Processing with God: Narrative Lectionary, Liturgy, Prayers
Author: katyandtheword
Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ.
She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible.
"Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal.
Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.
Worship this morning at the NEXT Conference was wonderful, and not only because my good friend Brian Ellison preached one heck of a sermon. We also sang two hymns I love.
I recognize not everyone gets excited by good hymns, sung well, in the midst of people one loves. But I sure do.
Many people commented on the power of the second of the two hymns, Love Divine, All Love’s Excelling, which was sung beautifully, in harmony, after Brian’s prophetic sermon (I will post a link to the sermon when I find one).
Holy Interruptions Batman….here are some more perspectives on my interruptions (it did seem like a heavenly moment, I was perfectly positioned from the balcony)
We are listening to the immeasurable Diana Butler Bass who is greatly illustrating her theories on church and culture, when the news breaks on twitter a little before 7:30 (she started at 7).
Its a amazing, its wonderful.
I text the news to my parents.
I can’t believe it.
Twitter is going crazy.
The real question is Can we interrupt Diana Butler Bass?
7:28 pm @miheekimkort suggests “@revJohnRussell at 7:30 lets stand up and scream”
I tweet @bookkats “Feel the pcusa urge to stand up and proclaim the good news even tho its rude to interrupt awesome DBB” at about the same time
I wait for 7:30, sure someone will do it…
THREE agonizing Holy Spirit Bubbling minutes later (7:31) I realize no one has….
Then she talked about the fourth awakening, and its true realization (as in any realization) is when social justice comes into play, so I’m like “Ok, and now she’s talking social justice. Holy Spirit help my extrovert.”
I am totally bursting with the news. This is good news! This is my job to tell good news, and I have REALLY GOOD NEWS, and texting my parents isn’t going to do it!
@jledmiston says Can someone ask Q@dianabutlerbass for a brief space to acknowledg the PCUSA’s big news?
We were awaiting authority, in Nextchurch, which I love to define as the organic and hands on ideas of what is next for the church …irony….
So I’m like, maybe a quiet way is better (I guess I’m getting better at practicing some restraint) I Tweet “Stand up and hold up your phone maybe?”
This is the time, I realize, Diana Butler Bass is talking about the no going back change, the revival at the point ofsocial justice: what a moment to tell the news!
Meanwhile I hear rustle, rustle, rustle, everyone is looking at their phones
@mollyfid nails it on the head “Y’all, I”m about to Burst! UNfreeze yourselves presbys! Surely DBB will pause for a cheer”
Then I realize…I’m in the balcony, I’m in the first row. This is totally not awkward (I mean heck I’d love to do it from the most awkward and silliest position ever)….I’m the extrovert.
Oh my God….its me…I’m the one who is called into this place at this time to do this….its me, and I’m going to LOVE it
I stand up and (rather timidly) raise my hand. “Excuse me Diana….Sorry to interrupt, but we are just bursting here. We just passed 14F, all people can marry”
And I see it……from the balcony, everyone stands up and hugs and cheers in an almost disordered fashion….
It was beautiful, it was holy
my sister is trans…
I burst into tears
Diana Butler Bass asked my name and then said “The Episcopalians welcome you” 🙂
The amazing moment when God uses my no-hold-barred extroverted self who happened to sit in the front of the balcony at that moment…on the day when Brian preached about acceptance in the morning in the evening where the Presbyterian Light people were already planning their reception.
What do you call that but holy?
Holy
And then, we listened as best we can to Diana, hearing all the better her critiques because we were in a better place as church (claim the entire denom has failed, no problem : )
And then, we went and did church! The planned 80 people who went to the Presby Light & Covenant Network Joint reception were way…way…more….
Too many Presbyterians, after a long day, did church that night at a bar.
We have become a fuller church, how can we include people next, is Belhar Confession around the corner?
We did church, then and there with loud music and too many Presbyterians and drinks and food…
Sometimes, as a pastor of a small church, I find myself amazed by how much of my job is paperwork. Especially since most of it is created by myself. ACK! There’s the bulletin, my sermon outline (which I hate doing, because then I feel tied down to it), contracts (we also are landlords), meeting agenda, worker checklists, rules, regs, letters to tenants, letters to congregation members, newsletters, applications/registrations for all the junk I need to be at, grants, fundings, thankyous, checklists, calendars for myself, the congregation and the building use etc. Sometimes I think the only thing I don’t write down on a regular basis are my extemporaneous prayers.
In an age of holding people accountable, and in a denomination where if its not written down it isn’t real (otherwise known as Presbyterian), I find that needing to do millions of paperworks…
Know how churches don’t like that families and church no longer come first? How it is hard to get the typical family to church more than once a month?
