Meet The Pastor Faith Journey Comp At Ability

We named tonight’s event “Meet the Pastor.” What I want to do in this talk is share my journey of faith with you so you can get a sense of who I am and who God has called me to be. I believe that God has given me a call to serve as the Organizing Pastor of this New Church Development. Throughout my past I believe that God has been getting me ready for this position —using the experiences I’ve had to prepare me to be the pastor of this new community. So what I want to do tonight is share these stories of preparation—stories that make up my journey. Really these stories of mine are God’s stories—because my journey is a journey of faith—led, nurtured, and supported by God. It’s a privilege to share these stories with you. Tonight your journey and my journey are intersecting as we gather in this place. Every journey has a beginning. The beginning of my faith story was my baptism—which took place in May 1964 at the Presbyterian Church in Paullina, Iowa. I was three months old. I have no memory of what happened. My first memory of God took place about five or six years later. My parents had moved to Worthington, Minnesota where my Dad was an English professor at the Community College. I was lying down in our neighbor’s back yard looking at the sky. It was a beautiful spring day— warm, blue sky, light breeze. The sky was chalky blue—hardly a cloud. I remember thinking that God must be up there—in the sky—because such beauty couldn’t have happened by accident. Lying there I thought—there has to be a God. The word I use now to describe this memory is “Wow.” This was the first time I remember being conscious that God existed. In my five or six year old mind God was awesome, big, and had created the beauty that was all around me. It’s my experience that one of the richest spiritual time in our lives takes place before we are five years old. Children that age are inquisitive and interested—and they have all sorts of

questions about God. At that age we are receptive to learning about God. This was what my faith was like. The first obstacle to faith was the church I attended as a boy. It’s a miracle that my natural belief in God survived the unpleasant experiences I had in that church. The church was Westminster Presbyterian Church, Worthington, Minnesota. As a young boy I experienced the church to be quite a cold and unfriendly place. My family went to church every Sunday. My Dad has taught Sunday School there for practically 40 years. Like my Dad my mom has done almost everything in the church. Every Sunday—I mean every Sunday—the routine was the same. Sunday School at 8:45 a.m. and then go to worship at 10:00 a.m. I hated it. I hated it because the church was not at all interested in my spiritual growth. The only expectations of me were to sit still and be quiet during worship. At that time Westminster Presbyterians Church was a cold place. The sanctuary was huge—and ugly. Not kid friendly. I remember Sunday School being in a cold room with brick walls. We sat in ugly kids chairs (You know the chairs that I’m talking about—the kids’ chairs that make you feel like you’re five years old). They wouldn’t let me take Communion. I watched adults receive the Sacrament. I hated going to church. I let this opinion be known--loudly. I did everything I could do to get out of going to church on Sunday. I’ve never met a kid who has protested going to church more than I protested when I was a kid. Sunday mornings were sometimes like a war in our household. When my family arrived at the church parking lot my parents were happy to kick me out of the car. My parents had all sorts of tricks up their sleeves for getting me to go to worship. One trick was the pecan rolls. My parents would get up early on Sunday mornings and put pecan rolls in the oven. So guess what was the first smell I encountered on a Sunday morning—the

smell of pecan rolls. The idea of course was to get me out of bed. I did get out of bed, but that didn’t stop me from protesting me from going to church. My parents negotiated all sorts of bargains with me to get me to go. Once they let my younger sister and I sit in the balcony during worship. Then when I got tired of that, my parents let me leave worship right before the Sermon. Nothing really worked. I grew to learn that Westminster Presbyterian Church was suffering terrible conflict at that time. We had a pastor who my parents loved. His name was Bob Burnett. My family developed a close relationship with the Burnetts. We frequently went and spent time with the Burnetts at their home. The problem was that many people in our congregation didn’t like Bob Burnett. He was ahead of his time. He was preaching a social gospel and challenging people—but the congregation wasn’t ready for his challenges. To be honest Bob Burnett wasn’t tactful and many people grew to dislike him. Some people in the church started a campaign to get rid of him. The conflict came to a head on one Sunday at a congregational meeting. This was a day when I didn’t have to go to church. Only the adults went to that meeting. The adults had a meeting to vote on whether to keep Bob Burnett as the pastor. Later I was told what happened at the meeting. The adults had a debate on whether Bob Burnett should say. People spoke in favor of keeping him; other people spoke against him staying. At the end of all the speeches the congregation took a vote on whether to keep Bob Burnett as the pastor. I still remember my parents coming home after the meeting and telling me what happened. I was sitting on a couch watching TV. My mom said that the congregation voted to fire Bob Burnett. I started to cry. The Burnetts left Westminster Presbyterian church and moved to Des Moines, iowa. Despite his gifts, Bob never served as a pastor again.

