A Reflection, a Farewell

Every Tuesday night I have the privilege of leading a bible study at the house of some of my wonderful parishioners. We start around 9pm and end as close to 10pm as I can get us without going too far into the night. Then we gather in the kitchen to continue to chat and eat whatever delicious food and sweets are present that night. By the time we leave (often somewhere between 10:30 and 11pm), I am so sleepy and stuffed that I zone out as another couple drives me home.

A few nights ago, we had bible study, realized that we only have a few weeks left together, and scheduled our very last bible study (which will end up being us gathering for food and possibly talking about Jesus a little bit). That evening as we drove home, I noticed the odd sound of country music coming over the Malaysian radio station. Thomas Rhett's "Die a Happy Man" washed over my ears and I smiled. Oo how I miss country music and seeing the stars at night and bonfires. I felt ready and eager to be "home" in the United States.

Then as I kept listening to the lyrics, I felt sorrow and maybe even regret. It's hard to name exactly the emotions that flooded into my heart, but it wasn't the joy of leaving, it wasn't the excitement of seeing my family at home.

"If I never get to see the Northern lights
Or if I never get to see the Eiffel Tower at night
Oh, if all I got is your hand in my hand
Baby, I could die a happy man"

The premise of the song is that this man has some "bucket list" items, but he sings that even if he doesn't get to do all of those things, he would "die a happy man" just because he gets to spend his days with this woman. I know this feeling all too well. Daniel and I used to move the furniture and dance in the living room. Or we would turn his small apartment into a movie theater. We went on some pretty incredible dates, but my favorite times together have been when we didn't have to spend any money at all. We were just together and happy. We have dreams and plans, but even if they didn't work out, we are still so happy simply being together.

But as I heard this song, I realized that we did get to see our metaphorical Northern lights this year. We did get to see our metaphorical Eiffel Tower at night. And while it's true that our love would be just as incredible and we would be just as happy without these experiences, the truth of the matter is that we have done things this year and seen things that we never could have imagined in our wildest dreams.

And I don't think I've been as grateful as I should have been. I took a lot of it for granted. I think part of it is because I never could have imagined being here and seeing these things this year - or maybe everything happened so quickly that I haven't had a chance to digest it- but I won't use that as an excuse. Until I started to hear that song play over and over in my head, I don't think I fully realized how amazing our first year of marriage has been. Every once in a while we would turn to one another and say, "We are living in Malaysia. How odd the way life turns out," but I don't think it all sank in the way it did the other night.

We saw the famous tea fields of the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia.
We dipped our toes into oceans and seas that I never would have thought we'd visit in our lifetime.
We rode a 40 year old elephant and fed an eight year old elephant!
We watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat.
We watched the sun set on a beach in Bali.
We rode on a crazy cable car in Langkawi and walked on a long curved suspension bridge.
We spent part of Thaipusam at Batu Caves.
We saw the giant reclining Buddha at Wat Pho.
We ate authentic pad thai from a street cart in Bangkok.
We watched a storm roll into the city, sweeping over the Petronas Towers and KL Tower, on the helipad of a skyscraper.
I've preached in three countries and had my sermons translated into several languages.
We went to Universal Studios in Singapore.
We also went to the rooftop pool at Marina Bay Sands and rode the Singapore Flyer.
We had dinner on the rooftop of the #1 restaurant in Phuket.
We shared many of these memories with my parents and Daniel's brother.

And last, but certainly not least, we spent the entire year being welcomed and loved by people who knew nothing about us and committed to helping us grow in ministry, in life, and in love.

This past year has been more incredible, difficult, and surprising than we could have ever imagined. And I think I am just now realizing that this isn't normal. This life is a privilege and an honor. This year has been such an unfathomable blessing from God and I know that we will not soon forget the beautiful memories we have shared in this first year of marriage.

It also gets me excited about what God has in store for us next. We are ready- where will our next adventure lead us?

Self worth & the Church

One of the many incredible blessings I have been given here in Malaysia is the opportunity to engage in continuing education with pastors from very diverse backgrounds. Together we have learned (and reviewed) confessional texts, the sacraments, and ecclesiology. This week I had the opportunity to sit in a counseling/family systems seminar where we talked about different family system theories and what they look like in our contexts.

The first session explored the work of Adlerian and Satir who focused a lot on self-worth and a sense of inferiority respectively. They found in the families they observed, where there was most dysfunction was where there was a distorted or lower sense of self-worth (something that tends to compound with more dysfunction). But where people were encouraged to explore their potential, have genuine connection with people, and gain more self-awareness, they flourished and created more functional, nurturing families because of it.

And it got me thinking about a type of family system that deals directly with these two issues: the church.

Suspending the pitfalls that come with equating the church or a particular church community with a family, we can see some very obvious similarities (and dysfunctions). Even Jesus and Paul talk about the body of Christ in similar verbiage used to talk about the family unit (Hebrews 10, Romans 12, Matthew 12, Acts 2).

