16. Living Among

I commute to my church--an hour--each way.  It was a family decision two years after we moved down to Rancho Santa Margarita.  So in 4 years we had moved down here and then moved back (we moved back onto the same street we had moved from--). It was a lot of stress and chaos and not too fun for anyone (me, my husband and son, our church, his job). So while I have thought about this topic a lot, I really think about it even more now.  Sometimes I feel bad, but mostly I offer myself grace and recognize that life is complex and as much as we wanted to stay, it didn't end up that way.

What does it mean to be incarnational in a community of people, a community of the church?  The authors says this,"The third habit of incarnational people: the habit of living among, means participating in the natural activities of the culture around you, with whimsical holiness."  and  "What if whimsical holiness is simply 'being like Jesus...with those Jesus would have been with.'?"

For me, even as a commuter it means going to various special occasions, sitting with families in surgery waiting rooms, taking my turn planting or painting on Saturdays at the church.  Also Facebook helps me feel I am part of various lives, present even when I may be hanging out with local friends.

One time I went to visit someone who had attended the church I served- he had come for about a month and then stopped showing up.  I went to his home and he showed me his motorcycle.  I could not help but noticed that wallpapered on all four walls and the ceiling were posters of nude women.  As he handed me a beer, he talked about what God meant to him in the midst of his changing life.  Certainly this was one of the most memorable pastoral calls I have made, but what I really loved about it was just how comfortable he was with me/the church in his life/home.

This weekend I will spend my Saturday planting around the church (we have a Memorial Labyrinth going in).  It will give me a chance to meet some new folks (community people are part) and get to know others more casually.  And Saturday's experience will make Sunday worship just that much more real.

How are you incarnational in your local church--do you practice whimsy and holiness?    - Rev. Nicole Reilley

Chapter 15: “Listening”

It’s funny that I ended up writing about this chapter because it’s the place that I most need to work on in my own pastoral skills.  I am a talker by trade, and often, I find myself working on just staying present in pastoral conversations: to not jump to the predictable conclusion that the person I’m listening to will get to; to not mentally review my list of errands for the day; to not fret about whether I slathered Lucie with the right sunscreen that morning.

But, in some ways, I found this chapter redemptive because it spoke to another kind of listening that I do all the time but never really considered as a listening skill: listening as observing.  Our church planting authors write: “our kind of listening is really more about what you do with your eyes instead of your ears.”  (and sorry folks, I am reading this on my iPhone kindle and can’t figure out how to find the actual hardcopy page number for you.)  No doubt this listening-as-observing is an important and somewhat under-celebrated skill in our spiritual care handbooks.  It really does help to watch sensitively and carefully to our communities before we start the path to response, or maybe while we are responding?

As we approach our time annual together for holy conferencing, I wonder if this form of listening couldn’t benefit us all?  What if we worked to ask more questions of one another as the ending reflection suggests?  What if we worked to be more in prayerful listening, consideration and discernment in the times of difficult, long, and hot plenaries?  I know that conference asks us to make decisions, but I wonder if we all wouldn’t be better served if we listened more and talked less about these decisions?  If we listened and observed more before and as we respond to the matters at hand?  Starting with me.

-Melinda Dodge