As I write this post, Tess is two days past her due date. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our baby. But it's not just us. It seems that EVERYONE we talk to, including people who hardly know us, is on the edge of their seat waiting for Baby Girl to make her appearance. This puts in me in a somewhat awkward situation. No matter where I go, people are just a little bit disappointed to see me. They know that if I drop in on coffee time or swing by for a visit or show up at church then I'm not at the hospital, and the baby hasn't come yet. Everyone wants to hear updates, but I really don't have much to report. No signs of labor at this point. So I just continue on with my daily life, dashing hopes wherever I stop. So it goes. Hopefully I'll have baby pics next time I blog. Until then...
Grace and peace,
BMH
Monday, January 23, 2017
Monday, January 16, 2017
#22 A Great Idea
Every once in a while I have an idea that I think is pure gold, something that I can hardly wait to tell Tess. I'd guess about half the time she simply shakes her head or rolls her eyes at me, but sometimes she agrees that I'm on to something. That's when the magic really happens. A couple weeks ago I had one of these epiphanies. Over the years through Christmas presents and Black Friday deals and such, I've built a collection of movies I really enjoy. I was browsing my collection and found a few beloved movies that made me think, "It's been too long since I watched that." The trouble with movies is that they can be quite the time commitment. (Especially in the case of The Lord of the Rings. I refuse to watch anything other than the extended editions.) I can't just watch a movie any day. I've got other things on my to-do list. And then I had the solution: Sunday Night Movies. By the time Sunday night rolls around, I'm pretty much toast. I have a decent chunk of free time but don't have much energy, so movies are a welcome way to relax. More importantly, this also gives Tess and me some regular time to just be together, which is something else I think about quite a bit. I'm always working to try to ensure ministry doesn't swallow up my family time. So when this idea hit, I knew I'd knocked it out of the park. And Tess agreed. Two weeks in, we're almost through the original Star Wars trilogy. It's been a blast. I get to take time to be with Tess and enjoy exciting cinema. To riff on Brian Regan, I submit that life cannot get any better than that. Well, at least until I get my next big idea.
Grace and peace,
BMH
Grace and peace,
BMH
Monday, January 9, 2017
#21 Is It Break Yet?
I think the biggest adjustment so far between my pastor life and my student life was Christmastime. Before this year I'd been a student as long as I could remember, which meant I never had less than a week and a half off at Christmastime. This year? Not so much. My work continued pretty much as usual until and through Christmas. The biggest difference was that we had an extra service on Christmas Eve. Because that extra service was led by our youth group, I really didn't have much extra work to do, so for that I am quite grateful. Celebrating Christmas as pastor of a congregation for the first time was really exciting. I'd never preached the story of Jesus' birth before; that was a thrill for me. However, there definitely were a few times I had to remind myself that Christmas was quickly approaching. It just didn't feel normal. I'm sure I won't even blink after a few more years, but right now I'm still adjusting.
Celebrating Christmas became a little different as well. Since I was working on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Tess and I didn't travel home to see our families. Instead, our families came to us. It was a bit strange, but we had a wonderful time. Plus, with so many people in the congregation and community being busy with their families, I was able to scale back my visiting a little bit for the week before and the week after Christmas Day. That opened up more time for me to be with my family and to recover from the extra busyness of church life in December. Our traditions will change almost certainly change over the next few years, especially since Tess and I will be parents ourselves, but that's not so bad. We'll make new traditions, and we'll probably have lots of fun doing so.
Grace and peace,
BMH
Monday, January 2, 2017
#20 Phoning It In
Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas season. This week I want to talk about phones. As you may or may not know, I hate talking on the phone. A wise friend of mine once helped me understand why this is: I often can't tell how the person on the other end is responding. When I talk to others face-to-face, I get all sorts of nonverbal feedback. That doesn't work with a phone call, but I still have to keep the conversation going. I don't get to pause and carefully plan out my words. It's terrifying! Answering machines are even worse. I don't think I've ever finished leaving a message and not thought to myself, "Boy, am I an idiot!"
