Healing Spiritual Wounds - Review

TLDR version: A much needed resource for people of faith, and for those in ministry.
Increasingly, those of us in ministry are finding ourselves spending more time with people who are either new to the church or returning to the church. Once upon a time, people were raised in the church and stayed in the church - I mean, maybe they drifted away for a few years in their 20s, but just for a moment.

There is a set of tools for cradle-to-grave church members. Here are the steps of faith formation ("confirmation then graduation then marriage, etc"). Here's how to build on your positive experience and grow deeper in faith. These tools - these steps - are what most people learn when they train for ministry.

Now a growing population has left the community we call "church," or has intentionally chosen to stay away from it. Some were raised in the church and walked away. Others saw the church at a distance and have worked to keep the church at arm’s length. And still others remain in the church with an uneasy peace. 

This new population has awoken important realizations among those of us who provide pastoral care – that many people have been hurt by the church, many people have been taught faith in a way that is counter to the good news of Jesus, many people have deep spiritual wounds. 

The Rev. Carol Howard Merritt's new publication from HarperOne - Healing Spiritual Wounds - is written with just such realizations in mind. It is theology, pastoral care, and a workbook for all those who carry spiritual wounds and all those whose ministry is the healing of those wounds. 

Many a Christian memoirist will write with honesty about the struggles that they once overcame, long ago. Pastor Merritt's memoir is raw and honest about the wounds she carries to this day, and the work she is currently and continuing to doing to heal from them. 

With humor, candor, and deep insight, Pastor Merritt opens up to the reader some of the most painful intersections of faith, Christian community, and human frailty in her life. 

Each chapter deals with a different type of spiritual wound. Pastor Merritt describes the ways many of us have been hurt, points to some of the effects of that pain on our lives, and then – and this is key – offers tools to help the reader unpack that wound and begin the process of healing.

“Our souls are tender places. We hold our ideals, hopes, wishes, and dreams there. That’s why spiritual wounds can feel so devastating … There seem to be so many people who want to heal, but they can’t figure out where they placed the balm.” 

Merritt’s personal stories in Healing Spiritual Wounds held up a mirror to my own stories, and her healing points her readers toward their own peace. For all of us imperfect people, living out our faith in community with other imperfect people, Carol Howard Merritt gives us tools for a healthier, more compassionate spiritual life. 

As a person of faith, I am looking forward to returning to this book again and again as I work through the exercises provided in each chapter. As a pastor, Healing Spiritual Wounds provides me with an extremely helpful set of insights and tools as I care for those I am called to serve. 

With Healing Spiritual Wounds, Carol Howard Merritt provided me with the spiritual direction that I didn't know I needed, and given me some of the tools I've been looking for in my ministry. 

Disclosure: I am fortunate to count Carol as a friend, and was provided with a review copy of this book from HarperOne.

Interview: Gregory Walter "Being Promised"

I was presented with the opportunity to interview Professor Gregory Walter, author of the new book Being Promised: Theology, Gift, and Practice. It is a wonderful book, full of insight - I highly recommend it.

Gregory Walter is Associate Professor of Religion at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. Like many of my friends, we have never met in person, but I in our online friendship I have learned from his passion for his ministry (and the cultural passions he and I share).

Here is my interview:

1) Thank you for this book. It is fair to say that this is straight-forward academic theology. The question that I know I will be asked by my colleagues: Why does this book matter for a parish pastor?

Christians, especially pastors, think, talk about, try to be faithful and act out of God’s promise.   Promise promise promise.  The book tries to answer this question:  what is a promise?   This book provides a critical theological vocabulary for talking about and practicing promise.  The way I consider promise and its power or its critical potential can be useful for any community trying to discern how to act or what the relationship is between God’s graciousness and the immediate needs of those among and around the community. 

