"Prayer Together"

Dear WRC,

Easter morning starts pretty early for me. I’m up and ready and out the door by 6am to setup for our sunrise service. When that service finishes, it’s home briefly for more coffee, a few minutes with the kids, and back to the sanctuary to get ready for the next one. There is always a lot to practice and prepare—especially on Easter!—but at about 9:20 something happened that happens almost every Sunday at that time. A couple elders politely interrupted what I was doing and asked if I was ready to go pray with them before the service.

I’m so grateful for these invitations to let things be and go do something far more important. We headed in a line back to the quiet room. After some Easter greetings, we began to pray. I started, and when I finished, around the circle we went. Each heart responding in a different way. Each voice lifting up a different prayer. Some were short, some were long, all were genuine and integrated. Each one was a gift.

As your pastor I am often looked to when it’s time to pray, but boy do I love to hear you instead. It’s not because I don’t want to, but my heart is so blessed to bear witness to the conversation you’re having with our God. It’s a window into your heart, into your soul. Beyond the privilege and intimacy of it, though, it is also just heartening to me. It gives me joy and encouragement. It’s hard to put into words, but like a good Easter dinner, afterwards I felt full. God was with us in the room and together we had fixed our attention on him. I wasn’t alone, but was in the company of saints who also knew they needed God if they had any hope of anything. Saints who want to pray, not to make God show up, but to help each other remember that he’s already here.

I thought you should know that you have Elders who pray for you, for me, for our worship and witness. I thought you should know they don’t take any of this lightly. I thought you should know that they regularly do what Jesus did with his disciples, pulled them away from the hubbub to be alone together in prayer. But mostly, I wanted you to know that it was beautiful and a profound blessing to me.

I hope your Easter was filled with joy, good food, and good company! I was grateful to see so many of you in worship over the course of the weekend. I pray that those services were a blessing to you. I pray, too, that you’ll catch a glimpse of God’s resurrection power in your life this week so you can scoff in the face of the Dragon.

In Christ,
Pastor Andy

"Just Receive"

Dear WRC,

The other day I was on a walk with Finn. I was spending the day fasting so I took my lunch break as an opportunity to walk through the neighborhood and pray. My prayers, though, were jumping all over the place. The prayers were coming out rapid fire and leaping from one thing to the next. Have you ever had that, where you can’t seem to pray in a straight line? As I turned the corner by Washington School I found myself praying in rapid succession for all of this: Cyndie who had just driven past me and stopped for a moment to chat; Edna whose house I was passing; Oden the German Shepherd who also lives on that corner (and his humans); my kids, their teachers, the other students, and some of the issues I know of in the schools these days; and all of that was an aside from whatever it was I had been praying about as I walked up the hill from Dunkin. In that moment I felt my anxiety rising, not receding. As I prayed, I wasn’t handing these concerns over to God but finding more and more to be concerned about. Something seemed off, and the moment I named my praying as anxious and frenetic, I realized that it felt familiar

I had prayed like this before, a couple years ago as I began a silent retreat. I was coming out of a really busy season and was nervous about how it would go, if I’d do it right, and if I’d truly meet God in that space. The lesson I learned on that retreat was to stop and just receive the reality of God’s presence with me. God was always there; it was me who had run away. The peace and rest and joy that I found in that space was remarkable, and I found my praying relax and slow down, too.  I guess I needed to learn that lesson again.

I often think that the way to be faithful to Jesus’ command to not worry about anything is to carefully lay out all of the concerns and worries that I have in prayer and volley them over the God’s side of the court. Now, if there was ever a place to do an anxiety dump like this, it would definitely be in prayer (check out Philippians 4:6-7), but sometimes I find that praying a laundry list like this actually just makes me more anxious. Trying to control all these situations through prayer, I’m actually just reinforcing my anxiety.

I’m reminded of something Pastors Keith and Wes both pointed us to at the Ash Wednesday service this year: it’s really easy to take up our Spiritual practices and a life of faith as means of controlling God and the situations around us, instead of places where we are broken open to God’s presence and path.

I wonder how often in my praying I am still holding onto control over things and just demanding God work it out according to what I think would be best. No wonder my anxiety was rising on that walk! Prayer is enjoying and responding to God’s presence. Whatever I was doing, it wasn’t prayer.

I guess I have some work to do this Lent. There is more to give up; there is so much more to receive. God is right there, with you always. When is the last time you took a few moments to just receive God’s presence? To delight in your creator and redeemer? To feel God smiling upon you and return it with your own?

Writing this letter has been an invitation for me to take a break from just listing things at God that I want him to do something about and instead receive the gift of his loving presence. My hope is that reading it may offer you the same invitation.

In the Sermon on the Mount, shortly before telling us not to worry, Jesus has this to say about prayer: “The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need” (Matthew 6:7-8, The Message).

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

“I Passed!”

Dear WRC,

I passed!

Most of you know at this point that toward the beginning of January I was back in Holland, MI for the final residency of my Doctor of Ministry program through the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary. This time our agenda for the week was quite simple: it was time to defend our doctoral projects. “Doctoral defense” is a term from the guild that probably doesn’t help you to imagine quite what happened. We generally assume that if someone is on defense, then someone else must be on the offensive, working to attack and poke holes. Instead of these metaphors taken from battle, we were invited to take up the metaphor of pilgrims returning from their journeys to celebrate and bear witness to all they had seen and experienced along the way. While all the appropriate academic rigor was maintained, that week was an opportunity to celebrate with each other and share what wisdom we had picked up along the way.

I was the first to present on Tuesday. I’m pretty sure that was the best slot available—I had recovered from the travel, picked up a few tips from the brave souls who went on day one, but could still get it out of the way early in the week and before everyone’s first cup of coffee wore off. I had 20 minutes to share from the 125 pages I’ve written, and then the faculty and other students had 25 minutes to ask follow up questions and clarifications. At the end of the day, the faculty would retreat into the dark catacombs of the seminary somewhere to discuss the day’s projects and return a little while later with their determination. On Tuesday afternoon, January 9th , I passed without revisions and now need only to submit my project for a review of its formatting by the library and walk in graduation on April 27th to receive my Doctorate in Ministry!

It’s weird to be finished, if I’m honest. I’m feeling a lot of things about it. I’m not necessarily relieved to be done—this program was a joy and a gift on so many levels and I’d love to keep it going. I’m honestly a little sad it’s over. My friend’s wife has come to call our residencies “Pastor Summer Camp” because he returns home every time with a big smile on his face and tells her all the new stories of these friends he spent the week with. I’ve written before about the gift of these friendships, but that isn’t all I’ll miss. This program has been a holy space. I’ve met God in all the readings and conversations and work. Eugene’s writing and our Director, Winn’s, blessings have helped to name a hunger—a longing—as well as the reality of God’s presence. I am so blessed to have been part of this! What a gift of grace it has all been. At the end of it all I’m feeling grief tangled up in gratitude and joy and hopefulness.

