear your sermon tapes, as if sermons are the only thing you do. In order to get my license to preach in CRC churches, I have to promise to preach Christian Education and Heidelberg Catechism. Never mind relevance. I've taken multiple "exegesis" classes, learning how to interpret the scriptures for preaching and teaching. What did we do? Memorize the original languages. Argh. Today we discussed how we would teach about the Hebrew language and applications of the Jewish mishnah in adult bible study classes by lecturing. Wow.

One of the things that really cracks me up is the pride that pastors take in programmatic development and how closely its success is related to themselves. I addressed this in my most recent sermon. We always view ourselves so highly, as if our churches would become a hole in the ground if we would leave or somehow the passing down of the gospel will cease if I am not the facilitator. Shame on us.

My greatest concern when I go to fill pulpit supply now is not how prepared my sermon is, or how well I can announce songs (because everyone knows hymns are the only music we use), but whether or not I'll get a swift kick for not wearing a suit. If being a preacher means wearing a suit on Sundays, dressing up like a bank owner during the week, trying to dispense knowledge at every turn, and enjoying the sound of my own voice, then I'll stick with plucking my guitar.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Minutes from the Red Hat Society Meeting, August 8



I was at our local coffee shop writing a sermon, when a group of 80 year old women stopped by and had a meeting. They were all wearing red hats, so they might be part of that Red Hat Society thing. Either way it was hilarious. Here's the notes (verbatim) that I took from across the room, with my own topical headings:


Race Relations
My granddaughter is married to a black man. Do they have troubles? No, its a good marriage, but everyone has troubles. Her kids are the cutest things. Mulatto, I guess you would call them. When they have birthday parties, they can only invite two friends, and they never invite white kids. Why can't more people be like that? Her daughter can't get a boyfriend. The two boys both have girlfriends, but nobody will date the girl. When she was younger, the school wouldn't believe she was bi-racial because she looks so white, but she has nappies in her hair. One time, her teacher told her to prove she was bi-racial, so she said, look at the nappies in my hair! Have you heard about that Klu-Klux-Clan in Indiana? Yeah, I've heard about that. That's terrible, people shouldn't discriminate.

Politics
I think Barack Obama would make a great president. Have you read his book? No. You should, its fantastic. I don't think Hillary would make a very good president. No, I don't think so either.
All I know is that either would be better than President Bush. I don't blame him, I blame his cabinet: they run him. They have no clue what they're doing.

Air Travel
I found out the hard way that you can't fit two people in an airplane bathroom. Did you drop something heavy in there? (Laughter) Well, my friend is married and her husband lives in Arizona and she lives in Grand Rapids: that's one way to keep a marriage working. Pilots aren't allowed to fly as much as they want. If you think you have to run from flight to flight, you should see pilots. They get off one flight and have to run to the next. Did you see NASA pilots were flying drunk? Its their own lives they're taking in their hands. Its just like people who get in cars and drive drunk. You have to be down to Grand Rapids two hours before a flight, then they put cancels on, and then you run around for a day and a half looking for a flight. My son had that. He yelled at the airport attendant because he needed to be at a wedding in Grand Rapids from La Guardia. He got on the flight, but they lost all of his luggage. He'll never find it back. My daughter says I need all my flight things in black and white. She bosses me around when I fly. I don't even know why I get the ticket. She bosses right up the counter and bla bla bla bla, and somehow we take off 10 minutes earlier on some other airline. All I get is a wad of paper and get on the plane. I don't even know why she lets me have any say in it. We never went anywhere that was actually on my tickets. Instead of driving, I fly to Milwaukee now. They shoot you across on a rubber band, I think. Its a World War II plane. Never do they get my luggage to my airport. One time we got all our luggage lost, so the pilot drove us to Wal-Mart to buy underwear. One time my grandson, who is a musician, lost all his luggage and someone drove him to Wal-Mart to get underwear, but his rental car broke down.

Auto Industry
There are so many recalls these days. What do you drive? Horse & buggy? (Laughter). I took my car in to get the oil changed, and the mechanic yelled at me. He said if I wait 3,000 miles to get my oil changed, I'd be dead before then. He said to change your oil according to the weather. If I let it keep going, all the oil would be on the floor and fill up my garage.

Air Conditioning
I very seldom turn my air conditioner on unless someone is with me. There are some places I can't go because its too cold. I was in Wal-Mart yesterday and it was way too cold. Marylou turns the air way up, but I can't handle it. I got pneumonia from the fourth car I had from the air conditioner. I tried sitting in the backseat and it didn't matter. Marylou liked it.

Animal Rights
What's that? An ant farm. Did you know they're illegal? They're illegal because they can carry things. My kids had those. Those are coffee beans! You can't watch ants doing their thing now. The humane society put a stop to ant farms. We used to sit their mesmorized watching them. My son wouldn't be quiet, wouldn't take a nap, until I got him an ant farm.

Submitted respectfully.