Faith Works 11-14-15

Faith Works 11-14-15

Jeff Gill

 

Stories of sacrifice, and of service

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A quick note: a week from tomorrow, on Sunday evening, Nov. 22 at Neal Avenue United Methodist Church, a community Thanksgiving Service will be held at 7:00 pm, sponsored by the Newark Area Ministerial Association. This service moves around the city each year, but is a longstanding tradition where we can, as Christians, come together in thanks and praise for an evening. And yes, there will be an offering, which will go entirely to the Coalition of Care. Please consider joining us for an hour of scripture and song next Sunday.

 

The following really should have been written last year, on the fiftieth anniversary of a death in what was then still known in the news as the Belgian Congo, by 1964 an independent nation known today as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

 

I'd like to lift up before you all the life of Phyllis Rine, a young woman of this area who died on November 24, 1964 during what is known as the "Congo Massacre," when some 250 Christian missionaries were killed. Obviously, I never knew her (says your columnist, born in 1961), but I've met those who did, and had heard her story told in hushed tones as a child myself, back in Illinois during Sunday school assemblies. She had been a missionary in Stanleyville, now Kisangani, when a Maoist-inspired Communist militia took over the town, and after two months of captivity as a hostage, was killed with many other missionaries, nuns, and medical workers from the West, even as soldiers landed on the edge of town to attempt their rescue.

 

Until this week, I had not tracked down the place where they brought her body back to be buried, just over the county line in her native Martinsburg. But recently I had some business in Utica and then in Zanesville, so had no excuse not to stop and search a bit in that small town along my way, and indeed found the place where she is buried.

 

Phyllis has relatives still living in Knox and Licking Counties, and I am hesitant to say too much that might intrude on their own memories. But as we become ever more aware of some of the struggles people of faith are having around the world, this one death represents some of the dangers that still exist for believers. The stories we hear today may seem as distant as fifty years and more, but standing at her grave made both her story and today's tragedies something more immediate in my own prayers and reflections.

 

She went to a church camp of the Restoration Movement tradition that we share, and heard a missionary speak who I heard speak once, years later in Indiana. His story motivated her to attend Cincinnati Bible Seminary, now Cincinnati Christian University, and to go into the mission field. In sum, she barely spent two years in Africa, teaching and working and witnessing.

 

These words, on the wall of her childhood home, made an epitaph that her friend and fellow missionary Zola Brown would use in writing a book about her all too brief life:

 

Only one life 'twill soon be past,
Only what's done for Christ will last.

 

Service and sacrifice and surrender to God's will -- may her example bring us more inspiration than sorrow, a life that has touched more of us after her death than she ever could have known and ministered to while on this earth. She left Ohio so all the world might know about the hope that was in her, and that hope did not die in Africa, but was instead reborn. Martinsburg was a good place to pray on a November morning, over fifty years after this marker was set. We never really know what will endure . . .

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; so far, God just sent him to Ohio. Tell him where you believe you are called to serve at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 11-7-15

Faith Works 11-7-15

Jeff Gill

 

The season of giving is all the year long

___

 

You're getting them in the mail, I know.

 

The pitches are on the radio, online, in the print pages of publications, even stuffed into your Sunday bulletin.

 

What will you give, how much and to what, and now, on which basis?

 

Are you prepared to donate by credit card? To have your contributions "painlessly" removed from your account in an amount designated by you each month, automatically renewable? Would you like to give a sum that will be matched by another friend of the cause or concern or church that you support?

 

They come with pictures of sad faced children, appealing puppies, weary men sitting behind a steaming bowl of soup, or Third World women behind a piece of decrepit looking machinery.

 

It might have a glossy finish and a simple pledge card attached to the presentation folder, or be a pop-up which can link you to an electronic form where your credit information is made secure by . . . little mysterious electronic gnomes. Anyhow.

 

Many of you who read this feature have a faith community to which you make an annual commitment, paid weekly or monthly or annually, which you review each year as the congregation reminds you what you're all doing together, and how your faithful response can help those works of mercy be a witness to the nations. Good for you!

