have 2 months already passed

It’s been a while since my last entry. Even though I’ve been working a lot of late nights the reason that I haven’t written anything is because I’ve been thinking quite a lot about my life.

It’s been a month since my ordination and I guess that the honeymoon is now officially over. Lately I’ve find myself I a valley of doubt and uncertainty. This doubt in not on the level of doubting God’s existence or goodness, but has more to do with the warfare of the modern church.

I find myself in the middle of a constant clash of ideas, expectations and application. I think that the church’s message, while timeless and true, should be relevant and easy for the people of this time to understand. I unlike many proponents of contextual theology I do not believe that the neither content nor intensity of the message should in any way be altered.

My problem partially stems from the fact that as an African-American I have a whole other cultural context to the ideas of openness, fellowship, worship and practical application. There is a real clash of culture when my congregation, which is comprised 90% of middle class white Swedes, has expectations of my conduct and focus that are totally foreign to me. Swedes are very reserved and so they are not forthcoming with their thoughts. They may criticize my methods but they never come with any real suggestions or ideas that will help me to understand what they really mean.

Jesus talks about a principle that a grain seed must first fall to the ground and die in order to live and bear fruit. He said that the one who tries to preserve his life will loose it but the one who is willing to let it all go will be the one who actually gains.

Everyone wants things to be like they were. This is impossible for me to know what it was like because I wasn’t there and there are no notes or instructions from that time. Everyone expects me to preserve something that is not longer relevant, just because they think that is was good. Things are so good that no one wants it to end. So we have to build high thick walls in order to keep out the polluting and changing influences of the “outside world”. This is, though, a real danger. When did the Church ever get commissioned to keep things the same and to hide from the world? Weren’t we supposed to change the world? Weren’t we supposed to go out into the world around us and be its salt and light?

Ever since we locked the doors of our church and decided to not allow young people to come in things have been increasingly heavy. It’s like walking through waist-high oatmeal. The exception to this is that if the young people are part of a church activity then they can come in. when the majority of the kids who are not allowed to come in have immigrant backgrounds and the majority of those who are allowed to come in are Swedes then you can just imagine what this looks like. I’m not saying that it is so, only that it is very difficult not to see as such. Many of the kids who are not allowed to come have asked me if this is the reason. While I emphatically deny it my heart goes out to them. How sad that a church is associated with such thoughts. How sad in a country where so few young people set their foot in a church have we decided to close them out.

I am very alone in my opinions and as far as I know, I have very little support in the congregation. There are a lot of people in the congregation, as well as the other employees, who are very displeased with me because I still go out and try to engage these kids.

I feel like everyone wants to tell me how I should act because maybe they are placing way too much value on my actions or maybe at some level my way of being makes them look bad. I must say that I am in no way without fault nor am I a saint. I just happen to have a lot of patience and refuse to treat the young people in any way than what I believe Jesus would do.

It is difficult to believe that I have only been ordained about 6-7 weeks. It really seems like a lifetime. Now reading this may make you think that our church is this really bad place, but in reality I think that it is like very many other churches.

I’ve only been writing about a very specific area and have not in any way reflected the fact that we have a lot of activities and lots of people have had a positive interaction with the church. We have several choirs, scouts, various youth groups, senior’s lunches, sewing group, alpha and beta groups as well as many other types of activities. So, on a weekly basis we are meeting lots of people.

I don’t believe that I’m bitter or feeling like only I am doing all of the work. I don’t feel like I am in some way superior either. I don’t feel sorry for myself nor do I feel like I’m the only one who has “the answer”. I just feel that things are not as certain as I earlier thought they would be.

It is not easy being a priest. 65% of my time is spent in meetings and on paperwork. There are budgets to plan, reports to read and write, decisions to make and papers to sign. When I was in seminary we used to talk about how we were going to preach God’s word in such a way that it would inspire us and the listeners to live whole-heartedly for God. We would try to life as we preached. I wanted to have maximum time with people. I had imagined that I would spend about 25 % of my time on paperwork and meetings. How can someone be so wrong?

And yet in spite of all of this there is time to visit with people and pray for them and with them. There is time to witness about God’s love and salvation through Christ. There is not a whole lot of time but there is still time, which by some miracle of God, for the needs of others to be met. It never ceases to amaze me just how little raw product it takes for God to make something wonderful out of it. That God can take my very tiny seed of time and harvest so many bushels of goodness is a great mystery to me.

Today I’m going to start a new week. I will probably meet a lot of rude kids; a lot of happy kids; a lot of hurting kids; a lot of confused and lot of kids that seem to have it all together. I just hope that by God’s grace and mercy He lead me by His Spirit and open my eyes and ears so that I may see His will and adjust my life accordingly.

I want to be obedient and filled with mercy and compassion.

Gudsfrid

Ed