Fallout from Synod 2022

I’ve been a part of the Christian Reformed Church in North America all my life. I was baptized at Bethel CRC in Listowel Ontario, professed my faith at the Lucknow CRC, and married J in the Bethel CRC in Acton. We presented our first child for baptism at First CRC in Guelph, the second was baptized by the pastor of the Palmerston CRC, and the third back at the Lucknow CRC. It was there that I served on every committee other than the building committee, and led Sunday School classes, Teen Club and Youth Group. I served in Lucknow as an elder, twice, and finished my time there as their interim pastor. Since then I’ve served four other CRC congregations in my role as interim pastor. I currently serve as an elder at the Bethany CRC in Bloomfield. I really don’t know anything else.

I have to admit though, that through many of those years there was a sense of discomfort. As a family, we never supported Christian schools the way the denomination did. Our stance on abortion isn’t as black and white as many, in a denomination that was at the forefront of right-to-life campaigns, would have liked. We had high ideals about creation care before that was in style. We were willing to embrace the idea that there might be more than one way to live pure and chaste lives outside of the one man and one woman model that the church suggested.

While there was discomfort, there wasn’t anyone saying we couldn’t be there, that our views somehow disqualified us. Maybe we learned to stay quiet, to get along, but there was always a feeling, a hope, that better days might be coming, new progressive ideas might take hold. I was always quite pleased to be a part of what I saw as the most progressive of the Reformed denominations in Canada.

I started this blog, almost thirteen years ago, as I embarked on something new at what was then known as the Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. My mind was opened there as I learned with students who came from all walks of life, from all sexual orientations, and from a spectrum of religious backgrounds. I realized that the reformed air I was breathing, wasn’t the only air, that faith wasn’t only gifted to those who came from Dutch immigrant congregations, and that there was much to explore and contemplate outside of the sphere where I had grown up.

I didn’t go to seminary to become a pastor. Doors kept opening in front of me and I kept saying “What’s the worst that can happen?” and walked through them, until one stormy night, in February 2014, I was making ordination vows in front of a full church. It wasn’t at all planned, but that’s what happened and I was able to make all of those vows in good conscience. Yes, there was some discomfort with the culture of the denomination that was ordaining me, there was even some discomfort with the official positions it held, but I had no problem saying yes to the creeds and confessions that are the underpinning of the church.

That changed this week. The Synod of the Christian Reformed Church in North America met and pretty much squashed any hope that the denomination would continue on any sort of progressive trajectory by officially, and confessionally, determining what is and is not sin in the area of human sexuality. They have closed the doors on our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters, kids, and grandkids. There were words eloquently spoken to try to turn the tide, but in the end, a well-organized, conservative majority won the day and took the denomination.

I don’t know what’s next for me. I think I’ve served well in the churches where I have worked. I think my life experience, the diverse training I got both from WLS and Calvin Seminary, and the gifts I’ve been given made me a good pastor. But, it’s going to be very difficult to continue being associated with a denomination that wants to narrow the scope of God’s love with judgment, that wants to be in control of how God’s grace could be distributed, and that is unwilling to allow some mystery to be present in our relationship to God and to each other.

I’m feeling sad, a bit angry, and a little lost. I think I’m grieving, grieving the loss of something that has been a part of my life, for my whole life, something that is gone.

Someone wrote this week (likely quoting someone else) something like…When there is a split in a church you should look to see which side the marginalized are on because that’s the side where Jesus will be too. I’m already pretty sure where the marginalized will end up in this story, I just need to figure out how to be there with them.

Celtic Paradox Blessing

Just putting this here. Its good for today’s events, but there may be a time I’d like to use it at the end of a service.

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From Celtic Daily Prayer, Book Two

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers,
half-truths, superficial relationships,
so that you will live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice,
oppression and exploitation of people,
so that you will work for justice, equity, and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed
for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war
so that you will reach out your hand to comfort them and change their pain to joy.

And may God bless you with the foolishness to think
that you can make a difference in the world,
so that you will do the things which others tell you cannot be done

Another Funeral

On May 26th, my dad died. His body was pretty worn out. He had spent four weeks in hospital before he moved to hospice. I was honoured to lead his the internment service and the celebration of his life that followed. What follows is the message I prepared for the service.

