“The Gift of Time”

I did my best to be patient towards the end of August, when I had been told that I would be notified of the status of the grant that I had submitted for my upcoming renewal leave. Each morning I would check my email with bated breath, hoping to get some news – any news – one way or the other. Then, it came. On a Tuesday morning while I was on the phone with my friend Bryan, my computer dinged – a signal that I had received an email. I quickly opened my email and saw that it was from the grant program organization. I opened the email, feeling very much like a high school senior opening an admissions letter from a university, only to see the words, “Unfortunately, your proposal was not among those selected for funding this year.”

Boo.

Now what?

To put it succinctly: we’re still on! While the decision about this grant is unfortunate, it doesn’t change much about my plans for next summer. Because while the money we had requested was sizeable, the vast majority of it was to cover expenses for one international trip for me and my family. At this point, that particular trip won’t happen; but that’s okay! The point of this renewal leave isn’t about one experience. It is about the gift of time.

When I arrived at CtK eight years ago, Lydia was three years old, and Micah was almost two. I remember thinking how busy I was at the time, shuffling the kids to and from preschool every day amidst my own schedule full of meetings and visits and travel for various committees and boards on which I sat. But life has only gotten more complicated over the years, and my schedule now boggles my mind. As the kids have grown older and their participation in sports and other extracurricular activities has expanded, the time our family has together in any given week has slowly diminished. We still do our best to hold to the commitment to have dinner together each evening, but sometimes that’s about all we get.

One of the focal points of the renewal leave has always been about the gift of time that such a leave would afford me. Not time for work, but time to just be: to be alone, to be with God in prayer, and to be with my family. Grant money isn’t needed for that. All that is needed is, well, time! I’m already looking forward to the sense of rejuvenation and renewal that this gift of time will bring.

What will I do with all this time? That will be detailed in my Scribe articles over the next few months. Stay tuned.

Pastor Tim

“Cultivating Your Spirituality”

Years ago, I led a group of people from Messiah Lutheran Church in Albuquerque on a Spiritual Growth Retreat. (As an aside, the retreat was held at a Bed & Breakfast in Durango, years before I was called as a pastor here.) Part of this retreat was to help the participants discern how they tend to their spiritual life. As I was looking for resources to lead this discussion, I stumbled upon a resource called the Spirituality Inventory. Little did I know how much this simple resource would help me to understand my own spirituality, too.

No one ever really taught me about how to tend to my spiritual life, or – at least – if they did, it didn’t stick. As a result, I had this notion that spirituality needed to look and be expressed in a certain way: go to church; read the Bible; pray before meals and at bedtime, just as a few examples. I did these things all the time. And you know what happened? Nothing. My faith, my spiritual life, felt non-existent. I didn’t feel spiritually fed, especially after I became a pastor and “going to church” turned into “lead a worship service.” Spirituality suddenly felt like a job, not a life-giving gift.

It was with this simple Spirituality Inventory, though, that I began to understand spirituality as a beautiful and complex way of life, not a one-size-fits-all checklist. It validated the ways that my spirituality was fed, and it highlighted the ways in which my spiritual life could expand.

Once I found this resource, I eagerly sought out others like it to help me understand my particular spirituality, discern my unique gifts, and use them in a way that honors God and others. Over the years, then, I have continued to cultivate the things that I’ve learned: that my spirituality is often fed through Bible studies, book studies, and lectures or speeches; that my spirituality is often expressed best through writing, public speaking, and teaching; that places and periods of silent solitude are not just nice-to-have’s, but need-to-have’s for me to maintain and deepen my spiritual life; that advocacy and activism tend to deplete me and my energy, yet they can also be avenues for expanding my understanding of spirituality.

As I look forward to next summer and my renewal leave which will begin in June, I am already eagerly anticipating the gift of time to tend to my spirituality with more intention. Before I go, I will be leading sermon series on Expressing Spirituality, and you, too, will have the opportunity to learn about your spirituality through this simple inventory.

Until then, if you have questions or want to hear more about my experience, let me know! I’d love to talk with you about it.

Peace,

Pastor Tim

“Get Ready to “Huddle”

My friend Bryan Jaster and I have been meeting almost weekly for a Bible / Book study since 2003. Together we’ve read and drilled deep on almost every book of the Bible, and we’ve studied and wrestled with some wonderful books that have challenged, engaged, and uplifted our faith. Years ago, we read a book together called “Building a Discipleship Culture” by Mike Breen. I’ve mentioned this book a few times in past Scribe articles because it had that much of an impact on me. I loved the new language and symbols that the author used to make faith more engaging in everyday life. I highly recommend it.

This book was special for another reason, too: it led me to participate in what the author called a Huddle. Huddles, he said, are small groups of people who meet regularly (usually weekly) for mutual support and encouragement and sometimes challenge in our discipleship journeys. This is done primarily by taking turns sharing with one another what caught our attention in the last week, what God might be saying to us through it, and to come up with a plan for how to respond faithfully. This work has led me to be much more attentive to the voice of God, to the leading of the Spirit, and to the grace found in Jesus than I have ever been before.

