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WEEKLY  MEMO from EPUMC

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EDEN   PRAIRIE

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Weekly Memo from Pastor Dan – November 3, 2011

I’ve been meeting people in a lot of different coffee shops and restaurants. There is something about being out in the world, out from behind the church’s walls. Getting out is not only a little more fun, but I think I’m more effective.  Most of the time people are more open at Caribou or Dunn Brothers than they are in my office, and so am I, which I think makes for great conversations.

The other day I was going to meet someone at an unfamiliar Caribou in St Louis Park. I knew the person I was meeting would be there before me since he had another meeting prior to our meeting.  It’s a great idea to stack your meetings at a good coffee place, especially if you like their coffee. I didn’t see my guy, and I had that look of “I hope this is the where and when I’m supposed to be,” when another person, I’d never seen before, came up to me and asked, “Excuse me, are you Wayne?”  It took me by surprise, but I recovered quickly and said, “No, I’m Dan, are you Greg?”  He said, “No, I’m Steve.” We both laughed and then exchanged a looked that asked, “Are we at the correct Caribou?”

Before I ordered my coffee, I asked the Barista, that’s what they call the folks who make the stuff at a coffee shop. (These men and women are my heroes in the morning so I wouldn’t care what you call them, I tip well)  I asked, “Is this the Caribou somebody would say is on Excelsior Blvd?”  The young woman behind the counter said, “No, that one is out in the parking lot and to the left, we are The Park Place Caribou.” 

So I go over to the next Caribou, which is so close I don’t even put my seat belt back on, and, sure enough, Greg is sitting right there finishing up his first meeting.   I go up to the counter, get my coffee and as I’m walking back to sit down I see the same guy, Steve, from the first Caribou! He is sitting with another guy whom I presume to be the person, Wayne, he had been looking for. He sees me and I see him, he smiles and says, “Hi Dan.” I say, “Hi Steve, is this Wayne?’  He says, “Yes it is.  Did you ever find Greg?”

I’ve been thinking about this little encounter all week.  And here are just a few random little thoughts:

§  It was fun.  I mean, how funny is that?  I don’t know about you but there are some days when I need to soak in something like this.  Sometimes I need the goodness of a moment to last longer than the laugh. I’ve been smiling all week about this.

§  I don’t know about you but I never know how or who I’m going to run into.  I joke around a lot and say, “It’s a small world…. Be Careful,” but the truth is, it would not have surprised me to find out that this Wayne was someone I already knew. Being careful, to me, is recognizing that we are more connected in this world than we might imagine.  So, maybe it’s more “be mindful,” as in pay attention to people around you.  You may not be the person they are looking for, but you may be the person they need at that moment.

§  I’m also wondering about the person who watched all this happening from the chair by the fireplace.  I’ve been wondering what went through her mind because you can’t help but sometimes overhearing conversations. I wonder if it set her to thinking about what it is like to be looking, maybe even searching, for someone or something in life.  And did hearing about what happened, help her remember that sometimes what you are looking for might, just as likely, bump into you?

I’m wondering, what does my little encounter cause you to consider?  How would you use this story to finish a memo? What does it illustrate in your experience?  If you don’t have the time to meet me at Caribou to tell me about it, send me an email. The Internet there is free, and I’ll make sure I read your name on the send portion so I don’t mix you up with someone else.

Keep the Faith,

Dan

Respond to Pastor Dan at: danb@prairiechurch.org

Weekly Memo from Pastor Dan – November 10, 2011

I’ve been hesitating about telling you this, but here goes:  I’ve taken on a personal trainer.  He calls himself a coach, but it’s all the same to me. I’ve done this in years past, and this time around I see my coach less and talk to him or communicate on line daily, which is a whole lot more than I’ve done before.

