61059

the_hiddenness_of_ministry (friday_reflections)

we recently walked through an exercise called the 360 review with the sojourn and reunion staffs. the process was fun, interesting, challenging, and affirming as we got feedback on our strengths and weaknesses from those we lead, work alongside of, and who lead us.

a couple of things struck me, not the least is that even among those we work with the closest, ministry (what we actually do on a day to day basis) can be hard to define and even harder to see. i grew up in the church, and as a pastors kid, i've heard all the jokes about how great it must be to be a pastor (because you only have to work on sundays!).

that of course is not true (or at least it better not be), but it can be really easy to mistake our public work for our only work. even for the teachingest of teaching pastors, the majority of the work we do is listening, learning from from people, serving alongside others, and being attentive to the needs of our community. it is not glamorous and the majority never get to see it. and it can be hard to talk about if we are honest. 

we share "wins" at the beginning of each staff meeting and this is really great as it helps us "see" what is happening all across the ministry, but there is so much that gets left out too. not every interaction, every cup of coffee, every challenging conversation, every "get it" moment gets to be shared. not even our co-workers get to see all that we do. and sometimes that can be frustrating.

the reality is a good portion of what pastors do never gets noticed. we can begrudgingly acknowledge it and probably feel a little cynical about this reality, or we can joyfully accept the mystery of the hidden work we do and see it as an opportunity for growth in humility that is built in to our vocation. 

the other side of this is that "hiddenness" protects our vocation and leaves us with something authentic to offer others. no one has said this better than henri nouwen, so i'll end this post with his thoughts from reaching out:

"there is a false form of honesty that suggests that nothing should remain hidden and that everything should be said, expressed and communicated. this honesty can be very harmful, and if it does not harm, it at least makes the relationship flat, superficial, empty, and often very boring. when we try to shake off our loneliness by creating a milieu without limiting boundaries, we may become entangled in a stagnating closeness.

"it is our vocation to prevent the harmful exposure of our inner sanctuary, not only for our own protection but also as a service to our fellow human beings with whom we want to enter in a creative communion. just as words lose their power when they are not born out of silence, so openness loses its meaning when there is no ability to be closed."

58659

older (friday_reflections)

i'm 30 and i still quote from dumb and dumber quite often. but i work with a population that was not even in grade school when this movie was in theaters! 

they say you are most effective, in ministry, with those ten year older and younger than you. i think about that from time to time, especially when kids are talking about some youtube video, or a new gadget that i have never heard of and for sure will not know how to use.

i also grow weary with some of the drama that comes with the territory. whether you take bio 102a or 103b, or whether or not so and so dropped you as a facebook friend, is not always the most interesting conversation for me. however, at one point, i was that student, consumed by what i was supposed to be doing with my life and all emo-ed out with girl problems and the weight of the world.

i find myself wanting to tell students all the time: "it's ok, this is the easy part, enjoy it, everything is going to be fine." that's me at 30: mr. cliche. 

but i don't want to be mr. cliche. for the second reflection in a row, i find myself circling back to the wise words of henri nouwen. in his excellent book, In the Name of Jesus, nouwen tackles some of the common temptations of leaders. one of them is the temptation to be relevant. 

consider this: "The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows them to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success, and to bring the light of Jesus there."

i love the line "the anguish underlying all the glitter of success," because that describes the condition of the modern college student so well. nouwen prescribes contemplative prayer as the antidote to the temptation of relevance. it is in listening to "the voice of love" again and again and that we find the answers to the issues of the day, to the underlying anguish, to the pain.

the coolest thing about getting old, at least so far, is that you realize that what you have offer the next generation is not coolness (you will never out cool them), is not stuff, is not even life lessons, but hopefully love. nothing that i do or create or think up will be as cool as what they can find on tv but who will love them well?

as i get older that's the question that keeps me up at night.

