So What Did You Do On Your Sabbatical?

By RAYMOND VANCE
August 10, 2009

Well, what did I do on my sabbatical?

• went to a monastery,
• spent time with my family,
• went to church,
• repaired the patio,
• took up golf,
• wrote a reformation hymn,
• make corn hole boards and Adirondack chairs,
• celebrated at a wedding reception,
• circled Lake Michigan by car,
• ate a pasty,
• traveled by lake ferry,
• took shoes to Nashville,
• went white water rafting,
• sampled cherries in Door County Wisc,
• bought a new journal and pens, wrote in that new journal,
• prayed and played,
• when to the Ohio State Fair,
• shot the moon in Hearts,
• stayed in a marvelous B&B in a old school house in Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin,
• celebrated our anniversary and Barbara's birthday,
• took tons of pictures,
• tipped waiters everywhere,
• fixed some plumbing,
• saw my children's new home and new apartment,
  
• visited my seminary,
• climbed up to the top of lighthouses,
• had a Bahama Mama and cream puffs at the Schmidt house,
• met long time friends,
• follow the GPS even when I wasn't sure it knew where I was going,
• arranged a deal on a new car for a family member (can you say "clunker cash"),
• found my Uncle Clarence's four boxes of Vance genealogy records in the Knoxville library and found me in them,
• stood at the grave of my grandfather (the first time I had any contact with him – it was an important moment),
• read books,
• saw Chihuly glass sculpture at the Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus (see above),
• listened to music,
• helped a church with its website,
• caught up with the life of old friends and former church members via email,
• planned a new way to lead Bible Study in the fall,
• found a spiritual director and scheduled a meeting,
• and lots of other stuff...
  

Soles4Souls

By RAYMOND VANCE
August 4 2009

It all worked because of time zones. You get an extra hour when you travel west when you cross one. I needed that extra hour last Thursday when I took a car-load of shoes to Nashville.

We left at a reasonable time to get our cargo to Soles4Souls offices by 5 p.m. As a matter of fact, we made great time in Ohio. Leaving Huron at 8 a.m., we were eating Skyline Chili in Covington Kentucky by noon. Every thing was on track. The GPS said there was plenty of time, but the GPS didn't check with the weather man.

The storms that make Kentucky and Tennessee so green were afternoon torrents. While Ted slowed for safety, I keep looking at my cell phone clock. Come on, come on. Show us central time. Show us central time. Come on. Come on. OK!!!

With a half hour to spare we drove up to the office behind the bank and left 186 pairs of hope for someone, somewhere in the world. The young people who worked at the office thanked me. So I am thanking you. You made your faith active through love. That's what the Gospel is all about.

As I come now to the end of this time away, I bring back a eagerness to continue our journey of faith. I ask God to help and guide us in the years ahead. The God who has been faithful in our past, has promised to be faithful in our future.  Thanks be to God!

Sunday Morning Coming Down
By RAYMOND VANCE
July 22, 2009

Last Sunday was unusual for me. Unusual for me but more and more usual for many. I didn't sit in church. I sat outside a coffee shop in Door County Wisconsin. The quiet beauty of the morning was compelling and I thought about what we are up against. For many in our community the most meaningful Sunday morning comes outside of church.

Two days of wall to wall traffic in this tourist area not unlike ours was stilled on Sunday morning. The noise, the hurry, the crowds were all gone. Just the coffee and my best friend.

Isaiah says, "Be still and know that I am God." A morning by the lake can show you God.

I'm thinking that the reason I got this moment of Eden was because those who visited Door were sleeping in from their long Saturday night revelry. Or were dragging their boats out of the water for the trip home. Maybe I don't see the same Sunday morning they did. But what I did see was something I have not experienced in a long time... a deep feeling of Sunday rest.

And I'm carrying that feeling still. And it's Wednesday. 
 
 
 
 

Boys of Chicago
By RAYMOND VANCE
July 10 2009

It's an odd numbered class reunion. Classes meet for 10 or 25 or 40 year reunions. So how many 37th seminary reunions do you think are pulled off. Not many I would think. But there is a story behind this one.

Seminary reunions are not like high school ones. In high school everyone is about the same age when they graduate. Not so in seminary commencements. In our class we had classmates that were a decade older than those of us who went from high school to college (remember when you could get out in four years) to seminary. Now days with second career seminarians, it might be two or three decades.

One classmate was like a father to the rest of us in seminary. His wife was our mom away from home. Jim was all of 10 years our senior, but a lot of maturity happens in those particular years.

Jim has also been the hub around which our class circled after we all entered parishes or grad school. Jim always seemed to know where we were and what we were up to, in a congregation or not. It's Jim who led us on and kept us together. It's Jim's desire to get together that unfolded in Chicago. "I'm not sure I'll be around for 40," he said. I hope he's around for 50!

