Hands

Today I was serving communion, and I was struck by the difference in people's hands. People come forward for the bread and the wine, and we serve by intinction. So we place the wafer (styrofoam poker chip) into their hands and they dip them into the wine.

I don't know why today I noticed, but I did. Sometimes, people come forward, with their eyes on the floor, and their hands cupped in front of them...a position of receiving something.

Sometimes they clutch their hands closed after I place the wafer in their hands...as if it's something they don't want to lose.

Sometimes they "pluck" the wafer out of my fingers as I take it towards them...as if in a sense of anticipation.

Sometimes they hesitate in taking the wafer...as if they're not sure they should.

In our tradition, we don't commune children until they've completed "First Communion Instruction" in fifth grade. (Don't get me started on this one...) So we do a blessing of the younger children. I do this by making the mark of the cross on their forehead and reminding them of God's baptismal promises to them. But my favorite thing is when these children, who do not necessarily understand the praxis of the church, reach out to grab a wafer...as if they are claiming something that belongs to them...which, of course, they are. (once again, don't get me started...)

I see young hands...old hands...gnarled hands...large hands...calloused hands...gentle hands...these hands represent th;e very different places in life that people are at. It also reminds me that God's grace is for everyone.

Hands.

Where Will the Network Be in 5 Years

I was asked the question: What will the Network be like in 5 years? Great question! My answer: "I don't Know." Only God knows. And the Holy Spirit will take the Network where it goes.

But I have dreams, visions and ideas. I know what I want it to look like. So here are my thoughts on what the Network would look like in September of 2012, if I could draw the blueprint. These ar not in any particular order:

There would be 2000 paying members of what is a "guild" of youth and family ministry professionals and volunteers. These people would be from a vast and diverse collection of congregations. Urban, surburban and rural.

• The Network would be the proactive element in determining goals, strategies and resources for effective youth and family minstries. We would be in partnership with resource providers, but the practitioners would set the agenda. Qualititaively, members of the Network would be eqipped to determine their own needs and the resource providers would work to provide materials to meet those needs. This represents a significant shift in how resourcing happens.


• The Extravaganza would remain the Network's primary product, and actually would grow in importance. It would continue to bring the best in educational resources and make them available affordably. It's role as the central Networking and gathering place would grow as the number of participants grow.


• A community of mutually supportive, caring colleagues will exist that provides support and mutual resourcing will grow.


• Lively discussion and theological reflection will be triggered by paper and online issues of "Connect."


• Every year, 200-250 leaders from a variety of congregational settings will participate in dynamic online training opportunities that will include theological training as well as practical "how to" information.


• This culture of inquiry and learning will increase the flow of congregatinoal leaders seeking advanced, degree oriented training in our seminaries.


• Likewise, the number of people entering into ELCA candidacy will increase as Network training programs are recognized as fulfilling educational requirements for candidacy.


• The Network will become the primary delivery system for new research and acadeic thinking, as it is interpreted for the practitioner.


• A web of Networks across our church will form, and existing Networks will be strengthened as a stronger sense of belonging is fostered.


• Local and regional training events that supplement and interpret the work of the Extravaganza will happen throughout the year.


• A thematic focus will be developed each year. This theme would be introduced and interpreted at the Extravaganza, and supporting materials (content and publication/marketing) will be produced and distuibuted through the website and through Connect. This theme and its associated materials would be "given away" to congregations to use as themes for retreats, camps, confirmation programs, year-long themes for sr high or jr high ministry and for Bible studies. Synods could use this theme and its related materials for their youth gatherings and other events.


• Youth and family ministry volunteers will seek to meet and maintain minimum professional standards. Every year these standards will be affirmed as best practices for individuals at the Extravaganza.


• The Network, primarily through the Extravaganza, will become the common gathering for other Networks that related to youth and family ministry. This would include (but is not limited to) colleges with Y&F majors, the ELCA seminaries, network built around ministry form (urban, suburban and rural), outdoor ministries, parachurch organizations, resource providers, the SYMBOL Network and others.

Is this vision comprehensive? No. Is it all destined to be? Doubtful. God's Holy Spirit, I believe may have different dreams, and perhaps much larger dreams.

More to come...

Thoughts on 20 Years

On my calendar from Sept. 1, 1987, there were two words written: “Start Work.” I was a new college graduate, and I had just received my first call, to Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Maple Grove. I had grown up in South Minneapolis and had gone to high school in Edina. I didn’t even really know where Maple Grove was. In fact, when I drove out for a first interview, and turned west on Bass Lake Road from 494, I drove past farms and barns. I thought to myself “a rural call?”

Twenty years ago, I never expected that I’d still be at Lord of Life today;
I never expected that the congregation would have experienced the incredible growth we have undergone;
In 1987 I believed that someday I might become a pastor, (I went on to change my mind about that…twice…) but I never expected that I would be serving here, in the place I started;
I never expected that Lord of Life would relocate to our current facility. That’s so uncommon in the church;
I never expected to get to work with the gifted and tremendous people who are my colleagues. Lord of Life is blessed with an incredible staff.
I never expected all of the amazing things God would do in this place, with this community. Pastor Peter has said that in the last 25 years, his tenure, it’s like he has really served in 5 or 6 different congregations. A 1000 member church, a 2000 member church, and so on… He’s right. To say that the one constant in my 20 years has been “change” is incomplete. It has been 20 years of growth. We are a wider church: we have experienced over 350% growth since I’ve been here. We are also a deeper church: As a community, I believe we have a deeper understanding and appreciation of God’s love and grace.

Mostly, I never expected that I would grow to love the people of Lord of Life and of Maple Grove so deeply. That is why I am still here. I believe God has called me to this place and I love the community here. You have been a gift from God to me and my family. And I am grateful.