The scripture for the message was Psalm 23 and Romans 8:31-39

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My dad is gone.

Up until now during this service I’ve referred to him by the name most of you knew him by, but for the next little while, I hope you will indulge me.

I never called him Bill, it was always dad or some other name that grows out of life as a family, or once our kids were around it was grampa, but it was never Bill.

My dad is gone. The truth of the matter is that he had been going and gone for quite a while already. His dementia had taken so many of his memories from him. He lived in the moment and was content to be in that moment, but much of what made dad, dad, had gone.

He didn’t know what he didn’t know but he was still certain about the things he did know.  

He struggled to comprehend that he had great grandchildren, that his beloved Hennie hadn’t just stepped out, that he couldn’t just go and get her, that he wasn’t still on the farm, that he didn’t have to get home to milk the cows tonight, he was surprised that his sons had so little hair.  He was content to live in the moment, to take life as it came to him in the rhythms of Riverside Glen, the retirement home.

The indignities of aging were quickly forgotten.

He always had a smile even if he wasn’t sure who you were.

As many of you know it wasn’t always so. He had a memory like a steel trap and as discussions got more and more intense could dredge up facts and experiences from both the near and long past to bolster his position, lobbing them like little bombs from the most unexpected corners.  

Little was forgotten.

Many of you will remember a man who had an opinion on almost any topic that was brought to the table and wasn’t shy about telling you about it and defending it.

It wasn’t always easy having a man like that for a dad, and I recognize that everyone didn’t experience him in that way. I’m glad about that. There are advantages though, when we get to this place, this hour, this milestone, in having a dad like that because I have no doubt about where he stood on matters of faith, there was no pussy footing around the questions of who God was, and who he was in relation to God.

Dad was a Calvinist through and through. Understood total depravity, unconditional election, I’m not sure what he thought about limited atonement, but he sure held to irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. He knew what his only comfort was, and he knew how deep his sin and misery was.

A number of years ago, when he was still making trips with cattle to sales barns around southern Ontario in his big red truck he had an encounter that I think illustrates his understanding of God, an encounter that made him wonder, wonder enough that he told me about it.

From time to time, our Amish neighbours would ask him to take their cattle to auction. Often that would involve taking one or more of them along to the sale to see their animal sold or to buy a new one.

I’m sure these trips were never accomplished in silence.

The conversation would have been wide ranging, from local gossip, to national politics, to theology maybe,  one topic sparking the next, until by some twist of fate one particular unfortunate fellow stated that he hoped that when he died he would have done enough good things in this life to go to heaven.

I’m not sure after breathing reformed air for so long dad realized that people could actually think that way but he knew it wasn’t right so he pounced.

Likely even took his eyes off the road for a while

That’s not something you hope for its something you know, and nothing you can ever do can be enough to make you right with God. You are chosen by God. You are covered by Jesus blood to make it as if you had never sinned or been a sinner. You can know that, be confident in that, know that this assurance can never be taken way.

He was riffing on the passage we read earlier from Romans maybe with the tune of the 23^rd psalm in the background.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing can separate us from a God who is our shepherd, who makes sure we lack nothing, who walks with us through all of the dark valleys of life, who takes us to green pastures and still waters, who serves up a feast for us.

Nothing can separate us.

I take great comfort in that.

I take great comfort in knowing that dad didn’t have to be able to articulate the testimony he made in the middle of his life, at the end of it. didn’t have to be able to explain his faith to be able to receive the fruit of it.Didn’t have to be able to keep up a long list of service and givingto keep the ledgers balanced with God.

I take great comfort knowing that dementia is one of the things that cannot separate us from the love of God.

In fact, nothing can separate us.

I hope you know that too.

He would want you to and if you were with him in the cab of his truck, or in the corner of a room, or even at a table in a coffee shop, he wouldn’t be shy about telling you that you didn’t need to worry about making yourself good enough for God, God has already done that.