We meet as 12 -- pastor's and pastor's wives -- in downtown Chicago over Fourth of July weekend. For two days we touch bases with each other and read email from classmates that could not attend. Some of us are retired, especially those who were older classmen. The rest of us are actively involved in the Church at large and parishes that are local. We ate, drank, remembered, walked, talked and learned from each other. We heard the stories that can only be described as tragedy. We celebrated the triumphs of each other and our families.

It was a good time of stepping back into each others lives. We renewed our promises to stay in touch. 

Our ancestors in faith were pretty good at remembering milestones. It's built into the church's DNA. Thirty-seven years of faithful ministry in the Lord's church, something to be remembered.

The Journey Begins
By RAYMOND VANCE
June 26, 2009

There was much to make me glad and some to make me sad on my trip to the Monastery this week. Like most things in life, there are moments and then there are moments!

The trip to St. Augustine House was easy, thanks to "Garmina." Garmina is my Garmin GPS. She talked me though Detroit detours and down a 2 1/2 mile dusty road to the beautiful chapel you see below. I arrived in the early afternoon in what I found out to be the rest time. No one was to be found. I took up position on a bench outside the church. I knew that in time, someone would head that way.

The first monk I saw was a chipmunk! Such was my introduction to one side of the monastic life. Silence and solitude.

Sure enough, Father Richard found me and invited me to join him in the mid-afternoon antiphonal reading of the psalms called "None." When I say join him, I mean join him. Just the two of us. With a very brief head's up, we followed the appointed order of worship. It was a challenge. While he was very patient with me, I'm afraid I was less than stellar in knowing what to do.

So I was introduced to the sadness. There are very few permanent residents at the monastery and so few to participate in worship. I was there with four others over the days. I was the only visitor for the week.

What is a challenge for worship is also a challenge for maintaining the facilities itself. Four building and 42 acres is a lot for a few.  For Father Richard, Doug, Dave, Don - I just noticed all the "Ds" - it is such a overwhelming task. One they do as best they can.

While it did seem sad to me,  it was also the sign of faithfulness to God in overwhelming circumstances. They are a community for whom I now pray each day.

And there was much to make me glad. I did have time for worship and prayer in a way that renews my spirit. I also used time to outline a new way to offer Biblical and theological subjects in a way that may reach those in our congregation who are not able to attend Bible Study in the time and format that we now offer. The Bible Book of Faith plan is something that could be seen or heard on a computer or a  smart phone or a CD in an car. Things like "Ten Things I should know about the Bible." "Ten Things I should know about Lutherans."  "Ten Things I should know about the Book of John." Ten minutes of thought provokers that could help our Bible and Christian literacy.

So, as in all events of life, this week has been a time of growing and challenge. All in all a good start for a sabbatical. It's a good model for our ministry together, too.

As One Who Hears From God

By RAYMOND VANCE
June 10, 2009

The Old Testament word is “nabi.” Sometimes the Hebrew word is spelled “navi.” Either way it means the same thing. “The One Who Speaks for God.”

The English word for nabi is “prophet.” The prophets of the OT would say, “Thus says the Lord.” One who speaks for God in most congregation is the pastor. At lease in a formal way.

The model of the prophet/preacher is the Western Union messenger boy. You remember Western Union? The guy with the funny looking hat riding up on the bicycle to deliver the dispatch. The telegram was not the words of the bike rider, it was the words of the sender.

I speak for God. Day after day I speak for God. In Sunday morning pulpits and mid-week living rooms I speak. And that may be my problem.

Someone has once said that the face is built for twice as much hearing as speaking. Yet in the spiritual life I live, I end up speaking twice as much as listening. Week after week people expect that of their pastor. So I talk and I forget how to listen.

I already have the new book to journal in – a way to listen to God. I have a dozen pens and the realization that I'll run out of ink before I run out of praise.

My monastery times will have a schedule of silence each day. I'll get to listen since for half of the day I cannot talk. I know from my past that when I give God the silence, he gives me the wonder.

A colleague told me he was glad that I was taking a sabbatical this year. “It's good for you to get away.” I know what he was trying to say, but I don't think it's getting away at all. I feel it's coming home to sit on God's front porch. To sit and listen. To listen and learn. To learn and grow.

The one who speaks for God is coming home to become the one who hears from God. That's my goal for this sabbatical. And God's too, I believe.

There and Back Again

By RAYMOND VANCE
June 6, 2009

 

Thanks to the kindness of the congregation, I'm going to the Irish Hills to pray.

