The Way Forward: Gratitude

The Way Forward:  Gratitude

Psalm 118:24

I feel like I have two important roles during the next 10 months.  First, I need to provide continuity and stability during the transition.  You know me and I know you.  We have songs we enjoy singing and rituals we practice and work we love to do.  We need to dance to the chicken dance and eat some fried chicken.  We need to pipe Advent in one more time.  We need to keep collecting food for those who are in need.  We need to be the church that we’ve been.

At the same time, the congregation needs to begin to discern the church that we are being called to become.  It is not my job to answer such a question or to even shape an answer.  No…my job is to lay the foundation for the conversation.  I would like to “prime the pump,” by inviting everyone to start thinking about a few things now, things which, I hope, will empower people to find their voices and be ready to enter the conversation.

(Just as a “save the date” announcement, there are three conversations planned for the whole church: on September 29th; October 20th; and November 17th.  I think it is vital that everyone plan on being a part of those conversations! I also think the best case scenario is if folks arrive thinking, “Well, here’s what I’ve been thinking about for a while…”)

Here’s the whole premise for me.  As a church (and as individuals) we do all sorts of things.  Sometimes, when we do all those different things, one of them will really land with extra power.  It could happen during worship.  It could happen during coffee hour.  It could be on a work trip.  It could even be a moment in a trustee’s meeting.  If we’re paying attention and open (that’s a big “if”,) we feel something sacred.  We feel whole. Things feel deeper.  Something resonates within us and we think, “That’s what we’re talking about!  That was sacred.  That was us being the church.”

Of course, how a moment becomes like that is really complicated.  We may have done the same thing before or we might do the same thing next week and it won’t feel the same at all.  It may be that what carried so much power was something totally spontaneous that just bubbled up on the spot.  Neither God nor the sacred become present on demand.  Still, we know it when it happens and sometimes what has happened is beyond words.

A small but mighty example of this happened last week during worship.  Something special started to happen just before worship when a lot of children appeared.  That always gets my attention and makes me lean into the moment.  When it was time for the children to come forward, we sat up front together and a good conversation unfolded about what we mean when we say that something is sacred.  The children as a group provided just the right mix of clarity with just a touch of sass!  As all of that was happening, my buddy, Derek, one of our younger and more rambunctious children, showed up.  When he did, almost everyone, especially all the other kids, smiled.  Then, Derek just took his time coming down the center aisle, waving to the people as he made his way.  When Derek arrived, it turned out that joy came to worship, too!

You can’t script something like that but I can say that a whole string of the most hope-filled, joy-full moments in our worship time have been a series of chats with our children that have spanned my 30 years.  I feel like I could write a whole book just about memories from Christmas Eve services when the children are absolutely “wired” with anticipation and it’s my job to say to them, “Whoa!  Before you go back to your tree and those presents, I want you to take a trip with me to a manger…” God only knows what’s going to happen in those moments but there will be joy and hope and laughter and maybe even an insight or two.  And, of course, God does know that when we bring joy and hope to life and laugh a bit and maybe even shed a tear, we are being the church.

Our life together is a tapestry of all kinds of moments.  I want to pull a thread or two and then ask you to follow that thread.  Then, I want you to ask yourself, “If I agree that this ‘thread’ has power for us, how would that shape our choices about how we live together as a faith community?”

The thread that I want to point out today is “gratitude.”  I think this is a marker feature of our life together.  What I want you to know first is that it has been here for my whole 30 years.  In fact, for years before Tracy came to work here, I told her that I hoped that someday she would have a chance to work in a church were people were grateful like they were at the Union Church.  To make that point clearer, though, I have to set the stage.

My predecessor arrived at this church about 35 years ago to find a community that was in a lull and maybe even waning.  Bob Emery and Carl Lugn had been beloved, revered pastors.  However, there had been an “organ fight” and some financial challenges and things weren’t easy.  Tom arrived as the right person at the right time—a quirky, charismatic guy who made people wonder, “Wow, I what worship would be like with him?”  People came to find out and the lull began to recede.

I think this made for a grateful church.  Folks who loved this church had worried about what was to become of it.  Those same folks saw young families walking through the door.  No one needed to tell the congregation to be excited about that or to welcome them.  (If you’ve been through a serious medical crisis and you come out on the other side, every day’s a good day, right?). 

