Bits & Bytes

I’d been thinking about it for more than a year, and in early August I finally did it: I bought a Kindle, Amazon’s e-book reader. I have always been a voracious reader, but more than that, I have always loved books. The idea of an electronic book reader at first left me cold. Still, my fascination with things technological stirred me, so I finally hit the “Order” button. 

Now, a month later, I can say I am hooked. I love the fact that I can order a book and have it downloaded into the Kindle within minutes. I love the fact that e-books are less expensive than paper books. I love the fact that I am saving a tree or two. But what I like best is the fact that I can enlarge the typefont on the screen and make the pages of any book easier to read. 

I’m still buying regular books – many of the theological books that fill my shelves aren’t available in e-book format and probably never will be. But still, the technology fascinates me. I have always been an eager consumer of new technology. I was an early Apple fan; my home  computer has consistently been a Mac for 20 years. I have always found Windows a poor and cumbersome attempt to mimic the best of Apple. 

I don’t plan to lobby for an “All-Mac” office at the church, but I am always looking for new ways to incorporate technology in the church. You may not think we are a “high-tech” church, but just look around: you’ll find technology everywhere.  We’ve been working the past few years to update and upgrade all our office computers to assure that everyone has a reliable and efficient workstation.  We’ve installed wireless connection in the office and are hoping to expand our wireless capability to the rest of the building over the next year or so. 

We’re putting a flat-screen television in Room 5 to provide us with more opportunities to view the growing number of excellent DVD presentations available on the books of the Bible, the life of Jesus, and the story of the church. This Fall I’ll be leading our Wednesday and Thursday Bible Study groups through Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch’s 6-part series entitled Three Thousand Years of Christian History. We hope to have a Sunday morning Adult Education class use the DVDs as well. 

If you haven’t visited our website in a while, have a look (www.mpc-va.org). Ann Curtis works diligently to keep it up to date. We are hoping to be able to provide MP3 audio files of worship services and sermons before long as yet another addition to the site. 

In giving us the Great Commission to “go and make disciples of all nations…” Jesus may not have been thinking about the Internet, or iPods, or texting, or blogs, but he would no doubt encourage us to use all means available to us to share the good news. Bits, bytes – it doesn’t matter, for it is always the Word of the Lord.

Grace & peace

Pastor Skip 

Time for an Associate Pastor!

It’s official: we are going to fill the office next to mine with an Associate Pastor! At its June meeting the Session enthusiastically received the report from the Personnel Ministry Team and unanimously approved the Team’s recommendation that we call an Associate Pastor.

Six years ago, before I was called as Pastor, this congregation made the difficult decision to eliminate the Associate Pastor position. This was done reluctantly, solely for financial reasons. When the decision was made, virtually all agreed that it was a “temporary” decision until we were able to fund the position.

We know we need a second pastor – we have too many ministries that we are either underserving or not serving at all, especially our ministries focused on our youth. Our newest group of high school graduates have had constantly changing leadership since their Middle School days, when what they have wanted is stability. Our young people need someone they can develop a relationship with, someone to help them walk those stressful years that come with adolescence and early adulthood, someone who will be there to help them grow in faith.

The Personnel Ministry Team recommends that the Associate Pastor’s time be divided, on average, among the following ministries:

Middle School Youth       20%

High School Youth           25%

18-30 “Not-So-Youth”     20%

Adult Ed. /Programs        10%

Worship                             12.5%

Administrative/Other      12.5%

These are averages, of course. There may be weeks when the AP is committed completely to one ministry, such as a Youth Group Mission Trip, or preaching and leading worship, while other ministries are set aside for that week. Most of the emphasis will be on our Youth, but we also want to give our Associate Pastor the opportunity on occasion to teach Adult Education classes, as well as assist with worship, including preaching regularly. And the AP will also need time to participate in staff meetings, visit, and work with a Ministry Team or two.

This is such an exciting step for our church. But we still have a great deal of work to do. Calling an Associate Pastor is a process we will do jointly with the Presbytery, just as we did when I was called as Pastor. The biggest hurdle we have yet to overcome is financial. Last year’s economic recession took its toll on our finances; we will need a successful Stewardship campaign this Fall to close the gap and fully fund the position. We are close, but not quite there yet.

You’ll be hearing more from our Personnel Ministry Team and from Stewardship in the months to come, but my hope and prayer is that we will all share the Session’s excitement and faith in our future. “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1).

Grace & peace

Pastor Skip

The End of Another School Year Already?

June always brings the end of the school year accompanied by shouts of joy from children released from classrooms for a summer of fun and adventure. Of course, there are more than a few joyous shouts from teachers, too! But even as children and teachers celebrate the end of the year, there is also a sense of wistfulness as everyone scatters. Classrooms are community with bonds built over the course of the year and June breaks those bonds.

