easter vigil post

my second annual easter vigil, watching the ten commandmants (the charlton heston version of course), blog post.

and with this post comes good news. a decision has been made, a musician chosen, a future will arise tomorrow with the ending of one era and the beginning of another. we finally chose the musician i had hoped we would. i really believe god has led us to this place, the timing of the opportunity, the need and call of the individual, our need and call, and the way in which we have already connected to work together, i am so pumped about this.

obviously nervous that if she doesn't turn out to be the one for us it will come back on me, that i wanted this individual and not one of the others (some more talented but coming with the obvious baggage that so often comes with talent) which will be on me and my reputation.

but oh well, not much one can do about that. can't worry about that, must move on and work towards the future. we are on the road upward here, moving towards the mission god is calling us towards. and worship is a big part of that move. we couldn't have made this decision if we hadn't made many difficult decisions before over the past 6-8 months, freeing up some budget space (i.e. firing two people). but we can't have the music ministry we want without making those choices. i feel for those who need to move on in a pastoral sense, as i know they hurt because of these choices, but i also feel for my parish, and i am ultimately responsible to them.

the light of christ...thanks be to god.

the light is coming, it is dark tonight but the vigil fires are lit. tomorrow the tomb is empty and we encounter jesus on the road to emmaus. thanks be to god for the easter hope.

why are people so wack?!?!?!?!?

so this musician search thing is crazy weird. one day, we NEED someone open to and desiring to do praise music, the next, apparently the congregation doesn't want praise music that much, so we want the best "blended" musician we can find. Or perhaps we just want things the way they were 6 years ago under the prior musician who laughed at anything written post-19th century and whom half the congreagtion thought was great and the other half thought was an a--hole.

by the way, all these perspectives are from ONE person. who from meeting to meeting has zero continuity in their criteria or desires. basically, they just want someone who will make them feel good about themselves and about their musical talents and is connected to the right group of people. argh!!!!

so we have a bunch of great talented folks applying for the job. which is awesome, but my lay leaders have no clue how to be excited about things or a new future. back in the day, they had a strong middle age male, so of course that is who we would want for the future, right?

sorry to always bitch, but i am so terribly weirded out by all this stuff. why can't people just state their desires and stop worrying always about what others want? to claim that they have answered the call of leadership and that means they have to make some choices.

so perhaps i chose the wrong leaders? well, that isn't worth thinking about too much, since they are the folks who are there. we go forward, and again it will come down to my decision and my credibility. such is life, especially at dmlc. but hey, at least i will get the staff i want for a change. so at least that is a good option right?

thank god it really isn't about me. but about our god who can make a valley of dry bones live. even the valley on s.main in cooney.

all over the place

so i feel like for the past few months i have, and the cong. as well, been all over the place. partly led by the holy spirit in exciting directions, but also hopping from one issue to the next, one crisis to the next, one funeral to the next with no real vision or plan for the future. we keep having to say, well when we get so in so in place, or when we have our money together or when we have enough time or when we have enough volunteers etc... but for now we have to deal with the 200 people coming to the funeral luncheon and apparently this week we are doing communion with little cups and, oh yeah, or organist resigned effective easter so who will fill in. makes it very hard to plan.

the good news is that by the end of may we will have some serious personnel issues out of the way.(a good sign the holy spirit is involved is that we keep being presented with opportunities we wouldn't have expected) hopefully we will have a permanent musician in place (my word they are expensive!!!), our youth guy will be gone and we can start to move forward. we need a little stasis here for a while. and the scary thing is, if i am feeling it, then i can only imagine how wacked out this makes the rest of the staff.

see they all HATE change, unless they are in control of it. typical baby boomers. they love change when it is there idea but when others are guiding the ship, they just want to punch their time clock and move on.

got totally raked over the coals one sunday morning by my youth guys wife, she is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo pissed that we are firing him, even though he has proved totally unable to respond to our work with him, goal setting, reviews etc... to quote her,"doing reviews in a relational field is totally asinine." Ok, so basically if you go into a "relational field" then there is no way to evaluate performance? give merit raises or bonuses? promote people to greater responsibility? help people see they aren't performing? decide to end someone's time because they aren't performing? basically, "relational fields" are exempt from the realities of all other occupations? or perhaps she just hates the fact that she knows he hasn't been living up to his end of the deal...

not that everything is bad by any stretch. we have a wonderful musician filling in for us starting the week after easter. if we could afford to keep her that would be great, challenge is she needs benefits for her and her daughters. and those are pricey. but i can only imagine how the church would grow with a competent trained musician on staff who has some energy for leading and growing, not just doing the same thing over and over. exciting to think about.

and summer plans are coming together as well, have a good group going to confirmation camp. lent is going well and i am excited for easter. but i just can't wait to have at least a stable staff situation for a few months. also can't wait for the weather to warm up so that we can get out and golf. local greenskeeper said maybe next wednesday, we shall see. but golf before april? now that is something out of the box I could really get into.

hope all you readers are well. have a blessed lent, holy week and a joyous easter.

no two good days

ok, so once a month of blogging is probably all your gonna get out of me. thanks for understanding.

while i don't usually quote jerry falwell, i did hear a quote of his recently that resonates. in paraphrase, "you never have two straight good days in ministry."

so true.

tuesday was a good day. lots of work done, no evening meetings, a workout in and lots done for the coming week and got home at a reasonable hour.

