The Pastor's Role in Via de Cristo
Ed Hansen: "do things the same way. We don't call things the same things
in some areas. Basically, the program is the same, but yet it's
different, so as you hear each one of these presenters, don't think,
'well, what's he talking about because basically he's going to talk about
a different tradition perhaps than you do. We will have a question and
answer period after the three presenters have presented their talk, and
I would ask that you keep your questions until then.
Our first presenter I have just had the privilege of meeting. He's
from Alpharetta, Georgia. You can tell I'm originally from Boston. I
live in South Dakota, so when in my younger days I probably said "Jah-juh" now I say "Georgia."
His church is Prince of Peace Lutheran Church since 1987. He's
married to Barb since 1977, has one daughter Kimberly, 21, and it's my
privilege to present Pastor Tom Kenny.
REV. TOM KENNY
I want to make one correction, Ed. I've been married to Barbara
since 1970 because Kim is 21 years old...but that's all right. My
accent will betray me as not coming originally from Alpharetta. I was
born and raised in Ireland in County Cork in the south of Ireland. I
immigrated to the United States in 1967 as an ordained priest in the
Catholic tradition and I immediately went to Cursillo. One of the
questions I'm asked to answer for you this afternoon is "why did you
attend a Via de Cristo weekend?" I attended because I was asked by
the men in the church at St. Louis in Kendall, Florida. They kind of
came on really strong and they said, " you've got to go to this
weekend. We all had a tremendous experience. You must go. I got the
feeling that something really special had happened for them and they
wanted it to happen for me but like most clergy types I really didn't
think that I was going to experience - anything that I hadn't
experienced before and I felt pushed. I found reason for not going
the first time, but they kept coming after me and I went. What I
enjoyed about my experience initially was the mix of lay and clergy.
Unfortunately there's a gap between clergy and laity for some reason
and one of the reasons that was clear to me at the time being Roman
Catholic was that the people tended to put the pastor up on a pedestal
where they didn't have to be real close to him, and didn't have to be
in touch with his humanity. Cursillo has enabled me to be in touch
with my humanity, in the presence of my people. That is one of the
benefits for me. I can be truly human and you all will still love and
understand me. I think that's a great benefit to the church.
Cursillo/Via de Cristo is a lay movement but it's not without its
recognition of the role of the clergy, and it's not without its
recognition of the fact that the church is you and I together. I am
ordained from amongst you to lead you in the work of the ministry.
Together we can be effective as the church. Either if we separate
ourselves, I will not be effective - you will not be effective. I
have become involved in Cursillo for a number of reasons. I was
invited I saw the benefit of it. I went through an experience in my
life where I became disillusioned with the ministry and left the
Church. My introduction to Lutheranism was a good one. The
transition from Roman Catholic to Lutheran was easy. I thought you
guys really had the right idea. I was a real fan of Martin Luther
when I was a seminarian. It was at the time of the second Vatican
Council when the Roman church was warming up to the fact that Luther
really had a good idea. Once I found that out, I left. When I got to
the Lutheran church in 1971 they were getting involved in Cursillo in
Miami, I don't know when the first weekend of Lutheran Cursillos were
in Miami. Greg, do you remember? ... '72. Ed Simonsen, does that
sound right? ... '72. Well, I began to hear about Cursillo again in
my new experience - in my new life. People invited me back. I was
going through great difficulty in my life as a human person. I had
left my ministry. I had left my roots. I had left what was
comfortable and I was trying to find myself again. The Lutheran
church invited me or the men in the church invited me to be part of a
reunion group. It saved my life, and I was part of a reunion group
for 17 years with 4 or 5 men in Miami. How do I personally benefit
from being involved and how does my congregation benefit from my
involvement? Well, I'll let the congregation answer the second part.
I said again it keeps me in touch with my humanity. It affirms my
conviction that a healthy, active laity makes for a healthy, active
church. We as clergy must affirm the power of lay ministry as the
laity affirms ours as pastors. We give lip service to the priesthood
of all the baptized. That is one of our tenets as Lutherans and yet I
think we've lost it to some great extent. We've lost the vision of
the power of the priesthood of the laity. Cursillo is enabling us to
recapture it - that's how I see it. It's a good vehicle to enable us
to give the ministry back to the people where God intended it to be.
