When we took our five-year old grandson and his two sisters to a playground, they climbed on the playscape, slid down the slides, and swung on the swings. Now what? “Give me a mission!”
The last time my son had brought his kids here, he challenged them with a scavenger hunt to keep them occupied for a while. Now they wanted a quest to accompany every outing.
As we discovered, it didn’t have to be complicated. There’s always trash around, so I said, “Go find six water bottle caps.” And off they ran. A few minutes later, they laid out a nice row of plastic caps on the picnic table.
“What’s the next mission?”
Life is filled with short and long term goals any of which could be classified as a mission. But I think this prompt intends to uncover an overarching purpose for one’s life. The mission shifts from graduating and getting a job to raising a new generation. Once they graduate and get jobs, another generation comes along to grandparent. But now my current mission is figuring out a meaningful retirement.
In his children’s novel Mathilda, Roald Dahl wrote, “I didn’t know where I was going until I got there.” I like this line. It fits my present mission as I explore relationships, improve skills, understand time, and ponder my mission on any given day.
When the mission is figuring out my mission, anything is possible.
Those were the words of a retired pastor friend of mine who began attending our church after about fifty years of ministry. I appreciate his candor, but I really didn’t understand what he meant.
Until now.
Now I am retired from full time pastoral ministry, and for the first time in thirty-six years, my wife and I have had to pick a church to attend. We did not move after my retirement. We have a lot of family in the area, plus we already live in a place where many retire to (Florida). My denomination asked that we not attend the church I retired from, to let the next pastor and congregation get used to each other.
So for the first time in forever, we got to pick where we worshiped on Sunday morning.
Here is the challenging part of this whole experience. I have found it hard to not critique the preacher, music, facility, and experience in the places where we have gone to worship. I have always wanted God to be the focus of worship. But when I walk into a church, he’s the last person on my mind.
Were the people friendly? Was the preacher engaging? Was the sermon biblical and applicable? Was the music well done? Did I know the songs so I could sing along? What would people say if they knew I worshiped at this church? What did this church believe, teach, and confess?
I had so many questions. And you’ll notice, none of them had anything to do with the one I was there to worship.
Did I encounter the one true God? Was my mind renewed? Did I offer up a sacrifice of praise? Was I assured of God’s grace? Did Christ’s love compel me to love, serve, and witness to others people? How was I encouraged? How was I challenged?
When I was the preacher, I was occupied with the logistics, the message, and connecting with those who came to worship. Now, as the worshiper, none of those things were on my plate. Now my job was to listen, confess, repent, and live a new life.
In hindsight, I now realize that I should have taken more time off to be a worshiper in the congregation. I should have taken time to remember what it was like to listen, to question, to take God’s word to heart, and set out to live a new life. I believe a sabbatical would have been an asset to my ministry.
So I am learning how to worship again. I am forgetting what is behind – a career of pastoral ministry – and pressing on into retirement as a listener, a worshiper, and a member.
I went to the library a few weeks ago for the first time in a long time. I’ll bet I hadn’t been there in two years. With a little more (retired) time on my hands to read, I decided to see what was on the shelves.
When you think to yourself, “I want to spend more time reading,” you have to address the next question, “What do I want to read?” I don’t know. Best sellers? Great writers? Classic novels? Biography? A real page-turner? I really don’t know.
I put my library card in my wallet and drove to the library, a couple of miles from my house. The sign on the automatic-opening front doors read, “Masks recommended.” Lol. No one in the library was wearing a mask, except for the front desk staff who stood behind plexiglass shields. Just an observation.
I immediately went to the new arrivals shelf. They were filled with a large selection of fiction, non-fiction, young adult, biography, and audio books. I remember someone saying that I should be reading biographies, so I started there. I scanned the shelves and spotted an autobiography by Dave Grohl, a musician with Nirvana and Foo Fighters. He wrote it during the Covid-19 concert shutdown. It looked interesting. Why not?
New fiction was two steps to my left. James Patterson? Plenty of those. Right next to his, a new crime novel by Thomas Perry. The main character was all about being chased, disappearing, and going off-grid. Looks good to me.