You don’t have to do certain things, go certain places, follow certain practices, or keep yourself faithfully inside some sort of rule book to be good enough for God,

He would tell you that faith isn’t nearly as complicated as you might want to make it because it’s not up to you.

God does all of the heavy lifting.

God does all of the shepherding, all of the leading, all of the walking with us in dark valleys, all of the preparing of tables.

God does it all

We might respond to God in gratitude, We might engage in acts of service in gratitude, We might change the direction of our lives, in gratitude and through the power of the Holy Spirit,   but God’s love doesn’t depend on any of that.

And since it is God’s work, nothing can separate us from that love.

If it was up to us, we would need to worry.

If staying close to God was our responsibility we would be right there with that Amish fellowin the cab of Dad’s truck, hoping that we were good enough.

But it’s not, God’s got it. God’s done it, God holds you, God holds Dad.

Dad loved to sing.

The songs of our lives don’t seem to be affected by dementia in the same way as other memories.   

Even in the hospice during his last week, he tried to sing with Ronda, with Rose and the music therapist. If his contribution wasn’t very impressive, it wasn’t that the words failed him, his voice did.

Many of us carry our theology, our understanding of God in our songs.

One of the last songs he sang was one of his favourites a song that exemplified his understanding of God, a song that dementia could not erase from his mind. A song that describes that great shepherd from whom we cannot be separated.

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father
There is no shadow of turning with Thee
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be

Great is Thy faithfulness
Great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me

Wanderings

This is the second week since my latest interim position ended. I’ve been here before, that liminal place between things. Over the past eight years, I’ve served five churches. All of them were wonderful experiences. All of them came to an end without any next steps in view.

Being in a liminal space isn’t comfortable but, according to some anyway, it’s a healthy place that allows for some introspection, some self-evaluation, some discovery. The liminal space is sometimes seen as something of a pilgrimage, an opportunity to step outside of life and busyness for a while and come back with new insights and new purpose.

But what if the liminal space that I find myself in is the new normal? It’s pretty early in this latest between time to start to talk like that, but, what if it is? Would I maybe be happy for that to be the case? Or will this end with a new direction. I do seem to have done things in ten year increments. Maybe this is the beginning of the next one…..

Good thing its not completely my job to figure out. I just need to be aware of the doors that might open on the way and be ready to venture through them…..

Endings

I work as an interim pastor, I have ever since I was ordained eight years ago. I’ve never done anything else and I think that makes me a bit of an anomaly in the Christian Reformed Church, the denomination I serve. My interim work has always been in fairly long-term situations, between a year and two years, allowing for some pretty deep connections to be formed, some strong relationships, the opportunity to really get to know a place and its people. It’s wonderful, but it’s also really hard.

It’s hard because from the first day in a new place you already need to be preparing to say goodbye. You are always aware that your job is to pave the way for the next full-time pastor to be successful, trying to lead while not being too much in the front, trying to make an impact while not leaving an imprint.

I’ve been serving a congregation in Kemptville Ontario for the past year. A wonderful church community in Eastern Ontario that has gone through some really hard things over the past year, all of them under the shadow of COVID19. This past Sunday was my last service there. I said farewell to a congregation, half of whom were watching the service online. The chair of council, after thanking me for my time with them, announced that a call extended had been accepted. A new full-time pastor was on the way. This is the outcome all of us were hoping for.

After her announcement and the final song, I went to the back of the church to greet those who had been able to attend the service in person in a socially distant kind of way. There were many kind words, but one young man outdid them all. I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t know his name, but I did know who he was. COVID practices in this church have the congregation released, row by row, ensuring enough distance between groups leaving the church. This young man arrived at the end of his fairly large family group, mom and dad both having said their farewells followed by their mostly silent teenagers.

He stopped, looked me in the eye, and said “I’m going to miss you.

I have to admit, I was taken a little bit aback. I could understand this coming from some of the older folks whose homes I had visited, or some of the families I had walked with through the loss of a loved one, or the bulletin editor who I had built a weekly relationship with, but I didn’t even know this young man’s first name.

So, since the speed of the exiting was controlled, I had time, I asked him “Why are you going to miss me?”