Similarly, we are all embedded in a wide circle of gifts, some of them welcome and needed, others that are dangerous and full of damage.  This economy of giving, the needs of the world, are all the demands, calls, and hopes that show up in our hearts and on our doorsteps.  Because I develop promise as a gift in this book, I provide a way to show how God’s promise is credible amidst this circulation of gifts but also how it is radical, reorienting, and liberative.  We need to be reminded, I think, of our creatureliness in terms of the web of relationships and gifts that those webs bear.  And promise as gift in Being Promised addresses that.

But I also think it matters because the gospel is a promise, at least as articulated throughout the Bible. Robert Jenson, the instructor of my first theology class, a class I took when I was a sophomore in college, started the first day to define theology as that activity that occurs and is entirely devoted to this weird thing we call a promise.  Since then I was hooked and deeply interested in answering the question:  what difference does it make if the Triune God is one who makes a promise?

I won’t pretend Being Promised doesn’t make demands of its readers.  It is, after all a book about promise and not a promise itself!  But because it spans the practical, the liturgical, the moral, and the theological, I think there is something in the book for most every reader who has an interest in gift or promise.

2)   It seems to me that promise is inherently risky. What does it look like to brave that risk?

Friedrich Nietzsche has a picture of the ultimate promisor.  This is a person who has such strength that he (probably) can resist any change, has power to preserve the present, to be true to his word.  This person is can forget the past in favor of the pledge made, can shake off any guilt and worry in order to keep the promise.

This is not a promise that is risky nor does it require bravery.

A true promise, as I argue, is weak.  It is an adventure.  Making a promise risky but so is trusting one.  This means a kind of waiting on what may come, that which comes-to, advent.  This life is a risk, an opening, and a willingness to see what happens. 

The bravery to accept this risk is a kind of courage to embrace the fragility of one’s self and each other.  Mary Oliver has a line:  “I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.”  I think that is the risk of promise, which is to dwell in this life of Spirit that the Crucified One pledges.

3) Help me flesh out the eschatology of promise some more. How do we encounter the fullness of God’s promise? 

All eschatology is local.

I argue at the end of the book that since God’s promise is always other-directed, since the place of promise is always the place of the other, that any statements we make about eschatology or fulfillment are always bound to the neighbor. 

In other words, I think that a kind of cosmic or total eschatology is a bit over-hasty.  We might be able to articulate that from God’s promise but I think what we have biblically-speaking is the apocalyptic seer’s poetry, parabolic statements in the Gospels, and various wisdom sayings throughout Paul.  When taken from the perspective of promise, we have just a schema, a bare-bones skeleton that has flesh only when it is addressed to the neighbor’s needs, concerns, and injuries.

Eschatological claims need to be filled out in relationship to the way that God’s promise in Jesus addresses those local concerns.  Thus, it is not just enough to be a theologian of the cross, you need to be a local theologian of the cross.  And that isn’t enough either because the theology of the cross needs this promise in order to get the openness and spirit-breathed impossibility interwoven into the local scene.

We encounter the full gift of God’s promise in the Spirit, as I argue at the end of the third chapter on Pentecost.   This we have in bread and wine.  If the promise of Christ is Christ’s body and blood and we have that in the pledge, in doubled gift, we have it in the bread and wine.  Heaven is a place on earth.  And this place is a double place, as the last chapter shows, a place of paten and cup and of the neighbor.

4) You have invested some serious time and energy on this book. Having finished it, and putting it out into the world, what will you tackle next? What is your next project?

I wrote a fair amount on promise that I didn’t include.  I have been fashioning that material into a monograph on the sacraments and Christian practice.    A colleague at St. Olaf and I have been teaching comparative theology for five years now and we intend to write a short Christian-Hindu commentary on some of the Upanisads.  But lastly, I’d really like to write on Tolkien to advocate what my students alternately call Pipeweed or Faerie Theology.  A Elbereth Gilthoniel!

Thank you, Gregory Walter, for your time! Check out the book, and read Gregory's comments on the other stops on his blog tour! 