And realizing that the "goal" or "purpose" of the body of Christ is not to "make people feel good," but to bring about a wholeness and shalom, we can start to make connections between this seemingly secular social science and how we do ministry. 

How does the church inform people's self-worth? 
What do our sermons or our bible studies covey to members about their potential in this world? 
Do we, as a congregation, encourage people to gain more self-awareness? 
Are there genuine connections happening between people within our congregations? 

About a year ago, I studied a large, complex church organization called NewSpring in Columbia, South Carolina. Overall, the church has probably hundreds of thousands of members, but the campus we were studying only had a couple thousand people regularly attending. And their numbers were growing every year with no indication of slowing down. 

You might think (as we did) that a congregation like this could only keep growing because they were "selling" something that people wanted or felt they needed to "buy." While this might be true to some extent, we also found something else while studying the "strategies" of this church organization. 

They make people feel like they matter. 

From even before joining the worship service, we were greeted as if we were vital to the ministry there. We received special parking for being visitors, we were ushered into a green room and given swag, and we were given a tour of the whole facility afterwards. People who noticed we were visitors greeted us warmly with smiles and genuine "we are so glad you're here." Somehow, for some reason, we mattered to these people, we mattered to this church. It was a refreshing feeling, honestly. And they knew we weren't looking to change congregations. They knew were we attending for research and not for worship. And they still wanted us to know that we were worthy of their time and love.

Now I am not endorsing raffling off cars or even providing visitors with swag on their way into the church, but it is something to take note of.

I've been a visitor in way too many congregations where I have been ignored. Sometimes it's worse than being ignored - I was actively stared at for being a visitor. I remember "taking" a member's pew one Sunday and actually being asked to move back a row!

I can go on and into the true, deep life of the church and how it often lacks this sense of "worthiness" for the congregant, but I think talking about how we greet our visitors is a good enough place to start.

Do we usher them in with smiles and conversation or simply thrust a bulletin into their hands?
Could we pick them our in group after the service and remember their names?
Do we make the time to follow up with them afterwards? Invite them to dinner? Ask how we might be praying for them?
Do we learn about them first before trying to "sell" the congregation's programs to them?

How do we provide hospitality in a way that says, "we want you here, we think your gifts are a perfect match for our passions" instead of, "we need you here to pay our bills with your tithe - what's the minimum we have to do to keep you coming?"

While I don't think it's the whole story, I believe that thinking about the role of people's sense of self-worth is an important building block of how we do ministry together. Shalom, I believe, starts with a person's own identity and self-worth. How then, as bringers of shalom, can we nurture and ignite a more holy sense of self-worth for everyone who walks through the doors of our congregation?

Hospitality and Holy Communion

Please note: this paper was written for a specific context, within an academic class. The views of the article may or may not reflect my own arguments or the theology of the ELCA. This is simply one argument in the midst of many. Please feel free to let me know what your own opinions are! 

In an effort to be a more hospitable and missional Church, communion invitations (verbal and written) within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America should be changed from “all baptized people” to “all people.”  There are two ways this thesis will be approached: theologically and practically.  Although tradition has dictated that communicants be baptized, there is little theological and biblical evidence for the restriction.  Practically, opening the table to unbaptized members publicly can serve as an evangelical tool as well as create greater ease within the parish.  Although communion before baptism should not be the regular practice, changing the invitation would be more inclusive in terms of mission and hospitality.  

Here it should be reiterated that the main point of this essay is not to normalize the practice of unbaptized people receiving communion.  It simply argues that a more welcoming invitation will provide opportunities for hospitality and mission while not disregarding the sacristy of Holy Communion.  Tradition states that people should be baptized before receiving Holy Communion.  Lutherans understand that welcoming people into the Body of Christ involves welcoming them into the baptismal waters as well as the Lord’s Table.  The pastor should follow up with a communicant in the week following the service (as they are likely to be visitors, not long-time members) and ask if they are baptized or interested in being baptized.  If the pastor discovers that they are not baptized, they should be encouraged to come to educational opportunities in the church about both baptism and communion.  In this way, an open invitation to communion is actually a form of evangelism. 

The church recognizes that it is possible and, in some cases, common for people to take communion without being baptized.  The main defense for baptism being the prerequisite for communion is that baptism is the initial profession of faith (which occurs once) and communion is the ongoing, continual, and repeated renewal of faith.  In fact, the Use and Means of Grace states that “admission to the sacrament is by invitation of the Lord, presented through the Church to those who are baptized,” without further explanation as to why it is only presented to the baptized.  The section goes on to explain that 

when an unbaptized person comes to the table seeking Christ’s presence and is inadvertently communed, neither that person nor the ministers of Communion need be ashamed. Rather, Christ’s gift of love and mercy to all is praised. That person is invited to learn the faith of the Church, be baptized, and thereafter faithfully receive Holy Communion. 

