Summer days

I almost entitled this Summer Daze.  I don’t know why but that just came to me as I started to write.  Maybe its because as busy as things are, I still have the sense that busier is coming.  I’m pretty certain of that.

For those of you who are reading Karen’s blog you are being kept up on the special experiences of our new home that we have been enjoying.  I have some time today and will try to offer some updates on the specific areas of life and ministry that I seem to be focusing on.

Every day life. I think we are starting to find our routine in this new place.  We are also beginning to make new friends which feels good.  I even have found a probable fishing friend for sometimes.  Our parsonage is settled into and arranged.  I have set up a small workshop in the garage which hopefully will fill the need for whatever small projects and all that come up (not owning my own home once again makes for less of those projects).  My office in one of the rooms in the parsonage is pretty satisfying to me.  Its the first time I have had an office that combines my need for an in-the-home study, a fly-tying center, a re-loading center, and a computer hobby place too.  Karen has a nice sewing/quilting room.  Actually she has two places like that, which will probably work out for her.  Sundays have continued to be really nice days for us.  Mornings at church have been very positive, and the afternoons have all included some kind of outing which we have enjoyed a lot.  Yesterday we took a walk and had some supper on the “Homer Spit“.  That is a long (4 miles) stretch of land that reaches out into the Kachemak bay.  In the summer there are lots of campers and businesses along the Spit.  Lots of people.  If you check out the link I include above, however, you’ll see that the views from the Spit are really amazing (like so many of the views around here).

Family and friends. I’m thankful for emails and for phone calls.  We don’t make many phone calls, other than to our 4 children.  By the time we’ve kept in touch with all of them it feels like a lot of time on the phone, but we’ve talked to some folks on the phone just the same.  I still feel well-connected to our kids and I’m glad for that.  Extended family is another matter.  Our long distance calling has to happen on weekends from our end.  And weekends are busy times in ministry.  We still manage to call our kids and Karen’s mother, but intentions to call extended family often seems to go unfulfilled.  Emails have helped in the case of friends who use email.  Family emails are less frequent.  We are looking forward to Jonathan’s visit in late September and Sarah’s visit at Christmas.  Charles plans to come here in the Spring and David is talking about a visit when it will work out.  Next summer my sister, brother and sister-in-law, and a friend of my sister’s are possibilities for a visit.  We hope that works out too.  Possibly Karen and I will be with Sarah in Salt Lake City sometime after Easter.  I look forward to all those things.  I’m not homesick right now, but I know I might be eventually.