• Gregory Walter booktour on Clint Schnekloth's blog
• Gregory Walter booktour on Geoff Sinibaldo's blog
• Gregory Walter booktour on Joe McGarry's blog

Review: "Pastrix" by Nadia Bolz-Weber

I encountered the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber when I started blogging at "Postings from Prairie Hill" about 6 years ago and she was writing on a Typepad site. What I admired about her then, is what I still admire and shows up in her new spiritual memoir, Pastrix (Jericho Books, 2013).

Pastor Nadia does not put on a false front -- you get Nadia, 100%, in every encounter. Authenticity pervades her ministry -- whether online, in print, or (I would expect) in person. Pastrix is quite simply the most heartbreakingly, joyfully honest book I have read in a very long time. I can't remember the last time a book evoked as much raw emotion from me as Pastrix has. I laughed and cried throughout this book. It is beautiful.

And, you probably should not buy this book, especially if you:

• think Christians should have it all pulled together, know all the answers, and never seem flawed. 
• think the F-word is extremely offensive. (No really, make no mistake. Nadia curses with frequency, creativity, and conviction). 
• use the word "liberal" as an insult.
• are offended by the idea that God might invite gay and lesbian people fully into the life of the church.
• think Christians ought to most resemble June and Ward Cleaver. 
• have a perfect life, never have any doubts, and are suspicious of anyone who is not the same.

I mean this in all honesty; Pastrix is probably not for everyone. In fact, I know lots of good, church-going people who will be angry about this book, who will not like this book, and (if they read it) will be outraged at everything that Nadia's ministry represents. 

I wish that were not the case. I wish we could hear. I wish we were not so caught up in comfortable cultural norms that prevent us from hearing the Good News of God's love in ways that speak loudest to those on the outside. I wish we could see more clearly how Jesus loved and welcomed misfits and troublemakers, and would do the same in our lives.

But, I think it's okay that not everyone will enjoy or "like" this book. Pastor Nadia's ministry at House for All Sinners and Saints has never been about adhering to a traditional model of church. It has been a community for people who don't fit in anywhere else, who are not always welcomed into more traditional churches.

So maybe this book is for you, especially if you:

• have ever been hurt by people who say "Everyone is Welcome" but don't really mean it. 
• struggle with your failures and flaws and shortcomings.
• consider yourself a person of faith, or maybe a person considering faith, but you are wary of the church. 
• want -- or need -- a God who is all about second chances.
• If you are looking for the Shepherd who will come into the dark and broken places of life, this book is for you. 

At the end of the day, Pastrix is not a book about Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber. Pastrix is a memoir of grace -- and not grace that is polished and cleaned up so that it can be put on a shelf and admired.

Pastrix is not about grace "in theory." Pastor Nadia's story, her friends' stories, and stories of members at House for All Sinners and Saints reveal gritty, real grace. A story of grace that shows up at rock bottom, in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, in the broken places of life. A story of grace that does not wait for us to become good or perfect or nice, that does not wait for us come to church, but instead comes and finds us where we are. 

Pastrix is a book that I will read over and over again, because I need to be reminded of who I am, and reminded that God does not give up on any of us.

(Order Pastrix on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or support local booksellers and purchase it in a brick and mortar store)

The Social Media Gospel - Author Interview (& Free Book)

Do you like free things? Then have I got a treat for you! My first order of copies of Meredith Gould's new book, The Social Media Gospel, are arriving today, and I have two copies to give away. More about that in a bit.

First, a little about the author. Meredith Gould founded a weekly conversation on twitter about using social media for ministry, called Church Social Media (or #chsocm). Over the last two years, this conversation has continued and developed into a community of individuals who are passionate about the Gospel and about technology. She has also consulted with congregations, organizations, and synods/dioceses about their communications strategies.

It is my privilege to count Meredith as a friend and collaborator (co-conspirator?) and to have been able to have a hand in this project. I asked Meredith to share some of her insight about the book and about using social media in ministry on this blog. Here is my interview with Meredith:


With an ever-growing number of resources for using social media, what sets The Social Media Gospel apart?