For those who are moving up through graduation, new adventures lie ahead: the move from elementary to middle school, middle school to high school, high school to college, college to …where? We have a large group of high school seniors this year and it’s been such a joy for me to learn of their plans for next year. And as reports have trickled back from our new college graduates, I have been so pleased that most have either found jobs or are hopeful. This is wonderful news in an economy that still is sluggish.

Our Early Learning Center ends its year with a lively closing program in our Sanctuary featuring the children performing wonderfully creative songs. I get to participate as the narrator.  Then our building grows quiet; too quiet and too empty without their smiles and laughter.

Even as this school year comes to an end, the ELC Board and staff are already looking ahead to next year. Among the changes the ELC is considering is asking all parents to covenant that they will not use cellphones or other electronic devices when they are driving through the parking lot. We have been astounded and disturbed by how many people drive through our lot talking on phones or using other devices, even as other parents and children are walking through the lot. This has become a serious concern for us; the safety of everyone on this campus must always be our top priority.

Session has also discussed whether we should adopt what I call a “Hang-Up-The-Phone” policy. Studies have shown that a person who is talking on a cellphone or using an electronic device is significantly more distracted from their driving and considerably more likely to  cause an accident. Everyone who comes onto our campus, whether for ELC, church activities or a meeting of an independent group, becomes a part of the larger MPC community and we should expect every member of the community to abide by our concern for the safety of all.

A church is a community, bonded by the love God has graced us with in Jesus Christ. School communities may change, work communities may change, but the church community is always there, with arms wide open in welcome. This is the place where God calls us all to turn off our phones and Blackberries so we can more readily find “the goodwill of all people” and find the peace which surpasses all understanding.

Grace & peace

Pastor Skip

Happy Easter - Every Sunday!

Every minister in the Presbyterian Church is provided with a wonderful opportunity each year: every minister, from the newest to the most experienced, is required to take at least two weeks of study leave each year. This is time separate and apart from vacation; it is a time for study, for reading, for learning, and for reflection.

Over the years I have used my study leave time in a variety of ways: I’ve taken quite a few two- or three-day seminars on a variety of topics. I spent time with other pastors learning about church growth, stewardship, and governance at the Presbyterian Church’s Stony Point Center in upstate New York. I spent a week as a Fellow at the Engle Institute for Preaching at Princeton Seminary. And, from September 2004 through last May I worked on my doctorate at Princeton.

Last month I spent a week taking a fresh look at the theology and practices we have developed over the centuries within the Reformed tradition and the Presbyterian church on how we look at death and all the issues that come with the end of life. The combination of the excellent workshops our Christian Education Team offered on Finding Hope in the Chaos of Aging, along with the promises that are ours in the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ made my study particularly compelling.

In John’s gospel Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” This is the very foundation of our hope in eternal life. Paul reinforces this in his letter to the Romans: “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

We capture our belief concisely in the Apostles Creed when we say: “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” What this means for us as followers of Jesus Christ is, as Paul has taught us, nothing in life or death can separate us from the love of God given us through Christ.

This is a glorious promise that allows us to live our mortal lives filled with hope. Yes, we will all die, all of us returning to the dust. But we will live this life knowing the love of God in Christ, and we will continue to live in that love in the life to come.

Death is still very much a subject that most of us prefer neither to think about nor discuss. But in Christ’s resurrection, death has been defeated; death has no power over us, because death cannot separate us from God’s love. For us, this makes every Lord’s Day a “Happy Easter”.

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip

Ministering Together

Congregational care is always on my mind: who is in the hospital? Who is looking after an ill family member? Who’s concerned about employment or finances? Who is struggling with family issues? Who is anxious, hurting, suffering? And who has a joy to celebrate, a blessing to share?

Congregational care is not just my concern, of course – it is something that concerns us all, every one of us, something we all do together. Congregational care has been very much on the minds of our leaders the past few months as we look for new and better ways to look after one another.

You’ve heard about the step our Deacons took in January: with approval from the Session, the Deacons expanded from 15 to 18 to provide for more involved care and concern for the more than 500 men, women, and children who are part of our church family. We did not stop there, though: each of our Elders is now paired with a Deacon to help provide additional support and care.

This past winter’s snowstorms reminded us that we have many folks who live alone, so we have created a “Home Alone” list to help us be more attentive in looking after them and checking on them, not only during bad weather, but year round.

We have also created a better system to remind us of who is sick, facing surgery, or in the hospital, or who might be looking after a loved one who is sick or in the hospital.  Hospital stays are so short these days that it seems that I often don’t hear about a hospitalization until after the person has come home. If you know of someone who has been hospitalized, please make sure you tell me – I would rather hear it four times from four different people than not at all.

