A Reminder (to me) about Ministry

Today was one of those ‘kitchen sink’ days--there was a little of everything in it. I’m not preaching this week, so I’m taking care of the sorts of things that pile up when my focus is on preparing a sermon and service. I wrote an email to be sent out to ACL members about an upcoming Bible study, studied the church’s finances for a while, recruited some folks to assist in worship in the coming weeks, and spent some time with the staff in the office—catching up and checking to see how they’re doing. I was making some headway on the small mountain of papers on my desk, feeling very productive and able. And then the phone rang, and the church secretary said that a guy was at the door who wanted to pray with the minister.

Now my first thought was to say ‘sure, call the minister up and see if that works for him.’

Of course, that wouldn’t do at all. He wanted to speak with me, much to my surprise, so we went into the sanctuary and he shared some things with me that were happening in his life. We prayed for a while and chatted, and then he left. The whole thing took about 15 minutes from start to finish, and then I was back at my desk staring at my inbox.

Almost immediately another guy dropped in, this one from our congregation. He’d just passed an exam and wanted to stop by to say thanks for our support and encouragement in his life. It didn’t matter, thankfully, that I had no idea he was taking a test today. He just wanted to come in, sit down and share his relief that this latest step on the path to moving up in his profession was completed.

Now very little of this has to do with me as a person. Folks don’t walk down Tottenham Court Road and think to themselves: ‘I’d really like to talk to John—he’s from California and he went to seminary and that might be interesting.’ The fact is, my name is out on the sign facing the street. I could be a strange guy in a large bunny suit and people would still stop in and ask for a chat (even if they might not stay as long). When folks stop here and ask to talk with the minister, they’re looking for someone in a role—an office—someone who they trust to share with, celebrate with, cry with and pray with. The fact that I rarely feel competent to handle all of these concerns is secondary. In this position—and in a very mysterious way—I represent God to his people. I know that sounds puffed up—I certainly don’t mean it like that—but the fact remains that people want someone they can count on to listen and touch and absolve. The Reformation might have said that each one of us is our own priest, but most people aren’t buying it. Most will want someone else—it rarely matters who, as long as they hold the office—to be their comforter, their prayer warrior, their priest.

I take this part of my job so seriously, because I know how stunted I am at living up to it. Oddly enough, when someone comes to me and wants me to represent them to the Almighty—and the Almighty back to them—that’s when I sense God’s presence most in my own life and ministry. Why? Because I know in that moment that it can’t possibly have anything at all to do with me. I may be a grouch, or stewing over a conflict at home, or feeling homesick, or wallowing in any one of the chronic sins that plague my life. In that moment none of those things matter. Someone is in my office with a need and wants prayer from a minister. I do it without hesitation.

No one really prepares you for this in seminary. Sure we studied counseling and pastoral care and we prayed together a lot. But no one, especially in a Protestant evangelical institution, prepares you for being a priest when the situation calls for it. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe if they tried to tell someone like me that I would speak and touch and even forgive on God’s behalf, it might have gone to my head. Or, more likely, I might have run screaming from the room. It’s the surprise of it—the interruption of it—that remains special to me. Most of my day is spent talking with people in the church, designing the order of the service, choosing music, writing sermons and articles and plans, etc. When someone drops in unannounced with a need, it catches me off my guard and prevents me—and this is the odd part—from putting on my pastor face. Ironically, those days when I have less time to prepare are the days when I’m most likely to act faithfully as a priest, because I have to rely on God’s wisdom and power and comfort. Go figure.

And so while I didn’t get as much of the paper off my desk today as I had planned, I feel more like a minister today than I usually do. This part never gets old.

A little catching up to do...

(There are multiple new posts below. Enjoy.)

OK, so I’ve been pretty lax about posting anything for a few weeks. We’ve had my mother and father-in-law with us for 6 weeks, our daughter and son-in-law for two weeks, and my mom and aunt just arrived for a month (oh yeah, Holy Week happened somewhere in there). The nice thing is that we’re still enjoying having visitors. But the hard part is finding any time for writing for the blogsite. Besides, it was hard topping the post about the visit with the Queen...
So that’s my repentance for now. Below you’ll find some news and pictures from our last few weeks. I’ll try to keep up a little better in the future.

A Visit to the Ambassador's House

The US Ambassador to Great Britain invited Ian to an Easter egg hunt at his official residence, called Winfield House. Happily, we got to go with him. This is the second largest private residence in London, and was built by Barbara Hutton, an American socialite. Ambassador Tuttle and his wife Marie host this event every year, and they invite a lot of the expat community to come and have a meal. It was a lot of fun. I got my Mom, my aunt Rose and my mother-in-law added to the guest list, and we enjoyed an afternoon of amazingly warm weather, entertainment and food. Here are some snaps.

Julie, Ian and I on the grounds of Winfield House.

Don't they look like trouble?
A magician came by to show us some tricks.

Mom and Rose had some wine and ended up with their faces painted...

This was some really good food. There were bite-sized hamburgers with little American flags for the, er, kids, and a bunch of other good stuff.

Ian got to go looking for candy-filled eggs on the enormous grounds of Winfield House.

There he is.

There they go.

That's My Boy

This is Ian checking out the computerized catalog at the British Library. He has his napsack and his favorite snow leopard with him as he peruses the collections. In the new exhibition room for documents, there is a display of original Beatles songs written on notebook paper, napkins and other scraps. There are also headphones where you can listen to recordings of the songs as you read them in manuscript form. When Ian is done reading old documents, he likes to go in and listen to a few tunes to unwind.

Some visits from home...