One thing I wasn’t really feeling, though, was pride. I don’t know if it’s my midwestern upbringing, the fact that I’m a middle child, or what, but I have to confess that when I returned home and was met with such exuberance from you all at the news that I had passed, I was taken aback. For whatever reason I hadn’t really given myself permission to celebrate what I had done, to take pride in it. On one level I was just so close to it for so long that now that it’s done, it’s hard to zoom out and get a sense of the whole. On another I may be so allergic to self-promotion that I end up at self-deprecating. Who knows, but when one of you asked if we’d do anything to celebrate together, my first thought was, “Why?” You helped me to come around, though, so, why not!? I’m so grateful for your excitement and pride in me; it’s helped me find excitement and pride myself. I haven’t really talked to Sam about this yet, but we should totally throw a party! I want to celebrate what God has done; I want to rejoice with you. I want to mark this three-year journey as grace, as a gift.

Celebration, itself, is a witness, you know. Jesus was known to hang out at all the best parties. I have a friend who loves to say that Christians should throw the best parties. We should, not because we should embrace debauchery, but because we have more to celebrate! We are those who have seen the deep darkness of our situation, and yet know that this story is a comedy, not a tragedy. It’s no coincidence that the Kingdom of God, itself, is so often described as a raging party.

So, after graduation in April, let’s throw one. A party to rage against the darkness. A party to rejoice in the grace of God. A party to celebrate all that God has done through this doctoral program, and all that God will continue to do in our life together.

Details to follow.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Not at Home"

Dear WRC,

The Holiday season is here! Somehow, we’ve passed Thanksgiving and are already on our way to Christmas. The preparations are well underway, the parties have begun, and I want to talk about nostalgia.

Nostalgia is everywhere this time of year. It struck me the other day when I discovered Disney+ is streaming all the “Home Alone” movies this year. Growing up in the ‘90s, “Home Alone” was quintessential Christmas. I have great memories of watching it with friends and family and am so excited to watch it with my kids. It’s been at least 20 years since I’ve seen Kevin take on the Wet Bandits. I’m not sure how well it will hold up to my memories. Nostalgia often doesn’t.

 Christmas movies aren’t the only place we experience nostalgia. We swim in it as we set up our decorations—remembering the trees and lights of our childhood or of our children’s—as we plan our menus—mouths salivating at the memory of dishes-past—and even as we gather for worship—lighting our candles and singing “Silent Night.” Because it’s a season of such rich meaning and experiences, those memories hang on and shower us with their warm glow, calling us back to times that were simpler, happier, slower. We find ourselves yearning for something that’s gone—the time, the place, even the people.

The problem is that if we could go back to visit those memories and live them again, we’d surely find them lacking. I’m sure I’ll still love “Home Alone,” but I’m going into it aware that I’ll probably find Kevin a tad annoying this time around, be horrified by the depiction of parents, and roll my eyes at some of the classic ‘90s camera work. For all the fondness with which I remember spending Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house with all my cousins and aunts and uncles, if I squint hard enough, I can see the family drama in danger of boiling over. I can remember being bored some years and wanting to just go home. I can feel my disappointment in some of the presents. If we went back in time, we’d realize that our parents were fallible, that the lights never quite twinkled like we remember, and that there never was a golden era when everything was the way it should be. We’d discover that our nostalgia is just the best bits of our memories, distilled by time, and warmed like chestnuts over an open fire. That doesn’t mean none of it is true, though. We just need to recognize that our nostalgia isn’t pointing us back but forward.

One of the fascinating things about human beings is that we’re never content with our lot. Within every human being there seems to be this sense that things aren’t the way they should be. Maybe it’s a desire for justice in the world. Maybe it’s a restlessness telling you that if you only had a better job or a nicer house or lived somewhere more exciting (or with more ideal weather), THEN everything would fall into place. Maybe it’s a sense that there was a time past when things were just as they should be, and it would all be alright if we could only get back to it.

I’ve been challenged recently to consider that ALL of this is good. These aren’t desires to be squashed with stoic realism, but to be coaxed and stoked. The problem only comes when we don’t recognize where this discontent is truly pointing. The truth is that we won’t experience real justice until Jesus returns, the next job or house or city will only quell your restlessness for a season, and the past was never as rosy as we remember. But the discontent, the dis-ease, that’s what I want to pay attention to. Friends, your nostalgia and your restlessness and even your righteous anger are there to point beyond themselves to something so much better.

C.S. Lewis talked about this perhaps better than anyone. In his sermon, “The Weight of Glory,” he said:

It was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

 So, friends, this Christmas pay attention to your nostalgia, to your longings and your restlessness and your discontent. The desire for something else, something better, something more is not a desire to stamp out, but to breathe into life and aim toward its true source. At its heart, it is the desire for God and God’s country, and following that scent will bring you home to Jesus.

 It’s a little early for it, but I want to wish you a Merry Christmas. I know that for many of you this is not an easy time of year, it’s filled with pain and grief and loneliness, but that may actually bring you closer to the heart of Christmas than tinsel and Bing Crosby ever could. God sees our tears, God hears our cries, God feels our pain. That’s why Jesus came, to meet you right where you are and bring you home.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Thank You"

Dear WRC,

I want to write to you today in order to say, “Thank you!” Not because it’s November and Thanksgiving is around the corner but because of something that happened at the Annual Congregational Meeting last Sunday.

As you know, for the last few years we’ve held our Annual Meeting within our morning worship service instead of afterwards. We didn’t want to perpetuate the fake division between worship and business, and wanted to carry the work of our Annual Meeting—celebrating what God has done in the past year and looking toward the next—into the praise and petition of our worshiping life together.  I love this! It’s exactly the kind of thing I want to be a part of as your pastor.

This combination isn’t without its challenges, though. Some things we need to do fit neatly into our worship; others feel a little less natural. Then there’s the timing consideration. Even though we’ve grown more comfortable with a worship service that is 70-75 minutes long over the last 10 years, I still start to get nervous as we eclipse that hour-and-fifteen-minute mark.

And I need to confess that that’s what I was thinking about for half of our Congregational Meeting this year. From the moment I stood up to begin the sermon, I knew we were in trouble. I cut some sections of my sermon and quickened the pace of everything else, but there was no way around it: we were headed for an hour-and-a-half at minimum. I was trying to avoid panicking inside and thought I was sensing the anxiety in the room growing; a restlessness at each passing moment.

I finished the service at 11:00 and breathed a deep sigh. I expected you to bolt for the doors and was ready for snarky comments over coffee in Heneveld Hall. But that’s not what happened. Some of you stuck around the sanctuary to sing the final song that had been bumped to the Postlude; there was a decent crowd at coffee hour; and the feedback I’ve gotten has been overwhelmingly positive. A few of you have gone out of your way to comment about how great the service was and how wonderful it was to be there and celebrate it all.

