Sunday Stretch: Vol. 46

Start off your week with a grounded take on Bible, prayer, the world, and your life ...

Hi Readers,

I’m writing to you in the busyness of the first full week of September, and in the irony of “Labor Day” falling in one of the most hectic times for parents of school-aged kids and pastors alike.

I have to admit that I’m glad it seems the church is moving away from the past model of “Rally Sunday” falling on the first Sunday after Labor Day, and traditionally marking the beginning of the program year in many larger churches. I have come to believe that most American Christians don’t want or need a rally around God - but instead maybe we need a quiet space for contemplation, some practiced silence to hear the still, small voice of God - and an opportunity not to pretend like we (churches and individuals and church leaders alike) “have it all together” but instead an opportunity to show up as we are, imperfect, maybe “going through the motions” until the Holy Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words (Romans 8:26).

As I think back to past Sundays that marked the beginning of program years, especially prior to COVID, I remember this sense of all of us on church staffs, volunteers, and families in the church; just sort of “revving up our engines.” Summer hasn’t been a break, of course, because most of us just finished Vacation Bible School and summer camps and mission trips and all sorts of *innovative* summer programming - but somehow we had to dig deep anyway and walk out there that Sunday morning with that booming voice: “GOOD MORNING!”

There was a bit too much of “fake it ‘til you make it” and we get enough of that outside the Church.

I’ve seen a lot of discussion this past week about yet another article of a pastor leaving church ministry. I’m glad people are talking about this stuff, especially post-COVID, and at the same time I also appreciated a few of the nuanced critiques - because this is an ongoing problem that long outdates COVID, and it also impacts those of us church leaders who aren’t kind of the stereotypical white guy pastor in some unique ways (spoiler alert: we’ve been going through a lot of this, coupled with racism and sexism and homophobia - and we were never really invited into many financially stable calls ..) And still - many of us are still here, in one way or another, trying to live out this calling because we are called to the path of the Cross, as reader Chris Guthrie commented at the end of last week’s Sunday Stretch. For more reading in that vein, I recommend my friend, the Rev.

Molly Baskette

’s piece on 25 years in parish ministry.

I wrote last year about my own transition out of my most-recent church pastor role:

I’m still sorting through that leave-taking, as I was reminded last week when we took our kids to the Minnesota State Fair, and then they couldn’t stop talking about my former rural congregation and the farmers and families we loved there.

I guess maybe that’s the most important thing I’ve learned and am still learning about this calling, as my friend, the Rev. Layton Williams Berkes put it recently, to “love people and tell the Truth.” The most important thing that holds all of this together is figuring out how to love and be loved. Maybe that means for some ministers and church leaders that loving means stepping away. But stepping away in one place doesn’t have to mean stepping away entirely. I never saw leaving churches as their Pastor as meaning I was no longer a Pastor. It just meant I was moving into a new phase of ministry. I think denominations and church organizations have to do a better job of figuring this out (ie: leaving a called parish role does not have to mean you are “on leave from call!”). But as individuals, we can begin to modulate our own thinking. No, this isn’t and can’t primarily be a “job.” And our society in general has a lot of work to do around what it means to value work that people do outside capitalism and profit margins. Because we all still have to live and pay bills, church workers included.

It just has to be grounded entirely in Love. All of it. So this Sunday, maybe we aren’t “rallying.” I’ll still be, joyously, in a church this morning: leading a follow-up forum on Red State Christians and Christian Nationalism in 2023 at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Roseville, Minn. So grateful to them and others for inviting me back into further conversation on this topic.

Maybe this Sunday, we are surviving and praying and figuring out how to live together. Not only is that “enough,” - I’d call it ministry. Thanks for being here in it with me, in our own “church” of sorts. Now, for the Love of God, let’s GET TO THE TEXTS!

I just love this photo of my two boys from this past August, at Yellowstone National Park. It reminds me that we are all heading into an unknown, yet beautiful future, marked by God’s creation. It’s scary. We need to do a better job tending to that creation. And still - if we pause and take a moment to take it in - it’s undeniably beautiful, this world and this life.

Bible Stories