To communicate with my coach daily with the information he wants to hear, I should say read, I had to buy this new watch that is also a heart rate monitor and a GPS unit.  This thing can tell me how far I’ve gone, how fast or slow I was going, where I am at any given moment (at the end it puts this information on a map, I can look at with the elevation and how many Caribous I passed) and what my heart rate is at any point of the journey.  It’s great J   After I do the torture exercise – I mean the work out – which he suggests, I upload what this new devise has recorded into a program on my computer.  My coach then looks at the numbers and tells me how I have done.  And oh yes, I also have to record everything I eat. The program I log into calculates the calories burned verses calories taken in.   This is a lot of funJ   It really is, I mean it has to be; I’m choosing to do it and get this….. I’m paying to do it!

I’ve done this for the better part of three weeks now and I’ve come up with some thoughts:

·         The numbers do not lie.  There have been a couple of times when I thought I did pretty good or at least

      I felt really good at the end of my workout, but the numbers said something different.  What I’ve learned

      from this is to pay attention to the middle of a workout if I want to reach my goal. It’s a stretch for me to

      do this, but I’m learning.

o   This reminds me:  Our Stewardship Campaign numbers are about where they were last

    year, which, if we remember, was not where we wanted to be.  We had to make a

    second asking.  If you have not turned in your pledge for 2012, please mail it in today or

    bring it to church with you on Sunday.

·         The second thing I’m being reminded of is that I need some sort of accountability.  Right now my goals

      are pretty reserved.  I don’t want to get dropped (to be the guy everyone else is waiting for) when I ride

      my bike to St. Cloud with my buddies next May. You may not think this is a big deal but its’ a pretty big

      deal to me, if you know what I mean.  Having someone who is paying attention and someone who I

      know I’m going to be talking to, helps me to get out of bed or get off the couch and get into my

      workout.   I can be self-motivated about this athletic stuff, but having someone paying attention to my

      progress will help me as they say to “ride strong” next spring.

o   This year the leadership of our church is involved in something called The Healthy

    Church Initiative. It’s a visioning process with the added emphasis of having an outside

    consultant on board. We are calling her a coach, and her name is Diane Owen.

o   One of the things the HCI (Healthy Church Initiative) team is about, is finding ways to

    hold themselves as leaders, myself as a pastor and all of us as members of EPUMC

    accountable for the life and vitality of our church. Mark April 20-22^nd on your calendars if

    you have not already. It’s the weekend a team of outside consultants and our coach will

    help us see how we are doing.

I’ve got to get going.  Confirmation is tonight and before I meet with those 18 teenagers, which you would think is a work out enough, I need to go work out.  My coach has me on an exercise bike at the gym for an hour and a half. J Pray for me.

Weekly Memo from Pastor Dan – November 17, 2011

We’re hosting the upcoming family Thanksgiving dinner.  I’m not sure why Katie volunteered us for it this year.  I’m guessing that it’s because we needed some sort of deadline to give us that push to get the last of the boxes unpacked and put away, pictures on the wall and generally finish the transformation of the house we bought into our home.  It’s working.  At least I think its working.  I also know there will be “a few” things to do before next Thursday. Trust me on this one.

This will be the first time we have hosted the big family gathering since all my nieces (daughters of one of Katie’s sisters) have all grown up, gotten married and have had two or three kids each.  I’ve always told these girls that, “I love my Nieces to Pieces.”  This line, if it doesn’t ring a bell, is a take-off from a very influential part of my childhood, Saturday morning cartoons.  It’s from a cat named Mr. Jinks who is at odds with these two mice named Pixie and Dixie – don’t ask me where they came up with these names!  I just have always liked how Mr. Jinks said, “I hate mieces ( meaning more than one mouse) to pieces” (meaning whatever you want, just so it makes you laugh in the way pre-adolescent boys laugh at getting to use the word “hate” and making a rhyme at the same time.)

I was at a family gathering last year, and I thought it was time to test out the new line, “I love my Great-Nieces to Pieces,” with the new generation.  They looked at me like I was crazy.  One of the mom’s was just standing there, and she sort of laughed and sort of sighed.  I looked at her and sighed right back.  How could she be a mom…. of kids who are in school?  She was the flower girl at our wedding.  She was the little girl that convinced me that being a dad would not be such a bad thing. She was the kid who could do anything on a Seadoo jet ski.  She was the blond adolescent who smiled every time I said, “Don’t forget, I Love my Nieces to Pieces,” even though her siblings just groaned or finished the line before I did. 