It took several of these comments before I realized that I had almost missed it. I was right there with you, breathing the same air, hearing the same words, singing the same songs, but if not for your reminders I would have completely missed it: God had been with us. That shouldn’t be surprising (especially for a pastor…) and it isn’t novel, and yet here we are. I was stuck on how each part of the service fit together, on how long it was taking, and meanwhile God was drawing back the curtain and offering us a glimpse inside.

Thank you for inviting me to see how beautiful it all was. Thank you for reminding me of God’s presence within and beyond the minutiae and details. Thank you for paying more attention to the beauty God is working than the hands on the clock. Thank you for the nudge to lift my eyes and see God-with-us.

Like I said, I almost missed it! Thank God we have each other.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Accidental Catechism"

Dear WRC,

It’s hard to believe that at the end of this month it will have been 6 years since we gathered and baptized Owen and Hannah. It’s very likely that no one noticed that morning, but I actually made one small mistake when baptizing Owen. After baptizing someone in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Pastor is invited to make the sign of the cross on their forehead. In my joy and balancing everything else at the moment, I completely forgot. I realized it in time to make the sign of the cross on Hannah’s forehead moments later, but Owen missed that small part of the sacrament.

Now, according to our best theologians, that little mistake doesn’t make an ounce of difference. It isn’t mandatory, it isn’t part of the formal baptism, and as far back as the Donatist Controversy in the 4th century it was settled that the efficacy of the sacraments was rooted in God’s work, not the worthiness of the pastor (thank God!). But as a new parent, I wasn’t quite as sure. I knew better, but my heart was anxious—if Owen grew up to reject the faith, I would know the exact moment where things had gone wrong and whose fault it was.

Thankfully, my efforts to make up for that one small mistake have given us one of our best bedtime rituals. To cover over that one cross I missed, I began to make the sign of the cross on Owen and Hannah’s foreheads every night as I kissed them and said goodnight. When they were a little older and could talk, I began to ask them a question: “Why do I give you this cross every night?” inviting them to answer: “Because I belong to Jesus.”

Night after night we carried out this ritual. The sign of the cross, “because I belong to Jesus.” At some point they wanted to reciprocate and began to insist on also giving me a cross and making sure to remind me of that same good news: I, too, belong to Jesus.

The other night as Owen, half-asleep, poked me in the eye while muttering, “You belong to Jesus,” it struck me that this is actually the most important thing I want my kids to know. This ritual started as a way to appease my own anxiety but it is working into our bones the most important thing I could hope to pass on: They belong to Jesus.

I want this to be worn into their skulls. I want them to know it in their bones. I want it to be one of the deepest truths of their lives: They belong to Jesus. If they’re scared at school or trying to figure out how they fit in, I want them to remember that they belong to Jesus.  When they head off to college one day and step out into the unknown of new relationships and places and independence, I want them to remember that they belong to Jesus. When they’ve failed or messed up in a way that seems too big to come back from, I want them to remember that they belong to Jesus. When they’re fighting to breathe in a darkness that is swallowing them, I want them to know that they belong to Jesus.

And I want you to know that, too. It’s the best news I could ever possibly share with you. You belong to Jesus! He bought you at great cost, and he would do it again. He loves you; he desires you; you are his. You belong! There is nothing you did to earn this love. There is nothing you can do to exhaust it. You can’t run too far. You are not your own; you belong.

He marked you in your baptism. He set you apart as his own. Like a cattle brand that cross sets you apart and can’t be removed no matter how hard you scrub.

I don’t know what you’re dealing with this week. I don’t know what you’re celebrating or grieving. I don’t know the darkness that clouds around. But I do know this: you belong to Jesus. Don’t ever forget it.

 In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Be Present"

Dear WRC,

Over the summer I was lucky enough to have two opportunities to head to the Met and enjoy the exhibit they had of Van Gogh’s Cypresses. Wheat Field with Cypresses is one of my favorite paintings, so I was quite excited to hear they were going to host an entire exhibit all about his fascination with cypress trees and the paintings and drawings they showed up in throughout his career.

I entered the exhibit with pretty high expectations—I will never get to see some of these paintings again and definitely not all in the same room! Within minutes, though, I found myself annoyed. This is where you find out I’m really just a grumpy, old man inside. As I stood before the first few paintings, people kept crowding in front of me, holding up their phones, snapping a picture, and then moving on to the next painting. I stood back and watched a few people step up to priceless painting after priceless painting only to snap a picture on their phone and move along to the next one.

Here we are in the presence of beauty and greatness, a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit of masterpieces and all these people were content to experience it through the lens of their smartphone, “capturing the moment”, and moving on to the next thing. I wanted to yell: “BE PRESENT!” The thing itself is right here! Take a moment to be here and actually look at it! No picture will every capture these pieces--the color, the texture, the light—especially not one hastily taken with your phone. Are you really going to look at all these pictures later? Why not just put your phone away, live in this moment, and experience the real thing!

Boy, do I need to practice what I preach. I may have done well at the Met that day, but my screen time stats tell a different story. Brian Kennedy and I have a long-running joke about how Apple finds it necessary to give us our weekly screen time notification 5-10 minutes before worship starts every Sunday so that we have something to confess. I may be annoyed by my fellow museum-goers, but I do the same thing when I’m sitting with Owen and Hannah or Sam or a friend. Instead  of being present in this moment with these people, I’m somewhere else. I miss what’s right in front of me for the promise that something better could be.

I need to be reminded often to just be here, to receive this moment, even if nothing much is happening in it, as a gift from God. I assume I’m not the only one. It’s easy to take for granted what is right in front of us and miss the holiness of these moments, their goodness and beauty.

It’s good to be reminded every once-in-a-while to take off your shoes, to be told that you’re standing on holy ground. The ground we stand on together is holy. The love and fellowship that we share is the gift of Jesus and his presence among us. This congregation is being shaped into one of Christ’s masterpieces, before which Van Gogh’s pale in comparison. There is immense beauty on display if you are willing to just be present.

I think that many of you know this. It’s why you keep showing up. I’m aware that there are 1,000 other things you could do on a Sunday morning when we gather for worship or a weeknight when there’s a meeting or a class. But you’ve seen something of the beauty Christ means to paint among us, you’ve sensed something of God’s presence here. I see it every Sunday after worship when we’re gathered over baked goods and cold lemonade on the patio, sharing the joys and struggles of life. I hear about it from guests who join us and tell of the warmth of Christ’s welcome they have received. I smell it when a dozen of you are working away in the church kitchen preparing a meal to feed the hungry in Hackensack.

We’re about to launch into the fall and things are about to get really busy, so here’s the reminder that I need to hear—and maybe you need to hear it, too: be present! Show up with eyes and ears wide open to the presence of Jesus. We are standing the midst of beauty and goodness, don’t be content to snap a pic and move on. Don’t take it for granted. Be here. Linger. Watch. Christ has painted something remarkable. 