It was a very painful time for my parents. To their everlasting credit they didn’t leave Westminster Presbyterian Church. A group of Bob Burnett supporters started a house church. They invited my parents to come. My parents thought about going to the local Methodist church. But they stayed Presbyterian. They came to believe that the grass is not greener at other churches. My parents believed that every church goes through problems, and they decided to stay at Westminster Presbyterian Church. They wanted to try to fix the problems. The seeds of Bob Burnetts’ ministry were planted in my parents. Those seeds started to bloom when my parents moved my family to Kansas City, Kansas. They became missionaries in the Volunteer in Mission program within the Presbyterian Church. My Dad took a sabbatical from teaching. My parents worked for a social service agency called Cross Lines. My Dad was in charge of the summer camp program and my mom was in charge of the food program. We lived in inner-city Kansas city the summer after my second grade year. The summer after my third grade year, all of my fourth grade year and the summer after my fourth grade year. Living in Kansas City was quite an experience for me. Up until that time all I really cared about was Harmon Killebrew and Fran Tarkenton and how I could get out of going to church on Sundays. Suddenly I was living with people who didn’t share my skin color—the area was about 1/3 white, 1/3 Hispanic and 1/3 black. We had to lock our doors at night. There was trash in the alleys. We had to be concerned about gangs. We had two housing projects within a half mile of where we lived. I loved it. My parents had friends who lived in Johnson County Kansas. At the time Johnson County was the third richest county in the United States. It was only about a half hour from where my family lived. Johnson county was very different from the neighborhood where we lived. People had beautiful green lawns in Johnson County; there was no trash in the alleys; people didn’t have to worry about gangs in Johnson County. My fourth grade mind couldn’t

wrap itself around the concept of why there was so much money in Johnson Country and why there was so little money in the neighborhood where my family lived. So I came up with the solution to poverty. Do you want to know the solution to poverty? All the people in Johnson county had money; the people in my neighborhood didn’t have money. So the solution to poverty was obviously to abolish money. That idea made so much sense to me. I started my first crusde. I wrote letters to my congressmen telling them that I had the solution to poverty—abolish money. I wrote Walter Mondale, and Hubert Humphrey and john Zwach our representative. They were all very kind to me. They all sent me back letters. They didn’t take my ideas too far in Congress. Though I didn’t end poverty I did take away something powerful. What I took away was my inability to understand why the people in Johnson County didn’t do more to help the people who lived in my neighborhood. In fact I couldn’t really figure out how the people in Johnson county could sleep at night knowing that so much poverty existed so close to where they lived. Why didn’t they do more? That experience was the start of my call to ministry. I still wrestle with the question why people don’t do more to prevent poverty and to help people who are in poverty. I believe that helping the poor is one of the most important ministries a church can do. My whole experience in Kansas City took place because of a church fight in Worthington, Minnesota. What I took away from that was a desire to end poverty. My family moved back to Worthington. For about five years I wanted to be a professional violinist. I practiced two hours a day for every day for about five years. I was also very involved in football. My senior year of high school I was the captain of the football team and the concertmaster of the orchestra.

I decided to go to Carleton College in Northfield. I was recruited to play football. I played football all four years and was the captain of my team my senior year. I Still played the violin—I was the concertmaster of the orchestra my senior year. There was no Presbyterian church in Northfield, so I attended a UCC church. I loved going to the church. For the first time I saw the love of God lived out in a social way. This was in the mid-80’s and the church was very involved in Central America. After a while I became a political science major at Carleton. I studied with Paul Wellstone and attended many of the protests that he led. When I graduated I decided that I was going to be either a teacher, a pastor, or a lawyer. In the spring of my senior year of college I wasn’t ready to make that decision. There was a girl involved. This girl I knew was going to California after graduation; we had a relationship going—and I wanted to relationship to last beyond college. So I decided to go to California too. I didn’t have a job, but that didn’t matter. A little later a friend of mine encouraged me to think about mission work. I discovered that the Presbyterian Church had openings in their mission program to work for the United Farm workers Union in Los Angeles. I knew nothings about the United Farm workers. But what I did know was I could live in Los Angeles and be by this girl. So she and I drove out to California in August 1986. When we got to Los Angeles I experienced a problem. She decided that she didn’t want to be in a relationship with me any more. So I found myself in Los Angeles knowing nobody, working for an organization that I didn’t know much about, and having my heart ache because a girl had dumped me. Life soon got better. I fell in love with the farm workers. In fact I frequently say that I fell in love with the farm workers and fell out of love with this girl. The farm workers had a grape boycott going on at the time. My job was to develop support for the grape boycott among