My congregation benefits as the people are beginning to hear the call
to ministry and take seriously their leadership role. Recently, in
our congregation the lay leadership began to ask for a different
expression in worship. Some of the laity became uncomfortable with
the idea that they wanted less participation from the pastor and more
participation from the laity. Some saw that as a sort of a shutting
out of the pastor. in fact, what they wanted was to take more
ownership and leadership in worship and ministry. They want me to be
there. They want me to be part of it. They want me to bless it.
Some of my colleagues in the ministry are turned off by your
enthusiasm and your over-earnestness as laity. The way they're
reading you is they're saying you're telling them that you have
something they need to have.
The problem in the church is elitism. Sometimes as earnest
enthusiasts of Cursillo or Via de Cristo we give the impression that
we now have our act together. It would be great if the pastor could
get his act together. My congregation knows me better as a man
because they see me I can do things at Cursillo that I'd never do in
the pulpit. I can make a fool of myself in the context of a 3 day
weekend and they still love me all the more. They pray for me because
I think they see my humanity in a clearer way than they did before.
For courage to be faithful to the call of God. They better understand
the struggle that I have to be a prophetic voice and are more
supportive of me as I work hand in hand with them to proclaim that God
is in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.
What do I see as the role of the clergy/spiritual director in
this lay movement, and how are they selected for each weekend?
I see the role of clergy as one of guidance and encouragement.
Again, some of my colleagues in their distancing, perhaps, from this
movement have failed to see that the laity really wants us to be part
of what they're experiencing and wants us not so much to bless what
they have and what they've seen and what they're doing, but to guide
them in that and I see us as having a great opportunity as your clergy
people pastors, resident theologians as helping to keep you on the
right track.
There's nothing more beautiful than excited lay people who want
to get the gospel out and there's nothing more beautiful than a pastor
and laity who can join hands join arms in walking together to see that
that happens by the grace and guiding of the Holy Spirit, Via de
Cristo has helped me to understand the reality of team effort. For
those of you who have been on teams, you'll recognize that no one
person on a weekend is key to what happens on the weekend. A pastor
can get up and he may have the Sacraments talk - Day in the Life talk
- which is a long talk and is a sort of a pivotal talk and he can do
really well or he can be very boring. The funny thing is that in the
long run because of the team effort it doesn't seem to matter. I've
seen laity get up - we had a fellow down in Miami who insisted on
doing his own thing and he was critiqued and he was told to stay
within the guidelines and he was critiqued heavily and sort of guided
as to how this talk needs to tie into the others. We.., he got up and
he did his own thing anyway on the weekend and it went on forever. He
wasn't a pastor. I thought, "Oh, no, this is awful. They're hearing
the wrong message and he's taking time. In the long run, it didn't
really matter because of the team effort. I've been on weekend where
the cha-chas have been the most influential force on the weekend.
They've never gotten up and given a talk, but the power of their
service has witnessed to the Christ in them - more powerfully than the
most dramatic speeches that were given. I've heard people say "Oh,
I've been invited to be on this team, but I'm only a cha-cha." The
most powerful thing - I've always wanted to be a cha-cha but, they
won't let me - the most powerful service on a weekend is serving.
That makes sense, doesn't it? No one person on the team has an
indispensable role, but all working together as a unit the effects
sometimes are out of proportion to the team effort. What I mean by
that is that I think that God has a plan that is like this. His plan
is to make the church really look super when no one individual is
responsible for it. Have you noticed that in some of these great
ministries that have fallen that they are led by individuals who have
no accountability to anyone else. You and I have a built-in
accountability to one another in this movement that God has given us
within the church. The way we select spiritual directors - I learned
down in Miami that I don't like making phone calls and Claudia
Steadman came to my rescue in Miami. I wasn't getting the calls made
and she said, "I'll make the calls. I'll call up the clergy and we'll
get them assigned for the weekends and I said, "Okay, here are the
names. Here is the list. These are the people you ought to be
calling." So when I arrived here in Georgia, I'm not sure when they
asked me to be spiritual director on the secretariat here if they
already had in place a system whereby one of the laity is designated
to call the clergy and assign them. If they hadn't they do now and
it's marvelous. I don't have to make all those phone calls and the
interesting thing is that clergy respond I think better when laity
call them than when a fellow clergy calls them, so write the - this is
the only write-down of my speech - write it down - if you want
effective participation by clergy in your secretariat or in your area,
have a lay person call them to make the assignment for the weekends.