Therefore, we understand that it is by no means a sin nor will someone be damned by taking or administering communion before being baptized. 

According to Use and Means of Grace, the only other recommendation for communion is that a person properly prepare to receive the body and blood of Christ.  This preparation comes in the form of individual or corporate confession and forgiveness.  This practice comes from Paul’s request to the Corinthians to “examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”  In general practice, anyone receiving communion will have been a part of the confession and forgiveness at the beginning of the service.  Therefore, unbaptized persons should not be withheld from receiving communion because they have actively participated in the recommendation to properly prepare to receive the body and blood of Christ. 

Theologically speaking, the Church is not who invites people to the communion table.  It is “by invitation of the Lord” that any of us are able to receive Holy Communion.  It is only through God’s incredible saving mercy and grace that we are welcomed to share this meal with Christ.  God desires everyone to be a part of the Body of Christ, so if participation in the eucharist leads to baptism, then it cannot be working against God’s will.  

The Large Catechism, from which we glean much of our tradition, states that it is not our worthiness or unworthiness that makes the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ Jesus.  Luther goes on to state that 

Christ does not say “if you believe or if you are worthy, you have my body and blood,” but rather, “Take, eat and drink, this is my body and blood.”  Likewise, when he says “Do this” (namely, what I do now do, what I institute, what I give you and bid you take), this is as much as to say, “No matter whether you are worthy or unworthy, you have here his body and blood by the power of these words that are connected to the bread and wine.”

Luther points out that Christ says, “This is my body and blood, given for you” (his emphasis).  This means that no matter the person, Christ is addressing all people who hear these words and believe them to be true.  Luther claims that “the treasure is opened and placed at everyone’s door.”  In this way, we simply cannot limit Holy Communion to baptized people.   

We see from the Large Catechism that despite what practices are carried out voluntarily or involuntarily, we hold that “this blessed sacrament remain unimpaired and inviolate even if we use and handle it unworthily.”  We can go forward into new frontiers assured that the sacristy of Holy Communion is not affected by our own actions or differing practices.  

To move to more practical reasons why the verbal and written invitation to the Lord’s table should be inclusive, we will reposition ourselves into a missional mindset.  Practically speaking, in any given congregation, there is no way of telling who is and is not baptized when they approach the table.  We will not stop people from coming forward if they hunger and thirst for Christ.  In fact, Luther says that it is their privilege to come forward if and when they thirst. A friend served communion at their wedding and invited everyone to come forward.  A couple near the front of the church were atheist and Jewish, but were invited to the table as well.  That is a sign of the Holy Spirit working in wonderful, graceful ways through the Lord’s meal.  As many invitations now stand (stating that all baptized people are invited to the table), they could cause visitors, de-churched people, and unchurched people to feel ostracized during the sharing of the meal.  It can close off people from hearing the gospel when they realize that they are not invited to this wonderful meal.  We are representatives of Christ, and to many people, not being welcomed by the church translates to not being welcomed by Christ.  Paul argues that we should be mindful not to “cause our neighbors to stumble” (Romans 14:13-23; 1 Corinthians 8:13).  If an exclusive invitation to the Lord’s table causes people to stumble in their faith or growing faith, then it should be changed for the sake of the Gospel.  

There are two main reasons a person may be opposed to a more open invitation to communion.  The first is that the pastor must follow up with visitors on a regular, intentional basis and ask about things such as baptism.  To this, it should be said that visits are a part of the pastor’s vocation.  The pastor should be constantly reaching out to visitors and having faithful conversations with them regarding their beliefs and religious backgrounds.  

The second piece of opposition may be more serious.  People could argue that allowing anyone to come for communion will devalue or misconstrue the sanctity of the meal.  As previously stated, we do not cause or detract from the sacristy of the Lord’s meal.  It is God’s graciousness and mercy that makes the meal an expression of, not a prerequisite for, God’s grace.  Where people might get the wrong idea about what the eucharist means, we will emphasize that education must follow and continue throughout the lives of all congregants.  Preparation of the heart and mind is necessary for the true reception of Holy Communion.

We see from these arguments that there is no biblically or theologically grounded opposition that should keep churches from changing their invitation language to be more inclusive.  In fact, keeping in mind the theological implications and emphasis on hospitality, churches should be encouraged to change their verbal and written invitation to communion to an inclusive statement about “all people” being invited to the Lord’s table.  This change should occur with prayerful consideration of the context as well as an understanding that communing non baptized people should not be a regular practice, but a gateway to starting a conversation with visitors about baptism and communion.  Education outside of Sunday morning worship is especially necessary as we open the table to all people.  

Sources: 

Use and Means of Grace: A Statement on the Practice of Word and Sacrament, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, (Augsburg Fortress: Minneapolis, MN, 1997).

Kolb, Robert, Timothy J. Wenger, and Charles P. Arand. The Book of Concord: the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church: Large Catechism. (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2000), V.