the religious community in Los Angeles. I would travel all over Los Angeles and show a video at churches. I spoke in almost every type of church imaginable. I spoke at Catholic churches and Protestant churches, and synagogues. I worked with lay people and Protestant pastors and Catholic priests and nuns and worked with the bishop of Los Angeles. I would show a video— the video was called the wrath of grapes—answer questions, and then encourage people to boycott grapes. I received a behind the scenes view of the church. I saw how the church could make a difference in the life of the community. I wanted to do that. So I decided to go to seminary. Many of the pastors who I respected the most had attended Union Seminary in New York City. So I decided that I wanted to attend Union Seminary. I applied, was accepted and decided to go there sight unseen. Before going to seminary I worked for ten months for ACORN in Chicago and then in Minnesota. ACORN is a national organization of low income people. My job was to go door-todoor in low income neighborhoods and sign up members for ACORN. Membership was $16 at the time. Eventually I would organize community groups. I organized a group on the south side of Chicago, a group on the East side of St. Paul and one in the Philips neighborhood. I did such a good job for ACORN that they asked me to leave the Twin Cities, and go be the head organizer for them in Arkansas. It was a dream job for me. I would be working on issues that I cared about and with people I cared about. Except I had been accepted at Seminary. So I came up on a crossroads—one of the first crossroads in my life. I had to decide whether I was going to go to seminary in New York City or work for ACORN in Arkansas. I couldn’t decide what to do. I spent two tortuous weeks trying to make a decision. I did what people normally do when they are making a life-changing decision. I made a list of pros and cons. I talked to a few people. I said a few prayers. I was so torn about what to do.

One day I convinced myself I was going to seminary; the next day I convinced myself that I would go to ACORN. At the end of the two weeks I called my parents and told them I needed to talk to them. I drove to Worthington. I shared with them at a Sunday dinner the job offer that ACORN had given me and the decision I was trying to make. My Dad encouraged me to go to seminary. He thought I could make more of a difference in the world through the church then as a community organizer. I drove away from our house in Worthington on a spring Sunday afternoon not having decided what to do. As I was driving back to St. Paul I was still agonizing over this decision. Finally I reached this point where I was tired of myself. Enough I said. I am tired of agonizing over this decision. Then a question came to me. It was a question I hadn’t considered. The question was this: “Where do you want to be in five years.” The answer immediately came to me. The answer started in my stomach and just enveloped me. The answer was: “the church.” When that answer came to me I felt an immediate sense of peace. All the pros and cons didn’t matter anymore; what my parents had said didn’t matter. I just knew that this was the direction that I was called to take. I never heard God speak to me—I just knew that this was the direction to go. You might ask—how did you know. I had a peace—it was a peace that passes all understanding. Now I’m not saying that we have to have this peace every time we make a decision. But for me having that peace confirmed that God was calling me. That car ride took place in May 1988. Do you know when I started serving as a parish pastor—March 1, 1993. Approximately five years later. The question, “where do you want to be in five years” was affirmatively answered. Was it a coincidence that I would start serving in a

church five years after the question (where do you want to be in five years) came unexpectedly to me? I don’t think so. I think that was God. So I went to seminary. I dabbled with the farm workers again. In my second year of seminary I ended up working at a conservative, evangelical Presbyterian church in Babylon, New York. Up until that time almost all of my experiences were in the liberal church. I grew to love the liberal church. I believed it would be good for me to work in the conservative church. I was the Youth Director at First Presbyterian Church in Babylon, New York. On Friday afternoons I would take the Long Island railroad out to Babylon. On Friday night I would lead their Junior High youth group, I would visit kids on Saturday, help lead worship on Sunday morning, lead Senior High Youth Group on Sunday nights and then take the Long Island Railroad back to Manhattan. Even though I had never been exposed to the conservative church I grew to value those people. I learned the importance of Bible Study, worship, and daily prayer. My own prayer life took off while I worked there. Because of my experience in Babylon I have had a daily prayer life for over 20 years. That experience in Babylon taught me that we need congregations that combine the best of our conservative and liberal traditions. We need churches who values prayer, bible study, small groups and worship—places who encourage people to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ; places who encourage people to grow in Christian character—people who live out the fruits of the spirit—love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. The conservative tradition. And churches who embrace the best of the liberal tradition. Churches who won’t be afraid of people’s questions—in fact churches will encourage people to ask question. Churches who will involved in the community, helping people in tremendousou ways. Churches who will work in the world to change the scourges of our world