Of course, with direction from the spiritual director. What I mean is
input and direction.
Point #4: The best way to approach pastors who have not attended
about whey they should attend a weekend. The answer is "I don't
know." Don't tell them they need it. They may, but don't tell them
that! Don't tell your pastor you need to go to the spiritual retreat.
Share with them something that has been special to you. Ask him or
her to do you the favor of going for your sake not for his or her
sake, and explain to them how it has helped you to develop your
spiritual life and to become a leader in the church. I think ideally
when a new church is introduced to the Via de Cristo. Ideally, the
pastor and two or three or four lay people ought to go together to
experience the weekend. One of things that we have done as clergy in
our area is we have developed a reunion group and we have invited
clergy who have not yet been to Cursillo. We don't necessarily do the
dynamics of reunion group but support group for any Christian group
is...amounts to the same thing. The beautiful thing about Via de
Cristo is that you have developed - or somebody has - developed a
guideline for piety, study, and action we have developed a piety card
that enables us to talk to one another in terms that we already
understand. If you've been to a weekend it's helpful. You don't have
to be. Somebody mentioned today, It was the gentleman on the board
from Arizona - Larry. Cursillo and Via de Cristo is not about
weekends its about Christian community it's about reunion groups and
that's really where the life of the church is. The life of the church
is in the small group where men and women are sitting down with each
other and they're being accountable to one another about their
relationship to God and about their apostolic action or lack of it.
There is nothing more powerful in the church than lay people and
clergy sitting down and talking about where am I with God where am I
with my ministry, where am I with my witnessing and where have I
failed to be and to be in it together on a weekly basis, so I would
say invite your clergy to be part of whatever you're doing. I think
that most pastors want to be part of an effective, meaningful church
community/Christian community. Nobody in his right mind in the
ministry wants to turn his or her back on effective growth in the
church.
How do I see Via de Cristo as a useful tool for Christ for the
ELCA and the LCMS? My answer is anytime the local church is
revitalized, the national church's health improves. On the national
level ELCA/LCMS are concerned about evangelism and stewardship. In my
experience, both of these areas are positively impacted by involvement
in Via de Cristo. When I came to Georgia, about 5 years ago, to be
interviewed by this congregation at Prince of Peace they tricked me.
They started talking to me about stewardship they said - how do you
feel about tithing? I, of course, was delighted to be asked that
question and I said, "I believe in it I believe in tithing, and here's
where the trick question came; "Do you tithe?"
I knew that crowd was okay. Here's a Lutheran congregation in
Georgia saying to their pastor "we are serious about commitment about
stewardship and about tithing we need a pastor who believes in that
and who will teach us about it. I'm impressed when my people come to
me and say, teach us about tithing. I fully believe that is the
influence of Cursillo that caused that question to be asked by the
call committee.
So pastors if you haven't already gotten involved here's a
reason. When we hear stewardship and evangelism we're always
interested. I would like to see a little more respect for the
movement and recognition of the impact from the national level, but I
would consider it counter-productive for the national offices to own
and therefore to seek to control a movement like Via de Cristo. I am
not in any hurry to place this movement under the wing or the thumb of
either Bishop Skillrud or Bishop Chilstrom or any other church person.
The beauty of Lutheranism was that it was a movement for renewal
within the church catholic. The beauty of Via de Cristo is that it's
a movement for renewal now within the Lutheran church. I would like
for it to have a little more respect, too, but if I have to trade in
this feeling that perhaps we will become too institutionalized, I
prefer for us to have the kind of freedom that we have. I think we're
here to serve the church not to be a distinct church within the church
but to serve the church.
