I had two days of real sickness where I didn’t get out of bed. The rest of the week the sickness has been pushed back to a stuffy nose and a sometimes tickle in the throat that makes me cough.
I am still in quarantine for two more days; So Amanda has been holding down the church and doing all the errands and housework. I so appreciate this daughter of mine who is such a talented pastor and who can run things in my absence. Most of the staff also has COVID so she has been the only one in office a few days this week.
This week has also been the beginning of our church-wide 21 Days of Fasting and Prayer…. 30 hours a week of church prayer scheduled and I haven’t been able to make one session in person.
I am so grateful to Jon Bauver and his team for running these sessions with their ministry, The Worship Room.
Jon’s ministry is a missionary prayer movement dedicated to bringing twenty-four-seven prayer to our region. They opened about two years ago and they are up to twenty hours of regular prayer every week. For the next twenty-one days they have really stretched themselves towards thirty hours a week to partner with us and I so appreciate it.
Of course when the plan was laid to let The Worship Room take the lead on this year’s 21 days I had no idea I was going to be out of commission for the first whole week of the fast. BUT GOD DID!
So here I stand or sit as the case were and instead of leading prayer meetings I get to bask in the radiance of the Son of God as a long distance participant rather than a leader. I am taking these moments to listen deeply and breathe in the grace of God for all the ministry that lies ahead. I am intensely aware that these moments of quarantine without strong sickness are a gift from God to help me prepare. Sometimes God needs to force us to our necessary rest.
I got home from church and deacon board meeting on Sunday and started feeling sick. By Sunday night I had full on COVID symptoms. I tested, but the test came back negative. By Monday morning I was pretty much relegated to bed. I slept away most of that day. On Tuesday after my second COVID test , which came back positive I slept most of that day too.
By Tuesday I had gotten word that three more of my staff had come down sick and today a fourth member messaged to say she had tested positive. That leaves my daughter (who has just come out of quarantine) and my personal assistant who had COVID in November running the church.
We have just begun 21 days of fasting and prayer with 30 weekly prayer meetings and the church staff is pretty much in quarantine. My daughter was asking God about this and the answer she got was, “This movement is about the church not about the leadership. The church must rise up and the staff must be put in a position to let them.”
apparently that position is COVID POSITIVE.
So I am joining the prayer meetings remotely and am watching as my parishioners rise up to lead this prayer movement for breakthrough! It is POSITIVE indeed.
Morning’s are my best time. I find the hours between 5 A.M. and Noon to be my most productive. Something about the first rays of morning light (even when the sky is gray) just fills me with energy to get up and get going.
Don’t get me wrong a good cup of coffee helps too.
But since we are at the beginning of our church’s yearly 21 days of fasting and prayer coffee is off the table. So the morning sun will be enough along with my herbal tea to get me going in the morning’s.
This morning I have done morning devotions walked the dogs, played with dogs, fed the dogs, made breakfast, read the first ten pages of my daily reading regimen and finished up the second chapter in Storyworth. This week my mother and I conversed about her father. Busyness is coming forward as the chief theme of my mother’s early life. I get the sense she understood the busyness but resented it as a dynamic in her family’s household.
I am finding for myself, busyness is a cautionary theme. I also think that there is a pendulum in my life that swings between busyness and lassitude.
I think I am looking for a happy medium somewhere between hyperactivity and complete indolence.
Maybe the morning light is my answer. Perhaps the balance is a morning of great productivity and afternoon of slower more concentrated work and the evening of recovery.
I am not sure exactly how that works with my schedule but it surely is something I am going to be praying into in the next 21 days as I seek greater breakthrough.
So, she has been sequestered to her room. I am getting ready to super sanitize the bathroom and then I am going to mask up and head out to do the necessary errands in case, you know, I have it.
It’s strange to think that the last time this happened to us we were actually quarantined indoors for 14 days and had to have groceries delivered to us.
My biggest concern now is making sure Mom does not get it. Chances for that are relatively small as she and Amanda have had no physical contact because of Amanda’s schedule and Mom’s living quarters lending themselves so well to social distance. Still I will be doing everything in my power to make sure that we keep this bug shut out.
Mom and I just got word that we are due for our next booster by the end of January so we are at the end of the range of immunity (if such a thing even exists). I have actually been wondering if I can get someone to come in and give her the booster as she really…really hates going out. We have managed to get many of the other medical services mom requires to be in house so… who knows? Anyway I was just thinking about all this the other day and wouldn’t you know COVID puts in an appearance once again. It’s a funny coincidence.
I still don’t really know where this is all going to lead, but at least I am here for another day of on-line journaling. And maybe that is going to be the point. “Notes” might be the brief opportunity I give myself every day to give myself a moment of context, a moment of putting it all in perspective.