 In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"God Sightings"

Dear WRC,

I first heard the term “God Sighting” during my first VBS here at WRC. While the term “sightings” conjured images for me of UFOs, yetis, and the Loch Ness Monster—none of which I was eager to equate to God—I immediately loved the idea. The curriculum created space every day for children and leaders to name where they saw God at work and to do so publicly in order to bear witness to it together. In a world where God is not only invisible but seems less and less “believable,” what could have a more profound impact on faith formation than practicing looking for God!?

I’m not sure what I was expecting from those VBS God Sightings, but I remember feeling disappointed. Someone gave thanks to God because they found their keys or cell phone. Someone else was nervous about something but it turned out in their favor. There weren’t many and they were all essentially just strokes of good luck. Was this what God had been reduced to? Helping us find the keys we’d misplaced? I’m sure God cares about such things and I don’t really believe in luck, but was this the best we had?

The more I thought, though, the more I wondered what it was I expected to hear. News of a miraculous healing after prayer and laying on of hands? Resurrection? The heavens being torn open and God audibly instructing someone to move to the other side of the world and serve the poor? I believe those are possible, but I also believe they are extraordinary and rare. Short of that, I had trouble imagining what it would mean to see God at work. And I think that is precisely the problem: a shrunken imagination.

 We believe God is at work everywhere. We’re starting a new series this summer through the Apostles’ Creed and we’re beginning by proclaiming: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” God made everything that is. God still orders and rules it. God is almighty. Yet for many of us God seems miles away and disconnected or irrelevant to our daily lives, if He’s there at all. What does it mean for God to be at work in the world and in our lives? How do we learn to see it? To live like it?

 Maybe this is letting the cat out of the bag a little bit, but that’s what I’m trying to do with these letters—one of the things anyway. I want to help build our collective imagination for what it means to believe in God. Each of these letters is something like a God Sighting. Maybe that sighting seems as banal as finding your keys (seriously, though, we lost a key to our Mazda and would love some help finding it. Nothing about finding it seems banal at this point), but I still want to look at it long enough to find the face of God in the stroke of good fortune and turn thanks and praise to the giver of all good gifts. Maybe the sighting is a growing sense of God’s presence in our life together. Maybe it is something grand and wonderful like a healing. Maybe it’s the grace of a killdeer. Whatever it is, big or small, I want to practice naming it God. I want to grow my imagination. I want to learn to see anew. I want to live in the world “charged with the grandeur of God,” as poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said. Winn Collier writes, “To have a spiritual imagination is to have eyes to see God’s world for what it truly is: the ground where God fills the whole earth with his glory. When God fills the world, we discover every conversation and vocation and human endeavor to be a burning bush. Holiness everywhere. God everywhere.”

 That’s what I want to see every morning when I wake. Don’t you? I hope you do. If so, I hope these letters have been helpful practice, but I wonder how else we might practice together. I’d love to know what you think. Maybe someday you’ll even write back—these are letters after all!

 I’m grateful to do this work with you. May God open our eyes, dispel all darkness, and give us the grace to see Him everywhere, always.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Iona"

Dear WRC,

My recent trip to Scotland and London with the cohort of students from my Doctor of Ministry program was awesome. The Isle of Iona is drenched with both beauty and history. We ate great food, discerned the local spirits (code for: drank the Scotch), worked on our projects and shared our progress with one another, and, of course, explored Iona Abbey—founded in 563 when St. Columba landed on this little island with 12 other monks. The absolute, without a doubt, highlight of the trip, though, was the time spent together. We often stayed up late telling stories and laughing; we shared joys and burdens; we joined together for prayer and worship; and, in all of it, continued to build an uncommon bond across denominations, traditions, and geographies that don’t often mix.

There was, though, one looming disappointment of the trip. Iona is often described as a “thin place”. A place where the dividing line between Heaven and earth seems especially thin and porous. That’s what has drawn pilgrims to a little island in the Inner Hebrides since the 8th century or so. The Iona Community, which has stewarded the worshiping life of the rebuilt Iona Abbey since the 1930’s, is similarly well-known for its profound worship services, creative liturgies, and rich music. I expected the island to be dripping with a sense of God’s presence.

But I just didn’t feel it. Worship at the Abbey seemed haphazard and disconnected. Tourism seemed to be the driving force of the island’s life, with fresh herds of tourists arriving each day in matching jackets to explore the island from cruise ships moored in the sound. I was being blessed and filled and calmed by the landscape and the company, but I felt like I was missing the thing that had brought us there.

When we got to our last day and I still hadn’t “felt it”, I made a beeline after breakfast for the Abbey itself. I intended to spend our free time before Sunday worship in silence in the cloisters or the chapel, giving the Abbey another chance and doubling down on trying to find a thin place. I wondered: was it me? Did I have too high of expectations? Was I being a snob about the worship services? Had I been too concerned with not missing out on this precious time with friends that I had paid God too little notice? What had I missed? Why couldn’t I see it, feel it?

Fittingly, one of the Scripture passages assigned in the lectionary for that last day on Iona was Acts 1:6-14 where Jesus ascends into heaven.  As the disciples are standing there staring up into the clouds, suddenly two angels are there with them asking, “Why are you just standing around staring up into the sky? Jesus left, but he’ll come back. In the meantime, get out there. He sent you on a mission. Don’t just stand here staring up toward heaven trying to milk the last few ounces of glory.  GO!”

I couldn’t help but see myself standing among those disciples, wondering where Jesus had gone and what I could do to catch another glimpse. I thought of Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration offering to build tents so they could stay and keep the party going. But that’s not what Jesus had in mind. Only 10 days after the Ascension was Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on those same disciples, forming them into a new community with an uncommon bond and sending these few believers out to turn the world upside down (Acts 17:6).

In searching for a thin place on Iona, was I looking in the wrong direction, too?  Was I staring into the clouds looking for Jesus when the extravagant gift of His Body was being given in every conversation, laugh, meal, and drink we shared? Were these friendships, this uncommon bond in the Spirit, the place where the boundary lines between Heaven and earth were fading?

I needed to hear the angels’ words: “Why do you stand here looking into the sky?” The gifts of God were all around us—beauty, adventure, friendship, stillness. We don’t find God by looking outside of God’s creation or seeking some abstract notion of the sacred. Christ stands willing to give himself to us everywhere, always, if we only have eyes to see him.

My time on Iona wasn’t what I had expected, but it was a greater gift than I could have ever anticipated receiving.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"On Finding Shark Teeth"

Dear WRC,

A few weeks ago, Sam, I, and the kids had the wonderful gift of spending a week in Juno Beach, FL. Over the first few days we spent plenty of hours on the beach soaking in the sun (read: trying not to get burned), looking for interesting seashells, and doing some rudimentary boogie boarding in the surf. Then, halfway through our trip, we ran into some friends in North Palm Beach who happened to mention to the kids that if you know where to look there were shark teeth to be found all over those beaches. That changed the trajectory of the next few days.

