In one of our group discussions I was asked to appreciate something about a difficulty. I thought of the building projects at The Vicarage, at the church, and the moving project I am doing for Grace all rolled into one. It’s not that any of these things is very difficult in and of themselves. It’s not like I am doing any of the complicated work and the guys doing the work are really top notch. But each of these projects adds a level of complexity to my life. As they are all converging upon life at once there is a level of complexity and time management which is taking me beyond anything I have ever had to do before.
In the moments when things get stressy….when I get stressy…. I am beginning to realize that I am being stretched out of my current comfort zone into a much larger one that will contain more peace, more joy, more “can do” attitude and more confidence. I am growing and so I appreciate these circumstances that are allowing that.
Dear Family, Yesterday I pulled another muscle. This time in my neck. I am not sure quite how I did it, but let’s just say when I went to bed my left shoulder was throbbing. When I woke up I had a hard time rolling over to get out of bed because my shoulder was so knotted up.
The Motrin bottle and the tiger balm were my first stop on the way to feed and walk the dogs.
It seems like the last few months have been a constant string of injuries: First my hip went out, and then my knee, now my shoulder. Since that first injury, it seems like I have lost some strength in my body. Everything feels tight and ready to snap at any moment. I find myself reaching for the walking stick more and more “just in case”.
I am seeking God about this. I thought at first it was just going to be like other times when I had gotten injured. I would rest the injured part for a few days and voila! It would be all better. It doesn’t seem to be working that way this time around. I am praying for healing and realizing that this might be a tool to help me come to a new pace that allows me to see the things I need to see without rushing right past them. I do, still, after all these years tend to rush from one thing to another. In the rushing I miss many important things God wants me to understand and know. My time here at the Annex is teaching me a lot about a new pace, a deeper pace, God wants me to learn, A rhythm God is desirous for me to begin walking and maybe even to teach to others.
I keep going back to a prophetic word God gave me almost twenty years ago now about living within my brick.
It was based off of the passage where Peter talks about the church being made up of us and that we were like living stones.
“As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house a to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6For in Scripture it says:
In the prophetic word which God gave to me He said each of us were like bricks in a building. Each brick was meant to support and stabilize the bricks around it. God pointed out to me that bricks did not move they learned to do their job by living within the boundaries that God had made for them. He told me I had to stop trying to run around being something I was not. I had to learn to “live within my brick.”
I think from that point to this life has been about me coming to understand my boundaries, and part of that is the pace I keep.
This is not the first time I have been injured for an extended period of time, as I think about it. Other times the purpose was to slow me down, help me get back in my bounds. I suppose even more than healing, the boundarY God is trying to establish me in is what I should be seeking out.
Dear Family, When I first moved to The Vicarage there was a lot of work to do. I remember thinking to myself, “I will just do a little at a time and eventually it will all get done.”
A decade after moving there I finally gave into the fact that that strategy was not going to work. All my “nickel-and-diming” of jobs was getting us no closer to completion. Further the house was becoming more and more unlivable with each passing year.
Then the Lord came to me with a word. “You must get The Vicarage ready for use.”
He didn’t tell me what use, just that I had to get it ready.
So we have worked to get it ready. I discarded the little by slow method. It has still taken two years and we aren’t finished yet. But we do have a new roof, new gutters, new insulation, new siding, freshly repaired and painted trim, the asbestos is gone, we have cut down five large trees from the property, we will soon have new bathrooms, and a new entryway into the kitchen, eight new windows, a repaired stone porch, and some new varnish on at least some of the floors. We have also gotten rid of some very old rugs, some very broken furniture and a derelict wood stove. Before it is all said and done we will have removed an old derelict furnace as well.
I am also determined to get rid of a lot more stuff that is serving no other purpose than taking up space in our lives.
That said, I no longer think that changing the building is the primary thing that needed to change to “get the Vicarage ready for use.” There is something much deeper that has been shifting ever since we moved to the Annex.
The Vicarage has been draped for many years in a cloud of seclusion.
