Turning Points: Second Installment - Perspective

In my previous blog, I began a series of sorts of reflections of my philosophical development as a pastor over the past two decades. Along the way there have been seminal moments where my ministry outlook began to morph into something altogether different. These turning points signaled subtle departures from the path I was on which ultimately have led to the outlook I now hold.

Turning Point: Month 4 (January 1992) Perspective – It really is all about how you look at it

Honestly, ever since arriving in Chetek back in 1991 I've never acted like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz looking over the fence of her backyard and wishing to be somewhere else. I've never had any board member of another church in another city call me up and slyly ask me “to pray about” sending them a resume or gone looking in the ministerial classifieds if only out of curiosity. No, I have been contentedly here the entire time. But about six months into my tenure as pastor of what was then Chetek Full Gospel, a seminal thought that has contributed to my longevity in Chetek was deposited into my heart while listening to a college classmate of mine preach from my pulpit.

In the early and mid-1980s, Pat and Diana Sheahan and I had all attended Christian Life College located in suburban Chicago – Pat a year ahead of me and Diana one behind. Following Pat's graduation, they had married and if memory serves me right moved out to South Dakota to serve at their first church. It had been a very challenging season in their lives and in the winter of 1992 that was behind them and now they were in that oh-so-difficult place to be in ministry, the place of “inbetween”. As a teenager, he had fished the waters of the Chain – had even had something of a spiritual experience out on Prairie Lake once – and given that we were now living here gave him ample reason to pay us a visit. Since he was in town for the weekend, I invited him to preach. I don't recall his text but I do remember three things about his message: 1) all his points were alliterated (each of his five points began with “W”), 2) at some point in his message he left the pulpit and walked half way down the center aisle to re-enact how he had done this very thing for dramatic affect at his previous church one Sunday morning only to forget why he had left the pulpit in the first place and 3) his allusion to a scene in Kevin Costner's award winning move, Dances With Wolves.

Lt. Dunbar heads West

Again, I'm prodding foggy-bottom here but as I remember it he was talking about perspective and how it affects the quality of our ministry whatever that ministry happens to be. In Wolves, Lt. John J. Dunbar wants to see the frontier before it's gone or so he tells the half-crazed military official from whom he receives his orders. So as requested he is assigned to Fort Sedgwick “at the furthermost post of the realm.” As John Barry's epic musical score plays, Dunbar's small wagon train moves slowly westward onto the vastness of the Great Plains. When they finally arrive at Fort Sedgwick, which is essentially two shacks literally out in the middle of nowhere, the loathsome mule skinner Timmons takes one look, spits and says laconically, “Ain't much of a goin' concern, is it?” But then Dunbar gets down from the wagon, looks around and says, “Alright...let's unload the wagon.” Timmons, of course, thinks he's crazy or something. “Ain't nothin' here lieutenant. Everyone's run off or got themselves kilt” to wit Dunbar says firmly, “This is my post.” To Timmons, who is just an opportunist, this really is crazy-talk. “This is my post...?” But Dunbar is resolute and says in no uncertain way, “This is my post! And these are the post provisions” and while his hand comes to lightly rest on the butt of his service revolver he adds, “Now get your [butt] off that wagon and help me unload.”

Fort Sedgwick

I don't know how many times since Pat shared that story back in the winter of 1992 I have thought of that scene. At that point we were here all of six months and still very much in the honeymoon-period of our ministry when everything still feels new and ripe with opportunity. Times change. Just like in life, the honeymoon passes. And while in twenty years I have yet to reach the place of wanting a transfer, there were moments in those early years when I would gaze upon my own Fort Sedgwick and have to tell myself determinedly for what seemed like the tenth time, “This is my post.” Back in 1992, our sanctuary had asphalt tile floor with a strip of burnt orange carpet down the middle. The altar area was covered with dark mahogany paneling and everything about our décor screamed “the 70s!” While our speakers were high end our mics were Radio Shack-quality. We had an odd-assortment of old-school Pentecostals mixed in with some former Lutherans, Catholics and Methodists which made our worship experience often feel, for lack of a better word, schizophrenic. We had a trustee who tithed his money to other ministries because - as he had no qualms sharing publicly - only “tithed his time” to CFGT and there were several people in the congregation who definitely considered him the most spiritual guy on the board. Sister “Amazing” Grace felt led to prophesy EVERY Sunday and usually did in screech owl fashion. Yeah, “this is my post” indeed.

A few years later I was in Calgary for the annual convention of the network of churches we belong to and I heard H.B. London preach for the first time. I don't recall what he said but he encouraged me so much that a year or so later when our local Christian radio station gifted area pastors with a copy of one of his books that he had co-wrote – The Heart of a Great Pastor: How to Grow Strong and Thrive Wherever God Has Planted You (© 1994 Regal Books) – I read it soon after. The title of chapter 1 - “Every Assignment is Holy Ground” - is pretty much Lt. Dunbar's perspective of where he has landed in biblical parlance.

Says London,

Pastors find themselves in situations they dislike, in towns they despise and working among people unlike any they have ever known. Endurance must be transformed into adventure. Resignation is better than rebellion, and a stiff upper lip is better than subtle resistance. It's easy to choose tears, self-pity and complaints. But joy and fulfillment and unconditional involvement can be chosen. We can unpack our bags, stop longing for greener pastures and assume spiritual responsibility for our place of ministry. We can claim the territory for God and righteousness. (p. 27)

Perspective really is everything

As I mentioned earlier, since Day 1 of our years in Chetek I have loved my post warts and all. But Lt. John Dunbar and H.B. London's words helped me embrace the city even stronger than I thought I had. Like David, I echo the words of Psalm 16, “Your boundary lines mark out pleasant places for me. Indeed, my inheritance is something beautiful” (v. 6, GOD'S Word Translation). Perhaps to my colleagues who labor in the Twin Cities or in far more affluent and influential parishes in other locales Refuge may appear to be “not much of a goin' concern”, just a ramshackle post on the edge of the frontier. But to me, this place is not only the place that God has assigned to me but also home and therefore worthy of my very best. Besides, I like to think that life and ministry here is one of the best kept secrets out there.