I don’t think he expected that, wasn’t ready to articulate what it was that he would miss about an interim pastor who hadn’t been able to be present enough to get to know him by any more than his family connections.

He paused for a couple of heartbeats, and I thought he might just walk on and head for the door, but he didn’t, Instead, he looked up and said “I’ll miss you because I think you are a good pastor”

He took a couple of steps then and I started to turn toward the next group heading up the aisle, but instead of following his family he turned, he may have raised a hand, just a little bit, and began “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” He stumbled over the order of the Lord’s face shining or turning, but I do that too, and he almost forgot the peace so we ended up saying those words together, but it was just so beautiful. It was the hug that so many wanted to give and that I wanted to give to so many. It was the closeness that COVID would not allow in this moment of parting, this leave-taking.

And then he was gone. And that’s another of the hard parts of interim work. I’d like to be able to get to know this young man better, to know more than his name, to get to know what makes him tick, how it is that he felt that this pastor, just moments from getting back in his car and driving away, might appreciate, even need, a blessing that morning. He’s not the only one, who made an impact, who I would love to spend more time with, who I would really like to get to know, to walk alongside in a meaningful way. It’s not my role though.

Instead, I go on, leaving another place in God’s hands, blessed.

Musings on 2019

So… I’m a little late with this post. I actually thought about not building a post looking back over the past year, but, I’ve done it since 2009 and it just seemed that missing a record of 2019 would be remiss.

It’s not that 2019 was empty. The year was very full of change, events, and happenings, even fuller than some past years.

At the end of January my work at Fruitland CRC came to an end. I had been their interim pastor for two years and even though they still had no full time pastor, my contract had come to its end and it was time to move on. Suddenly, after three years of living in two places (we did this serving the York CRC as well) we were in one place, not driving three hours one way twice a week, cramming life in Prince Edward County into a few days a week. It was great.

For the next two months, I didn’t have another job. I was talking to another church, had started that already before leaving Fruitland, but the call to work at Grace CRC in Cobourg didn’t come until late March. In the mean time I spent lots of time in my shop, building a set of patio furniture, working on building a better cutting board, building Muskoka chairs for a couple of little girls. We were able to travel to Costa Rica during this time with G Adventures where we were introduced to a beautiful country and met some really nice fellow travelers.

During this time we also sold our condo in Stoney Creek, something that took a little longer than we had anticipated but worked out well in the end.

I started a new two year contract as the interim pastor of Grace CRC in Cobourg on April 1st. Cobourg is just a little more than an hour’s drive from home so there is no need to buy another place to live. this is a 60% position which means I work about 32 hours three weeks in a row with the fourth off. You’re never really fully off though. Grace is a wonderful congregation. Small, but with a real sense of spirit.

In the early spring and summer were building times as well. I think it was/is partially because of the 60% position, not working on Tuesdays and not spending as much time all at once in the car, that there was just more time for life. We gardened this year in  a couple of raised beds and a pergola went up over our outdoor patio.

We bought a cottage in May of this year. We were surprised that we bought a cottage. It was never really something that was on our list of wants and needs. J & M though, did have it on their list and we decided to join them in the hunt and in the adventure of cottage life. The cottage is not very fancy. It’s nearly 100 years old, rustic. It’s on Sharbot Lake, about an hour and a half away. We didn’t actually get possession of the cottage until late in the summer. J and I spent a big part of September and early October putting in a new bathroom. The old one was really bad.

At home we had a new bathroom put in as well. The master bath in this house had been put in on the cheap so we fixed that. At the same time, my woodworking shop got framed in, insulated, dry-walled, and heated.

About the time we were searching for a cottage, our sixth grand child was born. J and M now have two girls and a boy.

After the construction experience with the cottage bathroom, J and I carried right on and finished our garage. It needed a second coat of drywall mud and paint to make it look done.

Near the end of the year we added a new member to our family. Pheobe is a nine and a half pound Papillon. She came to us at a year old and has been a joy to have around. 

 

We’re already most of a month into 2020, and already we know that there will be some significant changes coming. That’s life isn’t it?