The socio-economics of the situation are tricky, with little national health care and extremely expensive daycare it is difficult to have the time/money to invest in church. Either you are a stay at home mother/father with no extra funds or time or your one of two full time working parents who don’t have enough time to see your children and take them to all the extra-curriculars they “should” be doing.
The socio-economics are crazy, because most people can’t work a regular 9-5 job and are in and out of the house at crazy times working crazy hours.
Plus who knows if you’ll have that job or even be able to live in that city in 1 or 2 or 3 years from now.
Not to mention that most young families can barely afford to have a house or to not put in crazy extra hours or to work multiple jobs including babysitting or whatever other odd jobs they can find.
This is the reality.
So…understand, when churches do not support their staff taking care of their family. Whether it be to go to a family funeral, take care of a personal illness or to take maternity/paternity leave, that we are contributing to the very socio-economic problem we complain about day in and day out. Families who cannot take the time to take care of one another, who have to work instead of putting their family first, will have trouble making it to church.
Pastors are one of such staff…pastors are always on call, do not work 9-5, oft have to make meetings that cause delays of or missing of putting their children to bed. The hours are haphazardly put together depending on the congregation’s needs. Its a flexible job in some ways and very stringent in others.
Some typical (although not absolute) examples: if someone is ill, dying or in extremis you must be there…you may take sick days…as long as they are never when you are scheduled to preach
I know churches can ill-afford pastors, maybe its time to borrow other pastors, pay the choir director a little more or use a lay leader. Maybe its time to do a daily prayer service instead of a formal “traditional” service.
But if we can ill-afford pastors we absolutely CANNOT afford to not take care of those in need in our church…Think about that for a minute…the church claiming they can’t afford to take care of children and ill-ones…..
Thus: We can’t say we want more families to come to church–and then not support our families. We can’t claim to be choosing God’s path and then not take care of our sick and our little ones.
(feel free to read paragraph above a couple of times)
Do we need an act of Congress to do the right thing?
Most people don’t like Daylight Savings Time, I will admit that as a pastor it is a little terrifying to know that if I get the time wrong I’ll miss doing my job (yipes)
However, my kids have already adjusted their systems (at least 10 days ago) do the new time. Yep, they’ve been getting up and going to bed earlier. Apparently they have great cicada rhythms. So in some ways it will be easier for me.
On the other hand, we humans love time. We calculate it, we keep it, we try to control it. Daylight Savings Time & Leap Year serve to remind me that Time is a human measure.
Consider creation, we all still don’t know what “a day” to God was, but probably God experiences time differently than us.
When I was in Seminary, a Spiritual Practice I tried to remember when I considered deep theological questions, was the fact that God is timeless….God does not need to measure things in time. Because we do, I’m sure God does take it into consideration, but the taming and capturing of moments is a human need, not one that God has…
Puts me in mind of two beautiful concepts
Wrinkle in Time/Tesseract
and Dr. Who
Go forth. Spring Forward (or fall back)
And think deep thoughts about God….Time…..and Humans relationship to God, Humans relationship to to time, and how we all fit together…..
which reminds me of an ongoing conversation that I have with people.
I try, try, try to practice trust, and yet still be safe. Its a particular balance. It means that sometimes your credit and debit cards get stolen right out of the church office, because you tend not to lock. I am still uncertain whether I was being too trusting or not….I now only lock when that particular group is in the church.
However, I think that the only way to build trust is to give it. You treat people with suspicion and the likelihood is they will return the favor. Plus if you don’t take chances its hard to have a relationship. You have to say hi, you have to share about yourself. Eventually you have to share your address if you want people to come over.
Basically, I feel like that trust and grace go hand in hand. In order to trust someone you have to be gracious with them, trusting that they are doing the best that they can and being gracious when people can’t live up to your standards or do things differently
Henri Nouwen calls this forgiving people for not being God i.e. all knowing and perfect.
It doesn’t mean being stomped on either, it means calling people into account, whether its because they are disrespectful to you during a meeting or they leave a mess in the church or they siphon money off the church’s accounts.
So much of my job is being open to be in relationship with people, whoever, however and whatever state they may be in. That takes trust, and graciousness and hope. It means worrying a little less, setting safe boundaries and then building a community of people who can help you if the relationship does not work out.
But I think that is a good way to describe being a minister.
Open to being in relationship with the church, the community and the world…..That is true ministry..and one in which everyone can get in on.
Ok, so according to this I am more a theologian of the glory than a theologian of the cross…sad day…wonder if these terms should be more of a balance (its the mainline thing, I like compromise)
Thoughts? Its def. a good reframing, but I’m trying to figure out the truth of it (I tend to take preaching the Good news part of my job very seriously)
katyandtheword 