Central Download

I see my last entry for this blog was September of last year. Hmmm. I seem to have taken a rather lengthy hiatus.

I’m not sure why I quit writing. Perhaps I got tired of listening to my own complaints. Perhaps I just needed some time off. Perhaps I got bored with politics and shooting the same old political and religious cows over and over. A more likely reason was that my writing outlet found a new outlet in resuming preaching at an area church.

Since last September and a bit before I started preaching at the First Congregational Church (a.k.a. Congo) in Winona, Minnesota. It a way it was the perfect preaching gig. All I had to do was preach. Lay folk did everything else. They got so used to me they gave me a title, “acting pastor.” Congo is a wonderful congregation and contrary to popular wisdom they wisely decided to go with supply preachers rather than an interim pastor. It worked. It worked because of extremely strong lay leadership, which led the church. In the process I believe they learned a lot about themselves and just how capable they were and are. Not every church can pull this off but they did and they did it well.

This also was and is very appreciative of pastoral efforts. I received so many affirmations and approval for my homiletic efforts. Every pastor needs congregations like that in their work. I have been blessed with more than my share of affirming congregations, for which, I am truly thankful. This congregation even clapped at the end of a sermon and the final Sunday gave me a standing O after my final sermon. Perhaps they were just glad to have me end the sermon, but I think it was more reflective of the generous nature.

The idea of a pastor(s) for a church may well be a historical oddity of our age. A more common model in history, I believe, were lay lead churches where specialists we called in for special activities. The African churches model this well today. Pastor’s come for special instruction, baptisms, communion and the like while the day-to-day operations of the church is handled by local lay folk. It works well there as well with well-trained and motivated local leaders.

At any rate, Congo has called a new pastor, and I am footloose and fancy free again and can turn back to writing about religion, politics and cats once more. I can only hope that old readers will find the blog again and read as comment as in the past.

Now the cat writers need to swing into action.