September 3

Well, I’m officially back in the saddle again. As I return to blogging, I’ve decided not to stress about catchy and/or clever titles for each entry. Instead, I’ll simply use the date to locate myself. I had a great 2-day start back in my ministry over the weekend. I was surprised by how nervous I was heading back into worship on Sunday. In fact, I was up by 4:30 AM on Sunday. I felt good about the start. The most challenging part of my return was my sermon. Trying to balance a summary of what happened to me over my sabbatical with all of the other issues involved (i.e. scriptural exploration and life application) was quite a challenge. I ended up drafting 3 other sermons before I finally settled on the one I used. I know some pastors struggle with writer’s block, but I can say that’s not an issue for me. In fact, in the past it’s not been unusual for me to draft more than one sermon a week. That’s probably why as a lectionary preacher I’ve never felt the need to re-use a sermon. I know that my words suggesting a course for the future were a bit nebulous for some. I discovered that’s one thing about embracing the principles of emerging worship. They don’t lend themselves to a sound bite. It’s really difficult to get folks to understand. The principles are more of a lived experience. That’s why I’m so excited about actually starting to implement some of the principles in our ministry starting this week. Tomorrow night (Tuesday, September 4), for instance, we’ll kick off our Sacred Grounds group that is based on a mix of Karen Ward’s Theology Pub and Doug Pagitt’s scriptural approach toward “progressional dialogue”. Then on Sunday we’ll have our brand NEW (or perhaps very old way depending upon your perspective) worship gathering at 8:00 AM. Consider yourself invited to attending this new way of experiencing worship! In retrospect, I am so glad that I decided to jump in with these activities shortly after my return instead of delaying these events until after the first of the year. Had we waited, I would have gone crazy trying to do the impossible – describe these experiences. As it is now, we’ll give folks a chance to experience these things. Of course there’s a part of me that’s nervous about introducing things that I’ve grown so passionate about as they might be met with complete apathy and/or indifference. However, I have spent the latter half of the summer really grounding myself in the reality that I am not responsible for how folks receive these offerings. I simply need to be faithful and offer the people of God what I am called to offer and let God take over from there. It’s an exciting and VERY humbling place to be. Til next time…