Ian had fun with his grandparents (Julie's folks) during their visit. There was some great weather for most of the time--London is really beautiful in the spring. We've been playing catch in the backyard, Julie has been planting some new flowers, and Ian chased his grandpa around until Roger couldn't walk anymore.

This is Roger trying to convince Ian that he caught a big trout last year...

Our daughter and son-in-law came for two weeks, and we had a great time with them.

We went to the ancient Roman city of Bath with Ericka and Neil, and this was the view out of our bedroom window.

Portobello Road is a stretch of shops and outdoor markets in London. We spent a day there with Ericka and Neil. After walking out of a restaurant where the service was awful, we stood on the sidewalk and had fresh pizza and chips (fries) with vinegar and salt. It was one of the best meals we had that week.

A Visit with the Queen

A month or so ago I received an invitation which read:

'The Master of the Household has received Her Majesty's command to invite Reverend Dr. John D'Elia to a Reception to be given at Buckingham Palace by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh for Americans working in the United Kingdom.'

Right.

As with many of the amazing things that have happened since we moved here, I thought this was someone playing a joke on me. I mean c'mon, I'm just a guy from Burbank who has a very cool job in a great city. Anything more than that is a bonus, an extra, some serious icing on the cake. It turned out to be anything but a joke. This was a real event, attended by a cross section of Americans in the UK, including some very interesting people.

The event was yesterday, an absolutely stunning day in London. It was about 68 degrees outside with clear skies and a nice breeze. I arrived at the palace (OK, that's the first time I've ever typed that sentence), and showed my invitation and passport to the guard. He welcomed me through the gate and told me to follow the path to the main part of the residence. As I walked onto the grounds I looked back toward the gate I saw tourists about three deep, squinting in the sunlight and trying to figure out who I was. That moment made me laugh out loud.

I walked into the palace and was directed up one of these movie-set staircases. There were huge portraits covering every wall--the royal version of family vacation photos--and various sculptures and other artifacts by the dozens. I entered a large hall where I received a nametag with everything spelled perfectly (you have to know the D'Elia clan to understand how wonderful it is NOT to have to take a pen out and correct the spelling of your name). A waiter brought me a glass of wine, which was very good, and then there were a series of servers bringing hors d’oeuvres, which were also very tasty. I noticed from the nametags that there were a lot of bankers and financial types, as well as a large group of defense contractors in attendance. I chatted with a prominent chef, a retired USAF colonel, and a woman who runs the Walt Disney Company operations in Europe. (I told her I was from Burbank, a medium-sized walk from her HQ. She wasn’t as impressed as I thought she should be, so I moved on.)

At one point people started getting into a line, and so I joined them. I’d assumed that the Queen would briefly enter the room to greet us, and that we would then resume our wine and nibble consumption, but that’s not what happened. As the line moved toward a doorway I was asked for my entry card and then found myself face to face with the Queen, whose hand was held out for me to shake it, which I did. The next hand held out to me was that of Philip the Duke of Edinburgh (the Queen’s husband for you anarchists out there).



When I moved through into the next room, I saw Don Johnson (he’s in a play over here), the photographer Annie Leibowitz, and Jerry Hall (alas, she was Mick-less). After some chatting and meeting some other folks, one of the royal household staff came up to the people I was with and asked us to stay together and continue our conversation (I was with the head of Sony Pictures in the UK, talking about where to find good Mexican food in London). Next thing I knew, the Duke of Gloucester joined us and we chatted with him for a while.

Logan Dunn (our associate pastor) and I moved into the next room, and after a while another of the handlers asked us to stay put again. A minute later we were face-to-face with the Queen, who asked us all some questions and politely pretended to be interested in the answers. When I said that I was the new minister at the American Church, she said she remembered one of our former ministers being on the radio occasionally, and told me that I should do the same. It was a direct order from the Queen, so I’ll be looking into that immediately.

No need to burden this report with a lot of comment about celebrity or how we’re all the same under the skin.

Meeting the Queen was amazing.

Health, Safety and the Gospel

I’m fed up with rules.

Not entirely, I suppose, I’m not joining the Anarchist Party or even those wacky Libertarians. Rules provide limits and boundaries that help us live together in cities and villages and groups—even churches. Living without rules leads to chaos. But still, sometimes the rules makers get a little out of hand, and when that happens the restrictions keep us from being fully human.

I’ll cite two recent examples from over here. First, over the weekend in the Times of London there was a front page article about Health and Safety regulations in the workplace. The H&S (think OSHA if you’re reading this in the US) is an important organization that, at times, is a little taken with its own importance. The story in the paper was about office workers at the BBC who are no longer allowed to change light bulbs on their own. Seriously. When a bulb goes out at this internationally-acclaimed newsgathering and broadcasting giant, they have to call a special crew to come in and bring light where there once was darkness (OK, that was a little on the purple side). The BBC regularly has men and women dodging mortar shells in some of the most troubled regions in the world, but they can’t get up on a chair and fix their own lights. Fittingly, the department who calls for this assistance is billed £10 for each bulb replaced (about 20 bucks). At the local market you can get two bulbs for £1.

Worse, in Scotland this week a firefighter is facing disciplinary action for—get this—jumping into the river and saving the life of a 20-year-old woman who was trying to commit suicide. Apparently he was supposed to put on some special trousers and harness himself to something firm before jumping in the water. What he was not supposed to do (apparently) was save this young woman’s life. ‘I was supposed to watch that young girl die in front of me’, he said, ‘I couldn’t live with myself if I’d had to do that.’

Thank God.

