The Breakfast Table

Yesterday morning my husband and I lingered on our porch over a wonderful breakfast of french toast made with walnut raisin bread, crisp peppered bacon, perfectly ripe cantaloupe, and strong Italian roast coffee. As we were cleaning up I found myself wondering why we didn't do this more often. A good breakfast with someone you love is a great way to start the day; it is also one of the primary ideas behind a new ministry at St. John's called The Breakfast Table: Awakening Your Mind, Body, and Soul (TBT).

Do any of the following describe you?

You love to spend Sunday mornings with the people you love, often over a good home-cooked breakfast.

You are a visual person and make connections more easily when you are able to "see" an idea come to life.

You are a "hands on" person and want to DO something because of your faith, not just talk about it.

If church is going to be meaningful for you it needs to connect with your everyday life in relevant ways.

If any of these resonate with you, I think might enjoy The Breakfast Table!

The first TBT is this Sunday, September 13 at 9:00 a.m. We have six Sundays slotted throughout the year for TBT and are in the process of forming a "feeding team" and a "creating team" for each day. TBT will include elements of every day life: feeding ... eating .. thinking ... doing. Our hope is that this experience designed for people of all ages will deepen our faith experience, and stretch our minds and hearts. TBT will seek to make our faith more relevant, more engaging, and more integrated with our every day lives.

We have two great teams in place for our first experiment with this new venture. The "creating team" includes Diane Powell, Gary Reiss, Dixie Lauer, John Yakscoe, and Pattie Budd. They are meeting with me to design what exactly we will do after breakfast. Tom Yost and Rick Yost are the "feeding team." I don't know whether they will be making french toast, flipping pancakes or dishing up strata, but I do know it will be delicious and you won't need to cook it yourself that morning. Just come and enjoy! It will be a great way to start the day.

Floating Hope

Every morning I wake up to find a "quote of the day" from http://www.gratefulness.org/ in my inbox. I look forward to these short quotes that always help me put things in a positive perspective, but usually the quote is quickly discarded. Several days ago, though, one particular quote caught my attention and it has been in my inbox ever since.

When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens like one of those fluted Japanese blossoms, flimsy and spastic, bright and warm. This almost always seems to happen in community.

Anne Lamott "The Impossible Will Take a Little While," Plan B

I love this image! Returning home from vacation and re-entering the community of St. John's, I am filled with all sorts of hopes for this coming year. Hopes and goals are helpful; they give us vision and purpose. And yet, as I am listening both to the hopes and the concerns of others I recognize that several things will not unfold as I had first envisioned. My family will tell you that once I get an idea in my head: watch out! I get pretty determined to make it a reality. It is an on-going challenge for me to let go of "shiny expectations."

However, knowing this community as I do, I know that the outcome of a community effort is always better than a single effort. I have seen such great blossoming in this community so often, I have come to trust it. And I am looking forward to seeing what will be blossoming this fall.

p.s. I really don't know what a fluted Japanese blossom is; the above is my best guess from a little searching on google and my own imagination.

Immersed in Worship Ideas

One of the things that I have been watching closely here at Synod are the many ways worship participants have been pulled into the experience through all of their senses. Yesterday I learned of the team that met last November to plan how they might bring to life the theme, "Immerse Yourself" in Grand Rapids. From the evocative stage and energetic dancers to the varied music and litanies, we have been wading deep into this theme that draws from the gift of water.


The Rev. Alexandra Childs, a pastor at Alameda (California) First Congregational Church coordinated the physical set. It took Childs and a dozen other volunteers five days to create the handpainted 25 x 42 foot canvas that serves as a backdrop, (the floor actually) for the worship participants. It has whirls and wisps of blues and greens that evokes a vivid interpretation of sky, mountain, lakes, and rivers. There is also an 8 by 8 foot immersion pool at centerstage and 200 gallons of water that recycled itself over 3 levels creating a beautiful waterfall that is not only lovely to look at but wonderful and peaceful to hear. Framing these falls were plants and fieldstone. At the back wall there are two "rain panels" made out of multi-blue hued LED lighting and soft fabric.

In addition there is a jumbo screen and then many video panels throughout the hall so everyone can see everything that is happening. The images on the screens have been so thoughtfully selected that they enhance rather than distract my worship experience. Within every worship service there is a variety of musical styles and instrumentation. There is dancing. There are different languages spoken. There are many, many ways to engage each participant.

Part of my keen interest in these worship elements this year is because I have been thinking about and praying about how we might more effectively use a variety of experiences in our worship service. The space in our sanctuary is entirely different from a convention hall but the need to be attentive to all the ways people experience and learn has inspired me to try to expand what we are doing now.

Is there anyone who wants to dream about this with me?

The Tuesday Team

Tonight is the first night of what I hope will be many for "The Tuesday Team." Often people have told me about how they would love to help with The Largest Table but are working, or otherwise committed, on Wednesdays. Last week I sent out an invite for coming in on Tuesday evening and cheffing up everything for Wednesday. The response has been great! Amy Rettig, Stephanie Coplan, Martha Asseff, Courtney Klamar, and Marilyn Potts are helping tonight; and many more said they would like to participate on a future Tuesday but just couldn't make it tonight. I sensed genuine enthusiasm from many possible Tuesday Team members about the idea.

I know there will be equal enthusiasm coming from those who are our regular volunteers on Wednesdays. As The Largest Table continues to grow, so does the demand for volunteers. This extra help will make a big difference to those who come in early on Wednesday mornings. In addition to creating "The Tuesday Team," we would also like to create two different teams for Wednesdays: one for set up and serving and the other for clean-up. I am confident that with some creativity and extra team work we can face the challenges of growth!

Do you have other ideas for expanding our ability to staff The Largest Table and or to serve the city?

Be Creative!

Yesterday I dropped off a member of our congregation at her home and saw an abundance of purple crocus forcing their way up through the earth. As I drove on to my next stop, I found myself reflecting on the hard work it takes to bring anything to new life.

This Lent, my preaching and teaching has been loosely based on Irwin Kula's book, Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life. This week we are looking at the yearning each of us has to create. So often, we think of creativity as something playful or crafty like painting or sewing. Kula pushes us to think more deeply about creativity. He identifies four stages: inspiration, preparation, incubation, and illumination. Writing about inspiration, he says this: Inspiration is about yearning, not finding. It is the moment we recognize a problem that needs solving, not the moment of finding a solution.

This past summer, I had the honor of marrying a wonderful couple. In one of our sessions together, the bride described how when she would become overwhelmed with a problem or felt stuck in a particular situation, her partner would listen attentively and then ask, "How can we figure out a way to be creative?" Those two words, "be creative," invited her to think outside the box and develop a different approach for whatever she was doing.

For more about creativity, how it is teachable and trackable, and helps us solve nearly any problem, you can read more here: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-unleash-your-creativity