I joked as we put our dishes away before the move that a family that never entertained did not need place settings for forty. One of the things that has changed since moving to the Annex is that I have been taking most of my meetings from home. For the first time in my ministry I am receiving guests regularly. And I am loving it! This is the breaking of a spiritual stronghold that has long held our family in stasis. And we are breathing the free air. I am growing in the gift of hospitality and The Vicarage is being prepared for use.
We are coming to the end of the Church Age and we are getting ready for the Day of the Lord and the Age of Christ’s reign. These are the days of the last moves in a very long game of chess. Our little corner of the world is getting ready to play its most decisive, most historical move. I believe that with all my heart. God is preparing us for that move. He is preparing the Vicarage for its role in that move.
Life is not a sprint. It is a marathon. While there are always people shouting from the sidelines to “hurry up!”, God has impressed on me that I must not let those voices push me to go any faster than the pace that God has set for me.
I hear the voices yelling, but I am determined to follow the rhythm He has set for me.
He reminded me yesterday that if I was going to live successfully then everything I do must flow out of the rhythm of prayer rather than prayer being allowed to flow out of the rhythm of my doing.
Even with all the projects before me: The Vicarage, The Church carpeting project, The Covid Policy publication for the church, helping Mom, helping Grace, meeting with parishioners, I must not do except what flows out of prayer. When I spend the first part of my days in prayer I find that everything else falls into its proper place.
The trim is done now and the rest of the project is moving along nicely. A few more weeks and we will be ready to start washing the floors and walls and uncovering the furniture to get back in! Each day as I pray I am given my own little jobs to do to get The Vicarage ready for rehabilitation.
It has been a busy two weeks. We are now 21 days in The Vicarage Annex. We have gotten used to this place. It is wonderful. It is comfortable. I am so thankful to God for this place. It is everything we need. Except it is not home.
I am quickly realizing that what we are going through is more than a temporary change. We are being launched by this renovation into a new season. I guess I didn’t anticipate that. I thought we would get the necessary job done and we would go back to our same old patterns.
But I am now realizing that our old patterns will not fit into what we are going back too. We are changing. We will have changed and The Vicarage will be a new home for a new people.
I went to The Vicarage this morning to do my morning chores. As I was feeding the dogs and the cat I really stopped to take a look around. I thought to myself about the magnitude of the work we have had done in the last year.
The Vicarage outside at the point of demolition last fall.The Vicarage with new sidingUpstairs bathroom demoDownstairs bathroom demo
Then I thought about the magnitude of the work that still lies before us after these particular renovations are finished: The washing of floors and walls and curtains itself will take weeks. The windows I have no doubt will be months in the doing. Then there is the fifty years of collected stuff which I am determined to go through and get rid of. This doesn’t;t even begin to mention the further renovations I hope to do to the kitchen, the basement, the back hall and the gardens. So much more to do!
Then there is the work of the church. We are a well established ministry in Winchendon and yet I feel like we are just beginning this work of ministry.
In all this understanding I am not discouraged. I am excited about the days ahead and the work that goes with them! A new day is dawning. There is so much more to do and so much more to see. One day at a time I will see it!
We are well into week three of our stay at The Vicarage Annex. So far everything is going to plan and I am very excited about the prospect of returning home soon. Well, by Memorial Day at any rate which is soon to me.
We are not quite halfway there, but somehow in my mind I have placed these events as the turning point…the hump day of our project. Get through this week, I reckon, and it’s all downhill from here!
At this writing we are well into Day 16 of our time at The Vicarage Annex. We are also plunk in the middle of Easter Weekend. So no work is happening at The Vicarage today.
Happy Easter everyone! I have been doing my cooking for tomorrow, today. Since Easter itself is such a busy day, I am keeping dinner simple….Ham (which will be cold sliced tomorrow), potato salad and fluff. I am thinking of cake for dessert with ice cream since it is someone’s birthday in a few days and she will not be around to celebrate.