Here's the funny thing: I spend a pretty decent amount of my pastor life on the phone. I call council members to ask questions about how we should do different things at the church. I call members of the congregation to try to set up visits. Sometimes I follow up with church visitors on the phone. Plus, I'm almost always the only one at the church, so I have to answer the phone and return calls that we get from people who want to do things like check out our boilers. Nothing weirds me out more than having to call someone I've never met before. Phones aren't my favorite, but calling is part of my job, and most people are pretty friendly. Maybe I'll even get better at this over time. So if you ever come to church and find me trying to psych myself up for something, don't worry. I probably just have to make a phone call.
Grace and peace,
BMH
Here's the funny thing: I spend a pretty decent amount of my pastor life on the phone. I call council members to ask questions about how we should do different things at the church. I call members of the congregation to try to set up visits. Sometimes I follow up with church visitors on the phone. Plus, I'm almost always the only one at the church, so I have to answer the phone and return calls that we get from people who want to do things like check out our boilers. Nothing weirds me out more than having to call someone I've never met before. Phones aren't my favorite, but calling is part of my job, and most people are pretty friendly. Maybe I'll even get better at this over time. So if you ever come to church and find me trying to psych myself up for something, don't worry. I probably just have to make a phone call.
Grace and peace,
BMH
Monday, December 19, 2016
#19 The Waiting Is the Hardest Part
I'm pretty terrible with Christmas presents. At least, I'm pretty terrible about waiting when it comes to Christmas presents. As soon as I get a present for someone, I just want to give it to them right away. This works okay with my parents and my sister because I don't often see them until right before Christmas. But the anticipation of giving Tess her present feels like it about kills me every year. I have the same problem to a lesser extent with presents for me. Once I see that they're wrapped, I just want to open them. Waiting is sooo difficult, but somehow the waiting makes things better. The building anticipation makes the celebration even more delightful than if it just came whenever I wanted it. And the time just needs to be right. Gifts can't be exchanged until work is done so that there's time to enjoy them.
In this season of Advent, we talk a lot about waiting. We remember how God's people waited for years and years for Jesus, the promised Messiah, to come. And we ourselves eagerly wait for Jesus to come again to complete His work, to finish off death and evil and pain and suffering, to bring the fullness of peace, justice, joy, and His presence among us. It's pretty difficult to look around our broken world and not be ready for Jesus to come back. It's pretty difficult to get a taste of peace and justice and not desire the full experience when Jesus returns. (In fact, if we don't wholeheartedly long for Jesus to return, we really need to take a deep look inside ourselves to make sure we haven't fallen into idolatry.) And yet we're still waiting. For nearly 2000 years we've waited. It doesn't totally make sense to me. But I think we need to trust that the waiting will make Jesus' return even better. Somehow all of our years of anticipation will make our eventual satisfaction even sweeter. The time must not be right quite yet. The work that Jesus is doing here and now through His Spirit and in and through His people must not be complete quite yet. So for now we wait. We enjoy the incomplete but still wonderful joy Jesus gives us now. We work to share the comfort and love that Jesus gives us through the things we say and do. And we cling to the hope of Jesus' promise: "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Grace and peace,
BMH