 

 

Farewell to Fruitland

It’s been a week now since my last service at the Fruitland Christian Reformed Church. A week since we said goodbye after working with this congregation as their interim pastor for two years

I’m finding that one of the struggles of being a pastor in a place for a short time, a time with a definite end date, is the burden of saying goodbye, of knowing already when staring in a place that the goodbye is already creeping closer.

Goodbyes are not easy, particularly after two years of building relationships, of listening to stories, of holding hands, of comforting, of being a shepherd, a cheerleader, a counselor, a friend, two years of stepping into the pulpit and opening the Word with them.  It’s hard to step away and allow someone else to fill that place, to have those conversations, to take over those relationships.

It’s particularly hard this time since Fruitland has not yet been able to find a new pastor to hand all of these things off too. Their search committee is working hard, harder than any committee I’ve been involved with, and they are close, but the search didn’t come to a conclusion before I left.

I could have stayed. I could have put off the goodbyes for another month, years even. The other churches where I worked as an interim have asked me to stay as well. For the church it is the path of least resistance, settling for the known rather than striving to find the right person and stepping into the unknown. Staying would not have been wise.

And so, we said goodbye. There were tears. I left them with the words of Paul to the Philippian church ringing in their ears…Rejoice in the Lord always…….think on these things. We can rejoice, even in uncertainty, even in times of trouble, because we already know at the end of the story, God wins.

We are all nourished from the same trunk…no matter where we are.

We left, a beautiful gift to remember this fine congregation in hand, cake in our tummies, our hearts just a little heavy.  We left, knowing this congregation was in God’s hands, knowing that God has plans for them, knowing that they continue to have a role to play in bringing God’s kingdom into the world.

What’s next for us? We don’t know, but that has become part of the pattern of leaving one thing to wait for the next door to open.

2018 Cycling Stats

So…a little late with these numbers. It seems we have so many bikes and so little time (or inclination)

Here it is:

Opus Orpheus (Stoney Creek hybrid work bike)         528 km

Santana Arriva Tandem                                                    580 km

Cannondale R6 Road Bike                                                 123 km

Brody Dynamo (Picton Hybrid)                                          28 km

Tulip Cycling Rental Bike (Holland)                                 178 km

Total 2018                                                                            1467 km

 

Maybe we can do better in 2019!!!

2018 in Review

On the flight to Holland

It seems like the theme for the year 2018 might be driving. This has been the first full year where we have lived in two places, Picton and Stoney Creek, with our lives pretty equally shared between them. We drive from Picton to Stoney Creek on Saturday afternoons so that I can be ready to lead worship on Sunday and then return on Wednesday afternoon for a Thursday office day at the kitchen table. We do this for three weeks and then have a week off.

The drive (288 km one way) has become a constant with the traffic of Toronto always the wild card. We’ve used the 407 often enough to make the transponder subscription worthwhile. The drive, the distance, the disruption have become a little much and we are looking forward to the end of my contract as an interim pastor on January 20th.

The Piecemakers Quilting group at the church made me a new stole!

It’s not that the church has been an issue. Fruitland CRC is a wonderful congregation with deep family roots that truly care for each other, truly tries to share their gifts and their love with others. It has been good to be their pastor during these past two years as they search for someone to take on the job permanently.  We’ll leave there with good memories.

We have been busy in other areas this year as well.  We continue to be busy around our house. Early in the spring, a local landscaping company finished the hardscaping they started just as things started freezing up. We followed that up spending a lot of time searching through nurseries here and in the Niagara area for the plants that our landscape designer had recommended. Some of them proved to be a challenge. There is still quite a bit to do next year and we are looking forward to the hunt. We are also looking forward to seeing how the things we have in the ground now mature from little potted plants to their mature size over the next few years.

Our house was full for the months of July and August when J and M, their two kids, two dogs, and a cat moved in with us while they were doing renovations on their house. You get to know people on a whole other level when they are with you all the time. It worked out well though, and really, we weren’t together all the time because that constant trip to Stoney Creek was being made.

In late October we made a trip to Victoria to help paint part of the interior of R & J’s house. It was an intense five days and we came back exhausted with a feeling of accomplishment a dining room, living room, hallway and two bedrooms looking a lot different than they did before. We also got to visit D’s school and get lots of snuggle time with N.

