It’s been a while since I’ve blogged. Summer has hit us hard in all areas in the Wahe family. Some good and some not so good. In a little while the clock will strike midnight and I will enter the 40 club. I’ve really had a hard time with this birthday. I’ve had a couple of people say that 40 is the new 27 or even the new 30. I’d enjoy being 27 or 30 again. I was a much thinner dude and my ears didn’t hurt as much. I feel like all I do now is turn down my radio or yell at the kids to turn the volume down on whatever they’re doing to hurt my ears. I think the most difficult part of turning 40 is that when you’re at the store or at a place like Starbuucks, the person helping you often will say, “Sir, can I help you with anything else?” Sir? It was just yesterday that I was skate boarding down Hollywood Blvd. as a kid and sneaking into the Pacific Theater in Hollywood. It was just yesterday that my buddies and I were pool hopping in tiny run down motels around Hollywood in the early 80’s. And It was also just yesterday that I can remember sitting in my seventh grade auditorium in Hollywood waiting for the school counselor to dismiss us to our first seventh grade class of the year.

Today my family and I went to worship with some wonderful friends at a church that we truly love. There were two individuals that I got to see that I haven’t seen for a long time. Clark and Dorothy. Clark is what I refer to many folks around our home church as a surrogate parent. I had the privilege of being with Clark this past Friday for a whole day. Clark is around 83 years old. It seems like yesterday that Clark was running around town, driving a church bus picking up kids around the neighborhood to take them to church.

Clark and I spent a whole lot of time talking about old times at our home church. He asked me questions about my family as a kid. He was out of the loop for a while and there were things he had known and things he hadn’t known. we also got to see Dorothy and her family. Dorothy and I joked for years that I was her little brother. That’s awesome as a kid to hear when the family you have is holding on by a thread. Today, it means so much more when you think of what both Clark and his daughter actually did for me and so many other kids in the church. Clark later on when I “unofficially” finished high school invited me to come and live in a spare room he had, so that I could go to community college. Although, it took me around eleven years to finally finish, Clark knew that he’d be planting some seeds of faith, hoping that I might go as far as I could. If it weren’t for that opportunity and Clark and his hospitality, I would not have finsihed my undergraduate degree and I would not complete my seminary education at Princeton Seminary to become an ordained Presbyterian minister. Clark along with his family had a huge impact on my life for merely one reason. They understood the concept of loving people as Jesus loved people.

I’m convinced that when one looks at ministry in the context of a city like I was raised in, that loving the people of God as Jesus loved the people of God is how ministry is accomplished in the smallest of churches and the largest of churches. Whether you’re stuck in the desert or in the middle of the city, Jesus calls us to love one another first and foremost. In loving the people of God, the words of Jesus promised gift of rest, “Come to me all who are tired, for I will give you rest”  are magnified loudest in the way one is received into the church via the relationships that are built at the ground level. For me it was through the way Clark and so many others who loved me as a kid that I take these words of hope and apply them in the context of how I live and model Christ’ love within the church I pastor.

Who needs church growth models, large programs with large church budgets that are way understaffed and are doomed for the filing cabinet when you can take a simple model of loving others as Jesus loved and apply it to the way you do ministry in whatever context you serve? As I sat in the place I worshipped for so many years it hit me that this invitation of rest via the people of God is what the kingdom of God here on earth should look like given the current state of the larger church today. The success of the larger churches stuck in the city and the smaller churches stuck in the middle of Joshua trees will be; when those within the church rise up and testify to those who were influential to their finding Jesus promised gift of rest for their souls through the mere fact that they were loved, accepted, prayed for, and confronted with the one who comforts.

As I write this with sleepy eyes, I’ve turned forty. Today, I’m grateful for the gift of rest given to me so many years ago by people like Clark and Dorothy. My prayer today is that the people of God will rise up and proclaim God’s gift of rest as many are faced with their “stuff.”

More birthday reflections later on. Praise God for forty years of rest and praising God for the next forty years to come.

I watched the bucket list tonight. It was very appropriate for where I’m at in my ministry right now. My congregation is letting me serve as an on-call chaplain on the side to help on a temporary basis as my wife is unemployed right now as a public school teacher due to some state wide budget cuts. On call simply means that if a chaplain can’t work a shift at the hospital that I could pick up some hours when called upon. It’s a lot like a substitute teaching gig. I can say no. And I can say yes.

The movie reminded me of my experience serving as a chaplain while in seminary. I served in an oncology unit in Langhorne, PA. Candidates for ministry are required to complete a unit of clinical pastoral education as part of the ordination process within the PCUSA. It was six weeks of intense ministry, training, and supervision in pastoral care not just for those I ministered alongside with and to in a hospital setting, but it was training for my soul in the way I encounter, confront, and handle everyday issues within the church and in our world. 

I learned more about pastoral care and the role of the pastor in walking alongside someone in their pain and suffering for those six weeks than I ever did while in seminary for 3 years in my pastoral care classes.