(Other questions)
I've said be careful not to over institutionalize. I recognize
the power of this group meeting on a yearly basis and to be organized.
I think it's important for us to plug in as local secretariats to have
guidance and direction to keep in touch with one another so we don't
have to continue inventing the wheel but I would be careful. I'd be
cautious about over-institutionalizing. Be careful of elitism. On
the local level, one of the accusations that's leveled at Cursillo is
its elitism. It's compared perhaps to the charismatic movement in
that people who have been are distinguished from people who have not
been. I would hope that we would make great efforts to not draw lines
between us and them. I would hope that we would continue to lift up
the movement as one that is designed to bring forth and to establish
and to train leadership in our congregations but that the emphasis is
at the congregational level. I know there are people probably sitting
here today who have made Cursillo their church. I don't believe in
that, I don't like it. I don't agree with it but there are many of
you who have gone back into your local congregations and you have
become a catalyst for change there. Some folks get excited about new
forms of worship and they tend to go off into their own groups and
from their own worship groups or congregations. The church needs
you... Lutheran Church needs and I know God needs you to be a catalyst
within the church going on to challenge yourself and to challenge your
fellow Christians and to challenge your pastor and to be challenged by
one another to carry on the task of the gospel. There's one part of
the Scriptures that appeals to me very strongly. It was mentioned
this morning or this afternoon. II Corinthians 5: God was in Christ
reconciling the world to Himself and He has given to us now the
ministry of reconciliation. We ought to be about bringing people
together in the church and outside the church. We ought to be about
bringing clergy and laity together. We ought to be about the business
of building bridges between people of God rather than walls between
people of God. Paul goes on to say, "For Christ, therefore, you are
ambassadors and our task is to bring the message that God is still in
Christ reconciling and offering to reconcile and working to reconcile
the world to Himself. Thanks you for listening. God bless you.
Ed: Thank you, Tom and I apologize for my mathematics.
Our next presenter is from Pell Lake, Wisconsin. He's the
present pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church -- been there about ten
years. He attended Sunrise #2 in 1990 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He's
married to Cindy. They have three children. He is presently the
spiritual director for the Wisconsin Via de Cristo, and it's my
pleasure to introduce Pastor Brian Metke.
REV. BRIAN METKE
Please stand. Put your hands to the sky. Stand on your tippy
toes, please. Turn around and sit down.
Thirteen months ago my sister was devastated. Thirteen months
ago, my sister came down to my congregation. She designed the stained
glass windows, installed them. She spent the whole day there at our
congregation, working on these stained glass windows. It was a joyful
day for her.
When she went home, it was around ten o'clock at night. She
opened the door. Everything was dark. Her dog wasn't barking, and
she wondered where her husband was. Her husband, Chuck - he's been
depressed on and off. He's been going to a counselor - a Christian
counselor. She went upstairs; didn't hear a sound, and then she heard
a thud. She ran, opened the door, and in the darkness she saw her
husband crawling around like a dog. That night - that day, he knew
she was leaving. He had taken 193 sleeping pills. She called the
paramedics. Immediately they were there. They started working on
him. Half an hour later, he had a seizure. He would have died if
they wouldn't have been there. It was half an hour time. He was in
the hospital. You can imagine how he must have felt. And yet we, my
family, my sister, we showered him with love and care and let him know
that we cared about him. And he said, "You know," Chuck said, "a
hundred and ninety three sleeping pills. I opened every one of those
packages. Each one I opened, I knew I was going to kill myself.
You'd think that would kill you - 193 - but it didn't. God must have
a plan for me. That's what we told him. God's got work for you,
Chuck. What you gonna do? You going to try it again? Well, he went
to counseling - a Christian counselor. He started working on this -
working on his depression was under medication. It was several months
after that he was between jobs and I asked him and his wife, my sister
to participate in our fall weekend - Via de Cristo weekend. He never
would have participated - never! - he wouldn't have time for that kind
of stuff, but he was between jobs and he was vulnerable - just
vulnerable enough to do it. To our great joy, because we knew this
man was going to be transformed. He went on this weekend. But this
is what he said: when he got there in that small group, immediately,
he was defensive. He looked at these men in his group, and he said,
"They're Martians. They're Martians. I'm used to drinking a beer
watching football, playing baseball - I love that kind of stuff. And
here they are talking about important things in life, about God and
about themselves and what's going on. The tough times and their wives
and their friends and their kids, and what not. They're Martians, he
thought. I'm the only human being here.