Searching for shark teeth can be hard work. It demands patience, time, and dedication to the task. We started with a few tips: look for the black triangle, look in the shell beds, and if the tide is right the waves will be a big help—turning over the shells and giving the teeth a sheen. It was enough to get us going.

It took a while to find the first tooth. I’d love to say that after that they came in spades, but they just didn’t. It took a lot of work to find each tooth. It took time I might have rather spent doing something else. It took perseverance against the eyestrain, scouring the mix of shells that littered the beaches after several storms. There was a constant temptation to space out, to look away, to walk on down the beach and give up on this patch—or altogether. But we worked, and worked, and worked, and then one of us would exclaim with joy, “I found one!” or “Come, look at this one!” Each discovery was a gift, totally unexpected even with all the work we’d put in. Then each new discovery would push us back into the work with greater resolve, renewed energy and focus.

It’s possible to just stumble upon a shark tooth while strolling the beach. Some people even happen upon them more often than most. Everyone will probably find one at some point, but then there are those who train their eyes, discipline their bodies, wake early and go out for the hunt. I’ve heard they can find hundreds. The work, the discipline, it’s all training them, preparing them, to receive those gifts in greater abundance than any of the rest of us thought possible.

Could it be that discipline is all about tuning our hearts to receive the living, holy fire of God, the greatest of all gifts? Everyone stumbles upon small pieces of God now and then—bits of excess, glory, and grace, whether or not they know what to call them—but if you want God in abundance, that takes patience, determination, hard work, obedience. It’s tempting to look away, to give up and go do something else, to take the small glimmer you might catch by accident here or there and call it enough. But if we’re willing to keep at it, slowly we train our eyes. Slowly we learn to see it. We may work and work, but it is never not pure gift when the holy one appears again.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Beauty"

Dear WRC,

A couple weeks ago I saw something beautiful, and I want to tell you about it.

It was a Thursday, and at the end of a long day toward the end of a long week, families started to arrive in our new Family Ministry Space for dinner and some time together. The kids immediately began running around with huge smiles on their faces. The parents wore that look we have by Thursday evening of any given week. The Family Supper Clubs are new, but we’re figuring them out together. We gathered for some praise and a prayer, shared supper together, then sent the kids downstairs for their lesson and activity while we settled in around couches to talk. There weren’t a lot of us there that night, and it was slow to begin, but what happened next was holy.

The groundwork was laid, the space was carefully prepared, and then one parent after the other bravely stepped into it and spoke honestly and openly about areas in their lives in which they need God. Parenting is not easy. Being married is not easy. Being a human is not easy. But the difficulty and struggle and shame are often things we desperately try to hide, to bury down deep in an attempt never to be found out. We plaster on a smile, feign competence, and pray we hold it together until we’re at least back in the car on the way home. But not that night. That night I saw brothers and sisters be honest about the struggle, talk about the difficulty, and name the ache for God, for wholeness, for a way forward. That night they chose to be vulnerable, to be real.

And what happened next was even more beautiful. Instead of others jumping in on top of them to say, “Me, too!” and launch into their own story or jump straight to offering advice, solutions, and suggestions to “fix,” they just listened. I watched as parents just opened their hearts to each other, listened deeply and truly, and, when the time was right, prayed for one another.

There will be times for us to help each other, share resources, or offer advice, but that wasn’t it. The moment was far too holy for such things. When someone bears their soul the most practical thing you can do is to simply help them hold it and hold it before God. This is one of the great privileges that we have as the Body of Christ.

The moment was beautiful. It was a sign of God’s presence and work among us. Isn’t that what beauty, real beauty, is?

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Remember you are dust"

Dear WRC,

Last week we launched our way into another Lenten journey. I grew up in a church that marked Ash Wednesday as the beginning of Lent, but didn’t actually impose any ashes. I have since come to deeply treasure physical practices like the imposition of ashes. Anything that gets our faith and worship beyond our heads and into our hands and feet and embodied existence is such a gift. Jesus left us two key practices as signs and seals of his covenant grace—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper—but there are plenty of other lesser practices like ashes that also become visible and enacted pictures of otherwise internal or invisible realities.

Several years ago, this power of this practice was hammered home during an Ash Wednesday service in our sanctuary. We came to the part of the service when the congregation is invited forward to receive ashes. The line formed. One by one you bowed your heads to receive this reminder of your mortality, and I declared over you the same well-worn words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return

It is a powerful thing to speak this over someone. I do not lightly remind you of your impending demise. I don’t want to think about it any more than you do.

 I noticed a new family in the church had joined the line. They had joined WRC that year and had brought their newborn daughter Jessica to the waters of baptism to be joined into the family of God. As they now waited patiently in line, they held Jess in their arms with all the delight and caution of first-time parents. They made it to the front of the line. Erica bowed her head and received her cross. Mike followed suit. Then something happened that I didn’t expect. Mike didn’t step aside and let the next person come forward. He stood there with his baby in his arms looking at me expectantly. It took me a moment to realize that he expected me to mark Jessica with those same ashes, to speak over her those same words.

 Everything in me recoiled. Do you have that same gut response? This child was a symbol of joy and life, even in this fragile state—especially in this fragile state! We were struggling to have kids at the time. I knew the improbability of life and the absolute darkness of death. Here was a tangible symbol of the triumph of life amidst all the obstacles. Here was a child with so much life ahead of her, God-willing. How could I mark her with a symbol of her death? How could I announce confidently that she too would die one day and return to the dust from which she’d come? 

 Inside I screamed at Mike, “DON’T MAKE ME DO THIS!” I didn’t want to say those words. I didn’t want to speak that truth. I wanted to deny it and hide from it and pretend it wasn’t so. Mike didn’t hear me, he just kept looking at me. He was insisting that I tell the truth, insisting that I remember the hope that we profess, trust the power of the ashen cross that accompanies those words. He held Jess out to me.

 I couldn’t delay any longer. I didn’t know what else to do. I recited the words: “Jessica, remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” and I sealed her with the cross of Jesus her savior.

 Not an Ash Wednesday has passed when I haven’t thought about that moment and about the remarkable joy, peace, and freedom that are available only on the other side of those ashes.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Nearer"

Dear WRC,

I had the great privilege this past week of attending the latest Confirmation class, and I want to tell you a little about what happened.

Sara and the students invited me to join them for a session to get to know each other a little better. It was my own little version of an Ask Me Anything, and as you can imagine, that’s a little daunting. Giving a group of teenagers the reins to ask you whatever they want comes with some fear and trembling.

There were a few random questions asking about my favorite color (blue), food (tacos), and animal (Great Horned Owl). My personal favorite asked how I felt about pickles, specifically dill. There is a story there. Also: I’m for them.

