Seasons of Life and Church

A pic from that hike in the Camden Hills

 I Just got back from a vacation I sort of backed into.  Over the summer we thought it would be fun to go do some hiking and sight-seeing in Ireland for a couple weeks.  We did the preliminary planning and took the time off. We got people to commit to preaching at the church in my stead. Then...we didn't go. Life got complicated.

Still, we had the time so we went up to Maine for a week and visited family.  We saw my sister and brother-in-law's new house.  We checked in with my mom.  We stayed with my brother and sister-in-law.  We stumped around the part of the state where I grew up. We caught a friend's book-launch and poetry reading. Then we also hiked, ticking off visits to the Camden Hills and to Gulf Hagas.  It was a restful trip that I would love to post about some time in the future. However, that is not what I am up to today. Instead I want to touch briefly on developments in my church.

You see, for years we have been talking about the future of churches in the United States.  I have written about it, talked about it, and preached about it numerous times. In that broader context I and others have set the life of our specific congregation. Things have been hard for the modernist institutions we think of when we hear the word "church".  Progressive or conservative, they come with buildings which are often too large for their needs.  They come with a struggling staff in desperate need of retraining and revisioning. They come with programs--like Sunday School--that are much less popular now. They come with the perception of arbitrary judgement which--while not as common as people think--still holds true in many places. The post-modern world has caught up to us.  Congregations--progressive ones anyway--are adapting...but slowly.

 While religion may just be fine, our old institutions may not be. They must change and learn in order to grow.

All of this is to say that The Eliot Church, where I have served for twenty-one years and two months, will be cutting the pastoral position from full-time to half-time starting no later than September 2025. It gives us as a congregation time to plan for what that will look like.  It gives me a year to figure out what I will be doing for the rest of my career. It feels like a long period, but it isn't really.  We are adapting to the new reality--churches must be more flexible, more creative, and more stable ​going forward--but we are still an old and venerable institution. Pastors also need to be these things but I, of course, am older, too.  I am glad we are facing the current reality, even though there will be some hard traveling both for the congregation and for me.

As young a pic at church as I could easily find. I had already been at Eliot for 7 years when this was taken

I don't think it is time to dwell on the details.  These will come in time and I will probably post some of what I witness and learn here on Sabbath Walks. However, on our way up to Gulf Hagas we happened to drive past my first church settlement.  I was 1/3 time but they shortly re-connected with another congregation who hired me for 2/3 time. This gave me the same "uneven yoke" that my predecessor had.  Both of those churches are still there, surviving in the face of all the difficulties that this era brings to voluntary associations. Seeing the old parish was a good reminder that life goes on, as does love.  It reminded me that God does not abandon us. We just need to make sense both in and to the society and culture that needs our message.

We have made a big step.  I do not know what it means for me or my family.  I do not really know what it means for the congregation.  What I do know is that we are acknowledging a change that leaves room for celebration as well as grief.

Camden Hills again...with older me