Where will I be in 2027? I have no idea. I’ve given up having expectations. I’ve learned to ride the wind of the Holy Spirit. I do know this: Wherever we go and whatever we do, God will go with us. We are not alone. And God will continue to bless Lord of Life. We will continue to grow both wider and deeper. Not because of anything we do, but because God blesses this community with His Spirit, and God calls our ministry to grow.

Keep dreaming dreams of what God may do here!

Peace,

Pastor Todd.

"Be Thou My Vision"

“Be Thou My Vision”
Luke 13:10-17
Todd Buegler
August 25-27, 2007
Lord of Life
Homily for a “Hymn Sing”


Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, and from Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

I have to admit that when I was growing up, I wasn’t really a “hymn singing” kind of guy. I think it’s because I grew up in an extremely traditional, older congregation in south Minneapolis. Let me be clear, I love my home church.
But when it came to worship, Diamond Lake Lutheran was extremely traditional.

Their idea of contemporary music was simply to play the organ a little louder. And the organist, as good as he was (and he was very good), well, he only had one speed for his hymns…slow.

So, I think mostly because of the speed and the repetitiveness, I didn’t develop an appreciation for the hymns of the church until I went to college. The chapel at Gustavus was also very traditional. And the Chaplain loved his hymns and his liturgy. But one day he was talking to a group of students, and I heard him say that each hymn tells a story, and that each hymn is a confession of our faith. Each hymn says something about what we believe. So he reminded us to “pay attention” to the words. “Don’t sing it if you don’t mean it!” And he said, “to remember: God is listening.” Well, how can you argue with that? So I started to pay attention. Instead of just singing, or more frequently, doing the “Lutheran Mumble” (you know what I mean) I started really reading the words as the congregation sung them. The first hymn I paid attention to after I heard the Chaplain was “Be Thou My Vision”. I fell in love with that hymn…and its story:

Only one missionary is honored with a global holiday, and only one is known by his own distinct color of green. Of course, I’m referring to St. Patrick, a missionary priest to Ireland.

Patrick was born in AD 373, along the banks of the River Clyde in what is now called Scotland. His father was a deacon, and his grand father a priest. When Patrick was about 16 years old, Irish raiders descended on his little town and torched his home. When one of the pirates spotted him in the bushes, he was seized, hauled aboard ship, and was taken to Ireland as a slave. There he gave his life to the service of Jesus Christ. “The Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief,” he later wrote, “in order that I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God.”

Patrick eventually escaped and returned home. His overjoyed family begged him to never leave again. But one night, in a dream, Patrick saw an Irishman pleading with him to come and to evangelize Ireland.

It wasn’t an easy decision, but Patrick, now about age 30, returned to the land of his former captors with only one book, the Latin Bible, in his hand. As he evangelized the countryside, thousands of people came to listen. But the superstitious Druids opposed him and sought his death. Patrick’s preaching, however, was powerful. He became one of the most fruitful evangelists of all time, planting about 200 churches and baptizing over 100,000 converts.

His work endured and several centuries later, the Irish church was still producing hymns, prayers, sermons and songs of worship. In the eighth century, an unknown poet wrote a prayer inspired by the work of St. Patrick. Patrick had asked God to open his eyes and to be his vision; he asked that he could view the world as God would view it. He asked God to be his Vision, his Wisdom, and his Best Thought by day or by night.

IN 1905, Mary Elizabeth Byrne, a scholar in Dublin, Ireland, translated this ancient Irish poem from Gaelic into English. Another scholar, Eleanor Hull of Manchester, England, took Byrne’s translation and crafted it into verses with rhyme and meter. Shortly thereafter it was set to a traditional Irish folk song, “Slane,” named for an area in Ireland where Patrick reportedly challenged local Druids with the Gospel.

I think that sometimes we all enter worship with the wrong frame of mind. Growing up, I assumed that the point of worship was to keep me interested, and if the pastor, or the music weren’t entertaining enough, I’d check out. I assumed that sitting in the pews, I was the audience.

In worship, as in much of life, God turns the tables on our expectations. God, or the pastors are not the performers. God is the subject of worship. We…all of us… are the ones on the stage, giving our prayers and praise to the one who created us and redeemed us. And as the Chaplain said, “God listens.”
God listens.

We know the power of great hymns. You can see a physical reaction in people when they sing “How Great Thou Art” at the funeral of a grandparent. I’ve led worship in nursing homes and have seen people who couldn’t track with anything we were doing, suddenly lock in to the worship when we started singing Amazing Grace. At the end of a long day on an AWOL mission trip, or on Mission Jamaica, I’ve seen the emotion when we’d gather for a campfire, or for devotions, and would sing together. There is a spiritual power to singing.

And “Be Thou My Vision” is a great hymn of the church. More than that, it is a prayer and a request to God. Like St. Patrick, we ask that God blesses us with his vision. We ask to see the world, and to see each other, through the same kind of eyes that God sees. We ask to look upon each other and all of creation with vision of grace and love. We ask for God’s wisdom. We ask for assurance of God’s presence. We ask for the promises God makes to be true in our lives; and for us to see them come alive within us. And we are reminded that God delivers on his promises…to each one of you.

At Lord of Life, sometimes we sing the great, old hymns of the church. Sometimes we sing the new, contemporary worship songs. Sometimes we sing with piano, or with a synthesizer with an organ setting. Sometimes it’s with guitar, bass and drums. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. Ultimately, worship is about living out and expressing our relationship with God. I believe God loves it when we sing, however we sing. I believe God hears our music. The very act of singing is a confession of our faith and strengthens our belief.

God, in this hymn, we ask you to be our vision…our wisdom…our inheritance…our treasure…

And God, we know that when we sing, you listen.
Amen.