wednesday, overall ok, but then confirmation came and the wacky kid with adhd was having a rough night. which was enough of a pain but got worse because one of my lay volunteers decided it was her responsibility to tell me how i should be dealing with him and what i could do to engage the parents more (she of course has no idea about the parental situation which is its own catastrophy). as if i haven't thought most of these things through.

thursday, good day. lots of work done. good prayer meeting and a productive meeting with the other elca congregation in town about mission and direction. a good visit with a member who is getting towards her final days, not happy, but good. an opportunity to do what we do, face the reality, proclaim good news at the end of a long life and give comfort. And no evening meetings again, so home at reasonable hour.

friday. had a great day planned. short work day, quit early and get some work done around the house and a nice dinner. phone call at 7:45am. a long time member, not even close to being a health problem, collapsed after ice fishing yesterday. now he is in the hospital, 45 minutes west of here and close to death. of course there is no living will, so the family is gathering to make some difficult choices. again, an opportunity to proclaim good news and do what it is we do, but dammit, not to him, not now. he was ice fishing to get enough fish for our annual men's fish fry breakfast. and now, it may become the memorial fish fry breakfast. and you know what his wife told me today? "i guess we won't be able to be greeters for saturday night services." yeah, like that should be our big concern...

so no two good days. useful days, important days, but no two good days. guess we gotta get used to it.

post christmas blues

yes i know it has been a long time, probably no one is bothering to even look at my blog these days, wouldn't blame them. but oh well, life is busy ok...

so christmas has come and gone and we finally did it, we decided to let our youth guy go after this program year. of course, this has created lots of angst among who...the music director. wait? shouldn't the youth be calling asking why we are doing this, saying how much they love him and can't believe we don't value him enough? no, it is other staff who are now made very aware that changes are going to be made, that by the end of 2007 our staff will look very different than it does now.

the good thing is, we are really doing this the right way. other than the reality of crappy timing, having to do it around christmas, brought on by a January 1st fiscal year start we have lots of documentation supporting the decision. showing how we tried to make him aware of things that had to change and how they didn't. and we have and continue to openly communicate this to the entire congregation, being clear with them about why the decision is made and where we are going from here. I am sure this weekend at worship i will have to answer many questions about it, but overall i have already communicated with the folks who are most involved and they are appreciative of that.

but contrary to popular opinion having to do this around christmas is not a lot of fun and certainly didn't make the holiday any brighter. we had a good christmas at dmlc and k also mzlc, but it is still weird to a) do christmas apart and b)do it without any family around. tomorrow we leave for a wedding and then to ia to see k's folks, which will be good.

but there is the sense of "so that's it?" obviously tonight and tomorrow we will have christmas worship (1st sunday after) but i know attendance will be way down as its new years eve and all and folks "did church" last week. numbers in the pews aren't all that matters, but it certianly helps to build energy so i don't have to be the only one getting us fired up.

also had my first christmas funeral this week. got the call christmas eve morning that a long time member had died. and that screwed up plans we had to get together with a new pastor and his wife in the neighborhood. really hvae a lot of hope they could become friends, but if we can't ever get together, will be hard to do that.

so i don't think i have the full blown post-christmas blues, but i do think i am coming to a realization that christmas and all the attending stuff as a "working" pastor is very different.

in '07 i hope to blog more, i think it is good for me. but no promises...

so now it is the 10th month

so the last time i posted it was month number 7. and now it is 10 and the temperature is about 50 degrees cooler than that day. and a bunch a crazy crap has happened as well. life keeps truckin' along, football season has started, went to our first badgers game today. what a great experience, there was something special about the atmosphere there today. granted, the badgers won big, which certainly helps, but beyond that there was a great atmosphere that really fed the team and the crowd. it wasn't a huge drunk fest (granted the game started at 11am which probably slowed the drinking down) but a really good natured fun game experience.

beyond the temp, one of my teammates on the golf outing is dying of cancer. fall has certainly come, and the cooler temps bring the reality that life must come to an end. our flowers are gone and the leaves have fallen. a nice visit to northern michigan, to see justin g. and family, gave us a fun time to see the colors and enjoy a bit of fall. but now we are in the midst of winter here. sure, it will warm up a bit, but not for long.

good news is, reformation day is coming, with my first confirmation at dmlc. 15 young people will be confirmed, a good group of kids, most might actually stay involved. but you never know. overall, the second year is gonna be tougher than the first. the ground is laid for a good year, a productive year, but it is going to require a lot of courage to make the needed changes. no longer am i the fun guy (not sure when "fun time" was, but apparently it existed) and we have to make some changes.

today was lots of fun. i think i might actually be a badgers fan. so long as wisconsin is spelled with an i and no with an extra o. damn cooney sports locker.

golf, i love golf

had our 1st annual golf outing today. 36 folks played, a really great time, and my team even won. we shot 4 under par (it was a scramble format) and really had a good time. i have a feeling though, many of my folks will never let me live down the fact my team won. but it is all in good fun.

we are heading out for a little vacation soon. that will be very much appreciated after a busy july. the national gathering was awesome. a great experience and our kids really enjoyed it. a good opportunity to bond with them. but after all that, i really need a break.

have had 4 baptisms this month. all of a sudden people are having babies, and we have several new families that our joining that have babies. so that is exciting and fun. although some of the situations are less than "traditional". one in fact is pretty awful, infidelity and the like (that seems to also have become a vogue thing this summer).

overall, things are really good. worship is good. the fall is going to bring some real challenges, especially with staff. but we will worry about that in the fall. in 9 days, we will have been here a whole year. WOW!!!