Snow Shoveling

I recently joined the LSTC Snow Crew as a way to make some extra money this winter. Having been out of town for the January storms, Friday’s snowstorm was my first opportunity to be involved. So Saturday morning found me huddled in the Maintenance Shop at 7:30 am, awaiting instructions. 7:30 is, in my humble opinion, way to early to be anywhere, especially on a Saturday. There were a good number of us, so it only took about two hours to clear the walks. Still it was a long two hours. Snow shoveling, especially sidewalks, is hard work. The cold morning air bit at my face; my back was tense from the cold and the exertion. After a year off of shoveling, my body was not prepared for a morning of hard manual labor. I came home, took a hot shower, and spent the rest of the day curled up on the couch drinking tea and reading an obscure book about the life of Paul, feeling tired but grounded.

Seminary is an intellectual activity. As seminarians, we are trained to be theologians, theology literally meaning words about God. We think a lot. We think, and we talk, and we read, and we ponder. We are taught to challenge assumptions, to ask tough questions, to grapple with texts and draw meaning from them. Hard work, absolutely, but mentally hard. Hard work that can be done from one’s couch.

Ministry, on the other hand is a physical activity. Ministry is an act of presence. It requires taking ones body and placing it amid other bodies in the dirt and muck of the world. It is walking with people in their living and their dying. We worship a God, after all, who took on a physical body, a God who still comes to us in the very physical elements of bread and wine and water.

A classically Lutheran answer, but pastoral ministry seems to be a both/and. We need both intellectual and physical pursuits. There will be days where my knowledge of Paul Tillich’s concept of symbol will be absolutely essential. And there will be other days where all that matters is that I know what to do with a snow shovel. Glad I have both.

On Being a Visitor

The strangest thing for me about being a senior is figuring out what to do with myself on Sunday mornings. For the first time in my seminary career, for the first time in my life, really, I have nowhere I am expected to be on a Sunday. The last two years I’ve had field education requirements on Sundays, and even before seminary I was part of church communities that would miss me and note my absence. With this new found freedom and the knowledge that my Sundays would soon be scheduled for the rest of the foreseeable future, I decided to take some time to explore a variety of congregations and experience different styles.

“This will be great,” I thought to myself as I developed this plan. “I’ll get to see what other congregations are doing, experience new forms of worship, expand my horizons a bit.” So I picked my first place, a small nondenominational congregation a couple of blocks from my apartment, and I headed out.

What I had not taken into account was how incredibly frightening it is to enter the doors of a new community. I figured, I’m a seminarian, I go to worship all the time, I like worship, this will be easy. I could not have been more wrong. As I walked up to the front door of the church, I felt my heart racing. What if the worship is uncomfortable? What if our politics don’t line up? What if our theology is different? It was a communion Sunday, what if our beliefs didn’t line up, was I welcome at the table? All these questions masked the major one, what if they don’t like me, what if I’m not welcome? I stood in the entryway frantically searching the bulletin, trying to gather the confidence to walk into the sanctuary.

In the end it was a lovely service and a nice group of people, but I learned a lot from my fear that day. It was for me a reminder of the risk we ask people to take when we invite them to join us for worship. No matter how welcoming we are, how hospitable, how visitor-friendly, it still requires a huge risk on the part of visitors to step through the doors of a congregation on a Sunday. I hope as I look ahead to my own pastoral ministry I can find ways to honor the risk that is taken by new people to join a worshipping community and to express my profound gratefulness to everyone who has the courage to walk through the door.