A Connectional Church

We Presbyterians are a “connectional” church.  That means lots of things from the ways we govern ourselves together (rather than independently) to our collaborative work in ministry and mission.  But there is another aspect of “connectional” at the very heart of who we are and what makes being Presbyterian something really cool…  We are connected with people and, though we’re 2.5 million people in this denomination, we find serendipitous ways that those connections happen and get nurtured over time.

Take these past 2 1/2 weeks at Montreat as an example.  We shared those weeks with more than 2000 people in our roles as keynoters.  In the midst of the crowds, we were able to make new friends and pick up old friendships right where they left off.  From sharing a meal with a youth group from Greensboro or Philadelphia or Charlotte, to crazy conversations in the make-shift “cyber cafe” on the 3rd floor of Assembly Inn (where the conference leadership and planning team stayed), there were spaces and time for friendships to be nurtured.

We hadn’t seen some friends for a few years — Bruce, Frank, Vicki & Danny, Kim, Christy, and so many others.  Working with other leaders we have known – Scott, Robin, Jeff, Bob, etc — brought us even closer.  And so many new friendships formed.  People like Lindsey, Margaret, Erin, Marybeth, Katie, Greg, and so many more who blew us away with their incredible gifts and talents, and whose friendships we now cherish.  All of these friendships strengthened because of our time together at Montreat.

And where else could our 7 year old daughter make and build friendships with kids from literally across the country?  She loved her time with Abby, Anna, Evelyn and the rest of the 3rd Floor gang, all of her friends at Clubs, and the adults in her life from around this church that are participating in her growing up.  And just think — half of her birthdays have happened at Montreat!

Montreat becomes a meeting place and a “reunion” place for so many of us.  What a gift to have time with our dear friends Nancy, John, Rachel, Mira, Mary, Brigid, and Morgan.  Where else would we run into Lynn or Michelle who are there not for the conference but for some personal get-away time?

I love being part of this church, this corner of Christ’s body.  Being Presbyterian means that these kinds of friendships happen — because we are connectional.  Thanks be to God for the Presbyterian Church!!!

 

Montreat Youth Conference 2007 Photos

 

The Gates of Montreat

Jeff and Kerri were keynote leaders for weeks 5 and 6 of the 2007 Montreat Youth Conferences.  Here are a few pics.  Thanks to Margaret and Geoff for the photos.  Many more MYC 2007 photos can be found here:

mymontreat.org 

 

Jeff & Kerri keynoting

1000 young people in Anderson Auditorium for keynote 

 The game show “Identity” with Jeff and Muffy Snortsberger

 The “strangers” in the game show “Identity”

 

Kerri during keynote

 Jeff during keynote

Another view of the auditorium

 

Thots

Lots happening and not much time to update the blog!  Our apologies.  Here are some snippets of life with a promise of pictures in the not too distant future.

• Memorial Service #4 today.  It will be nice to have more history here when these roll around.
• Katie’s spring break is this week.  We are getting out of town for a couple of days leaving tomorrow after church for Niagara Falls.  Oh, and it is our 18th wedding anniversary, too!  Yes, we really did get married on April Fool’s day!
• I was in Atlanta last weekend to run my fourth half-marathon.  Wow – winter training and some nasty upper respiratory gunk did not make for a fun run!  But I finished and had a great time seeing some of the ATL gang. 
• We are doing a “lessons, hymns and anthems” sort of service tomorrow for Palm/Passion Sunday.  I like what we’ve put together and hope it flows as well tomorrow as it does in my mind and on paper.
• Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday to come… and a finance committee for Jeff and deacons meeting for me just in case we don’t have enough to do.

That’s it for now.  Pictures from Niagara when we get back - I promise!

  

 

The Life of a Pastor…In Ohio

Here is your image for the day.  We woke up to a snowy blanket and it hasn’t stopped.  As I sit at my desk, I can watch the cars arrive dropping off their kids for the afternoon session of preschool (yes, I have windows in my office here!), folks bundled up (although we’ve been told this isn’t a cold snow), and driver’s using these long brushes to clean-off their cars (hmmm, mine is in the trunk – should be interesting later today!).

There is a unique sound that goes along with the shoveling of snow, long scrapes across the icy sidewalk followed by the thump of the pile landing off to the side.  Guess who is doing the shoveling?  Yep, Jeff – no gloves, no hat – he didn’t even pull the hood up on his jacket.  There is a snow blower at the church and I’m sure Jeff will find out how to use it before long and won’t allow me to get near it - powertools, har-har-har!