Two books should be plenty. I don’t want to overdo it. Wandering out from the stacks, I paused to look at some of the other people in the library. This was the most interesting part of the day.
Who spends time at the library? I saw a sheriff’s deputy filling out a multipage application for something. A woman used one of many computers to look up something online. A young lady texted friends on her phone. A mother walked her young son to the children’s library.
I also noticed a man sitting at a table doing absolutely nothing. He wasn’t reading. He wasn’t looking at a phone. He wasn’t having a hushed conversation with a friend. He wasn’t studying for a test. He wasn’t writing. He was just sitting.
Then, I saw a second person doing the exact same thing. Just sitting, at a table, in the library, doing absolutely nothing.
I was fascinated. I can’t remember the last time I just sat and did nothing. Actually I can’t remember anytime I sat and did absolutely nothing. I’m always looking at my phone. I always bring something to read. I write. I draw or doodle. I have hushed conversations. I eat snacks.
But I never, ever just sit and do nothing.
I’ve spent a lot of time the last few decades reading about and learning how to be productive. I know how to get more done in less time. I’ve mastered the 1-3-5 system to get important stuff done first. A Kanban board in my office kept me on task each week, filled up with “to-do,” “doing,” and “done” sticky notes.
All that has changed. I have retired. I no longer have to be productive. I have no weekly deadlines, presentations (sermons), scheduled meetings, classes to perpare for, phone calls to return, visits to make, or conflict resolutions to worry about. For the first time in forever, I don’t have to do anything. In others words, if I so choose, I can do nothing.
Nothing? Oh, come on. You have to do something. You need a hobby. Friends. An avocation. A purpose. A direction. A mission. You’re not dead yet. What are you going to do?
That’s the question everyone asked when I announced and embarked on my retirement. “What are you going to do?” My answer then was, “I don’t know.” In a sense, I am still answering that question.
About five months into retirement, my days have not consisted of “nothing.” My daily to-do list is filled with gardening, painting, grand-parenting, and travel planning. I spend time each day exercising, reading, writing, and playing music. I have more time to talk with my wife, try a few new things in the kitchen, and sell things on eBay.
When you are young, everyone wants to know what you want to be when you grow up. But then, for most of our lives, we identify ourselves by what we do. Once you leave the work world, though, it’s now about who you are. It is very interesting when you start thinking about yourself untethered from a career.
Since I am retiring from full-time pastoral ministry at the end of this coming July, a call committee at our church has begun the process of preparing to call the next pastor for our congregation. That process includes asking each member of the congregation what abilities, skills, strengths, experience and priorities they would like to see in their next pastor.
I am prepared to be humbled.
Why? First of all, because I’m human, a sinner, and nowhere close to being perfect. I know that either blatantly or subtly, my weaknesses will be highlighted in the responses to this survey. The members of the congregation will frankly tell the call committee what they would never say to my face. Their wishes for the next pastor will expose my weaknesses, failures and negligence.
I’m ready for that.
Trust me, I know my weaknesses. I am very aware of all the things I should have done over the past twenty-four years at this church. My insufficiencies haunt me daily. I did not study, pray, visit, administrate, evangelize, discipline, preach, teach, counsel, participate and celebrate like I should have or could have. I angered, frustrated, annoyed, irritated, insulted, ignored, and drove away many. I did it for the money, the notoriety and my ego.
I do not deny any of that.
When this church called me to be their pastor, they called a sinner. A sinner that deserves temporal and eternal punishment, a sinner redeemed by Christ, a sinner who squeaks into heaven by the grace of God. What did you expect? A saint? A super-hero? Someone you could look up to?
I never wanted you to look up to me. I wanted you to look to Christ. He’s the one who was obedient, he’s the one who was crucified and he’s the one who rose. He’s the one who will meet your hopes, expectations and dreams.
Me? I’m just me. And I am grateful I got to be your pastor for these last twenty-three or four years. What a gift.
Waite for it... 