I Remember When He Was Just A Punk Pastor

I will celebrate the 35^th Anniversary of Ordination on August 27.  In the scheme of things, thirty-five years is not that long although my kids might think I am ancient.  I think of it as just a couple days ago that my pals, my professor and my pastor laid hands upon my head as the long-standing ritual of ordination and being set apart by the people of God for Word and Sacrament ministry.  Not to be irreverent but it seems right after the laying on of hands that my hair started showing silver sparkles.

After 35 years, it becomes a natural pause to reflect on changes that I have seen in ministry.  Some changes have been practical and other changes are theoretical or attitudinal.

·         In 1978, I was my own secretary.  Weekly bulletins and newsletters were produced by typing a stencil with a typewriter.  If I wanted to put an illustration in the newsletter, I would carefully cut out the space with an x-acto knife, cut out the illustration from the subscriptions illustrations, and then, cement it into the stencil so well that ink would not bleed into it.  After that, I would place it on the drum of the hand-crank Gestetner mimeograph and crank out 100 bulletins.  My right bicep became 10% larger than my left.

·         Sound systems are much more sophisticated.  In my first parish a microphone was hardly necessary but, in order to be like the folks in town, a sound system was purchased. It had a lovelier mike with a great big, long cord tethering me to the chancel.  It was a while before wireless microphones had the bugs works out well enough to be viable for churches.

·         Language has evolved over the course of 35 years.  Teaching about the First Article of the Creed in confirmation class I described God as being “awesome.”  Young Gordon raised his hand and asked what “awesome” meant because he had never heard the word before.

·         Pastoral ministry has changed in a way that currently affects me.  Interim ministry was unknown 35 years ago and then the Southern Wisconsin District of the ALC (the predecessor of the ELCA) called an individual who was among the first trained interims.  Back in the olden days of the 1970’s vacancies were much shorter and there was little visioning done by the call committees.  A pastor would be recommended to a congregation and maybe there would be a face-to-face interview.  Sadly, that pastor who followed a long pastorate or a conflicted pastorate often became a de facto interim whose call to such a congregation would be short lived.  Interim ministry has become the norm when there is a vacancy which eases the transition from one settled pastor to the next.

·         Pastoral care is different.  Back when I was a baby pastor people would be admitted to the hospital for a couple days for “tests.”  Folks would be admitted the night before a procedure or surgery would be scheduled.  That practice didn’t last too long after I was ordained.  Now, a patient is given his bottle of rocket fuel to drink at home the night before his colonoscopy.  Now, a surgical patient is told to arrive long before dawn to get prepped for surgery regardless how inconvenient that may be.

I continue to surprise myself with the changes that I see over the course of time.  Some changes are for the greater good of the Church.  Some changes are because of trends.  Some changes are simply for the sake of change.  You know what?  We live through it and, in the words of Scarlett O’Hara, “tomorrow is another day.”

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,

Bears all our years away;

They fly forgotten, as a dream

dies at the op’ning day.

(O God, Our Help in Ages Past, ELW No. 632, vs. 5.)