Minister's adventure...

This afternoon I went walking up my loved mountain (Mt Cargill, Dunedin) stewing about ministry and where my life is taking me. Maybe, you see, it is time I left church ministry behind? This led me to thinking about past adventures. I will tell you about one. Years ago I had a part time ministry in a smallish town named Levin. We lived in another much smaller country settlement and so each Sunday we would travel quite some distance to church arriving around an hour before the service. In this ministry we were giving support to a separated solo mum we'll name Mary. I was also heavily involved in helping budget for her "on-again-off-again" boyfriend "Harry". He had done heaps of shady deals, and we were negotiating our way out of them with the people he owed money to. He had a bad habit of getting violent, with stab wounds to show for it, and sometimes it was with Mary. He lived next door to her and had fathered her two week old baby. We arrived at church this one morning to find Mary on the phone to the church office. She burst forth with an almost hysterical explanation then handed her phone to a policeman. It seemed Harry had gone over there, got mad, started throwing things around her house, then picked up his baby son, went next door and locked himself in, threatening to harm the child. The police had arrived, but were afraid to do anything, in case Harry harmed baby. Mary had told them that Harry would listen to me. Me!? He never really took much notice of me when he was rational, what would an angry Harry do?

I told the people at the church to rearrange the service so that the sermon came last and I would do the best I could to get back. I remember driving around in the old ambulance we drove at the time, with butterflies in my stomach, taking off my jacket and tie, so as not to intimidate Harry by looking too official. Several police cars were there and the policemen were lined up on the footpath. They talked very abruptly to me, probably wondering what sort of minister I was driving an old ambulance. They seemed happy to pass the buck and just expected me to go in and see if Harry would negotiate! They would be there on the footpath, if something went wrong. "Why me?" I was asking. What if I stuff up and he hurts baby? I approached the locked front door, and gingerly knocked. "Who is it?" Harry yelled, "Go away!" "It's m-m-me", I said, "D-D-Dave Brown." I looked through the lounge window which seemed to be where the voice was coming from, and saw Harry. This big tough, supposedly mean, violent, Maori man, was sitting on the couch with his baby in his arms, rocking backward and forward, with tears rolling down his face. I tapped on the window and asked in as calm a voice as I could muster, "Can I come in Harry? Will you unlock the door for me?" He rose, came to the door, unlocked it and returned to the couch. I sat next to him, trying to look relaxed, and we talked. Eventually he allowed me to call up Mary, and ask her to come next door to get her baby. After many assurances that Harry would not hurt her, she came. We talked and I agreed to meet with them that night and talk over issues of access etc. He gently handed baby back to mum. I drove back to the church, put tie and jacket back on, and calmly walked up to the platform in time to take the sermon for the day, as if it was just a mere part of a ministers life. Later in the afternoon I suddenly felt tired, emotionally exhausted, and thought, "Did I really do that?"

I recall a personnel manager in a later job interview once telling me, "As a minister you would have led a fairly shelter life." ... Yeah right?!

Energising inner snacks...

It's another morning and I hit it running. There is so much I need and want to do before Sunday! It's like that for me, particularly at this time of the year. I am planning Christmas Day; there's an ecumenical advent event at our church early Sunday morning; there's Habitat for Humanity work and plans to deal with; some workplace support clients I need to meet with; my daughter is keen to move back into her house; there's end of year events to attend; and this morning I get an email from Bangkok, - with the rioting there the Night Shelter Trust Chairman is stuck and may not get back for our AGM... I may have to chair it!!? I said to my wife this morning that it seems like I have not had a real day off for ages. But... there are lots of energising experiences.

A man who with his wife volunteered at our Christmas Day dinner last year rang up and said how much he appreciated it and offered again this year, offering also to arrange for some funding through his law firm.

I attended a school end of year concert last night. A friend's children were participating. It was a strange feeling being proud for her about her kids, but also I saw how teachers and kids cared for each other and felt that its not a bad world after all.

I finished my rounds at the brewery and paused for a moment outside in my car. I thought how special it was. I talked to a number of men about things in their lives... what a privilege? A man talked about his experience of grief at losing his dad. An engineer with joy showed me how he was overcoming problems with the keg plant and his eyes shone with pride at his inventiveness and skill. I came away buzzing at being allowed to be part of these guys' world.

In the midst of the rushing, stressing and busyness there are moments like these, moments of grace that nourish the soul if I have the eyes and heart to see them. As I start another day that won't end for another fourteen hours, I am thankful for these "energising snacks" along the way. Have a good day!

Dreaming about my ideal church...