 This pastor?  I’m working on my sermon before I head to preschool pageant number 4. 

What a great life!

 update

When I walked out to my car a pathway had been cleared and the snow had been scraped off my car.  Jeff told me later that you couldn’t even see my car when he left to meet the school bus.  Max Carey, one of the saints of Pioneer, cleared off my car – thanks Max.  Of course, he did tell me that he was going to find a big box and send me back to Georgia certain that we had brought this snowfall with us! 

 

Our First Sunday — a “thin place”

 

Jeff’s reflections on our first Sunday at the new church…

Yesterday was our first Sunday at Pioneer Church.  What a day!  There wasn’t energy at the end of the long day to blog, so I’ll get to it now.  Some of the highlights of the day…Morning worship blew us away.  We were ready and looking forward to our ONE worship service (that made for a much less hectic morning than we were used to at
Pleasant Hill).  While we prepared for a larger than normal crowd (we are well aware of the “freak show” intrigue of coming to see the new pastors…), we underestimated the excitement of this congregation — while worship attendance is normally around 200, we had 253 on Sunday morning!  The parking lot was filled to capacity and the deacons were frantically photocopying more bulletins as we began the service.  Talk about an energetic, enthusiastic, and responsive congregation!

Jeremiah 33:14-16 and Luke 3:1-6 led me to preach about “thin places” — those places, times, experiences, etc. where the dividing line between God’s realm and the ordinary becomes very thin and we catch glimpses of the grace of God.  Some of my own “thin places” that I shared about:

• Yosemite

• Copeland’s “Appalachian Spring”

• Accompanying Tommy P. in his dying and death

• Silent Night on Christmas Eve

• Saturday morning at Pioneer Church – men’s breakfast, a dozen volunteers decorating the church for Christmas, lots of stories about favorite decorations and Christmases past at PMPC

In the manger in Bethlehem we experience the most profound “Thin Place” of all — the mysterious divide between heaven and earth was crossed completely.  God entered our world and became one of us, demonstrating grace upon grace to all of God’s people.

Especially during this season of Advent we have the opportunity to be awake and alert to the “thin places” around us.

For me personally, the celebration of the Lord’s Supper later in the worship service was truly a “thin place.”  In our last worship service at Pleasant Hill a month ago we celebrated communion.  Kerri and I led the service and then served the broken bread to the congregation as they came forward to receive the elements by intinction.  Needless to say, it was a poignant and tearful time with the people we love so dearly.  What an amazing way to conclude our ministry there…

And so it was that we also began our ministry at Pioneer.  We presided at the table, and then served the bread to the congregation as they came forward to receive the elements (again by intinction).  It is always humbling to serve the Lord’s Supper and is often a “thin place,” but these two experiences were profound and essentially indescribable.  It was truly a sacramental moment as we realized that this is our new congregation, a group of people we are already coming to love.

Following worship there was a reception to welcome us — I think we greeted all 250+ people that were there on Sunday morning!

So we crawled home, had a quick lunch, and then on to the afternoon activities.  Kerri went to the Solon Historical Society’s open house.  The museum is housed in the “original” church building of the Pioneer Church — a beautiful “Western Reserve” style building in the center of town.  Several members of PMPC are cornerstones of the Historical Society, and they were very proud to show Kerri the facility and displays, and to introduce her to half of Solon.

While Kerri was doing the historical thing, I was working to get rid of some of the history in our new home.  The guest room was obviously a boy’s room for the previous owners.  Blue.  Dark royal blue.  With a sports-figure wallpaper border wrapped around the center of the walls.  A hockey stick was used as the curtain rod.  Cute, though somewhat “loud” if you’re not a 10-year-old boy.  Most of our guests who will sleep in the room aren’t.  So Saint Dave came over AGAIN to help me paint.  He helped me transform the master bedroom from dark mauve (can you say “cave?”) to “Abingdon Putty” (basically the color of half my closet — khaki).  That took two days.  Now he’s back.  And he’s doing all of the “cutting-in” with primer.  I think it’s going to take 18 coats of primer to hide the blue.  It’s REALLY blue.  But Dave and I prepped the walls and painted our hearts out.

