Month: January 2022

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 1-28-22

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 1-28-22

Many of you likely saw the announcement earlier this week that I’ve accepted a call to First Church of Christ in Saybrook (Congregational). My last Sunday with First Church will be March 6. Between now and then we will consolidating the gains we’ve made during our time together and preparing for the bridge to what’s next. 

My role at FCC Saybrook will be, once again, transitional. The church is interested in doing revitalization work before it considers its next move. I look forward to helping them in that effort. What revitalization looks like during what we hope is the tail end of a global pandemic is a question foremost in a lot of minds and will likely be a key question for FCC Granby regardless of the decision on consolidation. A consolidated church is not necessarily a growing church unless intentional efforts are made to reach new people.

What will church vitality mean moving forward? No one really knows. For some decades now the world has been shifting from the linear “progress” change model to a “disruptive” change model, which makes it very difficult to infer the future from the past. Nevertheless, Carey Nieuwhoff’s latest blog post entitled “Five Faulty Assumptions About the Future Church” rings true for me. Number 2: “The Building Will Be the Center of Ministry,” and number 3: “You Don’t Need to Take Online Ministry that Seriously” seem particularly relevant. Already expectations around online engagement have changed at First Church. We expect that there will be a Zoom option for meetings. We expect a livestream option for worship. What we have yet to develop is how to turn “views” into vital spiritual connections. My guess is that this will be a piece of future vitality. 

Interestingly, another piece of vitality in a time of disruptive change came up at my annual physical exam this morning. In my conversation with my primary care physician the very popular topic of the pandemic and mental health came up. She talked about the importance of staying “grounded” and her personal daily practice of grounding, which sounded like simply finding a moment during the day to still her body and quiet her mind. It reminded me of my childhood church, which emphasized personal “quiet time.” During this pandemic time my meditation group shifted to Zoom and has grown exponentially because of it. Pre-pandemic we would get 6-7 people on a weekday morning. Now we average 20-30, sometimes more. We have folks joining us from places as far away as Columbia, Denmark, the UK, Germany, and Iran. How can First Church, South Church, FCC Saybrook, all our congregations stay grounded in a time of ongoing disruption? If we’re waiting for an extended time of “smooth sailing” to engage in vitality work, we could be waiting a long while. If my meditation group is any indication, leaning into the disruption can actually produce vitality.

All of this is easier said than done. I am not a person who naturally welcomes disruption. I prefer smooth sailing. Psalm 23 says, “He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.” I have found that in stormy times the still waters are still accessible. Deep below the surface there are hidden aquifers of spiritual refreshment that will sustain our vitality if we stay grounded, like a tree that reaches with its roots down to the living water. 

Bob Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 1-21-22

The year is 1965. The place is Newport, RI. The event is the Newport Folk Festival, which had been founded six years earlier as a response to the more established Newport Jazz Festival. The Newport Folk Festival quickly became a gathering place for the various protest movements of the time: the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, the labor movement. Famous artists like Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul & Mary, John Lee Hooker, Joan Baez sang a mix of traditional folk songs and their own compositions that told the stories and reflected the values of common, everyday people. Of all these great artists, perhaps the most famous was a young, newcomer from Minnesota named Bob Dylan. 

By 1965 Dylan had released three hugely successful albums: “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), “The Times They Are a-Changin’” (1964), and “Bringing It All Back Home” (1965). Dylan’s song “Blowin’ in the Wind” had become the anthem of the anti-war movement. In fact, the 1964 Newport Folk Festival closed with the entire lineup of artists joining Dylan onstage to lead the crowds in singing “Blowin’ in the Wind,” a song that today is considered a classic of American songwriting–one of the many classics that earned Dylan a Nobel Prize for literature in 2016.