The day started as most days do, walking the dogs, making the coffee, making my breakfast and logging in my calories (well that’s new). I bought myself Noom for Christmas as a gift from my Mom. I have got to drop between 60 and 80 pounds. So of course I set my goal for 85 pounds. Does that make me an over achiever?
Anyway, after that first log in I took a shower and got dressed to go to the store for some new pants for the funeral I had to preach today. I popped the button clasp on my old dress pants (hence the Noom purchase). I went to the store and bought the fattest pants they had in my leg length and got them home only to find that they fit as long as I didn’t have to sit down for any length of time (hence the Norm purchase).
I think though that I have to be careful of not letting the weight thing become too much of a focus. I do have bigger fish to fry this year. As I was sitting in prayer late this morning into the noon time hour I began to hear the voice of the Lord promise me a new level of clarity and power in prayer, but it would only come if I returned to a former rhythm of living within the context of this new wineskin, called lead pastoring. I have a lot to think about during the upcoming season of prayer and fasting (which begins on Jan. 8th). I am thinking by that time I will be moving into that former rhythm within the new wineskin, and the fast will be a solidifying agent for the duration of my ministry prayer life.
For Christmas this year I bought my mother a subscription to an on line story app called Storyworth. Each week we get a question to discuss and then I spend a bit of time each day writing down her answers. This week our question is, “What was your mother like when you were growing up?” Mom and I have been deepening the answer to this question these last few days. It has been a fun series of discussions leading to conversation about what my mother’s life was like growing up on a small working farm.
After our lunch conversation I headed off to perform a committal at the local Veteran’s Cemetery.
I didn’t know the family I was serving today. Sometimes that happens. When a family does not have a home church or pastor they are connected to, each funeral home has a list of pastors they call upon to meet the need. This particular family was from quite a distance away and it has been many years since I worked with this particular funeral home. But they still had my name and number and when none of the pastors in their immediate area could help they reached out to me. I don’t do many funerals for people outside my congregation anymore simply because of time constraints, but this was a family I could help so….I preached the committal service for them and then went grocery shopping. Ministry is an odd mix of the sacred and mundane. Ministers must minister and ministers must have groceries.
I guess maybe that is part of the rhythm/ balance I really need to get back to as I enter this new phase of ministry (new wineskin as God calls it). I have to figure out how do I faithfully live in the space between the sacred and the mundane? How do I emotionally navigate the waves caused by the often violent switching between the two mindsets. I feel like I was doing a better job of it during pandemic. Of course at that point so much of the sacred ministry was actually shut down and now….I hesitate to say normal has returned, but new normal does qualify. Sometimes the new normal does look a lot like the old normal.
I think, it is time to rehash some of the lessons I learned during pandemic especially about prayer rhythms. I need to look into how I am supposed to be incorporating those rhythms of sacred breath and mindfulness into this new context.
DID PANDEMIC MAKE YOU MORE MINDFUL? IF SO DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LOST THAT MINDFULNESS AS WE HAVE RETURNED TO NORMAL LIFE?
This is a time to Rest, Reflect and Relate with and to my fellow ministers.
The schedule leaves lots of time for personal reflection and prayer, but last night we had dinner together as ministers of our network. I got to catch up with some ministers from the town next door and then we went into a worship and prayer session that lasted until about 10 P.M.
This morning I had breakfast with some mister friends from Framingham and the Cape and then we went into a time of spiritual discussion.
One of the main things I have heard as I have talked with ministers is about how COVID has changed the church and how so many of us as church leaders are still trying to figure out how to bring restoration to what we lost in the pandemic.
During my time of spiritual discussion with my minister friend from Framingham we chose to talk about what God did during pandemic to bless the church. How the pandemic wrought change in us that was actually positive.
As I got thinking about it the events of the recent past have really stood to inform my church’s future direction. Here are some of the changes I see in no particular order.
We have become much more focused on the value of personal relationships
We have become more committed to the purpose of the church in the world
We have built new and exciting ideas about outreach and how to do it in a relational context
We have grown in passion and love for one another and for those who are within our communities
We have grown in the area of creative thinking.
There are more changes that have come to us in the last two years, but these are some of the most profound.
WHAT ARE SOME POSITIVE THINGS THAT TOOK PLACE IN YOUR LIFE AND COMMUNITY OVER THE LAST TWO YEARS?
On Sunday after church I had a wonderful opportunity to drive to Hartford Hospital to visit two of our parishioners who had been placed there for treatment
It is strange how health care is changing here in the Northeast. I have never had to go to Hartford before for a pastoral visit, but for some reason there were no beds in MA or NH to be had for what these ladies needed treatment for. One of them actually had to travel 3 and a half hours by ambulance to get there.