The firefighter in question is my age, a dad like me, and he responded as all of us hope we would—and as rescue workers are expected to—when faced with an opportunity to help. Firefighters sign on for the work they do with full awareness of the risks, but sometimes the rules get in the way of them doing their jobs. This guy is in danger of being fired—ironically—because he actually did the job he was hired to do.

In these cases the rules, instead of protecting human life, prevented people from being fully human. Office workers are fully capable of changing light bulbs, and certainly a firefighter is trained and willing to save someone’s life. When safety rules prevent us from living as we were made, they stop functioning as safety regulations and become prisons where we stare out through the bars and long for the freedom to act.

How we live is often more important than how we die. The firefighter said that he couldn’t live with himself if he hadn’t tried to save a drowning woman. Think about that. He knew he could be killed in the attempt to save her, but that was preferable to living with the knowledge that he’d done nothing. The lives we lead can never be risk-free, but they can be meaningful and courageous and helpful.

Christians are about to celebrate Holy Week. It’s a good thing there wasn’t a Health and Safety inspector telling Jesus what he could and couldn’t do. The point of his life was to risk it—and give it—on our behalf and for our benefit. If he had lived to be 80 years old and had avoided the sacrifice he was sent to make, just imagine how different the world would be. But we know that that’s not what happened. Jesus acted--he died to cover our own separation from God and rose to demonstrate that he had power over death. He didn’t sit in his house and worry that it might be too risky. He acted decisively, even though it caused him pain and cost him his life. ‘For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’ That’s the Gospel for us in this season and throughout the year. The Messiah came and jumped into the river when we were doing our best to throw away our lives.

Thank God.

Running on (Almost) Empty

I’m starting to run out of things.

Shampoo, Q-Tips, my favorite soap. The last charge on my beard clippers is finally gone. Last week I wore the last of my shirts that were laundered in Burbank. I found a coupon for a few dollars off of our next bill, and threw it away. In marketing terms, I demonstrate a high degree of product loyalty, something that is being tested as we get settled in this new city. I’ll confess to a little bit of low-grade anxiety as I use up the last of the items that I really like.

It’s such an odd thing to notice, I know, and I don’t want it to be melodramatic at all. But I will say, truthfully, that I got a little sad as my trimmer died in my hand. I remember charging it up for the move. We were at my Mom’s house, which was such a relaxing and nourishing time for us just before we left. We allowed ourselves to be drenched there in good food, happy conversation, visits from friends and family, and a very special Christmas. In the days just before we left I remember trying to make sure that everything got done, and I specifically remember plugging the beard trimmer in so that it would have a full charge when we got to London. Now that last bit of Burbank electricity is gone, and I have to figure out how to charge it here.

That’s not entirely a bad thing.

Part of the transition to living here is learning to sustain our lives here. Some of that came quickly: There are food stores that we found right away where we know we can find what we need. We learned the public transport system almost immediately, because we had to, and now it seems like second nature to us. Some other things took longer, like banking, or having repairs done on the house, or even finding a new place to get my shirts and suits cleaned. The services that we have come to rely on in our daily lives are a big part of anywhere feeling like home. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting closer all the time. And running out of things is helping to move the process along.

In John 6 Jesus says, ‘I am the bread of life. Anyone who comes to me will never go hungry, and anyone who believes in me will never be thirsty.’

That’s pretty clear, but it isn’t easy. I’d love to say that relying on Jesus has made our lives sunny and pleasant, but that’s just not true. It’s not just our stuff that is depleted, it’s also our energy and, at times, our sense of our mission here. The three of us have been huddling in bed every morning for the last week, starting the day with some prayer time together—just for the day, for a sense of purpose, and for a little comfort. What we’re tying to do now, as we run out of the things—and feelings—we brought with us, is to rely on Christ for what we need to truly make a home here. Jesus may promise that we’ll never be truly hungry, but I’ll confess right here that I feel a little peckish.

Race Day

So Ian ran in his first cross country race yesterday. It wasn't as much a race as a chance for the kids to get out of the classroom and into a park for an hour or so. Three Year 2 (1st Grade) classes participated, and they ran two enormous laps around the park at the Paddington Recreation Centre. After the race there were cookies and hot chocolate for the kids.

Here are some snaps from the day.

Ian getting his race face on.

Loosening up before the race.

Coming around the home stretch.

Ian displaying his medal.

News Flash

Jesus is in the news again.

Film director James Cameron and others have been working to identify some remains found that hint at being Jesus and his family. Of course, all of this will be explained in an upcoming movie... Now, setting aside the truth or provability of that claim, it’s curious to me that this would be interesting to a largely secular audience. Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion has been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than six months, and there is a general sense among many that the Christian church has run its course—or at least lost its way, depending on who is doing the talking. Mark Steel, writing in The Independent, pokes fun at Christians for seeing signs and wonders in all manner of things (‘...they get so excited about an aubergine that’s cut in half revealing a pattern that sort of nearly says GOD’). But he also notices the brazen ignorance in Cameron’s belief that Christians would be happy to know that Jesus’ bones could be found. What would that say about the Resurrection? Good theology spoils the fun again.

Not that such gaffes are going unchecked anymore. Peter Steinfels in the New York Times has noticed that some scientists and atheists are coming out with strong critiques of Dawkins and others for their lack of knowledge of the theological concepts they seek to debunk. Terry Eagleton, a Marxist literary scholar, is quoted by Steinfels as saying: ‘Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.’ Rough indeed. Cameron, Dawkins and others would do well to understand the development and impact of the Christian faith before they make their contributions to the discussion. Similarly I would expect a Christian commentator to be well prepared before entering into any debate.

