“Hugging a Stranger, Doing What Matters”

Throughout the “Doing What Matters” process we have been discussing ways of doing and being the church.  What makes this process unique is that we are starting with the people!!  You.  Me.  The person next to you. The one you stood behind in line at the coffee shop the other day. The one you are going to have lunch with tomorrow.

Speaking of people!  I love People!  No, not just the magazine that I do read cover to cover each week.  I love being with people.  Talking to people.   Hanging out with people.  Meeting new people.  But what I really enjoy most is watching people.  Do you like to watch people, too? 

One of my favorite people-watching places is the airport.  In December, my husband Steve and I were heading to Florida, and when I had finished getting redressed after security I sat and began my watching.  There was the family with three teens!  I saw the couple travelling with a small dog!  The mom of a young toddler was there, apologizing  to us for her daughter’s behavior before we even boarded the plane.   And yes, as luck would have it, the toddler sat across from Steve and I and never slept!! 

Part of the fascination of living in a small state is that I knew that most of these people would probably be with us on our return flight.  Sure enough, when we returned to the airport at the end of the week, there was my family with the teens, the dog people, and to my joy no toddler!  As I continued my observation of people watching I noticed a lady across from me.   Very put together.  Older than me.  Strong posture.  Very confident in her chair.  She gave off a vibe that said: “Don’t mess with me”.  I sat, and continued watching people, after hearing that our flight was now delayed 2 hours.  This upsets the teens and my husband.  The dog had his drugs so he did not care. 

As I took it all in, I couldn’t help but notice when the lady across from me- with the “Don’t mess with me” attitude-took a phone call and suddenly began weeping.  I mean sobbing.  Now, even the non-people watchers are now watching.  I feel something inside me telling me to-GET UP AND GO TO HER.  NOW!   I knew what I needed to do, but I was scared and very nervous approaching this strong woman who was not very strong at that moment.  I got up and went to her and hugged her.  She didn’t speak.  But she let me hold her.  Then she whispered to me: “My mom just died.”  I continued to hold her.  She told me that she laid beside her mom for the last two weeks at a hospice facility.  She felt happy that she was able to be with her mom during the last days of her life.  Even though she was prepared for the phone call, she could not hold in her grief.  She thanked me and I kept my eye on her until we boarded.

I am telling you this story because doing what matters can be scary.  Following Jesus is not always easy. Listen to what God has to say. Leave your fears and hesitations behind.  Sometimes, all He expects of you is that you get up, and walk across the room to hug a complete stranger at an airport. 

If we all start doing what matters, it will matter.

Sheri Dumas is a student of the New England Synod’s Lay School of ministry and a member of St. James Lutheran Church in Barrington, RI

"God's Work, Our Hands"

My name is Sue Grassey, and I am a member of Faith Lutheran, in Quincy, Massachusetts. I have just returned from an invigorating weekend at Camp Calumet in beautiful Ossipee, New Hampshire.  For the past three years, we have been attending the annual Youth Group gathering, which takes place during the first weekend in March at Camp Calumet. It is a time for Youth Groups from all over the NE Synod to come together and participate in a program run by counselors from Calumet. Our youth really look forward to this weekend, as many attend summer camp, and some are even counselors themselves. As leaders, we enjoy seeing friends that we have made over the years, as well as spending quality time with our own youth and teens from other groups.

The theme for this weekend was “God’s Work, Our Hands.” This was one of the best programs that we have attended at Calumet. We spent the weekend talking about how youth can make a difference in their world. So many of the kids are involved in some very special programs, and they have a passion for mission work.  Many of them have gone on mission trips, been involved in the 30-hour Famine, worked at local soup kitchens, and the list goes on. These kids are doing God’s work with their hands!

Our youth have recently developed a passion for mission also. A year ago, our church called a new pastor. Pastor Matthew came from Minnesota with a background in Youth Ministry. Our kids were instantly in love with him. His enthusiasm, passion for mission, and abundant energy touched something in them that many of our kids had been missing.

Pastor Matthew has a passion for feeding starving children, and has been doing this work for multiple years. He had been working with an organization called Feeding Children International, which feeds hungry children around the world with help from volunteers. The program involves assembling packages of food, each of which holds enough to feed a family of six. The process is performed in “assembly-line” style, and involves six to eight people. Our youth packaged over 40,000 meals last summer, and developed a passion for this work. Each time we planned on packaging meals, the turnout was overwhelming. The kids were so excited, and each time they put the meals together, they tried to outdo themselves from the last time! Their energy and excitement were contagious.