Yes, resources for using social media are ever-growing, but because most focus on “how to” use social media, they’re quickly obsolete. Digital platform design (i.e., what the social media looks like) and functionality (i.e., how the social media works) change quickly. I wanted to write something more durable, but that wasn’t my primary motivation.

I saw a more pressing need – a book explaining why these tools are valuable and when to use them. In The Social Media Gospel, I invite readers to think strategically and tactically before choosing tools. I invite them to think about the impact of context (e.g., demographics, learning styles, personality types) on social media adoption (or rejection). I also include questions for reflection, cleverly called, “Thought Bytes.” And more!

I was determined to write a book for newcomers as well as those already using social media. Comments from early reviewers and those who have already received pre-ordered copies assure me that I achieved my goals. I’m also happy to know that readers are having LOL moments. My favorite public tweet from today: “…what I’ve enjoyed most in your new book are the little cmts (sic) that highlight your personality; creates a sense of familiarity.”

What is the biggest blind spot congregations have when it comes to communications?

Great question. At first, I was going to respond with, “failure to see that communications tools must be integrated across digital platforms.” But the biggest and most dismaying blind spot? A persistent inability or unwillingness to see that communications is a ministry. What, pray tell, is evangelism if not communication?

In an earlier book, The Word Made Fresh: Communication Church and Faith Today, I wrote about structural and cultural obstacles to embracing communications (i.e., creating, producing, distributing content that informs, educates, and inspires action) as an essential ministry. The obstacles I identified six years ago have not been removed, so this new book builds on that point.

I could almost forgive local churches for not yet understanding that communications ministry is as important as, say, music ministry. But at the judicatory level? I’m appalled by how communications budgets and professional staff are being completely eliminated rather than reconfigured. Digital tools, used strategically, are very cost-effective. I could go on and on…shocker!

How do online communications move from broadcasting to community building?

Some online tools are perfect for broadcasting and that’s enough. Others can be used to build community. Whether you want or should move from broadcasting to community building is a strategic issue.

Key questions: Why to build community? What are the defining characteristics and parameters of that community? What do you want the community to do or be as a result of being built? Strategy before crafting tactics and choosing tools.

At the tactical level, community building requires ongoing, consistent interaction that’s stimulated, supported, and monitored by a community manager. To those who are unfamiliar with online social networking tools, this might seem like a lot of work but I think it can be easier than getting church council or vestry members to play nice!

One last question: How did you find someone to write such a brilliant foreword?
Social media, of course!

I am thankful to Meredith for taking the time to talk with us during this busy week of publication! Please visit Meredith's blog, learn more about the Church Social Media (#chsocm) community, or drop in on the book club discussion of The Social Media Gospel over at Patheos.

I am excited about this book, and think it is one of the best resources available for people who are thinking about how new technologies can help them to share the Gospel. Lutheran pastor and blogger Clint Schnekloth said of the book: "This brief and compelling book packs a punch, combining immense insight into the phenomenon of social media with practical wisdom on the how of communicating gospel in social media contexts. It has become my go-to book to share with anyone interested in a combination of the why and how of social media ministry."

I think this book is so good that I want to give you a copy. Here's how:

1. Share this interview publicly on Facebook, Google+, or Twitter. 
2. Add the hashtag #SocMGospel to your post
3. Come back here and leave a comment, letting me know that you have shared the post
4. In a week I will give away two copies of The Social Media Gospel, drawn from people who shared the post. The more you share, the more chances to win! 

Also, you can order your own copy - or two or three - right here. 

Prayer Book for the Armed Services

I am so excited about this new resource offered by Augsburg Fortress: Prayer Book for the Armed Services. It has been quite some time since the Lutheran church has offered a similar resource, and this is a welcome addition to my library.

