The open door

At the front door on Sunday

I'n trying to spend the fifteen minutes before worship each Sunday outside the front door of the church, welcoming all who come. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to pull myself away from the press of details before worship, but I think it's important for me to be a presence at the front door.

I got this idea from Mike Morrisey, the priest at St. Bede's Episcopal Church in Port Orchard. Mike says he always greets people outside the front door of his church, even in freezing weather. If Mike can do it, then I can do it, too.

One of the drawbacks to our church building is that we don't look like a church. When visitors pull up our drive, they must wonder, "Is this the church?" I'm hoping that the presence of a clergyperson with robe and brightly colored stole will make a statement: "This is a church."

Our booth at Whaling Days

This weekend is "Whaling Days", the local Silverdale festival complete with parade, carnival, booths, vendors, and food. St. Antony's put up a booth again this year and I spent about five hours there today.

Kathy Little did a wonderful job of creating the booth. You can't see it in this photo, but she brought plants, banners, brochures, and props for our booth. We offer water at our booth for humans (in a cooler) and for dogs (in a dish).

This booth is our way of getting some visibility in our community. We had lots of people stop by for a curious look or a cup of water. And we engaged people with a smile or an invitation to Vacation Bible School.

I really enjoyed being out in the public and making contacts. I'll have to say, though, that it's exhausting to be on display for so long. Maybe it's because I wore my clergy shirt and felt so conspicuous! Anyway, a very successful booth.

At a time of death

This week I've been privileged to be with a family at the time of death of a man who was a husband, father, and grandfather. Being with a family in times like these is difficult because of the loss and grief, but I find it to be a very rewarding ministry.

I've visited this grand old man many times over the past couple of years in the Alzheimer's unit of a local care facility, although some of my visits have consisted of only a few words and a prayer. At times he was quite alert and humorous; other times he was fast asleep.

I visited him last Thursday and it was clear he was failing. By Tuesday his wife and daughters had gathered around for his last hours. I spent about an hour with them, listening as carefully as I could and helping them to say goodbye. Each of them spent some time with him quietly speaking to him. I said a prayer giving thanks for his life and offering him into the hands of God.

He died late that night and the next day I arrived to find the family gathered around the body. I helped them process their feelings and be present to each other and support each other, and concluded with a prayer.

This is a gracious and supportive family, and it was lovely to be with them. At times like these, a pastor is drawn into the intimate circle of a family and shares in their emotions. It's a rich ministry for me, and I'm grateful to be an Episcopal priest in times like these.

An e-mail from God?

Yesterday I preached on "distractions". I said that we get so distracted that we have a hard time "being present" to God and the world around us. On Facebook, I read that one of my clergy friends in Kansas, Gar Demo, preached on the same subject, and to illustrate, he answered an e-mail on his laptop while in the pulpit!

Someone commented on his post, "Was it an e-mail from God?"

Gar is pretty close to God, but I'm not sure he gets e-mails from God. Anyway, I thought it was a good illustration about how modern life is full of distractions.
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Busted at Bangor

Well, not actually busted. But I was investigated by the security guards!

I decided that today was the day to do something about the blackberry vines obscuring our "Episcopal Church Welcomes You" sign that's near the entrance to Bangor Naval Base. Here's the "before" photo:

The blackberries were so tall, you couldn't even see the sign from the road. So I parked my car, took a couple of photos of the sign for my blog, and started hacking away at the blackberries. Before I knew it, two Navy security vehicles were parked next to me and three very serious security personnel were approaching.

"Is this your car?" "Yes, sir."

"Do you have a camera with you?" "Yes."

"Have you taken any pictures of the entrance to the base?"  "No, but I took some photos of this sign."

"May I see the camera, please?" "Sure."

After they determined that I hadn't taken any photos of the entrance, I explained that I'm the pastor of the church down the road, and I was just clearing the sign and wanted before and after photos. He said, "We received a report that someone was taking photos of the entrance. That's not allowed. So we came to check it out."

After they decided I was just a pastor, they left and I cleared out the blackberries, as you can see in the "after" photo:

I got to thinking about the security guards. Their job is to keep people out (of the base). But my job is to get people in (to the church, to the kingdom, to heaven). They're serious about their job and they're very good at it.