In this season of Advent, we talk a lot about waiting. We remember how God's people waited for years and years for Jesus, the promised Messiah, to come. And we ourselves eagerly wait for Jesus to come again to complete His work, to finish off death and evil and pain and suffering, to bring the fullness of peace, justice, joy, and His presence among us. It's pretty difficult to look around our broken world and not be ready for Jesus to come back. It's pretty difficult to get a taste of peace and justice and not desire the full experience when Jesus returns. (In fact, if we don't wholeheartedly long for Jesus to return, we really need to take a deep look inside ourselves to make sure we haven't fallen into idolatry.) And yet we're still waiting. For nearly 2000 years we've waited. It doesn't totally make sense to me. But I think we need to trust that the waiting will make Jesus' return even better. Somehow all of our years of anticipation will make our eventual satisfaction even sweeter. The time must not be right quite yet. The work that Jesus is doing here and now through His Spirit and in and through His people must not be complete quite yet. So for now we wait. We enjoy the incomplete but still wonderful joy Jesus gives us now. We work to share the comfort and love that Jesus gives us through the things we say and do. And we cling to the hope of Jesus' promise: "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Grace and peace,
BMH
Monday, December 12, 2016
#18 "I'm for Everyone"
One of my favorite Superman stories is Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes. The story is set in the year 3008. The example of Superman's heroism and integrity has led not just to all of Earth being united but also to the formation of the United Planets. The United Planets are protected by the Legion of Super-Heroes, a diverse group of superpowered teens that has been inspired by Superman to fight for truth and justice. But trouble arises when a guy calling himself "Earth-Man" starts spreading the lie that Superman was from Earth, not Krypton. Earth-Man claims that Superman hated aliens and fought to protect Earth from them. Earth rallies behind Earth-Man and tries to kick out its aliens, which include most of the members of the Legion of Super-Heroes. The Legion, desperate to combat Earth-Man's lies, brings Superman 1000 years into the future to prove that Superman was an alien and a supporter of alien rights. This pays off in a wonderful moment when a human police officer tries to shoot an alien while screaming, "Superman wouldn't help aliens. He's for human rights. He's for us!" Superman stops the officer's bullet, stares him down, and calmly replies, "I'm for everyone."
"I'm for everyone." Sometimes I wonder if Jesus would say something like that to His church today. Jesus Christ is for everyone. We know this. No one would deny it. But it can be really difficult for us to live out. There are obvious examples I could give you here, like persons of color feeling excluded from congregations filled with white people. But it's really easy to cherry pick the grossest examples of injustice to make ourselves feel like we're doing a good job because there are others who we think are worse than we are. Let me try to dig a little bit deeper. How do we feel when a person with Tourette syndrome walks into our church? What about someone in our community who struggles to hold down a job? Are we happy to see them, or do we cringe, expecting them to ask for a handout? Do we feel called to share Jesus with people who are less educated or less wealthy than we are? What about people who are more educated or more wealthy than we are? Do we think Jesus is only for those who seem to have their lives together or that He's only for those who don't seem to have their lives together? Do we reach out to both adults and children? What about the lesbian couple or the teen mom or the ex-convict or the guy who's parked outside the bar most nights? Do we want them as part of our church fellowship, or do we think they're hopeless, not worth our time? Are we welcoming to people from "broken" homes? (Side note: Why do we think that two-parent, first-marriage households aren't broken? Don't we believe that all of us are broken?)
I'm as guilty of this as anyone. If I'm going to talk to someone about Jesus, I know that deep-down I want to have some sort of perceived advantage. I want to be better educated or older or even less insecure. That's ridiculous. I hate it, but I know that it's true about me. And I'm pretty sure it's true of other Christians, too. We have types of people that we love and types of people that we don't love and just really don't even want to love. But we don't get to make decisions about whom we'll tell the good news of Jesus. Jesus is for everyone, whether they know it or not, whether we like it or not. If preach the gospel but ignore people through our actions or inactions, we're hypocrites. If we try to limit Jesus' love to specific groups or try to make Jesus be on our side, we're wrong. Jesus is bigger and better than that. Jesus is for everyone. Praise God for that.
