CHAOS abounds

I love Christmas.
I love the Christmas season.
I love having family around during the Christmas season.
I love my family.
I love my call.

This week we have a ridiculously large funeral, read a beloved pastor from the synod, today, tomorrow we have three worship services and I get to (although on Christmas eve it sometimes feels like have to) lead worship at two different nursing homes in the morning, and Wednesday we have one service at the church. On top of it all my dear friend was here Thursday through Saturday, my mom arrive on Friday (thank God, because our new house needs some serious decorating help and my mom rocks at that), my mother in law arrived on Saturday, my father is set to arrive today as well as my brother and his spastic dog. Thank God my mother is here because she loves (or at least volunteers) to cook and help around the house. Thank God for a second bathroom - while yes there is still some waiting for the bathroom it has been greatly reduced.

I am will be more than ready for the 25th in the afternoon, then I can finally relax.
Fingers crossed this week we will get above 0 degrees so we can get outside a little bit.


What do your holiday plans look like?
Are you able to be outside where you live?

Mission Trip Prep

Prepping to head out on a mission trip with middle schoolers is always an interesting endeavor, I feel like there are about seven layers of stuff to get ready:

• the kids forms and paperwork, the activities to pull out of my bag as I may need them, the med kits, the snacks (just in case a kid gets hungry - which leads to crabby kids), and a few miscellaneous type things for kids to do
• the work I will miss while being out of the office - this is just a strange layer of stuff - I have to make sure that all the stuff I would normally do in any given week gets covered by someone and that they have everything they need and that they are well prepped for my absence (I realize I am not the end all be all and that I am not perfect or have all the answers, however, I know there are just certain things I do without thinking about them that help to make things run more smoothly) - also I like to leave my office with a clean desk (it is easier to tell what has been piled on it while I was gone) - set up the auto reply on my email to let people know if they need something that they can either contact my colleague or call my cell
• pack for myself - this is actually probably the easiest piece for me - most of the clothes come out of the "mission trip" tote of clothes that I just keep in my closet - I know it may seem strange to have a tote full of mission trip clothes but it makes sense to have a bunch of clothes that can get painted and stained and look a little crappy with who knows what on them - and if I have to throw them away it seriously is no big deal - also the packing piece seems to be the easiest for whatever reason - I pack WAY on the light side - I have the haul enough other stuff for the kids that I don't want to have to haul anything extra for myself
• leave Marc a list of all the stuff that he may need to know - he just moved into my place and hasn't quite yet learned the schedule of when the recycling and the trash needs to go out - when Dakota needs fed - where the key to the lawn mower is - the number of the plumber who is working on fixing the sump pump in the basement etc... - yeah it doesn't sound like much however - when everything is new I would rather leave him a list with all this stuff than expect him to remember it - not to mention I think we are going to try to sell my house and it will go on the market at the end of this week --- soooo just want to make sure he knows what's happening there and what not (yes, yes, we have talked about all this and he agreed that a list would be best for him)
• return & renew the library books that I have (seriously I am anal retentive and have never had a library fine in my life and hope to keep this streak going) - I LOVE public libraries

Do you have any particulars when you go on a trip?

I love traveling with my youth but why does it always seem like more work to be gone than to stay home?

Do you get to travel anywhere fun this summer?

Seven: Things About My Job

For the next few Tuesdays I am linking up with Lauren at Life. Love. Lauren and Tiffany at The Austin Family Diary for their Tuesday Topics. This week's topic is "Seven: Things About My Job."

One: I walk on holy ground, every day. I get invited into some of the most holy and sacred places in people's lives, and I am humbled to be asked into these moments, humbled to be asked to walk alongside people in some of the hardest times in their lives.

Two: I don't have a "typical day." My days are diverse, flexible, and sometimes horribly inflexible. My hours are any time and really any day. I love the variety and can't fathom working a job where I sit at a desk all day or have too much routine. My year sort of cycles and has some sense of continuity and routine but the details are all variables.

Three: I can't imagine doing anything else. I know that this is what I have been called to do and am blessed to be in full time ministry. I know all people are called to full time ministry but not everyone gets the opportunity to get paid to be in full time ministry.

Four: I love working with children, youth, and families. I get to work with a diverse group of people, I get to work with kids and their families (which really means - I get to work with kids of all ages - birth to death - with focus and emphasis on kids, youth, and families of faith)

Five: I have the world's best colleagues. I love my senior pastor as well as the colleagues in the area I serve. This could seriously make or break my job. My colleagues inspire, challenge, encourage, and uphold me daily. I can't imagine my job without my colleagues - I grieve that my senior pastor is older than me and that he'll want to retire long before I will.

Six: Sometimes I still laugh when I think about what I have been called into, never in my wildest imagination did I think I would be a Pastor for children, youth, and family ministries. NEVER in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would be a pastor when I was growing up.

Seven: I love that I get to travel with my job. I get to see other places and meet people from so many diverse places. I get the opportunity to learn and grow from people who come from a diverse set of contexts. I give thanks for the chance to travel because it heavily influences the ways in which I understand the world around me.