—poverty, global warming, racial discrimination. Churches who are conservative and liberal— churches who are made up of Christians who display the best of Jesus and who change the world. I want to create this type of church. This desire became my pastoral identity. My identity was formed in Kansas City, Los Angeles, California, and Babylon, New York. I came to Plainview, Minnesota to create this type of church pastor in March 1993. I was attracted to the church because they needed to change—and they knew they needed to change. They were close to death—and they knew it. They had a membership of 123, worship attendance was 50, the budget was $40,000, they had five kids under sixth grade, and the building needed significant repair. We had a marvelous ministry together. When I left last month our membership was 40 percent higher, our worship attendance was 84, we had 50 kids under sixth grade, our budget was $125,000 and balanced and we gave over ten percent of our receipts to building. We built a million dollar building addition. I can’t share tonight all the reasons that we had a successful in Plainview. I will share that one reason for our success was our willingness to take risks. Think about this with me. We have the most innovative religious leader in the history of the world. Jesus changed the direction of religion and that change has lasted for almost 2000 years. But despite Jesus’ unbelievable ability to change and innovate, the church is one of the most change resistant institutions in our world. I’ve never been able to figure that out. One of the reasons we were successful in Plainview is we were willing to change and innovate. We started an after school program for kids in the community even though we had few kids in our own church; we voted to undertake a $650,000 building renovation even though we had no money in the bank to do that; we broke ground on our building renovation even though the project grew to be 1.1 million dollars. We bought the house adjacent to us, even though we

hadn’t paid off the original building loan. We started a ministry there called the House of Hope. We found people in the community who would lead groups that addressed family problems. We launched this ministry with no model to follow—and we were a small church. We took a lot of risks. Sometimes we failed—more often we succeeded. We had a wonderful ministry together. I have many more stories to share. In my final story I want to share my call to be a new church pastor. First thing I have to say is I love the Presbyterian church. I believe our combination of personal faith and social witness is exactly what the church needs. We have a wonderful tradition to share. It just kills me to see the Presbyterian Church struggle. We are struggling. Our membership has drastically decreased; our average age has increased; we’ve stagnated. I believe that the renewal our denomination will come through new churches—churches that are flexible, that will take risks, that are serious about making disciples and growing in discipleship, churches that encourage people to know God with our mind, love God with our heart, serve God with our feet. I came to believe that the best way to create this type of Presbyterian Church was to start a new congregation. With my community organizing background I have been very attracted to starting a new church. I volunteered in the late 90’s to serve on our Presbytery’s Church Development Team. They are in charge of starting new churches in our Presbytery. Our team would have retreats at Presbyterian Clearwater Forest every spring. John Ivers was on our team. Before one retreat the two of us decided to car pool to Presbyterian Clearwater Forest.

The world changed because of the conversation we had. John and I are both dreamers. The two of us would drive past all sorts of churches in the north metro on our way to Clearwater. The “duh” question came to us. Why don’t we have a Presbyterian church in the north metro. The more we talked to more passionate we felt about starting a new church. So we organized a strategy group within our Church Development Team. We hired a consultant, Jim Dougans. We gave Jim ten areas in our Presbytery where we thought a new church could go. We asked him to come back to us and rank them. He did. The number #1 ranking was Blaine. In July 2007 the Presbytery approved starting a new church in the Blaine area. John can tell you the rest of the story. I backed out of the process at that point because I knew that I would probably apply to be the pastor of the church. John can tell you that getting the community off the ground was challenging and difficult work. As I watched the process take place, I have to admit that I had my doubts whether it would happen. Because I know how change-resistant Presbyterians can be. I am not proud to say that I gave up on my dream for starting a new church. I gave up on my dream when I applied to be the pastor of two other churches. I thought I would be an excellent candidate in both of them. To my consternation—both of these churches said “no” to me. They didn’t want me to be their pastor. Each time I was told “no” I was very upset. In most instances I thought I was qualified to be the pastor of that church. I came to believe that God closed those doors to keep the door to this new church open. Here I am—This is my dream job—being pastor of a new church development. Working to create a faith community that combines the best of the conservative and liberal tradition. One of the last things I did in Plainview was to hold a leader’s retreat. We did this two months ago in January. The focus of the retreat was for us to have discussion about the church.

At the retreat I shared with those leaders about ten passages from Scripture that I believe describe the church. One of the passages of Scripture was the call that God gave to Abram. God asked Abram to go. In this story God didn’t tell A where A would go. God told A that he would tell A on the way where he would go. One of the groups at the Retreat talked about this story. As they were talking a lady turned to me and said, “this story is like your story, Paul. You have a call to start a new church. You’re going off to do something that you don’t how it will happen. But you’re trusting that God will lead you.” Her sharing was a wonderful confirmation of my call to new church development. I’m excited to be with you. I have all sorts of dreams for our church. I’m not going to share my dreams tonight—tonight I wanted to share my story. Praise God for the call that God gives us which will change our lives and transform the world.