Still, I come from a town that is at the center of the entertainment industry, and one thing you learn there is that almost any publicity is good publicity. I don’t want to treat the threat to the foundations of our faith in this new film too flippantly, but I’m happy nonetheless to have another opportunity to tell a different side of Jesus’ story.

The Scriptures teach that God in his love and generosity sought to make himself known to his people. He revealed himself through creation, the prophets, and the writings of the Bible. When humankind continued to ignore the message, God himself came in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, who preached and healed, and was killed for his trouble. On the third day he rose again and showed himself to hundreds of people. This Easter Sunday we’ll celebrate once again the mystery of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ—proof once and for all that God had power even over death, and that he offers that hope to all who believe.

Simple, right?

Well, not really. I understand that this is not just difficult, but also impossible for us to know in the way that we know other things. And yet, in each of our lives, as Christ moves in and transforms us into the people he has called us to be, the truth of the gospel is confirmed in ways that are as unique as each individual person. The church strays when it pretends that it has all the answers, and that its doctrines are airtight artifacts of closed discussions. The ongoing discovery of God in each of our lives is a fluid process, within the boundaries of what has been revealed to us in Scripture. That’s why I welcome any intelligent or authentic challenge to the doctrines of Christianity. Each time we are forced to engage these ideas and learn again how to explain them in our own words, we grow in our faith and maturity as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Cameron’s film and the attending media attention are timed to coincide with our celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. As we move into that time of joy and remembrance, we should renew our understanding of that miracle in our own lives, and be prepared to share that Good News with anyone who wants to hear it. Even the odd film director.

A sign of aging

I suppose there are all sorts of things that make us feel our age. Aches and pains are the most obvious. Having a kid call you 'sir' or ma'am' is a sure winner. The first time you tell someone to turn that $£% music down! I almost cried the first time I said that.

It also comes up in the 'where were you then?' conversations. Our parents all remember where they were when JFK was shot (I was exactly six months old on that day). My generation talks about the Challenger disaster. I suppose younger folks will have Monica Lewinsky, 9/11 and other terror events to think back on.

Television programming can put distance between the generations as quickly as anything. From Sid Caesar to Ernie Kovacs in the 50s, to Hogan’s Heroes and Batman in the 60s, to Welcome Back Kotter and That’s Incredible in the 70s, to Dallas and Hill Street Blues in the 80s, to Seinfeld and Friends in the 90s, and so on (can’t believe I didn’t squeeze NYPD Blue and the Sopranos in there somewhere...).

So I say all this because when we walked into Ian’s classroom back before his first day, here’s what we saw.



Now of course there's nothing at all funny about the names themselves (they're lovely kids), but Julie and I both laughed out loud at seeing them together. We waited for Ian's teacher to get the reference, but instead she looked at us as though we were, well, just another pair of crazy Americans. Of course, she's in her mid-20s, and had never seen Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.

When we were done laughing, we realized just how old we'd become.

iPod Nation

The near-universal use of iPods in London is one of the things you notice immediately upon arrival here. Now that may sound strange in a place with Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus, St Paul’s Cathedral and the London Eye, but there it is. A large proportion of people in the street, on buses, and especially on the Tube are listening to something or other as they travel. If you were to look at just people in their 20s and 30s, the proportion would grow substantially—almost all young people have those tell-tale white buds in their ears.

I catch myself wondering sometimes what people are listening to. Some folks make it easy: the guy I saw last week with the Metallica t-shirt and the angry looking tattoos on his arms was easy to spot, others have the music on so loud that you can actually tell what their listening to from across the train. It’s a curious thing, and probably nosy in a way, but I do wonder what’s happening on these personal playlists all over town.

I’ve enjoyed watching how people ‘wire up’. Women especially find creative ways to incorporate the iPod wires into their scarves, so that you can hardly tell they’re listening to anything until you see the white dots in the ears. Some people wrap the lines from behind their heads, which looks a lot tidier, while more often than not folks will let the wires dangle in front, swaying as they walk down the street.

It was easy at first to be put off by iPod culture. I mean, really, in a city where so few people talk to each other at all it seems a bit excessive to add earphones to the mix. And there are also those times when you need to get past someone to exit a bus or train and they can’t hear you. At that point you’re really forced to push your way by, adding to the bumping and nudging that is so much a part of getting around in London. It was easy—probably far too easy—to judge these folks for tuning out of the world around them, for finding yet another way to avoid contact with other people, and for missing out on the odd life-changing conversation they might have with a fellow traveler. It was too easy to feel superior.

Then I remembered that I had an iPod myself.

I hadn’t actually forgotten—it was my Christmas present from Julie this past year. I have a hundred or so CDs loaded and ready to go, and also the pictures I’ve taken in the past 6 months or so—all of it is on that little unit, and it’s amazing. I try to limit myself to two iPod days per week. Of course I never listen to it in the morning, because that’s my commute time with Ian. But after I leave him at school on those designated days, I plug in and tune out and immerse myself in some songs that I love. I’ve been listening to the Killers’ second CD, and also the latest from the Raconteurs. There are other days when I miss the worship music from my last church and listen to some of that as I travel.

I wonder at times if people know what I’m listening to. I wonder what they would say if they knew I was tapping my foot to ‘Come, Now is the Time to Worship’, or ‘Grace Like Rain’, or ‘How Deep the Father’s Love for Us’. Sometimes I feel a twinge of guilt that I’m keeping this great music to myself (that’s the extrovert talking, always believing that other people want to hear what I’m thinking). But last week I was remembering an old song by Bob Bennett called ‘Madness Dancing’. The song was really about the few minutes he tried to set apart for God in the course of each day—how he was able to cut himself off from other cares, even for a short while. Here’s part of it, as near as I can remember:

In the middle of this madness I am dancing
Though I’m not sure why just now.
I tried to be sober, I tried to be logical
But could not stop my feet.
And no I haven’t turned off my mind
I know there’s evil all around.
But for now it's outside, and I am in my room
And joy is like a crashing tide...
Let the madness roll on like a hungry beast
No one will miss me for a half an hour at least.