This morning, since there was no work going on at The Vicarage. I decided I would start doing some of the laundry from there that will need to be done to get back in. It’s a start of what will be a very big project, but it is only day 16…. so no rush just yet.
Sitting at the laundromat, the day’s first cup of coffee in hand with only the sound of the dryer’s rhythmic thumping to keep me company helped me set my own internal timer: slow, constant and intentional. Just the way I like it.
We have a carpet to get rid of before the rain comes in and then I want to bake a cake and get my studying and practicing done for tomorrow’s service…slow, constant, and intentional. Just the way I like it.
I am considering the two big building projects which are taking up my time for the next two months…the one at the Vicarage….and the sanctuary restructure at the church. What an incredible blessing it is that I get to do these two projects.
On the surface it would seem I am the wrong guy for this. If it were left to me to actually do the work it would be true. I possess none of the skills needed to replace plumbing or electrics, carpets or altars. But I am not called to any of that actual work. I am just having these things done on my watch. Aside from a little demolition, I am just the guy behind the curtain nodding my ahead to give approval or shaking it to say “I don’t think that works for me/us”.
I do suppose it is a little more complicated than that. I have a job to do while the construction goes on. While the builders build, my job is to figure out how to do ministry around the construction.
The adjustments I have made in order to keep the work of ministry going are indeed some of the biggest blessings I have yet encountered in the work of ministry. Figuring out how to care for Mom’s needs and still meet the congregation’s needs: having meetings from home, having intentional coffee dates at set times everyday with Mom, finding people to sit with Mom while I go into the church.
The conversations I have with my Mom at our coffee times can be very repetitious. Her anxiety about the house is still high. She is also not use to having people in her living space, but there have been some real blessings to it. Mom has not smoked a cigarette since we got here almost two weeks ago. It is nice to see her interact even if it is only a little with our church family. We have even had a few times where she has consented to listen to the Bible with me as I did my devotions.
Prayer time has been an interesting shift for me. My meeting load has actually increased during this season and I am really enjoying that, but I am finding that a lot more of my prayer time is spent in decompressing from the pastoral work. We are traveling in some deep pastoral waters now and that is very encouraging
I have always thought of myself as someone who does not like change. But I am discovering that while these changes brought on by these projects are uncomfortable they are not bad…they just are. If I take it slow and easy and I don’t let the changes effect my inner peace then the adjustments are actually all blessings.
This morning I got showered and dressed at the Vicarage Annex, then went next door to the Vicarage to walk and feed the dogs. After that I headed off to get rid of the trash, clean my car, and get Mom’s morning papers and scratch tickets. Mom still loves here scratchies, but you know what she hasn’t smoked a cigarette since we arrived at The Annex. I am not sure she remembers she ever smoked….And I am not bringing it up.
The staff all came to the Annex for staff meeting and to celebrate Amanda’s birthday. I have the best people on staff with me! What a privilege to work alongside these folks in the work of ministry. We had our meeting and cake, went over business and then off to our various jobs: Carrie to prep more meetings for me, and to continue the practical building of our DLT work in the region; Amanda to prep for youth group; Wendy to visit a sick congregant; Nancy to pay the bills; John to the hardware store to purchase some building supplies; And me…well I have a boatload of paperwork and writing and planning to catch up on. I am never lacking for things to do.
Together we are preparing the church for the days ahead. We all sense the enormity of the task and the incredible challenges that wait for us in the future.
My all church devotional for today was about how as people of God we are not to focus on the hardship we are in, nor are we to concentrate on the hardships that are in front of us. Instead we are to look beyond these things to the joy which is our eternal destiny.
I am choosing joy in many things. I am looking forward to the fruits of the work of ministry: The beauty of the new sanctuary once we have the carpets in and the altar/stage rebuilt; The beauty of the Vicarage when all the plumbing and electrics and bathrooms are new and the dust and debris is cleared away;
The salvation of all the souls that will be saved through the faithful work our congregation does in Doing Life Together with our community; The release of miracles and healings in our region; And finally the trip to the Far Off Country which is the hope of all Christians.
Notes From the Vicarage 