But I'm serious about my job, too.
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Getting fired as wedding officiant

Today I got fired as a wedding officiant.

Well, not exactly fired. But everyone agreed a new arrangement would be best.

Here's what happened. A month ago I received an e-mail from a couple asking if I might officiate at their wedding. This couple lives out of state, but they want to be married at the bride's family's cabin on Hood Canal. I allowed as to how I could do that if certain conditions were met -- as an Episcopal priest, I'm bound by the canons of the Episcopal church and the rites in the Book of Common Prayer.

In a phone call, I explained that one of the couple must be baptized. The bride said she was baptized and raised Episcopalian, but the groom was raised without a religious upbringing and considers himself non-religious. They met the other requirements of the canons and the Prayer Book.

So far, no problem. Last week they were in our area and they came to the church so we could get to know each other a bit. They're a delightful couple, highly intelligent and very gifted people. I gave them a Book of Common Prayer and we arranged to have a conference call to do the pre-marital work required by canon.

Here's the rub. Today when we talked on the phone, they allowed as to how they've had second thoughts about a wedding using the Book of Common Prayer. The groom felt that the explicitly Christian language of the wedding rite was simply too much. There's a good deal of flexibility in the wedding service, but at the minimum, the bride and groom must say, "In the Name of God, I (name) take you to be my (wife) (husband)..."

In the Name of God. That's pretty powerful language, and I can understand why the groom balked. If you don't believe in God, how can you stand there and say that? He was being true to his own values.

From my point of view, how could I officiate as an ordained Episcopal priest and allow anything less? We were at an impasse.

Fortunately, the couple was able to call upon a pastor who is an old friend, and being from a different denomination, he was able to be more flexible with the language of the wedding service. So we all agreed that it would be better for them to use their pastor friend.

I'm sorry we had to drop this wedding. I genuinely enjoyed working with this couple and I looked forward to officiating at their wedding. They were very appreciative of my willingness to work with them and very quite graceful about changing our arrangement.

What do you think? Is there any way for a non-religious person to be married with integrity using the Book of Common Prayer? Was I being too rigid? What should an Episcopal priest do?
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Book Review: Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor

I once heard Barbara Brown Taylor at a preaching conference in Atlanta, GA. She carried herself with such poise and spoke so elegantly, we were all knocked out. Every preacher I know wants to preach like Barbara Brown Taylor, and all her books are wildly popular. To top it all off, Taylor has been named as one of the “Top Ten Preachers in the English language,” so her reputation is stellar.

In her book, “Leaving Church”, however, Taylor has shocked us. She tells the story of how she decided to leave the pulpit for academia. She resigned her position as rector of a church and now teaches religion and philosophy at Clark College in Georgia. One of the brute facts that preachers face these days is that many pew-sitters are “leaving church” and not coming back. So it seems hard to accept that our champion preacher has herself left the church.

Taylor details the circumstances that brought her to become the rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Clarksville, Georgia. She fell in love with the building on her first visit. “Simply to stand in the presence of that building was to rest. Peace poured off the white boards and caught me in its wake.”

By virtue of her preaching and her pastoral presence, the church grew rapidly, and she soon had to increase from three Sunday services to four. The demands on her time mounted and she began to feel burned out. Her old back troubles returned and she fell into depression. “I saw my tiresome perfectionism, my resentment of those who did not try as hard as me, and my huge appetite for approval.”

This is a familiar story to those of us in ministry. Overwork leads to burnout which leads to physical and mental breakdown. Taylor’s romantic dream of the country parson didn’t come true. Looking back, she writes, “My desire to be as near to God as I could had backfired on me somehow. Drawn to care for things, I had ended up with compassion fatigue.”

It ain’t easy being a minister today. The conflicting demands wring you out, and if you’re not careful, you end up “leaving church”, like Barbara Brown Taylor. We’re fortunate, though, that she left this pungent memoir of her plunge from the pulpit. She's still preaching occasionally and writing her luminous books. It's just that they’ll be a little more remote from our lives now that she’s not in the pulpit every Sunday with us.

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