Therefore, for the past several years, I have taken part in several of these Huddles through the wonder of Zoom. I have been in Huddles with Pastors, Bishop’s Assistants, Youth Directors, and laypeople from all over the country who have helped me along my journey of growing into a more faithful, faith-filled disciple of Jesus; and I hope that I have helped and encouraged them along theirs, too.

During my Renewal Leave, I plan to participate in two Huddles – one at the beginning of my Leave, and the other as my Leave is about to end. I hope that doing so will help me to understand my experiences as more than just fun and relaxing, but also as intentional time to tend to my spiritual roots.

If you’d like more information about Huddles, or how you might find or participate in one, please let me know. I’d be happy to help you in that process.

Peace,

Pastor Tim

“Rooted”

In June 2022, I will begin a 15-week renewal leave – an intentional time away to rest, rejuvenate, and recharge for the next phase of my ministry at Christ the King Lutheran Church. Helpfully, a colleague who recently completed her renewal leave suggested that I come up with a theme that can tie my planned activities and hoped-for outcomes together. After some thought, discernment, and discussions with friends, I landed on the theme of “Rooted” for this renewal leave experience. As ministry and family responsibilities have continued to expand over the years, I find myself feeling stretched thin. Using this time to intentionally and deeply cultivate some of the formative aspects of my life will prepare me for new and healthy growth. So, I will use this renewal leave to focus on my roots in three areas: personal growth, familial relationships, and spirituality. Within each area, there are several methods by which I will attend to those roots. Over the next year, I will outline some of those for you in these Scribe articles, so that you, too, might be able to find time for renewal.

In terms of personal growth, one way that I intend to tend to my roots is with the use of the Enneagram. This is a tool that I have found to be tremendously useful in my ministry, aiding me in things such as pastoral counseling and leadership development. More than that, though, it has given me language to help me make sense of – well – me! Those who participated in the Enneagram seminar that I held last fall may have seen how this tool can shed light on the ways in which we show up in the world, how we interact with others, our unconscious motivations and behaviors. My more intentional study of the Enneagram over the last couple of years has been an enlightening experience, to say the least. It has made me want to learn more.

On a personal level, my study of the Enneagram has revealed how little I know about how I ‘work.’ Even typing that sentence makes me shake my head and chuckle. It sounds absurd, but it’s true. As a Type 9 in the Enneagram system, one of the challenges I face is really knowing myself – what do I think, what do I want, what do I need? The M.O. for Type 9s is to go along to get along, which often means that what I want gets pushed aside in favor of what others want or desire. But now, thanks to the Enneagram and the gift of self-awareness that it has given me, I am starting to see where this kind of behavior can be utilized as a true skill, and where it can be harmful to my own sense of self. Pairing this kind of knowledge with regular counseling with a somatic therapist have helped me to be more attuned to the ways in which my body responds and reacts – almost unconsciously – to my environment, to anxiety, to stress. I have found this to be a real gift, and I look forward to time where I can explore this tool and its resources more deeply.

If you would like to know more about the Enneagram, I’d love to share more with you. I could even recommend some resources that might get you started on your own journey with this tool.

Peace,

Pastor Tim

We’re one year away – one year away from a Renewal Leave, both for me and for this congregation.

You may remember that we had discussions about an upcoming Renewal Leave that was supposed to take place this summer. But shortly after submitting a grant application to the Lilly Foundation for funds to ensure that I and CtK can do the things we most desire during this time, COVID-19 wrapped its invisible fingers around the world and squeezed. It wasn’t long into the pandemic that Eryn and I realized that the effects of COVID would continue for a long time, and would likely interfere with our Renewal Leave plans. So, we withdrew our application from consideration for this year.

In April 2021, I resubmitted the application again with the intent to go on a Renewal Leave in the summer of 2022. We should hear back from the granting organization as to whether we have been awarded a grant or not by the end of August. Either way, whether we get the grant or not, I and CtK are preparing for this Renewal Leave to take place, beginning after worship on Pentecost Sunday, June 5, 2022.

The theme for this time of renewal has not changed since we discussed this over a year ago. I still find profound meaning in the theme “Rooted,” and perhaps especially now as COVID has upended so many things in our world. The thought of stability and rootedness these days sounds like a blessed reprieve.

Therefore, over the next twelve months, we will begin to introduce this theme more intentionally, offering congregation members more opportunities to prepare themselves for this Renewal Time as well. The first such experience will be long-term in our Thursday Bible Studies. These Bible Studies take place at Noon every Thursday, in-person and via Zoom. We will begin to use a course from The Great Courses to look at the various roots of Christianity. The series will take about a year to complete, but it will lead us to better understand the roots of Lutheranism within Christianity. But many individuals at CtK have come to this congregation by way of other denominations, and this series will help us to explore ways that our various denominational roots relate to one another. I am still investigating ways that we can make these videos “public,” even for a short time so that those who cannot commit to meeting on Thursdays at noon can still participate. I will keep you all posted on that as soon as I learn more.

If you have any questions or concerns about this upcoming Renewal Leave, please let me know. I’d love to talk with you about it.

Peace,

Pastor Tim