This book was really well thought out for use by men and women in military. It is small. The pages are thick and sturdy. The cover is tough - I spilled water on it and it just rolled right off. And at $8 each, this is easily one of the most affordable books on my worship resources shelf!

There are prayers for individual use, and an arrangement of the daily prayer services for individual use as well. Many of the prayers are specifically about life in the military, and the experiences that are unique to that vocation. There are also some great corporate worship prayers and services included.

The video below gives a quick peek inside. Click on the video to pause it and peruse the table of contents. Thanks Augsburg Fortress for this! (Order from Augsburg Fortress)

Ministry Where the Wild Things Are

Today, Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of the classic Where the Wild Things Are, died. I didn't call it a "children's classic," because Sendak never would have. He was very clear: he didn't write children's books. He wrote books. Children happened to like them. In fact - Sendak didn't even believe in "children" as such.

I said anything I wanted because I don't believe in children. I don't believe in childhood. I don't believe that there's a demarcation. 'Oh you mustn't tell them that. You mustn't tell them that.' You tell them anything you want. Just tell them if it's true. If it's true you tell them. ~Maurice Sendak

We divide our ministries in church. This is an adult Bible study, that is a children's curriculum. This is a Bible, that is a children's Bible. We are very clear. And in our clear divisions, we speak down to our young people. We hide the hard things of life from them. We hold back information about life, about faith, and about God.

[I am proud of what I got from my parents], a kind of fierce honesty, to not let the kid down, to not let the kid get punished, to not suffer the child to be dealt with in a boring, simpering, crushing-of-the-spirit kind of way. ~Maurice Sendak

Here is what we need: We need a ministry that takes place where the wild things are. As I have watched interviews with Maurice Sendak - this man whose stories helped to shape my childhood - I have been struck with his caustic honesty. He did not hold back, he did not pull any punches, he simply spoke the truth. And not just in his interviews; also in his books, which children happened to like.

Often in our clearly defined and divided children's and youth ministries we avoid the "hard topics." We talk about happiness and joy and celebration. But what about sadness, what about loneliness, what about death and dying and illness? Too often, they are avoided. We tell ourselves that we have to protect our children. We have to keep them safe. And somehow, we have gotten into our heads that talking about such things will somehow break them - that they can't handle it.

I think it is unnatural to think that there is such a thing as a blue-sky, white-clouded happy childhood for anybody. Childhood is a very, very tricky business of surviving it. 

We need a ministry that talks about the reality of life with all of God's children - some of whom are larger and some of whom are smaller. We need to stop speaking down to our young people, stop trying to protect them from the hard things of life. We simply need a ministry, which children happen to like.

We need a ministry that takes place where the wild things are.

The Lorax & the Empty Tomb

(Spoiler: I'm going to talk about the end of the movie. If you don't want to know until you watch it, then don't read on)

I’ll admit it, I was excited about the seeing The Lorax with my daughter. It was one of the books that I grew up with, and I was excited not only to share it with my daughter, but also to see it brought to life.

I was a little bit anxious about the overlaid plot. If you remember, the book is just the Once-ler telling his story. And so, the movie was given a bit more of a plot – the Once-ler’s re-telling was set within a larger story. But I thought it worked very well.

In fact, I was pretty impressed with the movie overall. The animation did a wonderful job of bringing the vivid world of Dr. Seuss to life. All the characters were great and very … um … Seuss-like. Ok, so the music left a little to be desired – but to be fair, I still have the great songs from The Muppets running through my head. Danny DeVito even sounded the way I had imagined the Lorax in my head.

Then came the ending. They gave The Lorax a happy ending! Do you remember the book? It ends in a tree-free world of smog, with the Once-ler figuring out what “Unless” means: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” And that is it.

But the movie ends with new trees growing, the Once-ler seeing the return of blue skies and the animals – and even the return of the Lorax. Everything all wrapped up, brought back together to a happy ending and a nice musical number. None of the uncomfortable challenge from the end of Dr. Seuss’ book.