That image of dancing in the presence of God, focusing on worship and separated from the worlds cares, has been a powerful one for me in the 20 years since I first heard this song. ‘Let the madness roll on like a hungry beast... No one will miss me for a half an hour at least.’ That impulse to retreat for a while is, well, wired into us. And while we all do something different in response to that prompt, I’m starting to see iPod culture in a new light. London is busy and noisy and fast and threatening all at once, and the people who leave their homes in the morning or their offices at night are just looking for a little retreat space. That they’ve found it in a little handheld device that drowns out the sounds of the city with music is probably a minor (secular) miracle.

Bob Bennett's song ends with this expression of pure joy:

A song came this morning and woke me
And as I listened, then I found
That I was not alone
I was standing, moving, dancing
Dancing on holy ground

Welcome to Lent

This is my favorite introduction to the season of Lent, taken from a book by Henri Nouwen called Show me the Way. Lent is a hard season for us because it represents a call to repentance, reflection and a handful of other things we’re not so good at. Still, taking 40 days or so to think about Christ’s work in our lives before we dive into the happy hymns and chocolate bunnies of Easter can’t be a bad thing. Here’s the quote:

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“God’s mercy is greater than our sins.

There is an awareness of sin that does not lead to God but to self-preoccupation. Our temptation is to be so impressed by our sins and failures and so overwhelmed by our lack of generosity that we get stuck in a paralyzing guilt. It is the guilt that says: ‘I am too sinful to deserve God’s mercy.’ It is the guilt that leads to introspection instead of directing our eyes to God. It is the guilt that has become an idol and therefore a form of pride.

Lent is the time to break down this idol and to direct our attention to our loving Lord. The question is: ‘Are we like Judas, who was so overcome by his sin that he could not believe in God’s mercy any longer and hanged himself, or are we like Peter who returned to his Lord with repentance and cried bitterly for his sins?’

The season of Lent, during which winter and spring struggle with each other for dominance, helps us in a special way to cry out for God’s mercy.”
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Isn’t that beautiful and haunting and challenging all at the same time? I tend to think so much of my own failures that I forget that my sin is not the point. God’s grace, given to us through Jesus Christ, is the true point of my life’s story, and yours...and yours...and yours.

We live out that struggle between the seasons on a daily basis, between the cold and death of winter and the restored and rediscovered life of spring. Between the awareness of just how far we stray from God, and the shock at what he has accomplished in order to draw us near. Lent is our time to pause and take notice of what is happening around us and in us. It’s not just for self-reflection, though that’s a key part of it. Lent is a time to sharpen our focus on Christ and his world, on the needs of people around us, on the gifts we’ve been given to meet those needs, and to discover all over again the hope that we have because of the Easter miracle.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Easter will come, but for now we try to re-create the sense of conviction that being in God’s presence prompts in each one of us. To repent and ask for forgiveness. And to anticipate that day when life wins the battle once and for all. Welcome to Lent.

Where we live

(There are several new postings below.)

I've been asked by some of you for pictures of where we live, so here you are. We're in the Belsize Park area of North London, just about a mile south of Hampstead, and a bit to the east of Primrose Hill.

This is our front door. We live in the bottom two floors of this 4-story house.
This is looking west from our front gate, toward Haverstock Hill which is the main artery going north and south in the neighborhood. This is looking east down our street. The construction barriers you see are for the installation of new water pipes, a project that involves most of Greater London. The existing pipes date from the reign of Queen Victoria.

This is the backyard, from the landing outside the kitchen door. Some of you have seen this in an earlier picture, covered with snow.

Looking east from the same landing.
Looking west...that table and chairs are from our balcony outside the guest room.
This past week we emptied the final box, crumpled up the final packing paper, put together the last of the chairs, and moved all the waste into the driveway. On Wednesday morning the Camden Council (our local municipal authority) will come and haul it all away for £40 (a bargain).
We've been here 53 days now.

American Pie

This has always been one of my favorite songs. I have this childhood memory of riding in my dad's car with both of us singing along with it. I also remember learning the chords when I hadn't been playing guitar all that long (a nice way of saying that I never played it very well).

Anyway, American Pie is one of those songs that made references to things going on in the culture, and it was fun to try and guess what each allusion meant. Someone has tried to do it in detail, and created a video for the song that explains some of the symbols. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycgegp0KdE4

At the very least you'll get to hear the song one more time. Enjoy.

Catching up

I can’t believe it’s been 10 days since I last posted. For those of you who are checking regularly, sorry about that. We’re in the last stages of settling into the house, and the early stages of branching out and making this our home.

This past week was Ian’s first half-term break. Over here this is serious business—each of the three school terms is halted by a week or so of vacation time right in the middle. I guess they’re preparing them for their six weeks of annual vacation (to start!) when they grow up and get jobs. Anyway, some of the folks we know take pretty exotic trips during half-terms, although most people ski at this break. In California when you go on a ski trip you might go local if you’re on a budget, or maybe to Mammoth on a longer trip, or you might even splurge and go to Tahoe once in a while. OK, some posh skiers among you might go to Utah or Colorado, but work with me here. The thing is, all of those places are basically in California (stop raising your hand about Tahoe and Nevada—I get it). Here when people go to ski they go to France, or Switzerland, or maybe even Austria. Yep, this isn’t piling the kids in the car and driving up to Big Bear. It’s getting passports and plane tickets and going to another country for a few days of world-class powder.