The day wasn’t over yet, though…  Dave and his wife, Lauren (who was on the Pastor Nominating Committee), had us over to their place for dinner.  Kim and her son Kyle also joined us.  Kyle is one of Katie’s new boyfriends — he’s a junior in high school and clearly “her type” — he’s a boy!  Lauren made this great dinner and we were having a ton of fun together.

And now check this out…  Remember that Dave had spent the afternoon with me painting.  He left our place 1.5 hours before the dinner party.  As we sat down to dinner, I hear this familiar music playing.  “Appalachian Spring.”  Aaron Copeland.  Remember the “thin place” I had described in my sermon earlier that day?  Dave heard that, remembered it, and actually went to the local library after her left our place to find a CD recording.  He found it — and played it for us as we ate dinner.  Blown away.  I can’t describe how amazing it felt to know that he and Lauren were tapping into this “thin place” and extending such friendship.  And to top it all off, in addition to the trip to the library, Dave drove to Stow (a town about 45 minutes away) to get a couple of quarts of their favorite ice cream to send home with us.  They had listened to our “favorite ice cream flavors” and found them at Handel’s.  But the local Handel’s is closed for the winter, so he drove to Stow.  For us.  I am humbled by their amazing generosity and care.

Oh, and there’s more!  Kim brought us one of her infamous apple pies!!!

Needless to say, we had an amazing day.  Looking back on it, the whole day seemed to be a “thin place.”  Glimpses of God’s grace in the celebrations, generosity, and new friendships…  It was an amazing day.

 

Day 1

Jeff and I spent our first day at Pioneer Memorial doing all those normal pastoral tasks:  moving the Advent/Christmas decorations out of storage, chatting with folks who were dropping off their kids at the preschool, figuring out the computer system (Jeff was right at home!), choosing hymns for the next couple of Sundays, scheduling lunches with two neighboring pastors who called to welcome us to the area, going through mail that had already stacked up, and unpacking a couple of boxes so we wouldn’t get out of practice.  No wonder I’m tired tonight! 

 Katie is doing great and discovered last night that the Tooth Fairy knows how to find her in Solon, Ohio!  This was tooth number three and number four won’t be far behind.  She is loving school, can’t wait to go to her new church, and already has all sorts of new friends (what a surprise).  We are so grateful for our flexible and easy-going daughter! 

Thanks to those of you who have dropped us notes, called us and sent us emails.  As transitions go, we’re doing pretty darn good! 

 

Presbytery of the Western Reserve

It’s now official — we’re members of the Presbytery of the Western Reserve.

Thirty members of the Pioneer Church came to the Presbytery meeting this evening to express their enthusiasm and support during the examination/welcoming portion of the meeting.  Both of us were asked the “welcoming question” by the chair of the Committee on Ministry:  “Please tell us about an event from your ministry or life that will help us to get to know you.”

Kerri told of her college degree in Recreation and Leisure Studies that prepared her to be a cruise director.  While it wasn’t a “seminary-preparatory” degree, it has come to represent a significant aspect of her ministry — taking people on journeys on which their faith is strengthened, they are challenged to new expressions of discipleship, and they experience authentic community.  From spending the night with a group of middle school youth in a Tennessee cave to experience the power of the light of Christ, to leading adult mission trips in rural Honduras, she has worked to “create spaces” where people can experience and grow in their faith.

I told of my favorite healing passage in the Bible — in which friends carry a paralytic to see Jesus but are prevented by the crowds, but not to be thwarted climb on the roof and lower the friend to Jesus through a hole they have dug.  I am used to being one of the friends carrying the mat — from my time serving people living with HIV/AIDS to various congregational ministries.  I’ve become good at carrying others to places of healing.  But it was my experience of being “on the mat” and carried by my friends and faith community during my 3 1/2 year ordeal with meningitis that was truly transforming for me — experiencing what it is to be a “wounded healer.”

The presbytery was given the chance to ask questions of either of us, but instead several people spoke to welcome us to the presbytery.

We left the sanctuary for the presbytery to vote.  A minute or so later we were brought back in to the applause of the crowd, most enthusiastically by our new congregation as the members of Pioneer were on their feet to welcome us.  It was amazingly touching.

So we’ll start at the church tomorrow.  It is hard to believe it’s actually happening!

 

Welcome to the P-D Blog

We’ve just arrived in Solon, Ohio, to begin a new chapter in our lives.  Check back here regularly to catch up on our adventures, reflections, and musings.