Christmas Eve

I LOVE Christmas eve, seriously possibly more than Christmas day itself. Growing up Christmas eve was always the bigger day. It was the day when all of my family got together, had a huge meal, open gifts, and went to the eleven o'clock candlelight service. When we were really little we even went to church in our new Christmas pjs. It was glorious. To make the candlelight service even better (as if it wasn't already epic enough) we often fell asleep on Grandma or Grandpa and at the end of worship during the silent night one of us grand-kids always got to go outside with Grandpa to ring the bell. I am not sure why the tradition there is to ring the bell at the end of worship but it was and if you got to help Grandpa ring the bell it was even better.

Now that I am a pastor Christmas eve is a little different and I love it for different reasons. I love it because I get the opportunity to worship with sooooooo many people and many people we haven't seen since Easter. I love it because it is festive and we get to sing all the wonderful Christmas songs. I love Christmas eve because it is filled with such hope and anticipation.

My traditions for Christmas eve have obviously had to change, I no longer can be home in South Dakota for Christmas eve as I need to be here leading worship. My parents, brother, and his girlfriend as well as my fiance are all around this year and I believe my mom is cooking dinner to be ready for me to grab between services three and four and Christmas day is becoming a bigger deal. This year we are traveling down to Minneapolis (a couple hour drive) to meet up with my uncle and cousins for lunch. My guess is tomorrow we won't be up at the crack of dawn (or as my parents would argue before the crack of dawn when we were little), we will sleep in and enjoy a lazy morning. Santa still comes (whoop whoop) and we will exchange presents Christmas morning while chilling in our sweats. We will read the Christmas story and remember the story that claims each and every one of us.

We don't currently have any little kids who will be up crazy early and be nuts, our gifts will not contain tons of assembling (I would guess at least) or batteries that need to be found. For my immediate family we are between generations, my brother (24) is currently the youngest, and trust me he'd be happy to sleep until noon if we didn't have to be in the cities by 1.

I am thankful for God who comes to us as a human, a tiny human baby thousands of years ago. I am thankful for the promise of Jesus' return. I am thankful for the Holy Spirit who continues to meet us each and every day. I am thankful for the light of God that continues to shine in even the darkest of circumstances. I am thankful for family and friends who are willing to travel to spend Christmas with me. I am thankful for my family and friends who will travel to be present at my wedding in June. Thanks be to God for all the ways that God is working and the showering of blessings.

Vacation Bible School

This week in the congregation I get to serve alongside we are hosting VBS, Pandamania, to be exact. I love the exhaustingly wonderful week of VBS. I love all of the new faces it brings into the church and I love the energy and excitement of everything going on. Not to mention what a better way to see faith like a child.

There is a portion of me that is jealous of the kids, they come, they sing, they pray, they learn, they believe. I love the faith of a child, which could be part of why children's ministry is such an important aspect to my call as pastor. I love the way in which they ask their questions openly and honestly without fear of "not knowing enough" or someone else thinking they are "dumb." It is humbling to walk alongside the kids and their families.

I also love the way in which a group of volunteers comes together to make VBS happen, I love seeing the varied gifts of people and the ways in which they shine. It is exciting the way God works and moves in and through the lives of people. It is exciting the way God has called us to community. I am humbled and honored to be called into full time ministry.

2012-2013 Calendar

AHHHH my colleague and I just set our 2012-2013 calendar for church, it is crazy exciting and crazy overwhelming. We have tons going on and lots of new things happening all of which I am super jazzed about but when I see everything that needs to get done it makes my head spin!

Excitement for 2012-2013 at Bethlehem -- we are going to try Family Faith Journey Sunday School for our 2-4th graders and their parents - parents and youth in Sunday school together! I am jazzed about this prospect because all the research shows that kids learning alongside their parents is the most effective means of ministry. I am excited to see where this leads us. This is a daunting task to me as it means I need to write a years worth of curriculum. We are going to try a 3 year rotation focusing one year on the old testament, one year on the new testament, and one year on lutheran basics. We are opting for a very non-traditional Sunday school type model for our 2-4th graders with the potential to expand it to more grades after we try it for a year or two to see how it goes.

The way I understand my role as pastor is that there are three key aspects to passing on the faith to youth/kids - one is the role of the parents, one is the role of the church (pastors included), and one is the role of other adults - together we all get to share the faith and help kids and youth to grow in the faith.

Our Family Faith Journey will have several aspects: serving in worship (ushering, greeting, reading, leading the Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed, and communion serving), learning the faith (learning the stories and the Lutheran basics - grace, law, gospel, saint, sinner, trinity), community (community building activities - fellowship), and service (reaching out to the world). Through the course of the three years we will also be focusing on faith practices such as prayer.

I am excited to see how the Holy Spirit moves in and through our learning and growing as families. I pray that this will help to take away from the parents dropping their kids off for Sunday School and leaving to go grocery shopping or whatever and will help them to learn and grow alongside their kids.

Come Holy Spirit, Come.

I love my call.

   I will admit that there are days in which I wrestle with if I should be an associate pastor of children youth and family ministries or a youth director. Eventually I always come back to the fact that I LOVE MY CALL. I love the people I work with and I can't fathom not being a pastor because I love baptizing and presiding at the table. This is from a baptism a couple weeks ago, he was a precious little guy! I love my call and I give thanks and praise to God.