For random questions, though, that was it. They didn’t really mess around in the shallow water; they went for it. What struck me, though, was that they also didn’t dive into tense political or ethical arguments. As a pastor these days, you sort of expect to have to answer for all the Church has ever done wrong or be thrust into the center of a raging public debate about whatever hot-button topic is in the spotlight. But they didn’t do that. Their questions went right to the heart of some of the most important things they could have possible asked. Questions like: “How did God find you, or how did you find God?” “When did you start truly believing in God?” “How often do you pray?” “Since no one knows for sure, what gives you confidence that you’re right about life after death?” “How did you get so close with God?”

Their questions point to the quest that they’re on, to a yearning, a searching, hidden just below the surface of their teenage lives. When given the opportunity, they didn’t mess around, they went right for what matters most. This is something we can learn from them. There is so much else that distracts us. There is so much else that starts to cloud up this business of being the Church here in Wyckoff, or of being Christians in the world. So many other things begin to seem so important, begin to cause us to worry. We need reminders now and again to focus on what really matters.

They didn’t need that reminder. They weren’t distracted. They went right for the jugular.  Because if this isn’t what all of this is about, then what are we even doing?

How do we get near to God? How do we grow up in Jesus? How do we recognize and receive God’s presence, nearer to us than we are to ourselves?  Aren’t those THE questions?

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"Christmas is Like God Sitting Down at Your Kitchen Table"

The enduring significance of Christmas is that it represents the most distinctive feature of the Christian faith—the belief that God took human form in Jesus. "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."

We have all seen sunsets. At the end of a day we have all watched the sun inch lower and lower until it touches the earth. In a far more personal way, Christmas is when another Son touches the earth. Christmas is when God came down from his heavenly home into this world of mangers and mismanagement, of shepherds and stress, of wise men and war, of stars and stupidity, of hope and homelessness, of angels and anger, of loving parents and unloving prejudice. Because of Christmas, heaven is no longer some place "up there," while earth is "down here." The birth of Jesus broadcasts to all who will listen that there is now a permanent link, an everlasting connection, between God and humanity. John stated it best in his Gospel when he wrote, "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."

All of which is to say that Christmas is very personal. The Rev. Tom Tewell, the former pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in NYC, liked to say that "Christmas is like God sitting down at your kitchen table." "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."

Throughout history, in a variety of ways, God's message was that he loves us. But throughout history, people never fully understood what God was saying. So, finally, God wrapped all the words and all the truth about himself in swaddling clothes. Finally, God came as a person with flesh and bones and muscles and blood. "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."

And ever since that time there have been a growing number of men and women, teenagers, and boys and girls, on every continent, in every nation, speaking every language, who, after hearing or reading about Jesus, have said, "If God is like that, then I will serve him until I die; and if a person can be like that, then that is the kind of person I will strive to be."

It has been said that a good example is worth a thousand words. And that is what happened in Bethlehem. On Christmas day God came to earth in the person of Jesus thereby communicating, once and for all, who he is and what he calls us to be. "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."

by Rev. David Bach, Pastor Emeritus (1973-2015)

Arise, Shine

One of my favorite Christmas memories as a kid was piling into our old school Dodge Caravan after dinner to head over to a neighborhood in town that was known for its Christmas lights. I remember the massive line of cars that slowly snaked its way through the neighborhood. It seemed like everyone had their house decorated, with each house more impressive than the last. We bounced from the windows on one side to the windows on the other, beckoning one another: “Look at those lights!”

Christmas lights are magical, aren’t they? I love the accidental tradition we’ve created of putting them up at church in Advent. A number of you helped last Saturday as we strung them up in the greenery inside the sanctuary, on the bushes out front, up the trees and down the walkway. The beauty of those tiny lights invites a childlike sense of wonder and awe. Every night the church now glows with the warmth and sparkle of thousands of tiny lights shining defiantly in the cold and dark of winter.

What a picture for us in this Advent season! As we prepare ourselves for Christmas, this is the image I want to carry with me. We’re descending into the darkest days of the year, and that darkness seems at times to be both literal and metaphorical. The darkness would seem to swallow us whole but for this: a tiny light burning brilliantly.

That’s the thing about darkness, it doesn’t really exist. Darkness is only the absence of the light. What seems at first so threatening is revealed as laughable once the light shines. Even the smallest of lights drives the darkness from the room. As the light shines, it draws our attention away from the darkness that once seemed so fearsome and draws us into its warmth. We find ourselves standing in the darkness, and, though we are surrounded by it, it’s not the darkness we see, but those tiny lights—the beauty, the wonder.

Isaiah promises that there’s a day coming when, “Your sun shall no more go down, or your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended” (Isaiah 60:20). Each Advent we remember that we’re still waiting for that day. In our world the sun still goes down and the days of mourning go on. But in these cold, dark nights we have seen a light shine, a light which the darkness could not put out. The darkness still surrounds, but we now know it for what it is: an absence waiting to be filled, a promise waiting to be kept. We’re no longer transfixed by the darkness, but by the light shining radiantly.

But there’s more, because the picture isn’t one giant light but a thousand little ones. Beholding the light and glory of Christ, it’s our faces that begin to shine. It’s you and it’s me strung up out there around the church, reflecting Christ’s light and love into the darkness of the world. It’s you and me that our neighbors will see as they drive past, craning their necks in awe and wonder at the light of Christ that shines defiantly in the darkness.

This is how Isaiah said it: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn” (Isaiah 60:1-3).

     In Christ,

Pastor Andy

"TEN YEARS"

Dear WRC,

Ten years ago, October 17, 2012, Samantha and I packed up our VW Passat wagon, waved goodbye to family and friends, and rolled out of Holland, MI.  We set out for the foreign land called New Jersey filled with excitement, expectation, and a healthy dose of uncertainty.  It was 3 or 4am on the 18th when we dragged ourselves up the steps of the Klomburg parsonage to collapse for our first night’s sleep in our new home, only to discover that the full-size air mattress we packed to survive until the moving truck arrived in a few days was actually a twin.  Sam let me sleep on it so that I could get into the office at 8am to meet Sue Fasano and my first bulletin deadline.

We had no idea what we were getting into, but God did. God had been long at work creating a path for us, a place for us, a people for us. How could we have known all that was to come, let alone be even remotely prepared for it? Hindsight makes it clear that that was never what ultimately mattered—our planning and preparation. What mattered was God.  What always matters is God, the definitive reality of our life and being. And for a decade now in this calling there has been one place more than any other where we have seen God working clear as day, one place where God has showed up over and over and over again: you.

Thank you. God has been so good to us through you. You have been there for us from the first day until now, partnering in this work of the Gospel. It is in you that we have seen and heard and tasted that the Lord is good.  It is through you that we have felt God’s love, care, and provision. It is from you that we have received God’s grace. In each thank you card or encouraging voicemail, each offer to watch our kids or work on our house, every meal delivered or dog walk after the kids were born, every prayer offered and song sung, every meal shared and tear shed, in every single one God was working among us. In each of those moments you likely had little idea of the weight of your actions nor of the tapestry you were weaving, but after ten years the picture is clear: the Kingdom of God has come near.

