On the Move and in the Community

            What full and engaging day! After another restful night’s rest and breakfast consisting largely of some wonderful leftover pie, we loaded up the van to move on to the next stop in our journey, Bertrand, Nebraska. We met at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Bertrand for text study with nine pastors and rostered leaders from the surrounding communities to discuss and reflect on the readings for next Sunday’s worship service. It was a wonderful experience to engage in conversation with people of varying perspectives about how the Word might be proclaimed in today’s context, especially in the context of a rural community. I know that I left the text study with a new appreciation for what these specific texts have to offer me on a personal level as well. It was truly a joy to have the opportunity to participate in the group.

            In the afternoon, we traveled to Spirit of Grace mission church to learn about their interesting and uplifting story of community engagement and reconciliation. After the 2009 vote on the ELCA’s Sexuality Statement in with the ELCA Churchwide Assembly voted to affirm the welcome of gay and lesbian to rostered leadership within the ELCA, Bethel Lutheran Church in Holdridge took a vote whether to stay in or leave the ELCA. After much pain and disagreement, the church voted to leave the ELCA. A number of members, however, believed that the ELCA was right in their welcome of all people into full membership of the church regardless of sexual orientation and thought that the ELCA as a whole was doing a good job. Although it was very difficult to leave the church that many of them had been members of for years or their entire lives, a group broke away from Bethel and formed a new congregation. Spirit of Grace is the result of that congregational fracturing. They now meet in an old storefront and have embraced a heart of mission in the community. They provide a “furniture pantry” in which they collect donated furniture to give away to families who are in need of furniture items including beds, dressers, and bookshelves. They also have worked ecumenically with a number of the other churches in town to strengthen their ministry and to help ensure that Sunday School is available to the children of the congregation. I was really enthralled by the stories of two women who had been members of Bethel their entire lives as they described how leaving their old church and forming Spirit of Grace had been difficult and painful but also life giving and renewing. I could go on for a while with how impressed I was by their story, but all I think I will say for now is that sometimes trying and testing times are painful but they can bring about such great blessings for both those who suffered and for those around them who are affected by their renewed outpourings of love and sense of mission and call. God is good!

            Lastly, we visited the local funeral home in which the funeral director gave us a tour of the facility including taking us to the preparation room in which he explained the process of embalming. It was really interesting to hear him talk about his job as a real form of ministry for the families of the people who are left behind after a death as well as the deceased himself or herself. I left the funeral home with a new appreciation for funeral directors and a new sense of how I, as a future pastor, might be able to relate to and work with funeral directors as co-ministers. It was a really unique and thought-provoking experience. Overall, today was a really wonderful day.