As the weekend progressed, he continually thought that until
Saturday night. Something happened and Saturday night he said to
himself, "They're not Martians. I'm the Martian. They're all human
beings - human beings the way God meant us to be, and here I am - a
Martian." And he closed in even more, because he knew if he would
tell anybody he'd just start blubbering, and he wouldn't make any
sense. He'd make a fool of himself, and he kept it in and he was
miserable. Saturday night, Sunday all day long -- he tells me now it
was the worst day of his life.
Sunday - on a Via de Cristo weekend? I came. Of course, my
sister - she couldn't come until the next weekend. I came because I
had to pick him up that night: the Clausura. Everybody's giving their
witnesses and I'm waiting for Chuck, a new man, a joyful man full of
the Holy Spirit and his hair was back and he was just sitting their
looking at his feet. He gave a testimony, but to me it was like a
slap in the face. Something was wrong.
As I drove him home - an hour and a half drive - for an hour he
told me all about the stuff that happened. Then he said, "you know
what? I'm going to level with you. I feel as depressed as when I
tried to commit suicide. Wow! Here he is - a half an hour from home!
I just listened. He told me everything I just told you. When I
walked up to my sister's house, and she was expecting a transformed
man - a transformed husband. What could I tell her? "Hey, you better
watch him! He's going to commit suicide!" What could I tell her?
That night, I realized that not everybody experiences this
weekend the same way that I did. I was transformed myself - it was
terrific! It was such a great time. And yet, I realize in talking
with some of you folks, too, that your weekends weren't the greatest.
A lot of people, they had lousy times, and I guess I learned that lay
and clergy don't all experience that "up". God takes us where we're
at, and we need to take one another where they're at.
I learned about the Via de Cristo movement about eight years ago
as a new pastor. I've been at Trinity for ten years now - it was
mission congregation - struggling congregation. I was working and
working and working, but I needed to grow spiritually. So I picked
out an older pastor who I looked up to. I thought this guy, I want to
talk to him. I want him to be my mentor. I sat down. I made an
appointment with him. I talked with him and said, "Where do you get
your spiritual sustenance?"
He said, " you know where I get it? I meet with some
Episcopalians. It's called the Cursillo. We meet once a month with
an Ultreya. We sing and we talk together about our difficulties, and
our spiritual struggles and joys."
I thought, "someday I'm going to join that thing. Someday, I'm
going to get involved." But years went by - years and years and I
didn't get involved. I heard about it now and then, and I was peaked
my interest. It wasn't until about two years ago I was talking with a
lay person - once again, just as Tom was telling us, it was a person
at a confirmation event. He was telling me how he deals with his
confirmands.
He says, "You know what I do? We're in this mentor program, and
I meet with a confirmation student once a week or every other week,
and I use this card." He pulled out his grouping card.
I said, "that's cool! Where do you get that?"
He said, "I'm involved in this group. It's called Cursillo/Via
de Cristo."
I said, "I want that." It all came back to me. That's what I
want! When do I sign up? When's the next one? They started sending
me the papers, and Barb, over there, she started sending me papers and
got me involved. It's through that lay person and that other pastor.
I needed it! And my struggling congregation of 225 people - we are a
mission church. We got involved first in the Bethel Bible series. A
lot of you are familiar with that. It's a two year, intensive Bible
study. In the last six years, our congregation has had sixty people
go through that. Our congregation is no longer a mission congregation
because we've gone back to basics. We've gone back to the Bible,
studying memorizing, taking tests.
These people have been changed. But, you know what I find with a
lot of us Lutheran Christians? Our faith is "head". We have a head
faith. We're studying all this Bible stuff, memorizing things, but it
stays up here.