“I thank my God for every remembrance of you, always in every one of my prayers for all of you, praying with joy for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

Philippians 1:3-6

In Christ,

Pastor Andy

“GIVE US THIS DAY”

Dear WRC,

This past Thursday, Glenn Dykstra and I brought communion to Ruth Perrotta. It’s one of the remarkable privileges of my job—not only being welcomed into people’s homes and lives but to bring this visible sign of invisible grace into their lives as well.

Ruth was quiet during our visit. She still looks great but is 96 and starting to feel it. Dementia has been slowly setting in, too. It was clear she heard and understood us but that day she was slow to reply and offered only short answers to our questions. Our visit was a fairly one-sided conversation. Glenn and I telling Ruth about things going on at church, and remembering Ruth’s beautiful singing that blessed our congregation for decades. Ruth didn’t really respond; she didn’t really seem to have much energy.

I asked if she’d like to have communion with us. There was a pause. “Yes,” she said softly. Her voice isn’t what it once was, weakened by age and no longer able to soar to the heights of glory. I began to set out the crackers and juice before us. I got out the communion liturgies. I asked if Ruth would like one to follow along or if she’d like us to do all the reading. Again, a pause. “You,” she said softly, again. So, we began. We worked our way through the liturgy for “The Lord’s Supper in Home and Hospital.” I led. Glenn read the responses. Ruth listened quietly.

 Dementia is cruel, as anyone who has encountered it knows full well. It robs you of your memories, which is a way of saying that it robs you of your self. There are good days and bad days− days when memories flow freely and days when everything is a fog. I was thinking this was a bad day for Ruth. I didn’t know how much she was really even with us, or how much of her was still her. Through the conversation and now through the liturgy she sat quiet, still, with a slightly distant look in her eyes.

Right before we receive communion itself, the In-home liturgy invites us to pause and pray the Lord’s Prayer together. I invited Ruth and Glenn to join me. I paused for a moment. As we began to pray it was only Glenn and I: “Our Father, who art in heaven.” We continued through the prayer, perhaps more perfunctory than I would like to admit. But as we rounded the corner “on earth as it is in heaven,” and began to ask for daily bread, I heard something. I leaned in as we prayed for forgiveness and it was there again. A third voice had joined in our prayer. It was soft and quiet, but it was there. Ruth prayed right along with us as we prayed against temptation and evil, and she seemed to gain confidence as we closed together, “For thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen.”

 It was one of the most beautiful things I have heard in a long time. I wasn’t sure if Ruth was with us through most of that liturgy, but the old and sure words of the Lord’s Prayer, words she has prayed thousands of times, called something out of her—called her out of her. They brought her back to us. Their familiarity created space for her to lift up her heart with us in worship.

 Dementia has stolen much, but it hasn’t yet stolen the grooves these words have worn between her synapses. And even if it does one day, those very words point us on to a hope that will never crack or fade. Our hope isn’t located in ourselves. It isn’t our knowledge, it isn’t our effort, it isn’t our net worth, it isn’t our ability, it isn’t our memory or anything located in our self. Our hope is Him, our Father, who art in heaven. We have hope because His is the Kingdom. His is all power. His is all glory. We are His, and He is faithful.

 That still, small voice was a reminder that God was with us in that holy moment. That third voice, woven into ours as a reminder that God does not see what humans see, looking at outward appearances. The prayer itself a reminder that we live every day—from weakness, to strength, to weakness again—relying on the faithfulness of God for every breath, every day’s bread, every thing. We had brought the bread and the cup, but it was Ruth’s voice—like it has so many times before—that opened our eyes to something so Holy, right here under our noses. God. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

In Christ,

         Pastor Andy

Resonance

Dear WRC,

Well, somehow school starts next week. I’m not really sure how, but we’re here already. And if the whiplash of realizing summer is over isn’t enough, we’re about to step hard on the gas pedal of our collective lives as we lurch into this new season. It seems like things are just moving faster and faster and faster, doesn’t it? Like a camp song that speeds up with each new verse until no one can keep up anymore, every time we feel like we get a handle on things they hit a new gear. There is constant pressure to keep up, to become more efficient and productive, and to adapt to an accelerated rate of change technologically and socially. Technological advancement continues to save us time, and yet more than ever we feel the sense that we need to catch up. And the result of all of this is a growing sense of anxiety and guilt. German social theorist Hartmut Rosa calls the result “alienation.” Life is moving so fast that we feel more on the surface of it than in it. Things are moving so quickly that we don’t necessarily know how to live the good life in the present, but we have a sense that if we can just gather enough resources now (money, experience, degrees, capital), then we can live whatever full life we want to in the future. The result of this unfettered acceleration is a sense of disintegration, of alienation from community, relationship, God, and even ourselves. Do you know that feeling? It’s a sickening and disorienting feeling that leaves us feeling anxious and lost. Rivers Cuomo sang it well: “The world has turned and left me here.”

If this alienation is caused by unbridled acceleration, then you might be tempted to think that the solution would be to slow down. That may be the case, but Rosa is careful to point out that the problem isn’t specifically the speed, but the alienation from connections to the world and others. The solution then isn’t necessarily to slow down, but to find ways to relate differently to the world, others, ourselves, and even time itself. The path forward is to cultivate what Rosa calls “resonance.”

Have you ever had an experience where your whole being seems to resonate? When time isn’t sped up or used more effectively but made full and thick? For many, these are experiences when relationships are attended to, when we reconnect with God’s creation, when we get back into our own bodies, when we find ourselves moving with the grain of God’s ways. In fact, our unique Christian contribution to the conversation may be to point out that what Jesus describes as his “abundant life,” is the way that living in his ways moves us along at the resonant frequency of the universe he so lovingly created, sustains, and is working to redeem.

As things speed up again this fall, how can we work to tune ourselves to resonance? Well, the first step is recognizing it when it happens, and the second step is seeking it out. I’d love to hear about some of the places you’ve experienced resonance this summer. Here are a few places where I have in the last couple weeks:

·                     Gathering for breakfast with six of you at Country Café to laugh and share life.

·                     Singing loud and dancing out the motions of VBS songs with parents and kids alike.

·                     Sitting around the Memorial Room and talking with other parents about the joys and

                    difficulties of parenting and getting to pray with and for them.

·                     Stand up paddleboarding with Owen at Camp Brookwoods, feeling the rhythm of the

                    water, balancing together, and laughing every time we fell—whether it was on purpose or not.

·                     Gathering for worship with friends and singing an old song, long-imbued with meaning.

What would be on your list? How can you pay attention to spaces of resonance this fall? What

would it take to find a few more?