But I am a firm believer in the fact that God knows what He is doing and He has the people of our church in the palm of His hand.
The roundtrip drive to Hartford is 4 hours. It was a beautiful trip accentuated by autumn colored roadsides. I wish I had thought to stop and take some picture but these photos are near enough representations to show you the beauty I was driving through.
I seldom have four hours to myself. So the time to drive and talk with God was absolutely welcomed. I talked with Him about adjustments He is bringing to my life schedule. I asked Him about the upcoming pastor’s gathering at the Cape and how I am going to best use those hours. I listened to Him to hear what He would say about my next sermons on the step of love, and I prayed for the needs of several folks in our congregation who are sick like these two ladies.
The visits accomplished their God-given purpose and the time on the road did too. I am so thankful God gave me this extra time.
I have had lots to do over this last week, but I have been arranging a few minutes here and there to journal. It’s a little something I am trying to do everyday. I have always loved writing and I have missed it.
Since I started the Atomic Habits training with our church leadership I have been asking myself who I am and what my identity is in the world. I have asked myself what small thing I can do everyday that will be a vote towards that identity.
Writing for just ten minutes a day is one of the one things. I know that ten minutes of writing does not make me a professional writer, anymore than reading ten pages of a book everyday (another of my new micro habits) makes me a full time student, but both of these things are a vote in the direction of who I know I was made to be.
Honestly I haven’t even made it to the 10 minutes of daily writing. I missed yesterday. But I am beginning to understand it is not about the failures as much as it is about the successes. Every step takes me closer to the man I want to be, towards a clearer understanding of the man God made me to be.
The man in the mirror, if you will, is: a man of God, a man of letters, a man of relationships, and a man of learning. There are lots of little things I am trying to do to shift towards that identity.
Intentional prayer and study. This is something I have been working on for years and am actually pretty stable in. That said balancing my private relationship time with God, and my ministry time since I became lead pastor has actually been a bit of an adjustment. Whatever people may think, ministry is not a thing which pushes you intrinsically toward God. There will be more written on that subject later.
By intentionally scheduling relationships into my schedule. I have had to ask myself as I looked at my schedule, “How does this make me a more relational person?” “How does this make me a more relational pastor?” Those things that don’t feed into my identity, even those things which are necessary must be adjusted so they don’t take up my whole life. Let me give you an example. I am now scheduling 15 minutes a day to billing and planning. Rather than allowing finances to take up a whole afternoon once a month I am doing a little everyday.
Becoming a man of letters and a man of learning? Well that as I said is about practicing here and reading a bit everyday. It’s not all I want it to be but if I have learned anything over the years is you have to plant a seed before you can harvest an apple. I was once a writer…a pretty serious writer. I lost that man temporarily when I took on this new role as lead pastor. I can’t just go back to where I was with my writing. So I am planting seeds again 10 minutes at a time.
The man in the mirror is becoming clearer to me with each step of the journey.
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WHAT ONE THING COULD YOU DO TODAY TO MAKE YOUR MIRROR IMAGE REFLECT YOUR IDENTITY?
Last weekend was incredible. Brenda, Amanda and I attended week two of our four week training in a leadership track called The Atomic Habits. The training its about changing small things to bring about atomic results.
My biggest take away so far is that behavior is not changed primarily nor permanently by goal setting but by aligning our life systems with our chosen identity. In other words “live like who you want to be.”
The class has been reaffirming so many things I heard over sabbatical about the man I need to be into the future, and about the church we need to be into the future.
One of the verses that has been echoing through my brain these last two months is 2 Corinthians 5:17, which says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:The old has gone, the new is here!”
I have been doing a lot of thinking about what I really look like as a new creation I am:
The knowledge, that the seeds of all these things have already been planted in me by Christ at my new creation, has really been challenging me. The knowledge that, like all things that grow my entrance into these things will be by inches, had been comforting me.
It all leads me to the question, WHAT ONE LITTLE THING CAN I CHANGE NOW THAT WILL HELP ME TAKE A STEP CLOSER TO WHO I REALLY AM?
In my sermon last Sunday, I mentioned “Linchpin people”. God has been speaking to me about these folks in our communities quite a lot in the last week.
We need to pray for these folks. There are not many of them and they run the risk of being distracted by things that frankly are beneath their created purpose. I just have this sense that if these people can get ahold of their “super-power” they just might be able to turn a bit of the tidal wave of destruction that is rushing towards our shores. You know the one I mean.
Notes From the Vicarage 