And what I realize is that we need something that speaks to our
heart. A lot of our Lutheran Christian fellow members - they're
leaving our denomination for more spirit-filled congregations. It
reminds us that we've got a problem. We're too head-centered. Via de
Cristo speaks to our heart. For my congregation, it balances the two
- with Bethel - with the head. Via de Cristo - for the heart. Those
people are transformed, energized people. That's where it's at as far
as I'm concerned. It makes such a difference.
When I went to my first weekend, I'm kind of a proud person. I
know none of you are, but I really am. I told all my people, "You
know, I used to work in church camps. I sing, I play the guitar. I
love to act. We're going to do one of those Via de Cristo weekends in
our church - 225 members, and we're going to do it better than
whatever we're going to.' That's what I really believed! I told all
my people that." I said, "we're going to this cool thing, and I got
four other people to go with me." We got there, thought this was
pretty neat. We can do this, we can do this. Friday night in our
weekend, we have "Stations of the Cross". It's a living stations of
the cross, so there's all these people. There's a couple dozen people
up there acting, doing things like that, and that night I looked and
thought, "We could never do this."
Man, my pride was shot down. At that moment, I realized that our
congregation, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran church of Pell Lake, is not
self-sufficient. Via de Cristo has taught me what St. Paul says,
"We're all a part of one body." Congregations are all a part of one
body. We need each other, and I realize I need all these other
congregations to get this going. And, as a pastor, I realize the same
thing. You lay people, wow, this is a lay-led movement. I realize
what St. Paul says, "the church is a body." Nobody is more important
than the others. We all have our special jobs to do. In your
congregation, in your church building, if somebody doesn't clean the
toilets - nobody's going to come to church, will they? I can be up
there preaching all day, and nobody's going to come, if the toilets
are dirty, and that smell wafts through the building. After that
experience, I said, "I will do anything. I'll clean the toilets.
I'll do anything. I'll be a servant. That's what I want to do."
They right away made me a palanca chapel guy. I wanted to serve in
some other way. But I'm happy where I'm at. The point is, this
movement shows us that we're all important. We're all part of the
body. I personally benefit from Via de Cristo - just like Tom
mentioned several times with accountability.
I meet with a group as a matter of fact, the person I meet with
regularly has just moved, and last Saturday was my last grouping. I
have to start a new group. In the last year and a half that I've been
meeting, it's been the best year of my life. Spiritually, that card
has changed my life - meeting, reading that card, talking about it
with a lay person. We talk about sex a lot. I find all the men in my
group, we always talk about sex, saying, "Whoa, those billboards, how
do we deal with that?" That's really temptation up there. That's one
of the big topics. It's kind of embarrassing, but it shows us all
that we're all human beings. Nobody holds me accountable for
anything. Once a month we have a council meeting, but I read my
thing, and they all say, "yeah, oh great. We know you're working
hard, pastor." That's all.
Nobody holds me accountable, except my group. "Say, hey, did you
pray every day this past week like you said you wanted to do?" "Did
you exercise like you said you wanted to do?" I'm held accountable
there, and I as a pastor need to be held accountable just as we all do
at times in our lives.
You're not watching your clock? Okay, we still have time. Good,
thank you. One of the questions is, "How do I tell other pastors and
other people about the Via de Cristo, and especially other pastors?"
This is what I do.
The first thing I tell them about is that the best day of my life
was my wedding day. Eleven years this August first, I'll be married.
It was the best day of my life. The second best day of my life was
the weekend at Via de Cristo. I felt God's love - the love of others,
but I tell these pastors: I say, "it wasn't a flash in the pan." I
didn't have this great experience, and then it was over. What's so
great about Via de Cristo and this is what I'd encourage you to tell
pastors, is that it doesn't end there. It continues with our Ultreyas
once a month, with our groupings once a week. It's all built in
there. Billy Graham - you can go to one of his crusades, and accept
Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior - as you watch them come down out
of the balconies, and they're all committing themselves one year
later, less than 2% of them are involved in a church. Less than 2% -
what's happened? They haven't continued the follow-through. They had
that high of an experience. They made the commitment, but it went
flat. What this program does, is it keeps it moving. It's all built
in there. Some people fall away, of course, but better than anything
I've experienced in my years of ministry, this keeps it moving and
keeps us accountable, growing spiritually as well. When I talk with
pastors, this is how I do it as well:
Our pastors meet once a month in our district, in our area. What
we're planning right now is having several of our lay people speak to
the pastors. Several from our congregation, lay people, talking to
this pastors' group, and just share what they've experienced, and when
a pastor hears these articulate Christians sharing their faith,
sharing what they've experienced in an educated, articulate way, it's
got to do something.
