Pontooning with the Breakfast Club

“The left front pontoon went under the Agnes D, stopped dead in the water and turned to port. They had reached the edge of the laws of physics. They lurched to the starboard side and both pontoons went under and there – in full view of the town – the boat pitched forward and dumped some ballast: eight Lutheran ministers in full informal garb took their step for total immersion.” - from “Pontoon Boat” in Leaving Home – A Collection of Lake Wobegon Stories by Garrison Keillor

One of my favorite stories from Lake Wobegon has got to be “Pontoon Boat”. It's the rather farcical tale of how twenty-four Lutheran ministers on a tour of rural Minnesota studying the pastoral needs of small towns end up on Wally Bunsen's 26-foot pontoon boat out on Lake Wobegon. “Sprinklers” the lot of them, by defying the laws of physics they briefly dabble in the domain of the Baptists when Wally's boat, the Agnes D, capsizes. As Keillor explains, there they were “...twenty-four ministers standing up to their smiles in water, chins up, trying to understand this experience and its deeper meaning.” Ever since I heard it the first time, I can't take a ride on a pontoon boat without thinking of this yarn. So the other day when Pastor Norm suggested that we conduct our weekly prayer meeting from his pontoon boat, I was chuckling already at the prospect of joining the brethren out upon the waters of Lake Chetek.

Our usual Tuesday digs

For eight or nine years now “the Breakfast Club” (as I refer to ourselves) have met at the back table at Bob's Grill every Tuesday morning for prayer and fellowship. This is no meeting. This is a gathering of brothers and sisters who share a common faith in the Lord Jesus and a desire to see his transforming love visit the town we all call home. Our agenda is always the same: enjoy breakfast together and then pray for one another and for His work in our community. Over the years our numbers have waxed and waned depending on appointments, vacations or other obligations or what Keillor would refer to as “the shyness” of a particular minister. Frankly, there are some guys who are just not “joiners.” They prefer to keep to themselves or to their own kind. But most who throw in their lot with us find friendship and a sense of common cause in the work of Jesus' ministry in this city.

Pastor Norm, our skipper

A few years ago, Pastor Norm invited us all to join him for a ride on his pontoon boat and from that platform we saw our town from a different angle and with a fresh perspective. So as he drove us around we talked and prayed and worshiped and asked God to pour out His Spirit on our area. The waters of Lake Chetek by mid-summer are typically green – too much algae, not enough rain fall, not enough oxygen in the water, too much nitrogen and phosphates finding their way to the lake. In fact, most of the locals don't even swim here. And I don't know a pastor who baptizes any in our waters, either. The one and only time that I did (very early in my ministry here), I recall shooing the five individuals up to the bathhouse to shower off right away lest they contract “swimmer's itch.” There's something oxymoronic in that when you have just referred to the cleansing waters of baptism. But inspired by 2 Chronicles 7:14 (i.e., “If my people...will pray...and turn...then...I will forgive their sins and heal their land”) and George Otis, Jr.'s Transformation Videos (here's a link to a trailer of one of them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBvxWl7jXr0) that speak of documented revivals from around the world that have resulted not only in conversions but in the very transformation of the landscape, we have been asking God to heal our waters as well as the spiritual contour of our community.

Last week, Norm suggested we ride the waters again and so the day before yesterday, on a humid, gray morning, eight of us climbed aboard his boat to engage in conversation and prayer. As our skipper slowly steered our boat in the direction of the dam, instead of engaging in light-hearted banter as we are often wont to do, the quietness of the lake provoked a comfortable silence among us. Norm, a 78-year old stalwart soldier of Jesus who this past January lost his beloved wife of 52 years, Karen, began talking about “the thinness” of the veil that separates us from what Paul refers to as “the heavenlies” and what we know as corporeal reality. He got a little misty-eyed as he shared about how near God actually is though we often proceed through our day totally unaware of his presence. I was struck with the quiet authority in his voice and whether it was that most of us hadn't had our morning coffee yet or the stillness of the lake, for a moment it felt like he was our rabbi and we his disciples and class was in session. As we slowly puttered up and down the lake between the dam and the long bridge our conversation meandered casually between spiritual matters, the depth of the lake, how church had gone last Sunday and the history of certain homes.

I laughed with the guys about the thought I was struck with last Sunday morning before our worship gathering began. It occurred to me that our congregation would be made up of loosely of two groups that morning: the group returning from Kansas City afire with enthusiasm from their recent encounter with Jesus there and those showing up dead on their feet hoping for a good worship experience that morning to pick them up. The contingent of those returning from the Fascinate young adult conference had just spent nearly a week with 5,000 others being led into worship by accomplished and talented leaders and sitting under anointed teaching. While they were there, they had drank deep of God's manifest presence and he had, as we Pentecostals like to say, “showed up.” Now as they walked into the sanctuary at Refuge on hot, humid morning, there would be no band, no lights, no smoke, no temperature controlled room, no Matt Gilman or Corey Asbury. It would be just Kale on a guitar backed by his wife and my daughter as singers. And it was warm in the sanctuary. Instead of Mike Bickle or Corey Russell or Lou Engle (there is only one of him!), it would be just Pastor Jeff as usual. On the other side of the aisle, there were those who were not coming to worship “tanked up” but profoundly dry and with that look in their eyes that says, “Move me.” The thought of it made me laugh as we circled up to pray before the gathering began. It would be like two storm fronts converging and whichever was the strongest would most likely hold sway. Which brought us back to the conversation topic of the moment, the nearness of God in our everyday life. So often for me, he doesn't feel that near or close.

Looking toward the dam

A little ways before the dam, we began to pray as we do every Tuesday morning, praying together in concert that God would send, in Pastor Kirk's favorite expression, “a heaven-sent, Holy Ghost revival” - a move of God that not only would fire us up but transform the very culture of our city. Every summer thousands of tourists come to our area to recreate, to relax, to find solace away from their lives in Chicago or the Twin Cities. In some way, Chetek is already a city of refuge – certainly it is for those who summer here. We asked again the other morning that God would make us that in the spiritual arena as well – believing for a day that thousands come to our area and experience repentance “...that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19, NASB). In fact, none of the things we prayed for the other morning were any different than the things we have prayed for on countless Tuesday mornings before – just some guys who minister primarily in small congregations asking as Isaiah once did himself, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down...” (64:1).

the long bridge

After we landed, we said our good-byes wishing each other a good day and a good week. Each of us had things that needed our attention or people to tend to and while it's impossible to gauge how effective our prayers were out upon the lake that morning, we certainly left built up and encouraged in our work. Pastoring is difficult work at times. You often feel like a lone cheerleader in front of the home crowd whose team is getting their butt kicked again trying to rally everyone to lift up a shout. You sometimes identify with Elijah exhausted and dejected in the cave complaining to God, “I'm the only one left...” It's not true. No matter how it looks sometimes devoted saints may be found all over the place who remain faithful to the Lord Jesus and who love their pastor and the church they belong to. But this group of guys (which includes Pastor Carrie) encourages me in my work simply by being with them and tooling around on Norm's pontoon. We didn't go overboard that morning but when the ride was over we were all, like those fictitious Lutheran ministers standing in Lake Wobegon, heading up the hill with smiles on knowing that we, too, though perfectly dry, had been touched by the goodness of God.

The Breakfast Club (minus Pastor Carrie and few others)