I know that a lot of family gatherings are a mixed bag with the pressure of getting the house ready, and the meal cooked.  Sometimes it is the stress of very different people who have not been together in a while under one roof, being together and trying to have a good time when they are hungry.  Sometimes we may wonder if it’s all worth it.  I think it is.  I think it is because you never know what is going to stick in your life with such power that it causes you to laugh and sigh at the same time.  I’ve got to admit that getting my house ready for the horde of new great nieces and nephews is something that I had to think about twice.  But I also want to pay attention to whatever it is that caused me to start saying, “I love my nieces to pieces.”  I want the chance to say that in person to all the new and old nieces (and nephews, sorry guys it just doesn’t rhyme).  I want to be able to have a time in this new space in which I am living, that begins to create a memory as powerful as the one my niece and I shared that day last year.

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving week.  Don’t forget the Interfaith Community Worship Service at Pax Christi this Sunday at 7:00 p.m.  Many faith communities will be participating, and there will be a combined youth choir and a combined adult choir. The youth combined choir will be directed by Natalie Foster and the adult combined choir will be directed by Don Prestly. It’s like we’re creating a memory, and to tell you the truth, our EP community could use a good memory about now. 

Keep the Faith,

Dan

Respond to Pastor Dan at: danb@prairiechurch.org

November Tumbleweed

Weekly Memo from Pastor Dan – November 23, 2011

Sunday evening I attended my first Interfaith Community Thanksgiving Service. Sitting on the front pew, I had one of the best seats in the house.  It was a great seat because not only could I see the faces of everyone who took part in the service, but I could also see the Muslim kids who were sitting across from me. 

I am so grateful for that seat because I re-learned something from those kids. There were, I don’t know, five or six little boys and girls getting ready to perform in front of about 1,000 adults.  Of course they were a little fidgety.  They moved around, whispered a little and played with their “props” just like all kids do. They distracted me only because I couldn’t keep my eyes off of them.

And then it came their turn.  I don’t know why their presentation is sticking with me almost a week later.  Maybe I was a little more relaxed after my talk, and I could pay attention to them more fully.  Maybe it was, well they are kids, who doesn’t pay attention to kids performing in something like church?  But here is the thing.  As they were doing a little song and movement about God being one (which I couldn’t agree with more) there was this grandma-looking lady in front directing them.  She didn’t look at all like my idea of a grandma Children’s Choir Director who lived in Eden Prairie.  It looked just like Sara directing our Children’s Choir or countless ladies I’ve watched direct countless Christmas pageants.  She was knelling down with her back to the congregation, directing each little motion and singing along with the kids. Her face was trying to convince them that this was fun.

Sitting so close I could see in her eyes the joy that I was feeling in my heart.  I’m so grateful that I was sitting close enough to see it.  What I saw was that sense that for just a few minutes we – and by we, I mean she and I, for sure, and perhaps a few others in that beautiful sanctuary – were more alike than we were different.  For a few minutes the different color of our skin, the different language, the different name for God was set aside, and we were just smiling with the kids who had waited so long to do their presentation.

After it was all over I saw one of the kids standing by his father holding a video camera.  I smiled it up for the camera and saying a hello while the young man recorded, “You guys were great.”   He was smiling, I was smiling, and his dad was smiling (as he kept one eye on the camera).  I wanted to say something to the dad but wasn’t sure what, and so there was that awkward moment of hesitation.  It was that hesitation that comes when you are talking to someone different than you, and you want to be familiar without offending.   I just took a chance and I let out what I was thinking, “You must be so proud of your son,” The dad looked up like he was a bit surprised, and in flawless English said, “Yes, I am very proud of my son.” 

I am proud to be a part of a community of faith that values the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service. I am grateful this Thanksgiving for this experience. 

Keep the Faith,

Dan

Respond to Pastor Dan at: danb@prairiechurch.org

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