I went to the St John Ambulance Area AGM tonight. I was there really in two capacities. I am Workplace Support chaplain to St John and my wife is a volunteer with them as a Friend of the Emergency Department. They had an award ceremony after the AGM and Jean and 34 other people received badges or medals for service rendered. What struck me was the breadth of the organisation and its ethos. It is an organisation there to serve the community. It has a whole lot of branches to it. There are the Ambulance services, going out to medical and accident emergencies. There is a transport role for ambulance. There are the "Community Events" volunteers who turn up at sports events and the like and provide First aid. There is the education area a group providing First Aid training for workplaces and community groups. There is the alarms for elderly people. There are the Hospitalers, mostly older women who do things to raise funds for a hospital in Jerusalem, for the organisation and for community groups...such as the Night Shelter Trust. And there is the youth and child training areas. ... and others. All practicing the motto in their service... "First to Care."

As I sat there I thought that would be the structure of my "Ideal Church". First it would not be worship centred, as if worship were its main function. It would be service centred, seeing itself as there to be servants to the community. People joining it would see themselves first and foremost as servants,(Not Church attenders or worshippers) in the community like their master. And it would have various branches of service and outreach into the community. Whatever worship we had would be seen as a springboard for action in the service functions of the community. Francis of Assisi said something like this; "Preach the gospel in season and out of season. If necessary, if you have to...use words." The church opts out of relevant service by having verbal diarrhea. It has reverted to words, doctrine and dogma because they are easier than truly being like Jesus.
(Photo: St. John Headquarters, Dunedin)

Stupid cat!

We have a workshop/junk room/ex-garage at our house. There is a hole in the door so that our cat can get in and out of it and she has taken to sleeping out there on an old chair. I went out there this morning and as I opened the door she was wanting to come out through the hole. I slowly opened the door thinking that she would get the hint and wait till I had it fully open and walk through the open door. But no... the stupid cat kept trying to get out the cat hole, which of course was a moving hole as the door opened and was slowly squashing her against the furniture on the other side. She eventually took some backward steps and waited till the door was fully opened.

I have been reading some opinions by bigoted Christians. I am always encountering people who resist change. I experience people who argue over matters in families, workplaces and churches. I could not help thinking that we are often like our cat. There is a three foot wide door opening, but the only hole we can see to go through is the narrow 5 inch cat door we've always gone through. We are sometimes so hooked on tradition or our way of doing things that we cant see free flowing alternatives that are open to us.

Just an early morning thought... gotta tell someone, may as well be you... you poor people.

Christmas Day dinner in Dunedin

I have mentioned in passing our Christmas Day dinner at the church here. Let me tell you about it.
20 years ago, about two weeks before Christmas a local radio station wandered the town interviewing people about Christmas. One of our youth group members heard the interviews and came to me. He was astounded that for so many people Christmas was a lousy and lonely time. He asked me if we could do something about it. So we letterbox dropped all the pensioner cottages with an invitation saying simply that some of us are having our Christmas down at the church. If they would like company on Christmas day, give us a ring and join us. We were aware that the Salvation Army provided Christmas Dinner for needy people, we were targeting ours for lonely people. We set up a system where we had people at tables of 6 - 8 people with a host to care for the people at each table, just as you would in your own home. We wanted to communicate that this is not a bunch of people giving a Christmas dinner for unfortunates... but a bunch of people celebrating Christmas and you can join them. That first Christmas we had 37 guests, I think about 50 of us altogether. These days we have levelled off with about 230-240 people. The Salvation Army now refer people too us.

One Christmas I jokingly suggested to a bunch of firefighters that they should come help, and by the next week they had it all organised. Since about 1996 Dunedin Firefighters have been involved helping serve up. There have been lots of fun and funny stories over the years, which I won't bore you with.

We offer people transport to and from the meal. Where as it used to be a bunch of church people doing it, now we are the facilitators for a community Christmas dinner. We have volunteers from the community booking in early to be allowed to help out. Many of the volunteers are there because they too would be lonely or want extra company on Christmas day.

It is hard to believe that my wife and I have been leading this venture for 20 years this year! Our friends David and Anne Coulter put in heaps of energy for most of those years, helping to lead the venture. Now days generally Jean and I and our daughter Angela and her husband David do the background organising of it.

We still stick to the original philosophy. "We are there celebrating Christmas, come join us." We still have hosts at each table eating their meal with their guests and joining in conversation. It is funny, some people who ring to volunteer are shocked. "I don't want to eat with them! I am happy to serve them dinner!" We sometimes turn volunteers away saying... "This is the way we do it, company and respect are an important part of what we offer. We're sorry if you can't see yourself fitting into that."

I have heaps to do this week if it is going to get off the ground. It is full on in the lead up to Christmas and we collapse at about 3:30p.m. on Christmas Day and enjoy our Christmas as a family, still buzzing about the people we have been privileged to share with. It will be the same this year. Wish us luck.

