Today I am talking around the table with a group of methodist pastors from around the states…  You can check out the group on methodistmavericks.blogspot.com.  The connection of friends and partners in ministry sustains my own ministry at CrossRoads.  We all need each other.  We are not alone.

Today I am with Jim in San Diego by the sea.  He has a conference and I am writing, resting, studying…  The best part is that I am looking out my window and am amazed by the ocean.  The ocean is one of my favorite places in nature.  When I sit on the beach, I listen to the waves and look at the horizon and I always think that the sound of the waves is like the rhythmic in-and-out breath of God.  And somehow, that sound, along with the touch of wind on my skin, reminds me of God’s presence (the breath) and God’s love (the touch of wind).  I mostly love it when the sun is out and the wind is warm.

Today it is cold out side (I tried to go out but was wrapped in towels trying to keep warm), so instead I am sitting inside looking out and thinking about God’s beauty and love.  I think God loves us all the time, but when I am here by the ocean and the sea, God’s love feels physical…real…experiential…or, in theological terms, incarnational.

For a Desert Gal to sit by the ocean is pure heaven.

In “The Circuit Rider” an article titled “The Crisis of Younger Clergy, Deployment Dliemmas” by Lovett H. Weems Jr., and Ann A. Michel, it starts out with this paragraph:

    “At a recent pastors’ school with several hundred clergy present, a bishop asked all the clergy under the       age of 35 to stand. Four or five stood.  The Bishop said, ‘All the rest of you look very carefully at these         young clergy persons.  In our conference, they are an endangered species.  Be very good to them.'” (p.         26, Feb/Mar/April 2009)

I stopped right there and thought to myself.  In my conference we are not growing the younger edge of clergy.  And I know we are not unusual across denominations.  So, what is happening in our midst?  Has the call of God to the ordained ministry become a lost voice among us?  

I can think of my young friends and I hear their struggles…family demands clash with weekend duties; systemic politics get bothersome; costs related to seminary seem unbearable; creative ideas are squashed under the load of caring for congregations and politics; frequent moves take a toll in the passion arena.  And despite all that, they still feel the deep call of God.  Mostly what I see from my young clergy friends is that they have great ideas that don’t fit into the current box.  And they learn to keep ideas quiet…whispered in the face of dreams that don’t die, or to try things so slowly that patience bordering on a backwards crawl becomes a learned habit.  I listen and learn and wonder…

What if we put the young clergy in front of the line…asking them to lead us into the unknown territory of reaching a generation that only they know best?

What if their voices were the loudest, never silenced, and always prayerfully considered?

What if we paid off their school loans, gave them one weekend a month off to be with family, and encouraged creativity even when it includes flat out failure?…

What if the “little children” among us…though they are not children but full-fledged adults…lead our future?  What if we followed the lead of the pastors of a young age?

I’ve initiated a new discipline in my life for 2009…I am reading 1Corinthians 13 every day.  Our church’s vision statement comes out of this chapter…

     CrossRoads…where faith, hope and love intersect…

So, I thought, in order to really understand the words “faith, hope and love,” I could attend to this one chapter for awhile.  I could pause here and let the Love Chapter sink into my soul.  Every once in awhile, it is good to linger at one spot and see what that place has to teach us…

I have found that reading something over and over again is definately a “discipline”…in that it doesn’t always come easy.  But, after that, the “disciple” part rises out of the reading.  I am learning the depth of one writing and every day i am thinking about how to apply these timely and timeless word to my life.  It is changing me…  I can see how this chapter could change CrossRoads United Methodist Church, and I can see how this one set of words could change our world…

It makes me wonder, “what if this one life could be all about faith, hope and love?”  It makes me wander down paths previously untread…  It makes me thirsty for the deep waters…

If you could pick one chapter of the ancient Scriptures to read every day for a year, what chapter would you choose?

Dottie

As i understand things, a “paradigm shift” comes from Thomas Kuhn’s scientific description that has to do with changing our basic understandings or assumptions.  And as i understand things, a “seismic shift” has something to do with the vibrations of the earth, commonly known as “earthquakes.”  If you put these two concepts together, they describe foundational, earth-shattering changes.

That’s what i’ve felt since the year 2009 began.  For two reasons…

One, i became a Grandma to my daughter Sara’s little son, Niko.  I watched him come into the world and I watched my daughters body push out a child into the light of life.  I saw the tears all around, including my own, and i felt the earth move under my feet as i fell in love with a new little life…my grandson!  

Niko changed me by his very presence.  Suddenly i was no longer just “mom” but “grandmom.”  Suddenly i had the unique privilege of loving someone without having to attend to the daily tasks that wear one down…and that love is different…free somehow…  The seismic shift came when he looked at me and smiled, as my heart was forever changed.

The other paradigm shift is occurring this week as i watch the inauguration ceremonies of our new President Obama.  To see the excluded become, not only included, but central to leadership roles, is breath-taking and life-giving.  To see ones who could not even imagine this day…so they had to go see for themselves…  To see hope rise up out of the rivers of pain…  A paradigm shift that opens up hope for all those who have wondered if they really can “have a dream.”  All assumptions are up for review…and i’m loving it!

Change is wonderful.  It comes with pain and push and perseverance.  All of which is worth the trouble, because when the change is about paradigm and seismic shifts, the world dances free!

Pastor Dottie

living the life of a pastor, i sometimes wonder if i work the church or the church works me… it’s probably neither but i pause to wonder sometimes.  it seems the church works me when i follow the rhythm of preaching, visiting, counseling, teaching, administrating…all based on the needs of the week.  when i live in response to the church needs, it feels that the church works me.  But other times it seems like i work the church.  i plan, pray, direct, hope and dream…somehow pulling the church to a preferred reality today. then it seems i work her.  But more than not, neither is true.  i live a life of push and pull, response and call, directing and giving in.  that’s the real truth.  that’s what we all do in our ordinary living of our days.

so i ask my God and my Savior and the Spirit to work in and through me…in the places i know about and in the places i don’t even see.  i ask for grace.  ultimate grace.  the kind in which i work together with God, (imagine that!), through God, and in God’s world.

may it be so…as i work a church life.