We haven’t really been here long enough to save much holiday money, so we opted to stay in London and see some things around here. Julie and Ian went to Greenwich, and Ian stood on the Prime Meridian. We all went to the Aquarium, which to be honest was a little underwhelming. After you’ve been to the Aquariums in LA and Monterey it’s hard to get excited about one in a place where the real discussion of aquatic life is about which species is best for fish and chips. We dropped in at the Natural History Museum to say hello to the dinosaurs, and the next day went to the British Library to see an exhibition of London maps. We stopped at the room where they have the Magna Carta, some Beatles songs handwritten on napkins, and the oldest complete copy of the New Testament (Sinaiticus, if you’re interested).

On Friday night we had a family over for dinner. They’re from the US, and have been in Europe as missionaries for the last 10 years or more. Their work involves providing Christian community for people who are, as they say, ‘allergic to church’. We enjoyed our time with them, and I hope to see how ACL can partner with them in a more effective way. On Saturday we had a lovely dinner with a couple from the church. She’s Thai and he’s from Germany, but they live and work in London and attend the American Church. It was some of the best Thai food I’ve ever had—green curry chicken and shrimp with asparagus. Today after church we went to another family’s house for a big Sunday meal. Ian played with their kids (15 and 17), who were great sports with our guy. After the meal we walked to, yep, the Natural History Museum again for an exhibition of wildlife photography—the finalists from a worldwide contest. It was amazing. If you can find it on the Museum’s website, it’s more than worth a look.

Tomorrow we get back into our school week rhythm. Getting up at 6am or so, going on the bus with Ian to catch our train, then walking him to his school. I’ve missed it, though I enjoyed sleeping until 7 most days this week. In ten days we get our first long-term visitors—Roger and Carol are coming to stay for a while, and we’re pretty excited about having them here. Next Sunday is the first week of Lent, so I’ll be working this week to prep a series for the weeks leading up to Palm Sunday and Easter.

More news later.

Chilly London

This has been an eventful week. Things at ACL are going well—part of the adventure here is helping the church move from an interim mindset to what we might call (in church-ese) ordinary time. In an interim time there are all sorts of vacuums that need to be filled, and there are some amazing people here who have stepped in and worked hard to keep this ministry floating. So much here is working well, and that is in large part due to the committed work of the folks who love this place. The task now is to move away from that stopgap, temporary kind of thinking to a more visionary, long-term frame of mind. That’s my job, in partnership with the people of the church, and I love it.

Our house is looking so much better—Julie has made it our home, and we’re getting more comfortable there by the day. Almost all the boxes are out of the house, and we’re settling into a life here that is recognizable, even if dramatically different from life in Burbank. We’re starting to think about having company—tonight the young adult group from the church is coming over for dinner and conversation. The associate pastor is gone for the week, so we’re taking over. There are about a dozen or so college and grad school people in the group.

Today has been quite an adventure. We were warned on the news over the past few days that a winter storm was headed our way, and when we woke up there was about 4 inches of snow and still falling. Ian and I made our usual walk to the bus stop—he was so excited to be out in the snow, kicking it, throwing it and letting flakes fall on his tongue as we walked. Our neighborhood looked so beautiful with snow.

This is a little street called Primrose Gardens, which ends right where we meet our bus in the morning.

This is England's Lane, a great street with some nice houses on the right, and a market, some hair salons, a butcher and a post office on the left. Behind me (about 75 yards) as I take this picture is a Starbucks--I can smell it from here.

Commuting in London is an adventure on the best days. In the morning I usually have to throw a few hip checks and the occasional elbow to keep people from running Ian over. Today when our Tube train arrived, you could see through the glass that it was packed. I asked Ian if he wanted to brave it, and of course he said yes. The door slid open and I said ‘we’re coming on.’ We squeezed in, surrounded by people reading papers, listening to iPods and generally doing their own thing. I was worried that Ian was getting crowded by people, so I kept some pressure on the back of the guy next to him so he wouldn’t get any closer. Ian still had his hood on so I couldn’t see his face, but when I tapped him on the shoulder he looked up at me with a huge smile. He has definitely ‘arrived’ as a Londoner—nothing seems to faze him over here anymore. I’ve told Ian this over and over again, so I’ll say it here, too. Our commute is my favorite part of the day. Here he is at our bus stop this morning in England's Lane.

A small story from over here...

We have mice in our house. That’s the long and the short of it. About every third night I can hear one scurrying across the hardwood floor of the living room above where we sleep. Now we haven’t had any damage to anything or found any, er, souvenirs from the little critter. But it’s there, and so I’ve set some traps in the house to try and catch it (them?). I put cheese on one trap, because I’m a traditional kind of guy in most ways, and peanut butter in the other, because they have a broad range of tastes over here.

On Saturday we woke up to a gloriously beautiful day in London. It was clear and bright, cool but not cold, and just gorgeous outside. We had breakfast together and watched some cats play in the garden, and basically sat around enjoying the morning. I checked the traps, but they were empty and I left them set.

We had plans to visit the home of a boy in Ian’s class. We were going to have lunch together and give the boys time to play. When we opened the door to the outer hall, there was a dead mouse on the floor. Now clearly we’ve all seen too much CSI, because we got a bit too interested in determining the cause of death, er, I mean, finding out how the little guy ended up in his present condition. Anyway, there were no visible entry wounds (there I go again), and so I scooped it up in an egg carton and put it in the trash.