58159

others

one of my goals for 2011 with this blog is to get back to using it for more reflection on my/our experiences and the things we are learning. hopefully, 3 fridays a month will be "reflection" posts, and then the rest will be the typical pictures and updates. here then is my first installment!

as i head in to my third new year in Boston (and Amy in to her fourth!), we find the question, do you feel Boston is home now, being asked of us a lot. What a fascinating question! on the one hand, of course it's home: Boston is where we live and work and do life and that's home no matter where you are from. on the other hand, i find myself telling people (and i really believe this) that we could live in Boston for 25 years and we will still be Californians.

living in Boston has been an interesting experience for both us. speaking for myself, i have never lived anywhere else where I have so strongly felt "alien" or "other" (of course i've lived in California for 83% of my life...the time we spent in India as a family i was only 1-2 years old, i looked "other"...anyway, i do have to admit there is a not a lot of experience to draw from). this is a hard phenomenon to explain to people mainly because it's just a feeling, a prevailing awareness, that i "from" somewhere else. there are superficial differences like dress and accent, and challenges that are inherent in moving from coast to coast (like navigating a new city, weather, etc). but the best way i can describe this is just that there is a deep, underlying, consistent awareness that this is not "home".

now, we both love Boston. it is a great city (the second best in the country: i have scientific proof that SF is the best), and we love all that it has to offer. we have great jobs, strong community, a fantastic neighborhood, a wonderful apartment...we've been blessed over and over again in our married life here. there is a lot to be grateful for and a lot to enjoy.

but when i get stressed out and tired i find myself fantasizing about In-N-Out Burger and highway 17 and real beaches and some KNBR (the Sports Leader) and Los Gallos Taqueria and being closer to family and northern california lakes and weather that fluctuates between 55 and 75 and not having to pay to drive on the freeway because it is actually free and this:

during our recent holiday visit amy and i spent the last 24 hours exploring San Francisco. we grew up in the area but never lived in SF, so to call us locals would be a stretch. but i've been there enough times to still have a deeply ingrained mental map of the city. while we were there we never got lost, instinctively found free parking all day, and tracked down many of our favorite spots (i even found a Boutry family favorite restaurant in Chinatown). there was something profoundly familiar about the whole experience. i still struggle with that sense here. it can be quite easy for me to get lost in Boston (it doesn't help that i will never shake seeing the ocean as my western reference point).

i hope this isn't taken as complaining, we do like it here! but, it is VERY different and that feeling of being "other" hasn't dissipated in three years, if anything it has grown.

the question, is Boston home, is a tricky one. yes, we make our home here, but it is not home if you get what i mean.

and, in many ways, this is a beautiful thing. as a church we've been exploring the Exodus narrative on sunday mornings and other OT stories in community groups. much of the OT contains the stories of displaced people, people far from home, people feeling distinctly "other" and "alien".

our neighborhood has one of the highest concentrations of recent immigrants of any in the city. as much as i feel like a fish-out-of-water, imagine what it must be like to grow up in Brazil or Colombia and then find yourself trying to make it in Boston in January with language and distinct cultural differences and barriers on top of all the other adjustments.

henri nouwen, in his book Reaching Out, discusses what healthy spirituality looks like and concludes that hospitality is part of the key. he writes "when we are willing to detach ourselves from making our own limited experience the criterion for our approach to others, we may be able to see that life is greater than our life, history is greater than our history, experience greater than our experience, and God greater than our god. that is the poverty of the heart that makes a good host. with poverty of the heart we can receive the experience of others as a gift to us."

i think that displacement, the awareness of being other, can be transformed in to this poverty of the heart. and as we love and lead students from all over the world and our neighbors here in eastie, openness to others is vital. maybe the best people to help integrate outsiders are outsiders.

will i still fantasize about California? probably...i mean look at that picture up there! but i am learning to embrace my "otherness" as a window to experiencing God's heart and the stories of others in a more meaningful way. and that is pretty exciting to me.