 

There are also many of you who choose to give from your own blessings, out of your own resources, as a spiritual discipline that helps keep you mindful that everything we have is a gift, from money to materials, that really just pass through our hands for a time. To say it's "mine" or even that "I earned it" is potentially going to burden us with a sense that stuff is so connected to us that we get confused about who we are versus what our stuff is, or more simply: you can't take it with you.

 

Giving is a way to remember that money may be rightfully ours for a time, but it will pass through our hands like all earthly things, and the most we can do is direct it for a short distance after we've gotten it, like water through a fire hose.

 

What can misdirect even our well-meaning impulse to give is that old bugaboo, guilt. If we let guilt drive our giving decisions, we end up whipsawed by emotion and sentiment and visceral appeals without much substance.

 

Don't let sad-eyed puppies cause you to lurch over to the laptop; even honorable causes for patriotic purposes can be using the flag to drape over some unworthy or at least wasteful activities.

 

Here's my challenge for you when it comes to giving, whether it's a one-off donation or signing up for one of those "only $19.99 a month" automatic giving schemes. Ask yourself this basic question: what are my own personal priorities in this world? Which areas of our community are most important to who I am, who I'm trying to be, and what I want this world to become?

 

Figure out what areas and issues are important to you *before* you come up against a donation pitch. Ask how you want to represent your passions, your priorities through your monetary contributions. Maybe even ask yourself: if I had the time and latitude, which causes would I actually put time into myself if I could? Most of us can't do the direct service we'd like, but that's a big part of what giving does: it represents us and empowers others to do the work we wish we could do if we had the opportunity to do it ourselves.

 

Friends, once you've done that fairly simple exercise, the good news is that you now get to do two things. One, you sit down and make plans to give money where you really wish to be giving of yourself. Trust me, that will feel good, because that check or credit card pledge or cash in the collection plate will start to really feel like a part of you going forth.

 

And secondly, you will come to find that you are no longer whipsawed by those other appeals that can so tug at you. When you know what you're giving, and why, and to whom, you can rest easy in knowing you can't cover it all, so sometimes you just have to let others do their part . . . but you are doing yours!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he knows where he wants his giving to go! Tell him where your commitments take you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter. 

Notes From My Knapsack 11-5-15

Notes From My Knapsack 11-5-15

Jeff Gill

 

The Times, and the Sentinel, Are A Changin'

___

 

This year is coming to an end with some pretty remarkable changes happening, that in another way, most of you probably won't notice.

 

My editor in these pages will no longer be ol' Chuck, as Peppermint Patty might say. Charles A. Peterson steps down as editor for this paper and I will, Deus volent, have to get used to a new e-mail address and point of contact for this column . . . should they wish to retain my humble services!

 

Of all the many editors I've had over the years, here and with the Booster that preceded my Sentinel tenure, and at the Advocate for my other Saturday column on the "Your Faith" page, I have had Chuck as my go-to guy for more years than any of them. It's nice for a writer to know what's being looked for and how they're responding to certain subjects or topics, because every editor is a little different. When they leave and new ones arrive, more changes than just the e-mail.

 

Chuck has given me wide latitude to try things over the years that aren't common to a community column slot, and he's put me up for awards, which has gotten me feedback from far beyond our circulation area: for all that, and just for being a friendly face with a helpfully critical eye, thank you Chuck, and I will miss you!

 

Likewise I'm going to find some new adjustments in my work as a citizen who chairs your village Board of Zoning and Building Appeals. As a member for eight years and chair for the last few, I've always worked with Alison Terry as our Village Planner. She has made our lives simpler and more straightforward through those years for all of us volunteers on the panel.

 

I can't say she's made our lives easier, because that's not within her scope. The challenges that arrive in the village planning offices come with questions and requirements that are often entirely outside of any of our control, and the challenge for the BZBA is to navigate fairly and justly the desires of property owners, the wishes of neighbors, the intentions of council codified in ordinances and further interpreted by appeals court precedent, and to reach decisions that, ideally, won't be overturned. As I perhaps say too often as chair, if it were easy, it wouldn't have gotten to us in the first place.