I know this much. If I’m ever confronted with a life threatening illness that my bucket list is huge. Huge. Huge.

Did I say huge?

One of our church’s in our Presbytery is hosting an event that I think will be beneficial for all of those in the church. Here is an excerpt from the Church Basement Roadshow Website:

Three authors/friends/public speakers hit the road for a summer, barnstorming churches around the country in a cross between an old time tent revival and the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Speaking at churches large and small, Tony, Doug, and Mark will present a 90-minute show (including a 20-minute intermission) that will combine humor and passion, speaking and video, preaching and dialogue. Audiences will be entertained, to be sure, but, more importantly, they will be given a vision of an alternative Christianity, one that it woefully lacking in today’s world—this alternative is a Christianity of adventurous theology, passionate faithfulness, postmodern wit, and unrelenting concern for the justice and peace that God offers.

It’s on June 14th and the doors open at 6:30pm.

Hung out with one of our sons tonight watching his baseball game. Something I know I didn’t see from my dad. It’s a treat for me that I get to do these things with our kids. Being a dad trumps so many other things. It’s a gift from God to be able to share with my wife in the role of parenting. Tonight, the boy got a solid outfield hit and got someone out on a throw he made from right field to second base which ended the inning. Made me proud. On the way home we had a good talk about the game and how he felt really good about what he contributed to the game. He says, “I really needed that hit, because he’s had a slow season at the plate. As we talked some more, the topic came up about who got the game ball AGAIN. Kids at this level are so used to getting a game ball from the younger leagues that it becomes the “ata boy,” of the day. I sensed his frustration about how some of the same kids keep getting game balls, some have gotten them at least twice, maybe even three times. And in the coaches defense, the game ball is sometimes the accolade a boy needs to encourage a kid. So, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with the game ball concept for now. Anyways, as I drove my boy home and as my heart broke as I listened to his frustration of, “how does one earn a game ball,” my fatherly words of wisdom that flowed from my mouth, sounded like cheese whiz on crackers. We talked about the “ata boys and accolades of life” and how when God sends you an ”ata boy,” it comes when you at least expect it. And my boys response to my cheese whiz? “Just like that hit I got.”

I think he got it.  

I was driving to work this morning and was listening to the radio about a girls softball team who did something that the church forgets to do sometimes. Two players who set aside their own egos and acted with grace in a situation that called for them both to throw in the towel. When the unexpected happened they both recognized what had taken place and “considered” someone else better than themselves. Trust me when I say that if you don’t sob like a baby after reading this article, then please read Paul’s words here and then read the article again. Click here to watch the video.

Spent the whole day with a couple of nice folks today. It wasn’t over coffee or a meal. It was sitting with them in a court house waiting for a close relative of theirs to be arraigned. What was interesting about my experience was that it felt like another side of the call to serve in ministry that isn’t talked about a whole lot in seminary. Another side that is definetly like serving as a chaplain in a hospital.

Ministry to those facing the possibilty of a long term prison sentence in some ways is like spending time with folks in the hospital. Same feelings in some ways are expoused. If you’ve been a chaplain you understand what I am talking about. I wished I could of been able to do something. I had written a character refernce for this person. I met the attorney. I spent time with the family. I even just sat for a while waiting. Just being present. Being still.

When I arrived back to the court house after lunch, I was able to see this relative who’d we been waiting for all day. Of course from a distance and with several inches of glass in between us and the courtroom. I couldn’t help but catch this persons glance. The eyes of this person spoke volumes to what they were experiencing sitting on the other side of the glass. The tears being held back and the need to be strong as preparation for the journey this person was about to face is nothing I ever want to face. Nothing any one should have to ever face.

I quietly put both of my hands together gesturing that I’d be praying for this person. The person caught my gesture and did the same. That was about it. All I could do. As we left the couthouse again all I could was share with these couple of folks that I’d be there for them if they needed something and to keep me in the loop about their relative. I’d try to visit this relative of theirs when I was able. The imprint of today will be with me for a long time.

Again, I learned something today that I didn’t learn in seminary.

Can’t fix everything.

                                Just listen.

                                             And be still.

 Of couse as I left the court house, two cats in navy blue clothing given to them as gifts by the court, who were being released from prison, walked through the front doors of the courthouse and into the beautiful heat freedom filled day. Both threw their arms into the air and shook each others hands and walked off into the sunset with a smile. Freedom does have that ability to make us smile.

Had to smile for them. 

What a day.

 Lucy, I’m home…

Found this on my sitemeter. You can even find the cheapest gas prices near your home.

I’m not an Astros fan. The team I wanted to be in this spot choked back in April. You got to love it though. 18 innings. 1 winner. And a really tired old man…and a happy young pup who I don’t know, who decides to help end the game with a really big homer. All about the team. Old guys…and young guys. If the Astros don’t make it to the World Series…this game was sure sweet to watch.