In Christ,

    Pastor Andy

Dear WRC,

I’m back! These past three weeks away for rest and revitalization were wonderful and I’m brimming with gratitude. I’m excited to be back and dive back into life with you, catching up on what God is doing in your lives. If you’re around, reach out! I’d love to see you. I’d also be remiss to not thank all those who stepped up to fill gaps while I was away, from worship leading to pastoral care. Thank you for using your gifts to build up our community and give glory to God!

I’m continuing to process my time away and will end up writing a lot more about it for my D.Min. project, but I wanted to share some brief things I learned/remembered:

·         Being part of a church family is a sacred and beautiful gift – I missed you and gave thanks for you and our life together while I was away. I also worshiped at another church for 3 Sundays in a row and was hit between the eyes with profound gratitude for the gift of a local church. I saw grandparents worshiping beside grandchildren, friends laughing and catching up, parents coaxing their children forward for a Children’s Moment, saints rising to sing together. I also felt the immediate bond between us for no other reason than that we belong to Jesus and share a deep love of God. What a beautiful thing the Church is, and we ignore that beauty at our peril.

·         I love my family! – I didn’t discover that for the first time, nor had I forgotten it, but there are times in life when we need to be invited deeper in, right? When we need to be reminded of all the ways it’s so, of all the reasons why, when we need to say it out loud, bring it back to the front of our awareness. Sam is such a gift, always ready to give and put others before herself. She is open to wonder and beauty, passionate in her love and convictions, compassionate and courageous. My kids are sweet and beautiful. Owen is goofy, smart, and more confident than I’ve ever been. Hannah can be so tender, curious, and relational. I love ‘em!

·         God is more present to us than we are to ourselves – That’s a rough paraphrase of St. Augustine of Hippo that I use quite often in preaching and conversation. I believe that; I know that; but I don’t always feel that and live like it. I entered my silent retreat somewhat anxious about the time, wondering if God was going to show up and how and if I was going to “do it right” and if my worrying about that was going to be the thing to actually sabotage it all. Then I shut up, and as the distractions and noise faded away, I was left with God: quiet, patient, intimately present. In swirling thunderclouds, in a tree of goldfinches, in skipping stones, in a field of fireflies, in a silent, ancient oak, in simple meals, in the tides of the Hudson. “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge” (Ps. 19:1-2). God is here. God is with you.

In Christ,

    Pastor Andy

Sabbath

“Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses of the Negeb.”

— Psalm 126:4

Dear WRC,

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

This next month is going to be… interesting. I wrote to you a few months ago to announce that the consistory had blessed my application for a Clergy Revitalization Grant that our denomination was offering through a generous grant from the Lilly Foundation. I had been awarded a grant and the accompanying three weeks for that time of revitalization. Well, those three weeks are here. Starting on July 11, I’m going to stop doing and be for three weeks.

I’m approaching this time as both excited and nervous. The excitement seems more obvious. This is an incredible opportunity and gift as well as something that I need to care for my mind, body, and soul in order to return and help care for yours. But I’m also nervous. I'm nervous because I've never done anything like this and have no idea what to expect. I am also nervous because I want so much to happen, but trying to force it is precisely the way in which to thwart its happening.

 The truth is that, like so much else in the Christian life, I can’t make happen what needs to happen. I can’t generate intimacy with God and force an awareness of God’s presence. I can’t renew my soul. I can’t manufacture rest and restoration. The Gospel is not a self-help manual with 10 steps to self-actualization. This is not the realm of pulling yourself up by your boot straps. What needs to be done is what God alone can do. Jesus used a really helpful metaphor in John 15: “I am the vine and you are the branches…apart from me you can do nothing.” We can’t make the fruit grow. We are not in control of our spiritual lives.

But there is one role in all this that is ours, the most important verb in John 15: abide. We abide in the vine, in Jesus. Abiding means giving up any illusion that we are the captains of our souls, that we are in charge of things. It involves surrender to the will of the vine and the vinegrower.

 Spiritual Disciplines or Practices seem to be all the rage in some parts of the Church these days, but my fear is that they are being taken up as techniques to control and improve our spiritual lives, instead of what they are: a means of surrender, of abiding in the vine. My teacher and mentor, Tim Brown, once described practicing the Disciplines as digging irrigation ditches. We can’t force the rain to fall, but we can work the soil of our heart so that when it does, that rain doesn’t just flow over us but waters our souls and produces a harvest.

 With all that in mind, I’m trying to enter into these three weeks in order to sabbath: to cease. To stop working and striving and all my anxious attempts to be in control and instead to surrender. To patiently attend to God and trust that at some point the rains will fall.

WHAT AM I ACTUALLY GOING TO BE DOING?

I’ve been working with a spiritual director over these last couple months to give some shape to this time and to how I will be entering into silence and prayer during these weeks. I’ll meet with him again on day one to start things off with time in prayer together and doing our best to listen together to what God is doing in me. From there, I’ll head off on a four-day silent retreat at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY. Week two will include another appointment for spiritual direction and five nights in a little cabin on Lake Champlain just north of Burlington with Sam. We’ve only been away from the kids together for one night in five years and are looking forward to some space to be together, to pay attention to our relationship, and to rediscover some habits of prayer together (special props to Esther who is coming to watch the kids!). Week three is largely unplanned. We’ll all be together, likely here in Wyckoff, and the goal will be to rest and continue to make space to listen to and be with God. I’ll meet with my spiritual director again this last week.

 The rhythm of the whole thing moves from the center out and is like a giant reboot button for all my most important relationships. I’m beginning with God alone in prayer and silence, then spending time with Sam, then the kids, and in the fourth week back to work and to this community. All along the way trying to saturate each of those spheres with prayer and with an awareness of the presence of God.

 While I’m off doing this, I want to invite you into three things. First, practice sabbath, too! From the very beginning of creation God has invited us into the rhythm of work and rest. In six days, God created the heavens and the earth and on the seventh day God rested. Over this next month, how is God inviting you to stop? To surrender? Where are you convinced that you are absolutely necessary and that things would fall apart without you? How could you step away, not entirely, just one day every seven to practice wonder, delight, and the fear-of-the-Lord?

 Second, don’t contact me. Haha. Seriously, though, one of the requirements for the grant is he church’s committing not to contact the pastor during their time away. If anything comes up during that time there are Elders and others standing by to offer pastoral care. There will be a pastor on-call at all times, too. Reach out to the church office if you need anything. I can’t wait to catch up with you when I return on Aug. 1.

 Third, pray! Please pray for me, for Sam, for Owen and Hannah. Pray for God’s blessing on this time. Pray for restoration. Pray for God’s presence and faithfulness to be known. Pray!

I’m still not sure what this month is going to be like, but I believe that the discernment and the preparations were faithful, so I am entering into it patiently expectant to see what God will do.

 In Christ,

Pastor Andy