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Staying Home
Experiencing faith as a journey is as old as Abraham. Individuals for centuries have found meaning by engaging in religious pilgrimages. To walk in the footsteps of Jesus or Paul or Martin Luther has for many made the lives of these individuals come alive. Church sponsored servant events and mission trips have given people an opportunity to live their faith in a meaningful way. Still, I wonder. . . Martin Luther was skeptical of the value of religious pilgrimages. Once, when asked what Joseph thought when Mary becoming pregnant, he said Joseph would have really been worried if Mary had just returned from a pilgrimage. Evidently, pilgrimages in Luther’s time had gained a reputation for providing experiences other than religious. On another occasion recorded in his “Table Talk” he observed that those on pilgrimages seem to prefer “well-situated places, beautiful fountains, trees, hills, and rivers” in order to “satisfy lust the more.” The value of getting away will always provide the opportunity of seeing things in a new way, of having experiences that leave an indelible impression on our soul. As one who has been an advocate for retreats and for sabbaticals, you would hardly expect me now to criticize this practice. My own experience of standing in front of the font where my great-grandfather was baptized in a small church in Germany more than 150 years ago provided me with a deep sense of awe at the workings of God in my life and my place in this world. I would not have gained that perspective if I had not traveled there. This is not an either/or. There will always be a need for spiritual retreats. Yet, the increased interest in going “elsewhere” to find spiritual fulfillment and the lavish ways people seek it cause me to wonder even more about the “here”. Are our faith communities so deficient in achieving their purpose that they are only advertisements for something that is to be found somewhere else? Do they only represent the goal but provide no entrée? Why must we leave the ordinary behind in order to have a meaningful encounter with God? Why do we need to depart to develop significant relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ? Why do we need to travel to exotic places to “live” our faith? It is almost as if people have gotten tired of going day after day to the same bread store where they are always given a brochure depicting the wonderful bread products only to find that none are not currently in stock. So, one day, they journey elsewhere in order to actually purchase and eat a loaf to remind themselves of what it tastes like. And is that why the image of a pastor currently in vogue is that of a “leader”? Leader implies we need to go somewhere else. Each period of the church seems to provide its own image of the ideal pastor. In the 40’s and 50’s, the days of radio, the image was that of “orator.” In the 60’s, the pastor as “counselor,” able not just to provide care but also to guide people through the difficulties of marriage and career came to the fore. There is a great need for Christian leaders. The world is changing around us and many of the old ways of doing things no longer work. We need people who can understand their congregations and the communities in which they are found and be able with them to create a vision that establishes a unity of purpose around the direction God is moving in their midst. But--- and I am trying to choose my words carefully here--- is possible sometimes to become so “elsewhere” focused that one fails to see clearly God’s presence in the “here”? Does it contribute to a number of leaders coming to the conclusion that the people they are supposed to be leading must be somewhere else since the ones they have now are not following? I am skeptical of religious tourism because it sounds like making religious experience into one more product that can be bought and sold. I’m not sure that a spiritual experience can ever be captured in a video camera, or mapped with a suitcases full of travel brochures and guide books (don’t forget the mosquito repellent), or contained in the holy moments squeezed in between a dip in the pool and a meal at the cruise ship buffet line. The very things that have made it difficult for people to find Christ in their everyday surroundings will also make it difficult when they bring their busy way of life with them. Leadership may mean helping people see what they have been unable to see in their current surroundings. It may mean helping people to slow down. It may mean helping them to appreciate the ordinary, to comprehend the mystery of a God who appears in the form of water and But we can only lead others to see this when we have begun to see it for ourselves. Services available through Partners in Caring
Note: Beginning in September, I will be in Kearney on the third Monday of each month. If you would like to arrange an appointment when I am in that part of the state, give me a call. Quotes “A road heads out of town while a street stays there, so you find roads in the country but not streets. The best streets urge you to stay; the road is an endless incentive to leave.” The Ongoing Moment Geoff Dyer "I do not at all understand the mystery of grace, only that it takes us where we are but does not leave us where it found us." Source unknown “When I dreamed about things that might make me more whole, most of those dreams had no other people in them, which made them seem a betrayal of parish ministry. I dreamed of renting a cottage on a deserted beach and spending one whole week beyond the sound of another human voice… I dreamed of living for a while in a town where I knew no one and did not speak the language so I could go to the store for butter or sit all night in a café without anyone recognizing me. ‘God into your cell,’ one of the Desert Fathers said, ‘and your cell will teach you everything.’ But I did not have a cell, and my increasing longing for one made me wonder whether I had taken a wrong turn somewhere.” Leaving Church Barbara Brown Taylor
In Christ's Service, Roger Kruger (402) 978-5670 (direct line and confidential voice mail) This e-mail newsletter is an endeavor of Partners in Caring, Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska, Inc. I envision it as a way to share ideas, resources, and conversation about the joys and struggles of ministry. I welcome your input. Feel free to pass it on to friends. If you wish no longer to receive copies of this newsletter, please reply with “unsubscribe.”
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A recent issue of Time described a boom occurring in “religious-oriented” travel. Seems that the tourism market discovered the possibilities of Christians on a mission. Everything from Christian cruises, complete with Bible study, scrapbooking, and Christian comedians, to visits to the Franciscan missions in California (with wine tasting), to opportunities to live like a monk or nun in the abbeys in France, to a pursuit of spiritual renewal while on a safari in the African bush are being offered and quickly filled by enterprising travel agents.
The pastor as “manager” rose to prominence sometime in the 70s and 80s, as business procedures became the model for the organization of the church. And for better or for worse today the image is “leader.” Moses and Joshua provide the pastoral paradigms. Those called to ministry have the challenge of leading struggling congregations out of their wilderness of declining membership and ennui into the promised land of growing churches and fulfilled Christians. 
bread and wine, who is present even when the pastor stumbles over the words of the benediction and occasionally forgets your name, who loves people even when they argue heatedly over the color of the proposed new church carpet, who forgives the repeated discrepancies between what people say and what they do, who rejoices over the one individual in the past year whose life was actually transformed, who maintains an unshakable hope for what this congregation can yet become. 