Then, once a year, our whole synod, we have a workshop, one day
full of workshops on stewardship, confirmation, on worship and music,
and what we're planning right now is to have an additional one on Via
de Cristo. Lay leadership, lay renewal, and we will have our group
from our congregation. I will speak, members of our laity will speak,
and then we'll have lots of silent table people in this group. We'll
break up in small groups and go through that card. That grouping card
with the people, so they get a first hand experience of what it's like
talking about how Jesus has spoken to them in this last week. What
they've learned about God, and how they've shared their faith.
One other thing when we're talking about our bishops - man,
Bishop Chilstrom of the ELCA - he says, "Sometimes I mourn that I am
presiding over a dying denomination." The ELCA is slowly getting
smaller and smaller. Man, this movement, if this doesn't make a
difference, I don't know what will because in our grouping cards we
say, have you shared your faith with somebody this past week? We're
training people to be evangelists, to share the good news with others.
The Holy Spirit has provided this program - this movement to transform
our denomination. It's a gift from God to the ELCA, to the Missouri
Synod, and I'm very thankful for that. I've told you what you can say
to lay people and pastors. It's not a flash in the pan, it's well
structured.
But what do you say to my sister? Well, what could I say? I
said, "hang in there." You know what "hang in there," another word
for that is? Persevere. Ultreya. Ultreya means persevere.
Chuck's counselor usually doesn't meet on Mondays. He did. He set up
an appointment for Chuck and that day before he left, it was about
eleven o'clock, Chuck said to Nancy, my sister, "How do you accept
Jesus as your savior?" You know, at that weekend everybody talked
about Jesus as Lord and Savior. How do you do that?
She said, "I don't know what to say. Your counselor is a
Christian counselor. He'll tell you how to do it." He went to the
counselor that day. He spilled his guts. He did cry. He did make no
sense at all at times. He blubbered and blubbered, and told him
exactly what I told you - how he felt on that weekend, and then said,
"How do I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior?"
And he said, "It was so easy. I had made it so complicated."
And he prayed with the counselor.
That night, I didn't know anything had happened. But my kids
did. We went out for pizza for some party, and they ran up to me and
said, "Dad, what's wrong with Uncle Chuck? He's singing, De Colores,
De Colores... Chuck never sings. Never! He never sings, and he's
playing with us, Dad. Throwing us around having a good time. He
never did that before." My brother-in-law is a transformed man. He
still has problems. He goes to counseling when he needs to. He's
still on medication for depression, but now he's got something else -
spiritual energy.
He said, "I feel so close to Jesus. I never did before." (He
grew up Roman Catholic. He still is Roman Catholic.) "I'd like to
take my eyelids, and I'd like to tattoo a picture of Jesus in them, to
know how close he is to me. Let me know that he is with me all the
time." So, folks, if it happens to you, and it may, because not
everybody has the same experience. When it happens to you, say
"Ultreya." Persevere. Hang in there, because with God's amazing
grace all things are possible. Thank you.
Ed Hansen: Our third presenter is from Fayetteville, North Carolina.
He's presently the pastor of St. James Lutheran Church. He's been the
Spiritual Director for Eastern North Carolina since 1987. He's
married to Sally. It's my extreme pleasure to present Pastor John
Earp.
REV. JOHN EARP
In all things give praise and thanksgiving to God. I am the last
presenter before supper, so if you would please stand up and embrace
each other in prayer, praise and thanksgiving...