Serving in a missionary conference. First of all while this Alaska Conference remains a “missionary conference” in the sense that it will be connected to another Conference and not a stand alone conference, the name of the conference has been changed to remove the word missionary.  Part of the regrettable history of some of the people of this part of the world is that people identified as missionaries over the 200 plus years of time have not always been experienced as helpful and in fact have sometimes been terribly harmful.  Some things are bad enough to become a sort of shared-consciousness memory, and unfortunately some of the missionaries who have been sent to Alaska over time have fostered some memories like that.  So this is now to be known as the Alaska United Methodist Conference (which is still a missionary conference).  At the Homer Church, in days gone by it was much more of a missionary appointment than it is now.  Much more specifically a missionary appointment.  The church began in the early 50’s and met in various rented buildings.  The first owned church was a converted theater.  The first parsonage burned to the ground 6 weeks after the arrival of one of the pastors who served here.  The current parsonage is about 50 years old and is a sectional (manufactured) home that sits on the church grounds very near to the church, in the midst of Community Food pantry storage and a walk in freezer, a boy scout storage building and a church storage building of some size.  For years after the current parsonage was built it is said to have been frequently used as a temporary shelter for homeless people and others when requested.  It is good sized home and 50 years ago would have even more been regarded as a larger home.  When we were first called by the Conference Superintendent about serving here she said the biggest negative is the parsonage and its location being so very close to the church building.  On the bright side I have a good wireless internet signal from the dsl modem in the church’s office that reaches to the parsonage (because of how close we are).  And also on the bright side I literally have NO commute time in getting to work.  On the other side is the frequent (and sometimes it feels like total) lack of privacy.  And also on the other side is the steady stream of Food Pantry volunteers who access the Freezer or the Storage building- which means they may often park or walk just outside our dining area window where we might be having lunch or supper… or sometimes even breakfast (and sometimes even pretty early in the morning).  Overall I find value in this situation and I find myself feeling that this is all part of the meaningful ministry of a place like this.  We are getting to know people who live with homelessness.  Not as a momentary, transient experience, but as a “have you had supper yet?”,  “where are you from?”, get-to-know each other experience.  That feels like good ministry and valuable sharing of life to me and I feel good about that.  All my ministry I have valued the times when at the churches I have served, we have been a place of more diversity and acceptance of people who might be marginalized from others in some ways.  I am getting a better taste of that here than in some places (or at least in different ways than before).  I have heard myself say more than once “This will be a hard ministry in which to serve.”  I think that is accurate because of the things I have described above, but when I have said that I know I’ve been thinking of something else.  In the midst of a significant building project here, I have experienced some real conflict in this church family.  There are hurt feelings and a sense of suspicion between people in several areas.  There are also still some left-over feelings of confusion and hurt regarding the departure of the previous long-term pastor here.  A full year of interim leadership has helped, but I sense a disjointedness to the fellowship of this church and as so often is the case, hurt feelings and confusion are expressed as anger or resentment.  So it sometimes makes it hard to get things accomplished, or to do so in a manner that leaves much celebration after the fact.  I am trying to listen and learn more than anything still, but with some of the more pressing matters that require quicker actions or decisions I am feeling right in the middle of things at times.  Another thing I have heard myself say is that I think I have prayed more about ministry during the first month of my time here than during any other month of my many years of serving in churches.  Personally I think that is a good thing.  Ironically, my prevaling sense is that I’m going to enjoy being the pastor at this church.  I am thankful for feelings of hope.

Where do we go from here. I’m not talking about my next ministry assignment.  I’m talking about the exciting potential and possibilities for rich and rewarding ministry in this community.  I think this community has some things in common with many communities.  It is aging, but still has a good population of children and youth.  It has a growing retired-age population which is made up of persons who desire to be active until health and aging causes a slow-down in activities.  The setting itself is world-class gorgeous.  And from an Alaskan standpoint the weather here is what people often describe as mild.  We’ll see how Karen and I describe it after we’ve lived through a winter.  Darkness and a winter that often seems to hang on for a long time are the other factors people ALWAYS tell about to newcomers.  Oh boy.  With the completion of the new and very large kitchen, the larger and remodeled sanctuary, and the Fellowship Hall addition, the ministry potential in terms of how this church connects and serves their local community will increase exponentially.  And anyone who has served a church who is willing to connect to their community knows that sometimes that isn’t easy.  I’m sure that’s how it will be here, but I continue to believe that it is important and worth the hardship.  In the midst of some of the fellowship challenges here comes an amazing opportunity to model what it means to be a community in Christ.  So I’ll conclude this longest ever blog post with the questions I am feeling drawn to lately:  In the midst and mix of the challenges this church is living with, might we model something to this community that often lives with the same dynamics?  What is the witness to which God is calling us?  How can forgiveness, compassion, reconciliation and grace be witnessed?  We want to grow and help people connect to God, how can we live as people who are still growing and connecting and relying on God in the midst of the feelings we as a church are processing?  Our new bishop has written about the importance of integrity when it comes to leadership and he identifies that through the connection of ones inner life of faith to ones outer life actions.  How are we being a church who lives that kind of spiritual connection?  And finally, can we claim the message of Grace for ourselves that welcomes us to simply rest in our Lord, dwell in the midst of his presence and promise to be with us, and be replenished by our God of love as we need to be?  At least can we be replenished like that so that we are compassionate as God is compassionate, and reach out to replenish one another?

In Alaska, summer is very quickly nearing its end.  A too-soon approaching winter has an ominous feel to it.