The three of us got our coats and left the house, but when we got to the sidewalk Julie and I noticed that Ian hadn’t come out of the gate. When we looked back we found him standing by the trash can. Julie asked him what he was doing and he said that the mouse shouldn’t be left alone in the garbage can, and that he wanted to stand there a while. It was very sweet, but after a minute we told him that it was OK to leave, and also that it was very kind of him to want to stay.

Seeing your six-year-old son standing next to a trash can because he doesn’t want a dead mouse to be alone can make you think. We spend so much time as adults trying to re-learn our sense of wonder, our sense of the value of things and the needs of others. Ian still has it—he knew instinctively that even though we needed the mouse out of our place, that it’s sad when an animal dies, and that life matters. Ian hasn’t yet lost his sense of the preciousness of living things, and I admire him for that.

It didn’t come up again that day, but I continue to be amazed at how much there is to learn from the people in my life, no matter how old they are.

A Big Weekend for Us

It’s been a while since I posted anything. The shipment of our furniture and other things completely buried us in boxes (full and empty), books, clothes we don’t need (I brought about 40 t-shirts—they should take my PhD away), and other sundry items. Julie worked three straight days and made the upstairs (the living and dining rooms) look like home. It was really good to see our own chairs and bookcases, TV cabinet and other homey things. It was also more than a little sad--having our household here makes the whole move real in a way we hadn't expected. So many things are mixed blessings these days. We’re both homesick, each in our own way, and that makes some parts of being here very difficult.

The induction service jarred me out of some of my funk (some of you will call this an installation service—over here that would make me a celebrated home appliance). It was added on to the end of our regular worship time, and some representatives of the United Reformed Church (from now on, the URC) came to induct me as the minister at ACL. Each of them brought some heart and humor and a sense of calling to the event, and that helped me focus a bit on what I’m doing here.

One of the induction questions was: ‘Do you believe that the Church is the people gathered by God’s love to proclaim the reconciliation of the world to God through Jesus Christ?’ And here's the good part: I do believe that. I believe that the message of the Gospel is here to reconcile us to God and each other and even to those parts of ourselves that keep us from living whole lives. I all I had to do was say ‘I do’, but I could have preached again right then and there.

Another question was: ‘Are zeal for the glory of God, love for the Lord Jesus Christ, obedience to the Holy Spirit and a desire for the salvation of the world, so far as you know your own heart, the chief motives which lead you to enter this ministry?’

Can I just say that I love that question?

It gets at the heart of why anyone would get into ministry—not just the ordained types, but anyone who teaches a Sunday School class, visits an old person, decorates a sanctuary or answers a phone—it gets at what drives us to take this risk. Zeal for the Father, Son and Spirit should be what prompts anyone to share their gifts with the church. But the part of the question that grabbed me was the little clause in the middle: ‘as far as you know your own heart’. It’s not a loophole, but rather an acknowledgement that we’re on a journey—even the pastors—and that the best we can do is search our hearts and do what we believe to be our calling. Notice that the question isn’t concerned with what we know as such, but rather where our hearts are in relationship to Jesus Christ. I happily answered, ‘They are.’

I started this blog a few months ago with a little story about calling and ministry. This past Sunday in a way brought that part of the story full circle. Now I have to actually do the work, as it says in another part of the induction process, ‘relying on the strength of Christ.’

Now for some pictures...

This is the Moderator of the local URC District asking me the questions of induction. Turns out she's from Northern California, near where I spent a lot of time when I worked for Fuller. She and the other ministers were a joy to meet and be around. I look forward to getting to know them.

After they were done with me they called up Julie and Ian to welcome us to the church and to the URC. Ian liked it a lot when they clapped for us...don't we all?


This is our Moderator, Roberta Rominger, at the reception following the service. That enormous piece of cake is actually Ian's--he asked for the whole part that had his name (see below), and they gave it to him!

This is my office, now loaded with books. There are 3 boxes yet to shelve...
The reception after the service. The black curtains aren't a symbol of mourning, but rather soundproofing for a group that is renting that room during the week for rehearsal space.

The lovely cake (note the section with Ian's name).


One of the joys of the weekend was having people we knew come to visit for the service. The couple at the far end of the table are Mike and Cath Grieve, some of our dear friends from Scotland. Mike was the Beadle at St Giles' Cathedral when I was there, and we've been friends ever since. They drove down and spent the weekend near our house. The guy in the foreground is Charlie Matthews, one of our good friends from Glendale. He was in Paris on business last week and scheduled his home trip through London to be at the service. He also has the honor of being our very first overnight guest. He won't be the last!

The Saga Ends

At long last! Despite winds, rain, shipping company under-competence and other various delays, our shipping container finally arrived at our house on Tuesday afternoon (4 hours late). Here's a shot of it coming down our charming North London street. A crew came at 10am and waited until 2pm for the delivery, but they were great about it and got everything in the house and reassembled in short order.



Of course, once the stuff was in the house, it looked like this. Boxes everywhere and nowhere to sit or work. Julie did manage to clear off part of our dining room table and we had Chinese take-out together.

No way we could cook. Here's the kitchen with most--not all--of the boxes marked 'Kitchen.' That's the universal word for 'fragile' (besides, of course, fragile), so everything breakable ended up in front of the stove and sink, and we couldn't get anywhere near them.

We woke up on Wednesday to this. Two inches of snow blanketed most of London last night. It was so beautiful--the garden looked like something out of Narnia (I half expected that mean blond to come storming out of the bushes...). This was the view off of our back porch. So here we are: piles inside, snow outside, and all of our stuff safely delivered. Now we unpack...

