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I feel like I have been running a sprint. Ever since I committed to writing this past year, I have searched high and low for nooks and crannies of my life to find space in which to fit this endeavor. Between my part-time job feeding the Brandt Clan, I left myself little margin as every spare moment went into stringing words together on my trusty Mac. I chased this passion until it wore me down a little, encroached on my family life more than a little, and consumed most of my mind.

The crisis du jour, outside of the eternal mess of the Middle East, is the arrival of thousands upon thousands of children on the doorstep of the United States. With bleak economic conditions and violence in their streets, central American families are giving their children up, sending them off to be abandoned at the border of the United States.

They’re sitting there in our church parking lot, staring out at the rain from inside their rundown green Chevy Astro van. They showed up after church. Martin was looking for conversation, for help, for gas money to Calgary for a medical procedure, the usual. He’s aboriginal, around 55, dark glasses, long black hair, cowboy boots. The conversation meanders here, there, everywhere. “Am I late for the service?” he says. “I wanted to get here for the service.” It’s 12:10 pm. I’m tired. It’s been a long Sunday morning already, and I don’t have the energy for this.

I have been a pastor at the same church for many years, long enough to get to know people, long enough that now I have in confirmation classes some of the children I baptized. Some of my friends are in their third or fourth or fifth call, and here I am, at the same church, still in my second call. There are times, I admit, that I feel a little like a failure. I have known people for a long time. They have known me for a long time. I don't always know if this is a good thing.

A couple of weeks ago I went on an unforgettable mission trip to New Orleans and encountered a church that gave me a lot to think about. Prince of Peace Missouri Synod Lutheran Church was once a thriving church and school. It was flooded when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed thousands of homes, businesses, and community buildings along the Gulf Coast from Texas to Alabama in 2005.

I had one of those conversations last week that’s had me reflecting on our assumptions as clergy and churches, the way we do things, and what the future might look like.  A few weeks ago, a family visited the church I serve. We talked after the service and I learned that they hadn’t attended church regularly in a very long time but that all of their children had been baptized and they were hoping to reconnect. Instead of encouraging them to sign the guestbook as I usually do, I gave them my business card and urged them to contact me. 

One recent morning I got up early and put on my suit and my clerical collar. Even though it was a hot and muggy day, I was dressed up to go out to our city's National Cemetery for a graveside service for one of our congregation's World War II veterans. First I had stopped into the office. I had time for a couple of brief thoughts about Sunday's sermon. "Discipleship," I wrote down on the cover of a manilla folder. Not much to go on, but better than nothing.

Last winter, when the church I serve was contemplating a new vision for organizing itself, especially its governance, I heard a certain question posed a number of times that asked whether or not other churches had tried such a system. How had it worked? How did people like it? It all sounds to me like we are buying a car.

Scripture is a gift. This has been affirmed by countless people in the Judeo-Christian tradition down through the ages. Not only affirmed, but demonstrated in the way that its words have been revered, preserved, and followed. But is is a very strange gift, full of unfamiliar modes of communication and stories that vacillate between the weird and the confusing and the often brutally violent. It is a gift that many in the 21st-century world increasingly have little interest in accepting, both inside and outside of the church.

Several weeks ago our friend and pastor lost her first pregnancy to a miscarriage. It had been a difficult pregnancy up to that point already, and so the entire community was walking closely with her and her husband expectantly towards the birth of their son. It continues to be incredibly sad for them and their family as they grieve not just for the life of the child, but for all of the potential and promise that the child held within him.

In the gospels, Jesus is recorded as doing many miracles. What did those who were healed do after they had encountered Jesus? While some followed, many returned to their homes and lives. What did they do as a result of their Jesus encounter? 

Years ago, when I was pastor of a smallish, "pastor-sized" church, it became clear that our chancel choir was not going to last very much longer. By the point I had arrived, it was down to a half dozen older women and a director who hadn't meant to be in that role for as long as she was. So when she announced that she was stepping down, there began some conversation first about a replacement, which then became a conversation about whether the choir was a viable ministry at this point in the church's life. Maybe it was time to give thanks for what it had been for the church for so long, and let it go.