Our group brought this program to Calumet’s Youth Weekend because we feel that the work we are doing at Faith is God’s Work. The kids were really excited about demonstrating the program. We put on a PowerPoint presentation that explained the organization and the food packaging program. Then our youth got the opportunity to show everyone how it is done. Those in attendance eagerly got involved with assembling the meals, with many of them taking turns. The leaders had lots of questions and were very interested in getting involved.

With the synod initiative of Doing What Matters, we here at Faith really believe that we are doing just that, especially with our Youth Group. They are eager to get involved in community service and to help others. In just three weeks, we will be participating in World Visions 30-hour Famine where we will again package meals.

Inside Out

Recently, St James held its annual meeting; typical business (budget analysis, which is so much fun in this economy) and committee reports comprised the agenda.  Wonder of wonders, the final note of the meeting was positive.   I think we were all braced for the worst as far as finances went, but it seems that we’re hanging in there.  St. James has again shown itself as a community created for giving; whether it is time or talents or money.  These visible fruits that grow out of our love for God and our neighbors are not grounded in the world’s economics; rather, these fruits flourish on holy ground; fed and watered by word and sacrament.  And, as we saw in our meeting, these fruits take you by surprise, suddenly overnight the garden is blossoming.  Where there was nothing, now there is something.  And, it’s not what you expected at all! 

Over the last few years we have been engaged in a capital campaign seeking to address the accessibility and function of our community fellowship spaces and classrooms.  Plans have been drawn up, monies have been raised, but for a variety of reasons, economic instability not being the least of them, the project has slowed to a crawl.   Do we take a big leap and engage in an all-out major renovation or do we take baby steps, piecing smaller projects together. Do we revaluate the plans or go with our initial vision?  We are standing at the intersection, looking for the green light; waiting to take a step in a new direction.

Does God wait?  It seems that God has planted an idea in the hearts and minds of this congregation.  If we can all agree on one thing it’s that we need to grow and expand; we feel the need to build.  The physical signs are obvious; we’ve run out of classroom space and have taken to improvising and our fellowship hall needs better access so we can host larger community events.   We feel the Spirit pushing us to push out the walls and raise the roof, but how do we do it?

We may wait, but God does not wait.  As I sat in at the meeting and we went over the various committee reports, I realized that God had already broken ground.  Where we fretted about money and contractors, God was working on another “capital campaign”, and had already moved ahead with demolition and construction.  God has torn down walls, created new classrooms, and had taken the issue of access off the table.  God has turned us inside out. We have left the church building and gone out into the community to be the church. 

Our outreach ministries have become a part of our identity.  We are becoming a community within the community; learning what it is to be church outside of church.  Walls and windows and stairs and doors are no match for the power of the Holy Spirit.  We have turned from thoughts of elevators, to wheels, with Mobile Loaves and Fishes.  Walls could not hold back the groups who participated in the global missions projects in Honduras.  No space?   No problem!  “Have food and hands-will travel” is the motto for those who volunteered at Park Place Soup Kitchen.  We walked and knitted for those in need, and collected and delivered clothes and food to various local non-profits.  The men’s group moved out to local establishments, bringing prayer and Christian fellowship to unexpected places.  Fundraising raised the roof and we able to address the needs of our brothers and sisters across the nation and the globe. Ceilings and walls cannot contain us; we have embraced social media with blogs and facebook, expanded our web page and continued to provide coverage of worship services to local cable outlets. God is definitely up to something.

Yes, we still need to address the problems with our physical space, the building where we gather is not getting any more accessible, or welcoming, or bigger on its own. Changes are afoot.  But as we discuss and ponder our next steps we won’t be “frozen”.  Looking at who we are, indeed we are the body of Christ; it has become evident that this body does not sit still.  St. James is on the move and we’re finding that we have everything we could possibly need when we are doing something that matters to God.  Together we all are part of God’s building project and we are so blessed to have Jesus on-site, all the time.

 4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and ⁵like living stones, let yourselves be built^* into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

[1 Peter 2:4-5}  ⁹For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building. ¹¹For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. 1 {Corinthians 3:9, 11]^{* 21}In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²²in whom you also are built together spiritually^* into a dwelling-place for God. [Ephesians 2:21-22]

Kim Bergstrand, St. James