Grace and peace,
BMH
"I'm for everyone." Sometimes I wonder if Jesus would say something like that to His church today. Jesus Christ is for everyone. We know this. No one would deny it. But it can be really difficult for us to live out. There are obvious examples I could give you here, like persons of color feeling excluded from congregations filled with white people. But it's really easy to cherry pick the grossest examples of injustice to make ourselves feel like we're doing a good job because there are others who we think are worse than we are. Let me try to dig a little bit deeper. How do we feel when a person with Tourette syndrome walks into our church? What about someone in our community who struggles to hold down a job? Are we happy to see them, or do we cringe, expecting them to ask for a handout? Do we feel called to share Jesus with people who are less educated or less wealthy than we are? What about people who are more educated or more wealthy than we are? Do we think Jesus is only for those who seem to have their lives together or that He's only for those who don't seem to have their lives together? Do we reach out to both adults and children? What about the lesbian couple or the teen mom or the ex-convict or the guy who's parked outside the bar most nights? Do we want them as part of our church fellowship, or do we think they're hopeless, not worth our time? Are we welcoming to people from "broken" homes? (Side note: Why do we think that two-parent, first-marriage households aren't broken? Don't we believe that all of us are broken?)
I'm as guilty of this as anyone. If I'm going to talk to someone about Jesus, I know that deep-down I want to have some sort of perceived advantage. I want to be better educated or older or even less insecure. That's ridiculous. I hate it, but I know that it's true about me. And I'm pretty sure it's true of other Christians, too. We have types of people that we love and types of people that we don't love and just really don't even want to love. But we don't get to make decisions about whom we'll tell the good news of Jesus. Jesus is for everyone, whether they know it or not, whether we like it or not. If preach the gospel but ignore people through our actions or inactions, we're hypocrites. If we try to limit Jesus' love to specific groups or try to make Jesus be on our side, we're wrong. Jesus is bigger and better than that. Jesus is for everyone. Praise God for that.
Grace and peace,
BMH
Monday, December 5, 2016
#17 The Baby Is Coming! The Baby Is Coming!
We are less than seven weeks from Tessa's due date. Bit by bit, Baby Girl is taking over my available brain space. I talk about the baby with pretty much everybody I see. We talk about how Tess is doing and how I'm getting ready for the baby to come. I've assembled a bunch of different things by now: a crib, a swing, a Pack 'n Play, a stroller, a high chair. I've carried a whole bunch of outfits and blankets and other gifts up the stairs to her room. I've helped paint the nursery, and I've moved the furniture in. Those are definitely things that help Tess and I prepare for Baby Girl's arrival, but I still always feel a little ridiculous when I talk about getting ready for the baby to come. How do you get ready for something that will change your life forever? How do you prepare yourself for something you've never experienced? I don't have good answers to those questions, so I just keep getting more excited and trying to make sure we have all of the things ready that we'll need the most.
There's a lot I just don't know yet, but one there's one thing I'm pretty sure of. Baby Girl is going to dominate my attention and my affection. I think I'm going to get a lot less helpful to everyone outside of my household. The process has probably already begun. I have no doubt that once Baby Girl makes her appearance, she'll have me wrapped around her little fingers. There's nothing I can do about that. So if you need or want me to do something for you, you better get around to asking pretty quickly. After Baby Girl's birth I think I'm going to switch into full-on Daddy mode. At that point you're probably going to need to convince Baby Girl that I should do whatever you want me to do. She'll be the boss then. And I'm sure I'll love it.
Grace and peace,
BMH
There's a lot I just don't know yet, but one there's one thing I'm pretty sure of. Baby Girl is going to dominate my attention and my affection. I think I'm going to get a lot less helpful to everyone outside of my household. The process has probably already begun. I have no doubt that once Baby Girl makes her appearance, she'll have me wrapped around her little fingers. There's nothing I can do about that. So if you need or want me to do something for you, you better get around to asking pretty quickly. After Baby Girl's birth I think I'm going to switch into full-on Daddy mode. At that point you're probably going to need to convince Baby Girl that I should do whatever you want me to do. She'll be the boss then. And I'm sure I'll love it.
Grace and peace,
BMH
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