A healthy, vital church....

My parents often laughed at me.  "You've got champagne taste on beer money, my boy."   The whole rationale for Champale -- remember that one?!  I would draw up the facades and specifications for pipe organs doodles and Joel Kuznik told me "You are dreaming up the wrong tree.  Won't happen."  When I came to visit this congregation after receiving the call, I must have made an impression.  One of the council members told me he was looking for a picture of cows looking up from munching on the meadow after the train had already passed by.  He said that was his impression of the questions I was asking them.

Oh, well.  Dream big or not at all.  Maybe as a high schooler I was too impressed with the words of Bobby Kennedy whom his brother Teddy eulogized saying "Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?"  [Quoting George Bernard Shaw]  I admit to being a dreamer -- but the dreams that I have are seldom about me or for me.  I dream especially of and for the parishes I serve and the church body that has nurtured my life and in which I have served for more than 32 years.  I dream of God's people freed from their fears and hesitations to take seriously the Word and promise of God in Christ and unshackled from self-imposed limitations to serve Him and others in His name -- without limit.

On another forum a topic about vitalized congregations was posted.  I am not sure what vitalized was supposed to mean.  I took it to mean healthy, vigorous, active... anyway, this is what I posted -- the dream I have had for the parishes I have and continue to serve and for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod...

• a Lutheranism that folks can be rightly proud of... 
• one which is confident in the Scriptures and their message of Christ crucified... 
• one which is sacramentally vibrant with the Divine Service as the regular Sunday gathering, with baptism regularly a part of that Divine Service, with private confession encouraged as gift and blessing, and with an appreciation for the Word that is efficacious -- doing what it says... 
• one which welcomes the stranger in a healthy atmosphere of dignified but not rigid formality... 
• one which both expects and encourages full participation in the worship and study life of the parish so that the baptismal life of witness, mercy, prayer, and service may be fully lived outside the building... 
• one which is interested and invested in mission beyond the shores and down the block (by mission I mean one that names Jesus and spreads the Gospel by word)... 
• one which knows and addresses the poor and those in need or threatened (whether the name of Jesus is mentioned or not -- food pantry, feeding the hungry meals, caring for children, etc.)... 
• one that sees life as lifelong catechesis and which provides regular opportunity to grow in what it means to be a LUTHERAN Christian (read that catechisms and Confessions)... and 
• one that lives in partnership with others congregations yoked through circuit and district and does not go it alone...

So mark me a dreamer... but this is what I hope and pray for... here in Clarksville, Tennessee, and throughout our nation where Lutheran Christians gather around the means of grace so they may gather others into the flock through the living voice of the Gospel witnessed in word and deed...  Dream big... or not at all.  I do not dream about an answer for this crisis or that problem but the larger goal of a people secure enough in their Lutheran identity to practice it boldly without fear and to proclaim this dynamic gospel to the world with energy and confidence...

I wish we had a few more dreamers... it seems we have so many complaints and so much conflict and so many troubles... If we looked beyond them, we might see the surprise of grace hiding behind these low flying clouds that mask the bright horizon of life together in Christ...