 

But Alison's role supporting us in the requests for variances and conditional use permits and such has been invaluable. She is always prepared (would that we all on the panel could say the same!) and has anticipated all manner of twists and turns the discussion takes that we may not have even imagined.

 

I've not had but two jobs in my life that were eight years and more. The BZBA has had new law directors and new recording secretaries, but Alison has always been there for us, even when we know she'd like to get home to her kids. Well, she's decided that they need to be her first priority, so we lose her as this year ends, but hope to see her around in various roles: just not as Village Planner.

 

The new planner will have some big, and very stylish shoes to fill . . .

 

For most of you reading this or in the village in general, life will go on, the paper will come out, and new structures and remodeling of old ones will continue. But for those of us closer to the production end of those processes, it will really be a new year in 2016!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about transitions you see happening at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 10-31-15

Faith Works 10-31-15

Jeff Gill

 

The Eve of All Saints

___

 

"For all the saints, who from their labors rest…"

 

It's a beloved hymn, and one that's often sung at this time of year to commemorate the church calendar feast of All Saints, or "All Hallows" in old English usage, making the day before All Hallows' Eve, or good ol' Hallowe'en.

 

Make of it what you will, but most of it has been made over from churchly purposes, and the remnant is, well, tomorrow for some of us.

 

All Saints' Day is a time to remember all those who "have died in the Lord," that "great cloud of witnesses" who are the faithful departed. Many churches will include an "in memoriam" of some sort in worship tomorrow morning.

 

But as Paul says in Romans 1:7, "To all those being in Rome beloved of God, called saints: Grace to you and peace…" The saints of God are not just the deceased, but those who are wholly God's, and kept holy in faith, and between "holy" and "saints" is pretty much the same word, "hagios" in Greek.

 

Yes, there might just be saints reading this! Whether it's a saint who's writing it…

 

We might be abashed to claim that title of "holy" for ourselves (although Paul would point out that, through grace and mercy, there's nothing to claim, but it's a gift that's being given to us), but I think we all know people in our faith communities who are saintly indeed, holy in intention and action, whose role in our lives and often in whose years there is a quality we can only call "hagios," saint or holy either way.

 

At our church, we've been spending Wednesday nights working this fall through James, and the call for the faithful to tend to "the widow and the orphan" is made clear to us. Those who are on the margins of society are where God is calling us to be present and active, of that there's no confusion. Not all widows or widowers are saints, but among our seniors, there is a faithfulness in patience and sorrow and even suffering that is humbling, that brings to mind that which is holy.

 

There are two Sundays each month that our congregation has taken on the responsibility of bringing a simple ecumenical worship service to two different nursing homes. The first Sunday of the month is always one, and the third another. Often, I go and lead and share an edited version of my Sunday message; edited simply because about twenty to twenty-five minutes is about all that works well in those settings.

 

But not infrequently I have another church event or conflict, and a number of other leaders in the church can step up, leading a few old familiar hymns, offering a prayer with the Lord's Prayer as its anchor, and a message is shared. We would not want to let them down or leave the eight to twelve at each place who are expectantly waiting for our arrival those Sunday afternoons to face an empty doorway, and no opportunity to share in a gathered time of worship.

 

It startled me to learn, though, that at both of the local nursing homes we come to, we are the only Sunday worship that comes in. They wait a month until we return, because that's all that they have showing up.

 

So in honor of all the saints of the Lord, past and present, I'd like to put a challenge before the other church bodies of our area. There are at least 220 congregations in Licking County. There are about ten nursing home facilities in Newark & Heath, maybe two dozen in the county as a whole. It strikes me that if every congregation would find an open Sunday afternoon near them, and commit to once a month regularly, this should be a blessing that James and Paul and even Jesus would honor. Some forty churches in Newark and Heath would cover the Sundays, including fifth Sundays since there are already a few like Spring Hills Baptist and Bible Baptist Churches that are already, like Newark Central Christian, doing more than one Sunday a month anyhow. If you're not sure you can do this (and you can, you know), take a fifth Sunday for a facility, and that's just three or four times a year.