Congregational care is not just the pastor’s job, or the Deacons’ job; it is OUR job, all of us working together to look after one another. A simple telephone call to someone you haven’t seen in a while; an offer of a ride to worship, or some other activity, to a member who no longer is able to drive; a note, a visit – there are so many different ways we look after each other.

When Jesus gathered with his disciples for their last meal together, he said to them, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34) These words should guide each of us each day as we go about our service as disciples of Jesus Christ, caring for one another within our own church family, and looking after all those in every corner of the world who need our Risen Lord’s love.

Glory to God, for Christ is Risen!

Pastor Skip

Easter People

Ten years already! It’s been a little more than ten years since my ordination as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). I was ordained in a lovely service at the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City, where I had worshiped while I lived and worked in New York, and where I was “under care” while I was at Princeton Seminary.

I have learned much about ministry over the years, almost all outside of classrooms. I have learned that ministry is consuming; it is exhausting, the hours longer than any required of me in vocations I had before I became a pastor. Still, I can laugh at the old joke that pastors have it easy since they work only one hour a week on Sunday morning – or in my case two. I can laugh because I have also learned that ministry is deeply fulfilling, nourishing, joy-filled, and abounding in grace.

It is tempting to try to capture ministry in numbers: a million words written in more than 500 sermons; presiding at the Lord’s Table close to 200 times; celebrating more than 40 baptisms; witnessing to the promise of life eternal in more than 50 funerals; joyfully hearing the marriage vows of some 40 couples; moderating well over one hundred Session meetings.

But ministry isn’t numbers. Ministry is sitting with children on the steps of the chancel on Sunday morning and asking them a question, only to have as a response, “Do you like my new shoes?” Ministry is hearing what 14-year-olds think as they grapple with faith and life in preparation for their public profession of faith. Ministry is talking with a young couple as they anticipate marriage. It is speaking with parents as they plan the baptism of their first child. It is walking with an individual or a family through illness, job loss, death of a loved one or other losses. It is listening to the stories that are written within each person in this unique Body of Christ.

I have learned how to live more completely in faith, trusting God in good times, and even moreso, in difficult times. I have learned how “to let go and let God”. I have learned why Jesus says so often, “be not afraid.” Through ministry I have learned how to be an Easter person: how to live in the hope that is ours in the Resurrection.

Of course, I am not the only one called to ministry – we all are. In fact, it says so in every Sunday worship bulletin: “Ministers…Every Member”! Every one of us is called to ministry in the name of Jesus Christ. And the more you give yourself to ministry, the more you “let go and let God”, the more you trust and walk by faith, the more you let go of anxiety and fear, the more you’ll understand what it means to be born “into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”.

Lent is the ideal time to give yourself more completely to ministry. And in the process, don’t be surprised if you learn over time what it means, what it really means, to be an Easter person, trusting God, guided by the Spirit, and filled with the hope, grace and peace that is ours in Jesus Christ.

Hosannah in the highest!
Pastor Skip

Working Hard on Retreat

Lots of blue, a few red, a few green, only one yellow. At our Officers’ Retreat last month we did a little exercise to learn how much we have in common with one another. “What’s your favorite color?” was one question. We were fairly evenly divided among Rock, Classical, Jazz, and Country/Western music lovers. Most officers prefer Autumn among the seasons.

We learned that many of us came from traditions other than Presbyterianism, that many of us were not active in church when we were younger, and that most are not all that comfortable leading a group in prayer.

But everyone was in complete agreement with the hope that their time serving as an officer would be a time of getting to know others in the church better, a time of service in the name of Jesus Christ, a time of spiritual growth, and a time of helping our church to grow.

On Saturday morning we worked in small groups exploring what our Book of Order and Book of Confessions have to teach us. We learned, for example, that every member of our church is called to “proclaim the good news; take part in the common life and worship of our church; pray and study Scripture and the faith of the Christian Church; support the work of the church through the giving of money, time and talent; respond to God’s activity in the world through service to others; live responsibly in personal, family, vocational, political, cultural, and social relationships of life; and work in the world for peace, justice, freedom, and human fulfillment.”

Most important, we learned that we as officers are called to serve God and our church with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love. We committed ourselves to doing just that through a Litany of Commitment as we worshiped together on Sunday morning.

We had a wonderful time working, praying, worshiping, talking, relaxing, and taking in the beauty of Meadowkirk, guided throughout our time together by words spoken by God through the prophet Micah: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

We came away from our weekend energized and excited about the year ahead, wondering where God will lead us, confident that we will continue to build on our strong foundation, and ready to take up our responsibilities to serve eagerly and joyfully.

Eugene Peterson’s The Message puts the Micah passage in different words, compelling and powerful: “But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love. And don’t take yourself too seriously – take God seriously.”

Such appropriate words to guide our Elders, our Deacons, me, you – all of us as we follow the One who is the Head of our church, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace & peace
Pastor Skip