We did some traveling for ourselves as well. In August we did a short (and very wet) canoe trip in Algonquin.

In September, we had a two week trip to Holland. We went at the same time as all of J’s siblings so that we could attend a family reunion following the recent death of one of her uncles. That was one Saturday afternoon, so we built four days of cycling and five days of exploring Amsterdam around it for a very wonderful holiday. We had said a little more than ten years ago that we didn’t need to go back to Holland, but this trip left us feeling a lot better about the place…maybe we will go again.

The “piano” bench painted in the style of Mondrain

 

My job is part-time so we have a week off every four weeks. When we are not traveling, I spent some time in my shop. This year I’ve renovated the Martin houses to keep out the starlings, build an addition to the “little library” at J & M’s house, repurposed a running gear we brought with us from the farm into a kid’s wagon, built a bench out of a recycled piano, and started to explore the world of charcuterie/ cutting boards.

 

 

A wagon for a little girl’s birthday

J continues to keep herself busy knitting (we’ve got a lot more socks) spinning, dying wool and throwing pottery. her hands are never still.

We’ve both made a lot of new connections over the past year. The church, here in Bloomfield, has been very welcoming, embracing us warmly into a community of people with whom we have a lot in common.  Maybe even more exciting, and surprising, are the relationships we have been able to begin with others who are also new to the area. Breakfasts and potluck suppers have brought us new friends, from varied backgrounds, all looking to begin life, to find community, in a new place. When we go to the grocery store now or walk down the main street,  its not unusual to meet someone we know.

And so we move on to 2019. We have lots of unknowns ahead, but that’s alright. We continue to trust that God has a plan, that God holds us in the palm of a loving hand.

 

 

 

Martin House Revisions

I’m a fan of Purple Martins and have two houses up with a total of (11+18) twenty-nine apartments. Last year the houses went up a little late and we only had two of the nests occupied.

This year, I got the houses up in good time and even moved one of them to a better spot. We were hoping for good things.

After being up for most of a month we noticed that the starlings really seemed to like them. They would come in a flock of a dozen or so, chase everyone away from the bird feeders and then check out the accommodations. Some of them looked ready to stay.

I wondered if, maybe, Martins and starlings could live together in the same house. A little research suggested this was not possible and the starlings would actually go out of their way to kill the Martins.  I took the houses down to discourage the starlings from setting up housekeeping and tried to figure out how to head off the problem.

For a little while, I considered trapping the starlings and doing away with them. We live on a fairly busy corner and most of the good traps seem to include a cage where the starlings end up awaiting their fate, which in this case would be terminal. I’m not sure if trapping would actually make a big difference in the overall population and if it would be worth the wrath of my neighbours to try it. We also have the issue of not being at the house where the bird houses are all the time so the traps would need to be disabled quite often.

 

A seemingly better plan was to alter the entrance holes to let the Martins in but keep the starlings out. I found  this problem was so prevalent that the modified entrance even had an acronym, SREH, Starling Resistant Entrance Hole, The job seemed daunting but if these houses were to cater to Martins and not starlings, I thought I better try. I was off for the week, so had time to devote to the project.

The current holes were 2 1/4 inches in diameter. The SREH which seemed to be having the most success was figured out by someone named Lewis and is a half moon shape that starts out with a 3-inch diameter hole covered to allow an opening 1 3/16 inches high. Most of the literature also suggested a porch be added flush with the bottom of the hole.

 

Over two and a half afternoons, I got the job done, disassembling, cutting, nailing, screwing and reassembling.   The houses have been repainted and are back up on their poles.

There was some urgency since, at a talk in Picton from the local bird banding group, we learned that the first of the Purple Martins had arrived in The County this week.

After being up for a couple of days we can claim some success.

The starlings have been back and are frustrated, they cannot get into the houses. Its sort of fun to watch them now, struggling to find a way in and then giving up in disgust.

The Martins have arrived as well. The day after the first house went up, there was a Martin on the wire above it. Apparently, the first adults to arrive act as scouts. It was back today. I didn’t see it try to enter the house though.

Here’s hoping.