A new day

We seem to have turned a corner in our London experience. Getting a washing machine in the house was a huge thing--I've never seen Julie so happy doing laundry. I managed to get mobile phones for the both of us at the local Vodafone shop (I'm happy to plug them since they were so cooperative). I got a Blackberry and Julie a lavender Moto RAZR with a camera and MP3 player built-in (they know how to do cell phones over here). Ian is loving school--he greeted me in French when I came home tonight--and has played volleyball, soccer and gone swimming already with his class. Julie went out to lunch with someone in our church, from the same family that housed us when we came for the interview in June, and made her way across town using several trains and a bus or two. All of these things make London feel a lot more like home.

And still...

I'm missing my pals from church, the cigar nights, watching more than 4 channels (I'm jonesing for Law & Order), and my family. All of that is normal, I know, but I feel it today, partnered with how good some of the other things feel. We've got a long way to go, but learning to live somewhere--and minister somewhere--is what we're here to do and learn. God has led us on this adventure and we want to soak it up as much as we can. But it wouldn't be a bad thing, really, if some of our friends and family would just decide to move here and be our neighbors...

I watched a movie on the BBC the other night that I thought was really good. It was called 'Anita and Me' (2002), and like a lot of movies here it was about the clash of cultures in the UK. The story was about two young girls, one Indian-British who tells the story, and the other a white English girl. They're close friends when they're little, but as the English girl absorbs racist attitudes toward her friend they drift apart. The cool thing about the story is that the Indian girl never lets go of how they loved each other as children, and when she goes off to prep school she gives her friend a diary of all the things she would have shared if they had still been friends. It's funny, sad and true all at the same time, and shows how loving someone is more about the one doing the loving than it is about the receiver of that love.

You can probably see this coming... The movie reminded me of how God loves us, and how we should love each other. God loves us because that's who he is, and in turn we are called to love one another not for what they do, but for who they are. And so it follows that we love each other not for what it gives to us in the exchange, but rather because we have been loved by God first. The people we love become, then, worthy just because of who they are, not for anything they do. That girl in the movie suffered all kinds of things at the hands of her friend, but she loved her in spite of it all, because she valued her apart from any of her behavior. How different would the world be with just a little bit of that kind of love?

The answer to that question is found in the Cross.

The Gospel is a strange thing sometimes, but every once in a while a part of it is so crystal clear, so simple that it takes me by surprise. God loved us so much that it didn't matter what we did. He came, he saw, he loved, he died and rose again. It's not that people didn't matter in that equation, it's just that people didn't control that equation. He did it because that's who he is. I want to learn to love people the way that girl did in the film, and also how Jesus did during his ministry here. It's a lofty goal, I know, and probably impossible. But it's the trying that matters, not the accomplishing, and we all need to remember that. I got my reminder watching a movie.

Dateline: London

Cities are hard...

That may sound whiny or simplistic or, well, whatever, but I don’t really care. Part of our adjustment to London is learning how to move from a suburban to an urban way of doing things. We don’t have a car yet, but even with one we’ll still be walking to the market, to the dry cleaners, to a bus or tube stop. It’s just so different from jumping into my car and popping down to the store. (By the way, I really miss my big 4-door Camry.) Most days I walk farther to catch my bus than the local Vons was from our house (and I never once walked there to do any shopping).

Some of this has been made worse by the fact that the washing machine broke down just before we got here. With a 6-year-old in the house—and all the laundry he can produce—it’s been a chore for Julie to cart the wash about 6 blocks to some washers, then bring it back to dry it at the house. The new washer comes tomorrow, and that should make life a whole lot better. So we’re all a little homesick, not only for the people we miss, but also for the way we lived. It seems strange to say that, because some things around here are amazing and we would miss those if we left.

OK, so now I have to make a real-time edit to this post. The shipping company just called and said that our container is in Rotterdam, and delivery has been delayed yet again. Unbelievable. We’re now scheduled (loosely, apparently) to receive our things on the 25th. I’ll keep you up-to-date on any new developments.

But first, some pictures from our visit to the British Museum on Saturday.

The museum from the outside.

The Rosetta Stone (worth looking up) is just about the coolest thing to see in London.


Some friends gave us a membership to the British Museum (thanks, guys), and it allows us to enter this private room with a coffee machine and things to read. Very cool.


Ian, sitting at the feet of an Assyrian deity. Gotta get him back in Sunday School.

This is Rameses II, one of the most famous pharaohs in Egyptian history.

Mummies! Nothing else to say.

We've been here 18 days.

Format Alert!

I will now be posting sermons at this address:

http://amchurchsermons.blogspot.com/

Please add this address to your favorites.

There are some new postings below...

Ian goes off to school...

Well, the day finally came. On Wednesday we took Ian to school for his first day in Year Two (1st grade in the US). He did great—he liked his teacher, made a new friend (Robert), and played soccer for the first time (though I think he scored an ‘own goal’). The day before school started we visited the school and met his teacher, Miss Lewis. Here are some snaps from the week.


Ian at the door of his new school. The kids there call it 'Hogwarts.'

Ian with his new teacher, Miss Lewis, who comes from South Africa.

This is Ian's classroom--there are 16 kids in his class.

Same room, different view.

I put this last because I didn't think anyone would keep reading after this picture! Unbelievable how good Ian looked in his uniform--he told me several times that he had a tie on. When I took this shot it was still dark outside, windy and rainy, and we were just about to leave to catch a bus for Marylebone, where the school is located.