Already in 1965 Dylan was shifting away from the traditional folk compositions for voice and acoustic guitar that had made him famous toward music that featured electric guitars and a full band. Nevertheless, at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival he was planning on playing an acoustic set like people expected of him. The story goes that the day before his performance, Dylan overheard someone from the Folk Festival make disparaging remarks about electric guitars. In a flash of righteous anger Dylan completely changed his set list to feature him playing an electric guitar backed by the Butterfield Blues Band. When he took the stage the next night, he began his set with “Maggie’s Farm.” He played a loud, jangly Fender stratocaster and sang, “Ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s Farm no more”–a clear declaration of artistic independence. People started booing and shouting. Pete Seeger was furious. By the end of his set Dylan did return to his acoustic guitar in a gesture to the crowd’s expectations, but the message was clear: Dylan would not allow himself to be defined by any person’s or group’s expectations. His ultimate allegiance lay far beyond any particular style or movement. Dylan’s ultimate allegiance was to the artistic endeavor itself.

I was reminded of the above story during the First Church South Church Bible study this week. We were considering the gospel lectionary for this coming Sunday: Luke 4:16-29. It begins with Jesus getting a very favorable response to his preaching from his hometown crowd and ends with them attempting to throw him off a cliff. Why this sudden turnaround? Jesus had been preaching about the “Lord’s favor.” The crowd understood this to be a simple affirmation of the lives they were currently living as God’s “chosen people.” They became upset when Jesus corrected their understanding. Jesus explained that their God wasn’t theirs alone, that God chooses sides and it wasn’t necessarily theirs. Rather the God revealed in Jesus choses the unchosen. God loves the hated. And Jesus’ ministry won’t be defined by any person’s or group’s expectations. His allegiance lies far beyond any particular style or movement. Jesus’ ultimate allegiance is to the boundless love of God itself.

Worship Resource 3rd Sunday after Epiphany

Opening Prayer

Holy God, you sent your child, Jesus, to open new ways of understanding Scripture. Our Pilgrim forebears believed that there was “yet more truth” to “break forth” from your “Holy Word.” So we open our hearts to hear anew the word beyond all words. We train our ears to hear the still small voice that arises from the sound of silence. We settle our bodies into a stillness from which the movement of your Spirit arises. Amen.

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 1-7-22

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 1-7-22

On the church liturgical calendar this coming Sunday, January 9–the Sunday after Epiphany, we celebrate the Baptism of Christ. Why do we celebrate Jesus’ baptism?

Jesus’ baptism is an invitation to each of us to live out our sacred calling to this very life. Your life, your calling, is inextricably bound up in God’s great work of healing the world. And no onee else can do it for you. Your sacred calling is not separate from your ordinary, everyday, miraculous, and unique life. 

Jesus was baptized as an adult by his relative, John, who had followed God’s call to live in the wilderness as the prophets of old had done. Scripture says he wore camel skin for clothing and ate locusts and wild honey for food. For a time he separated himself from society so that he could get closer to God. Then at the prompting of the Holy Spirit he called people to join him in the wilderness. He administered baptism to them to prepare them to have their own personal encounter with God. 

The Gospel of Luke describes Jesus’ encounter with God at his baptism: “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened,  22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’” (Lk. 3:21-22). We celebrate Jesus’ baptism to remember this divine affirmation–“with you I am well pleased”–and to consider the possibility that this “yes” might extend to each of us as well.

I am a very competitive person. I have an unhealthy habit of comparing myself to others. Professionally, I compare my level of “success” to my colleagues’. Even on a personal level I find myself wondering “Should I be happier? Are my relationships healthy enough? How does my faith compare to others?” Social media takes these tendencies and makes them much worse. I know I’m not the only one. You may remember late last year Facebook was in the news because a whistleblower revealed that Facebook’s own internal research has shown that their Instagram platform is having negative mental health impacts on young people. Young people are comparing themselves to the images they see on Instagram and seeing themselves in a negative light. The recent “Great Resignation” may be a sign that more of us are questioning a system that brings profit logic to ever more intimate areas of our lives.

We celebrate Jesus’ baptism to remind ourselves that there is another voice in the universe that says, “Yes.” As powerful as our inner critics might be, as powerful as the voices of consumer capitalism might be, there is another voice, a voice that in the beginning said, “Let there be light,” a voice that saw all that God had made and said, “It is very good,” a voice that spoke from heaven at Jesus’ baptism and said, “You are my child, the beloved with you I am well pleased.” In this Epiphany season, I invite us to embrace God’s “yes.” I invite us to drop the comparing and competing and make space for the Holy Spirit to lead us each into a calling that is uniquely our own. As author Oscar Wilde famously said, “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.”