In Praise of Oak Ridge Church

Tomorrow concludes my ministry at Oak Ridge Church after nine short years of being their pastor. Being their pastor has been a wonderful, healing experience for my family and I.
I came to Oak Ridge after leaving a congregation of more than five hundred. I was burned out. Church and family issues had taken everything I had.  I had no idea where I was going to go or what I was going to do.  I was not sure I wanted to be a minister any more. 
Then I got a call from a pastor who asked me to preach at his church while he was away candidating at another church. The week following  that Sunday,  he left the church, and Oak Ridge invited me back to fill the pulpit.

Boxes

Today I finished packing up my church office--twenty  boxes containing books and mementos of thirty-six years in church work. I am leaving my fifth church and my sixth church office.  It is I think the seventh time I have moved those books in the past ten years. 

When I left  my last church,  there were thirty-five boxes. That was after I had already given away at least forty percent of my library. I have come to realize that books are for reading, not for collecting dust.  That's easy to remember when you are toting thirty-five boxes in and out of your car. 

God was good to me, though. Oak Ridge called me to be their pastor.  I unpacked my boxes in the study of our new home--only the second home we owned in thirty-six years of marriage and eight moves.  Space was a problem so I unloaded twenty- four boxes onto tightly packed shelves in my small home study.  

The Pursuit of Pleasure

I just finished reading a book by Christian psychiatrist Dr. Archibald Hart, entitled Thrilled to Death. The book dealt with one the most prevalent psychological disorder in modern society that we have never heard of. it is called anhedonia, which means the inability to experience pleasure. People with anhedonia no longer enjoy the little pleasures of life. Hart's thesis is that almost everyone today is experiencing a measure of anhedonia. We just don't enjoy life the way our ancestors did. We don't even enjoy it the way we did as children. The problem, he said, is getting worse all the time.

Do you remember the taste of ice cream when you were a child? Didn't it seem to taste better then? Do you remember the thrill of your first kiss, the feel of grass under your toes, the laughter you experienced watching cartoons? Why don't the things we set out to enjoy feel the same way to us now?

Hart lists five causes of anhedonia--depression, physical ailments. anxiety, addictions, and over-stimulation of the pleasure centers of our brain.

Are we overstimulated for pleasure?

Let me give you an example.

A New Door and a New Adventure

In nine days I will begin my new job as Director of Pastoral Studies at New Life Seminary.  It's an exciting new challenge, personally, intellectually, spiritually, and financially.  I relish the challenge, and look forward to beginning with my students.  

It is a wonderful feeling to know that at my age, I can still start a new career.  For thirty-one years, I have walked through the halls of ministry, only to find a brand new door and a new hall behind it.  Beyond that,  who knows?  Maybe this is only one of a succession of doors for me yet to enter, each one leading to another, until I swing open the final one and step into the light in my Father's House.

I am blessed to be teaching practical ministry subjects. I am not a scholar in the the traditional sense, nor do I want to be. I admire people who are true scholars and respect their precision of thought, but for my part I would rather focus on holy practice than holy intellect. When I was younger, I wanted to be smart.  Now I would rather teach wisdom.  Wisdom and knowledge are not the same thing. 

 I pray that my God will help me to make them sufficiently challenging and helpful.  I know that they will teach me as much as I will teach them.  More than that, I pray that what I do and say among them will point them to the Great Teacher, before Whom we are all just mediocre students.

"Dear God, who teaches us all things,  let we who teach be reflections of Your glory, so that our students will see You in what we say or do. May we drink our fill at the well of knowledge, but lead us to share what we know with wisdom and with love.

 In Jesus' name, Amen."