Oh dear... how embarrassing.

The post lady brought two interesting pieces of mail the other day.

The first was a book mysteriously posted to me which was entitled "Retirement guide book". My first thought was that someone obviously thought it was time I retired, so had sent me some incentive. I have since noticed it in other churches and discovered that somebody was sending them to churches. Phew!.... I am not old enough to retire!!!

The second bit of mail the same day was an invitation to attend an award evening. An elderly retired minister (Who happens to be my childhood minister) has nominated me for the Community Spirit category of the 2008 Dunedin Stars Award. My wife won this award in 2003. It is an award presented by a local community newspaper and they call for nominations from volunteers throughout the city. I will attend, they didn't offer me the option of withdrawing my name. I should attend so as to express my appreciation to the nominator, but I will be sitting there hoping that they do not present it to me. I do a lot of community stuff, but what is voluntary and what is part of my paid ministry? To me it is all part of the ministry lifestyle for which I get given a living allowance. The award should go to someone who does what they do absolutely for nothing. In replying to the invite, I think I will try to discourage any possible win!

I just had a day off. The weather was nice and warm, very humid. I first fixed my flat tire from last night. We went shopping for some Habitat for Humanity hardware this morning, had morning tea up town and collected a few Christmas dinner invitation things to do from the church office. I had a phone call from a workplace Support client which I had to deal with. In the afternoon, I collected a big steel gate post from the Habitat site and took it to a church elder who had the tools to cut it a bit off it for me. I stopped and had a cup of tea with him and his wife then returned the post to the site. I came home and gardened for a while, before going for a 5 k jog. I finish the day feeling like I have had a worthwhile day. I have not wasted it. There are sometimes days off that I look back on and feel sad. (Or work days for that matter) The day has passed and I have done nothing constructive! I feel empty and cheated of life somehow. I feel like I have been stupid and thrown something precious down the drain.

I guess that's my fear....I do not want to get to my deathbed or to a disabled state and look back and feel like I have wasted my living. I want to be able to arrive at the end and say, "Oh well it was good, but its over. At least I can go out knowing I did not waste it. I filled it with "x" number of years of satisfying, constructive and contributing living!" I think it would be shear hell to get to that moment and feel like I do when I have wasted a day! On the other hand, that sense of fulfilment from a life well lived will bring a deep sense of completion and peace. For me this fulfilling/satisfying feeling is its own reward, and I don't really need an award to keep me doing what I do. I hope they give it to someone more deserving who needs the encouragement and recognition. I'll keep you posted.

Change from the inside...

Related to "salvation" but something I have found important for me and my growth. How do we change our behaviour? Our behaviour sometimes is motivated by peer pressure, for good or bad.That is fairly shallow and unstable motivation for our actions. I was reminded recently of how we really change behaviours by the story of a man I know. This man, a likable, respectable professional, had been a once a week binge drinker but it was catching up on him and causing damage to his health. He had to stop drinking, but had been finding the change difficult. He was given a book which basically gave heaps of information about the effects of alcohol, and in the last chapter simply asked the question, "How do you feel about it now?" This man told how his basic view of alcohol had been drastically changed and he now no longer wanted to drink. It was not until his inner world view had been changed, that his outer behaviour could be changed.

Lately I have been too busy to exercise or run. (Except tonight I went for a bike ride... but got a flat tire! grrr!) I met a man the other day I had not seen for a while and he asked if I was still running. When I confessed my lack, he lectured me, saying that I should see running, not as a dispensable bonus in life, but a "non-negotiable" in life. It's true, how I rate it or view it changes whether I actually make the room in my life to get out there and pound the pavement.

Following Jesus, is allowing his ways to actually change my inner world view, so that I see people and life differently. Behaving respectfully, not swearing, not being promiscuous, looking like a good wee Christian etc. just because I hang around with church people, feels like keeping a whole lot of rules. I become a classic do-gooder, trying to gain approval. It is basically selfish! But allowing the way of Jesus to change how you see people, means that you are changed from the inside out. To your surprise, you can actually find yourself loving a little bit like he loves, feeling for and with people, you otherwise would not care about. Growth continues to happen. Salvation is allowing Jesus' way to change your inner world view, and constructive growth and actions follow. We "do" because that's what we want to do, not for anybody's approval. (God nor our peers) I am also convinced that when people are loved in an unconditional way, their inner world view about themselves and others changes gradually, and you discover positive outer changes in their behaviour... that's just something that I was reminded of recently and thought I would share. To all you who work on Mondays, I am having a day off! Well a day when I choose what work to do. Wish me luck.