I arrived because there were enough children in the church that there needed to be a Sunday School and a youth program.  While this was stunningly good news for the church, it was also great news for me.  I had been through my own challenges.  The counseling practice that I had been a part of had been put in grave danger by the sexual boundary violations of the director.  I had loved that job but it was clear that I could not continue there.  I wasn’t sure what was next. Then, a phone call came.  Would I consider working at the Union Church.  Of course, this would be fun!  I’m sure I won’t be there forever!  I could not have imagined what was ahead but I could see the next step and I enjoyed taking it.

In a tale too convoluted to tell, Tom ended up leaving.  I ended up as the interim pastor.  A committee was formed and their search was on.  Eventually, I got a call from one of the committee members who wondered if we could go for a walk.  In the middle of that walk, Gary said to me, “So the committee keeps talking about who we’re looking for and we keep listing the qualities and then coming back to you.  Have you ever thought about being our pastor?”  My honest answer was, “I really haven’t…but let me give this some thought.”

The church had been challenged.  I had been challenged.  However, the church had never become bitter or cynical or jaded.  Folks were hopeful and open and thinking through their choices.  Without “tooting my own horn” too much, so was I.  To me, the shared sense between all of us was that God was in here somewhere, if we just stay open and keep looking.  

For me, as someone who was both rigorously intellectual and very informal, I had never been convinced that there was a church out there that would be a fit for me.  I want to think clearly and laugh, too. I want to be who I am and be with folks who are willing to be who they are.  I want the church to feel like family.  Where’s that church?  (The answer was 525 E Prospect Ave in Lake Bluff!)

For the church, there was a long history of catching pastors at the end of their careers or even in their retirement years.  What young pastor who is worth their salt is going to want to stay?  Who is going to care enough about us to really “get” us and challenge us to grow?  No one expressed this sentiment better than Jean Smidt, a cornerstone member of the congregation, who told me when I became the pastor that she had seen a lot of pastors come and go over the years and she’d learned not to get too excited when they came or too excited when they left!

There were a few fireworks when I first started as the pastor but those ended one Sunday when I walked into the sanctuary to begin worship. To my surprise, every person in church was wearing a button.  Those buttons—horrifyingly—had my face on them.  But after the initial shock, the message was clear:  “You are our pastor.  We are your church family.”

The church wasn’t looking for “perfect.”  Before I ever got there, they had been through enough and gotten through it to just be grateful:  “Hey, we’re here!  They haven’t nailed the doors shut yet!  Today’s a new day!”

I wasn’t looking for “perfect,” either.  I’d worked in high powered churches that looked really good on a resume’.  This church, though, was more interested in getting on with being the church than trying to live up to its reputation.  That was very attractive.  

When you have a church who’s just grateful to be here and a pastor who is grateful to have a calling, you end up being able to say these words and mean them in the most heartfelt way:  “This is the day that the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”  We’re all happy to be here.  We all feel like each day is a gift.  We don’t spend a lot of time being disappointed or feeling like we’re not getting what we’re owed.  Instead, we look each other in the eye and say, “Let’s make the most of this day, together.”

What does our shared gratitude look like when we’re living it?  It gets expressed when we applaud the choir not because they’re just back from their European tour but because they are our church family and that was a pretty lively tune they just sang.  It gets expressed when we’re thrilled to have our children in church with us and who cares if its loud? So what!  It gets expressed when there is room for me to be human and have needs and when there is room for church members to be human and have needs.  It gets expressed when we find all the little ways to say to each other, “You know, even when this is hard, I’m so glad we’re in this together!”

What will this gratitude look like in a search process?  A lot of job descriptions that I’ve seen over the years sound like the church in question is looking for a really nice combination of Moses, Christ, and the apostle, Paul.  The alternative is to look for a real human being who happens to be a fit.  I think that would sound something like this: “We are an imperfect but perfectly, lovable congregation looking for an imperfect but perfectly, lovable pastor. We’ve done our homework and named a few things that seem like they might be clues to a fit what be.  Are you willing to talk to us about what a fit would look like for you?”

Mark Hindman