I am going on sabbatical this summer -- a rest from the responsibilities of the pastoral ministry at Zion Lutheran Church, Huron, Ohio.

The congregation has granted me six weeks of sabbatical time. I am taking this time in conjunction with my vacation. So there is a 10 week of break from nearly four decades of Word and Sacrament ministry.

The plans for my sabbatical are varied, but all seem to involve a journey.  Much of the travel will center on family events -- a wedding in Delaware, a weekend in Door County Wisconsin with our youngest and his wife, a road trip to Knox County Tennessee with our oldest, and a trip to Germantown with our middle child and her husband.

Some of the journeys will be for the other side of me -- the pastoral side. My Seminary class will be meeting over the fourth of July in Chicago. Barbara and I will see some faces we have not seen in years -- decades for some.Then there's the theological anchors to this whole journey -- two trips to the Lutheran Monastery in Oxford, Michigan. One will be at the beginning of this sabbatical, and the other will mark the end of it.

So this sabbatical is physically and spiritually a journey. But there will always be a call to return to Zion where there are many paths to meet and errands to complete.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say. -- J. R. R. Tolkie

Lutheran Monastery & Retreat House
Oxford, Michigan

 

If  someone is hospitalized or you need pastoral or spiritual help, call:

• Monday through Thursday between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.

• All other times

An ordained Lutheran pastor will be leading worship on each Sunday. The current schedule of Supply Pastors:

Local Pastor for emergencies, including funerals, are:

• Rev. Kathleen Suggitt
• Rev. Phil Gardner
• Rev. Jerry Bauer

• Please call the Church Office or the President/Vice President.

Lay Visitation for those in the hospital:

• The Stephen Ministers
• The Deacons

• Please call the Church Office or the President/Vice President if someone is hospitalized.
  

Those providing Communion and other Shut-in Ministries:

• The Deacons

Those organizing Worship with leadership and support:

• The Lay Assistants
• The Deacon of the Day.
• Leslie Foxworth
• Judy Burrows
  

• Remember that Carole and the Executive Committee are ready to help you in your need. Please call on them.

Mark 6:45-46 (New Living Translation)

Jesus Walks on Water

45 Immediately after this, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and head across the lake to Bethsaida, while he sent the people home. 46 After telling everyone good-bye, he went up into the hills by himself to pray.

Sabbatical

Thanks to the kindness of the congregation, I'm going twice to the Irish Hills of Michigan this summer to pray.

Because you have offered me a sabbatical, I will begin it and end it at the Lutheran Monastery in Oxford with times of rest, reflection, renewal, and refocus for ministry.

This whole thing of sabbatical is new to me. I have never been on one before. I would guess that for most of you it's new too. You never had a pastor on sabbatical.

While it's a part of most letters of call in our Lutheran church, I know only a hand-full of pastor's that have been on one. I don't think that's because of the congregations as much as it's the fault of the pastors. We don't ask about this time to grow. I have been guilty of this for a long time.

Why

So what make me ask now? To be honest, it was when I conducted the funerals of three women I loved, all in the same week– Anna, Lois, and Mert. It came so fast. I could not grieve one because I was turning to the next. (Yes, even with the certainty of the resurrection, pastor's grieve.) I had no hill to go away to pray, though I longed for it.

In my 9:00 a.m. prayers I grumped to God about it for a while. Then I read His answer: “Ask and it shall be given to you... You have not, because you ask not.”

And so I said to Leroy, “We should talk about a sabbatical sometime.” He said “OK!”

I want to thank him and the executive committee, and the boards and council for their answer of “yes.” I also want to thank all of you who have talk to me, sent notes or email of encouragement and prayer.

Ready

From the beginning of my time here, you have been in active partnership with me in ministry. You plan and lead worship, visit the sick, take communion to the house-bound, Stephen minister each other, tend the youth, teach the Bible, pray for the work of God among us.

So you have all, in effect, allowed me this time away because we could not afford to hire another pastor to do it all. But you have always made your faith active through love and service to each other and the world. It now becomes a gift to me.

I will be using this sabbatical time to step back from pastoral ministry and to learn more about God's plans for us in the years ahead. I find this is needed as we face a changing world and try to stay faithful to the call of discipleship.

I believe this time will be a blessing to you as you expand your involvement in serving others in Christ's name. I believe that God will bless you and me together in this special time of renewal.

As Barbara and I travel, celebrate time with family, attend other places of worship, you will be with us in our thoughts and prayers. We will be your prayer partners this summer. We will pray for you as we know you will pray for us.

I do thank you for this time away. And I pray that you also will somehow find that time for rest, renewal, and re-commitment we all need. I pray that you too will have time “in the hills with Jesus” this summer. Our church will be all the stronger for it.

Blessings,

RHV