 

For all the saints, they should not be sitting waiting for weeks to worship. Let God's people go forth in song and prayer! If you don't have a homily at hand, just read a few psalms.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him what stories have helped you understand wholeness in your life at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 10-24-15

Faith Works 10-24-15

Jeff Gill

 

A calling in context, and in change

___

 

 

Full-time Christian ministry, whether you call it ordained or commissioned or licensed, whether it's with a seminary graduate-level degree or two years of a Bible college, or a set of responsibilities called and claimed out of the membership for a set period . . . it's a hard thing to pin down.

 

Most Christian communities have a person who serves in a central leadership role for worship, which may or may not be as central having to do with secular matters for the  congregation. In my own tradition, ministers don't own the building, sign the checks, or have any financial authority at all; in other Protestant traditions, the pastor is "sent" from a central authority to take the preaching and teaching office for a church and can't be "sent back" just by the congregation's choice.

 

In general, though, folks expect when they visit a church that there is a preacher who is also a leader of some sort, in casting a vision and coordinating services if nothing else. Titles can range from "Brother" or "Reverend" to "Father" or "Mother," "Bishop" or "Evangelist," and I once served a congregation where at least half a dozen of the men, all of World War II vintage, called me "Padre."

 

In many churches October is a time for "minister appreciation" in a week or month, and I have to admit to being a bit, well, agnostic about the whole thing. And I wouldn't bring all this up except for the fact that it seems like every October my social media fills with memes and posts and comments that all tie back to some stats and stories about how the overwhelming majority of ministers are, in a word, overwhelmed.

 

Images with captions saying things like "1,500 pastors leave the ministry every month" (or 1,700, says church consultant and ministry expert Ed Stetzer, wondering where the updated figure came from since he can't find a source for the initial stat), heartfelt pleas to affirm clergy "because 50% of pastors' marriages end in divorce" (also a stat without a source), and lists of negative impressions from "studies" of what ministers feel about themselves and their church.

 

At the risk of ruining a perfectly good pity party, it just ain't so. Ministry in whatever form, to take a public role, paid or unpaid or poorly paid, to represent your faith and its teachings out to the world and in pastoral care for your congregation, is hard work. No doubt about that whatsoever. And it's harder work than nailing together pallets, I can assure you.

 

But there are some standard complaints about ministry work that need some context. Yes, we work 55-60 hours a week on average: so do most entrepreneurs and senior managers. Yes, we make less than doctors or lawyers or school administrators (or most teachers), but we make about what most social workers earn, MSW and MDiv alike. Preschool staff and secretaries and children services caseworkers make less than us on a full time average, but I think we can agree it doesn't state the relative value of a person's work to look at their pay… and even doctors wish they made more.

 

We don't get days off much, true; I usually get about half of a Tuesday for my weekend. But my wife, who has a demanding professional job during the week and into many weekends, also has had an unpaid ministry leadership position for over a decade where she goes in and works on Saturdays and Sundays to make sure worship is powerful and effective in the area she's responsible for. When is the day off for a leader who works five-plus days a week and comes in to serve at church?

 

It used to be, not all that long ago, clergy were expected, in the words of an elderly mentor in my younger days, "to dress like bankers, keep doctors' hours, and be paid like ditchdiggers." You had to wear hand-me-down suits from better-off parishioners, borrow money for half a gallon of gas into your Model A to get to the hospital once a week, and got a basket of potatoes and turnips some Sundays.

 

As a member of the clergy, my appreciation is that those days are past. I appreciate and love my work, and as Ed Stetzer has noted, among Protestant pastors, 93% of us say we feel privileged to be a pastor.

 

If you'd really like to appreciate your minister, ask them to tell you about their vision for your congregation. And offer to take on some part of that vision for your own!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him your vision for your own ministry through your church at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.