Just as if someone had tacked a longer ending on the Mark’s Gospel, telling stories of the resurrection.

Mark’s Gospel ends just like Seuss’ book. There is the beginning of hope (an empty tomb, one last seed), but if the story is to have a happy ending it is up to the audience to make it happen. If trees are going to get planted, the reader of the Lorax will have to do it. If there is to be a witness to the resurrected Christ, the hearer of Mark’s Gospel will have to be that witness.

Dr. Seuss and Mark both leave us in the darkness, with just a glimmer of hope. They place that hope in our hands, and call on us to go back into the world and bring the light with us.

The truth is, though, that we would rather have a happy ending. We would rather hear that “They all lived happily ever after,” and not have to change our lives. We prefer stories that make us feel basically good about the world, rather than stories that challenge us to change ourselves and the world.

A good Lutheran, Theodore Geisel knew that the world is not all sunshine and happy endings. There is a task for each one of us, to bring the light of the resurrection into a world of smog and darkness.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

It is true about caring for trees and our environment. It also about caring for God’s children.

Top Illustration: From The Lorax, Universal Studios and Illumination, released in 2012. Image is property of the copyright holder; Fair use claimed for as image is used commentary & discussion of the work in question.  

Bottom Illustration: From The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, Published by Random House, 1971. Image is property of the copyright holder; Fair use claimed for as image is used commentary & discussion of the work in question

The Break-Up

I've done all that I can to repair this relationship, really I have. Despite the great times we have had together, this just isn't going to work out. We've been through second chances, and third chances, and more. But I am done.

I am breaking up with the local Christian bookstore. Once upon a time, I was a religious bookstore addict. If there was a religious bookstore of any sort, I would find it and spend hours perusing the stacks - usually walking out with a weighty stack of books. I loved local Christian bookstores.

Sure, I could get the same books online. But I could not walk into the store, wander through the aisles, browse through the books. I couldn't take a book home the same day that I discovered it and read through it immediately.

Then, as a pastor, I started to pay more attention. After all, this is also where the members of the church I serve shop. This is also where they would turn first, looking for good reading material about their faith. And I started to see the relationship tearing apart.

For some context, I live in a county of about 25,000 (a town of about 14,000). In this community there are 15 Lutheran churches, 2 large Roman Catholic parishes, and scattered UMC, PCUSA, and Episcopal congregation. In terms of the religious landscape, a very mainline dominated community.

It started with the Bibles. Over my five years here, I noticed the number of NRSVs on the shelf shrinking (the preferred translation in most of the mainline congregations in town). The store has 6 floor-to-ceiling bookcases of Bibles. The last time I went into the store I counted 6 NRSV Bibles on those 6 bookcases. This is not where I am going to send members to buy a new Bible.

Then I started to look at the most recent additions to the shelves. Do I really want the women in my church looking to Twilight as an example of good Christian relationships? Does anyone else find this as ridiculous as I do?

And then there's this: Preparing to Be a Help Meet. Let me go out on a limb: my fiancee will not be reading this book. Sorry. And anyone who gives this to my daughter should watch their back. I am raising my daughter to be a woman who knows who she is, who gains her identity first and foremost as a child of God, all on her own. And if I wouldn't want my daughter to read it, I'm not going to recommend it to any other woman in my church. (Do you think that Tamar read this before she seduced Judah?)

And then there was this. Don't get me wrong: Chuck Norris is awesome. Not going to argue about that. But can anyone tell me where the words "Jesus," "Christianity" or "faith" appear on the description of this book? Unless your particular religion is patriotism (which it is for many, so there's that), this does not belong in your religious bookstore.

I could go on. These are just the tip of the iceberg. And also, the last straw. I'm done. I am breaking up with the local Christian bookstore. I will continue to look for a Christian bookstore that is selling resources that promote the same sort of faith that is preached about and taught in the congregations I love. Until then, I am done.