What’s going on with Steve?

Since I (Steve) have already hijacked this blog once today…I figured I’d do it again. From time to time, I get an email or phone call from Alabama friends asking about our church and my role as a pastor and “how’s it going?” Since this blog mostly centers around our family activities and how we Southerners experience new stuff in Michigan, I figured I’d share a couple of my own thoughts.

Believe it or not, we’re only a few weeks away from the 6-month mark of being here. It has definitely been one of the quickest 6-month windows of my life.

How’s that “pastoring thing” working out? I have a lot of ways that I could describe it. Sometimes I still look around and can’t believe that I’m in this role. Mainly because it’s a lot different than sitting in a cubicle (or a pod, as we called it at Accenture) constructing conceptual design documents, performing design and code reviews, debugging coding issues or attending joint architecture meetings. At the same time, it’s very much like other roles that I’ve had in the past: as an assistant pastor in North Dakota, as an interim pastor in Alabama, and as a youth pastor 20 years ago. (No one can accuse me of being stuck in a vocational rut!)

In my role as “interim pastor” in Michigan, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time just getting to know people. I’ve visited families in over 30 homes this Fall simply finding out who they are in their faith journey, how they first connected with our church and how they connect in our community. This analysis has been helpful as I try to get a good perspective on leading this church of 250-300 people to fulfill its mission of sharing the love of Jesus Christ with our community.

Part of my role includes speaking…every Sunday. Because I’m still new at this…it takes a considerable amount of time and energy. (And no…I don’t have sermons on YouTube yet! ). I spent most of the Fall months speaking on things relating to the purpose of the church: why it’s still a great idea and what Jesus had to say to the various New Testament churches. December was a little different. I spoke on various things that we could learn from God, simply by reading the often-skipped genealogy that leads up to the “Christmas Story” in Matthew 1.

This spring, I’m walking through what I consider to be 5 areas that will help us to be more effective as a church (and as believers). This involves not just writing the sermons, but working on intentional plans and solutions to help us be more effective. I’m also teaching a “walk through the Old Testament” class and am challenging everyone in the congregation to learn to enjoy reading the life-changing message and insights from the greatest book ever written.

After 5 months of being here, I finally had to help lead a funeral. LaVern Harmsen, a 79-year old guy who lived next door to our church and spent the past 55 years actively involved in our church passed away. Not to be morbid, but we likely will have other funerals this year. We have several folks in our church who are in their late 80’s and early 90’s. I’ve really enjoyed spending time with these senior citizens. It’s easy for us “younger” guys to insulate ourselves from previous generations and just hang around “our kind”. In so doing, we miss out on a lot of wisdom and perspective. This role as pastor has helped me to connect with this generation.

I do a lot of other dreaming, scheming, planning, and administrivia that go with the territory of being “a pastor”. I also finished 2 courses this Fall (which means I’m only 1 course away from actually being a licensed minister). Not that it makes an iota of difference in anybody’s day-to-day life! :)

Do you miss your role in the corporate world? I certainly enjoyed my 9-year tenure at AT&T/BellSouth and I learned a ton about working with a wide variety of people (and cultures of people), with technology, and with an environment that’s always changing. And every bit of that experience has broadened my skills and my development. Certainly the ministry-related tasks that involve people can be tiring and sometimes hard to measure (when it comes to productivity) and sometimes I miss the task-based activities in the IT world (because I’m still kind of a geek at-heart). But all-in-all, I still feel like I’m doing what I ought to be doing and I’m grateful for the opportunity.

Do you plan to continue being a pastor? I can only go with what I know. And so far, I believe it's what God would have me do. As for my current role in this church, my appointment is through the end of May. Anything beyond that will get decided later. Certainly being here in a new community in this new role continues to stretch my faith muscle. But so far, I feel good about how I’m spending my life, my time, my skills and my resources. I have days where I want to yank my hair out. But I’m also optimistic about this thing called “the church.”

Sure…most everybody in our country has some kind of memory or experience in the past where church was boring or irrelevant. And everybody knows somebody who goes to church who’s a hypocrite. And there’s no shortage of churches in the news whose pastor messes up. That’s part of the challenge of having an institution where human beings are involved. (But God has not been surprised by any of this).

But for every nutty pastor, for every quirky church person, for every goofy church out there…I can show you great pastors, and sincere church people and effective, faith-building, life-breathing churches out there that are doing an incredible job in helping people find and live out faith in Jesus Christ.

Furthermore, this 2,000-year-old institution called “the Church” still has incredible potential when it comes to offering a life-changing message of hope to our towns, our cities and our world. And I can’t find any other institution that comes in a close second. And so for right now…I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. And learning.

Do you plan to take over your wife’s blog? Nope. She will likely change the administrative password when she reads this sermon, uh, I mean post.