I just want to join my spirit and my thanks to Pastor Tom and
Pastor Brian for what they've said and done here. Wayne thanked me
earlier for giving him a copy of this presentation that I wrote at
lunch today. Some people prepare and some people cast themselves upon
the mercy of the Spirit. I do want to do one thing that's a little
different here. Since brevity is the soul of both wisdom and wit,
we'll attempt to make up for some lost time. That seems to be a role
that I take on almost every weekend. They stick me with these talks
at the end of the day and say, "make up some time."
I want to speak directly to pastors. This talk is "The Pastor's
Role on the Via de Cristo Weekend." But those of you who are ...
who's the clergy in here today? Let's see you. Pretty much the
clergy sitting in the front of the church. That's good . Okay. Well,
I want to speak directly to the clergy for a little bit. Those of you
who are lay folks, kick your pastors in the butt, and listen closely,
because this is the role of the pastor as I understand it. A couple
of things:
Pastors in the Via de Cristo movement are pastors before and
after the weekend, and they're pastors during the weekend, and I want
to divide my talk into those pieces. It's a sort of a how-to-go about
doing this. What kind of persona do we project? How do we relate to
the people...both on the weekend and during our regular ministries and
between weekends?
It's important, even though this is a lay-led movement to thank
God for all these active lay people. I will speak to all you lay
people to say that we pastors are energized, and we have our faith
renewed listening to you pray and watching you sing, and listening to
your witness to us about what your spiritual lover, our Jesus, does
for us all. Thanks for being who you are. It's a lay-led movement,
pastors. However, to an incredible degree, you are the institutional
memory. Lay people come in, they go out. But the institutional
memory is pretty much ours, and it remains for us to be familiar with
the Via de Cristo story, the history of the Cursillo movement, to know
something of the history of your own local secretariat might. It might
be a good idea for you to be on a first name basis with as many of the
old rectors or rectoras as you can get ahold of, and that you take an
active part in the ongoing life of your secretariat. If you have a
good relationship with your synodical bishop, that would be good.
Pastor Brian, you were talking about getting together at district
meetings or something. In the North Carolina Synod at our last
Assembly, one of our brothers, Pastor Peter Setzer, ran an incredible
workshop to which I guess over a hundred people came. We got on the
agenda because people were curious. What is this Via de Cristo
business? Boom, there we were, at the Synod assembly. Hook up with
people in outdoor ministry or whatever. Part of your job is to be the
institutional memory and the institutional link. I agree with what
Pastor Brian said. I don't want to come under anybody's thumb,
either. But we have to deal with people in various levels of
hierarchies as well.
It might be a good idea for you to know who the pastors are in
your secretariat who are willing to serve, and those who are not. Be
real honest about that. There are pastors who will burn out because
they get committed to this and make a church of it, and who don't seem
to do much of anything else except Cursillos. Let these folks be for
awhile. Let them rest. Because the hard work, then, is to locate,
recruit and motivate new pastors who just haven't done this as a part
of their ongoing spiritual growth. Recognize them. Bring them on
board. I just spend three or four hours, I guess a week or so ago,
with three pastors in our movement who are going to be Spiritual
Directors next October. I spent three or four hours in a kind of
mentoring situation with these new pastors who have never done this
before. They've been on their weekends- with some of them that was
some while ago. They need some support. Pastors, take them under
your wings. Be mentors. Because often enough the ones who are
hesitant about coming on board and serving on weekends may well be
overwhelmed or intimidated by the Method or the organization. Bring
them in and calm their fears.
One other way that you may appeal to pastors who have not made a
Via de Cristo weekend, who are looking for something to do -- Ike, I'm
going to give you a commercial - Okay? In order for pastors to serve
on T.E.C. - Teens Encounter Christ - or Kairos , the Cursillo in
Prison, they have to go through one of our weekends. So if you've got
a pastor out there who is really interested in youth work, lay it on
him. Hook him. It's like fishing for human beings, you understand?
You want to do something neat with kids? Good! Go to the Via de
Cristo, then go to T.E.C., and you'll be there. Want to do something
in prisons? Great! Have we got a deal for you! Go to the Via de
Cristo. Then get in touch with Ike, who will put you in jail.
As an institutional memory, be visible at various kinds of
events, synodical assemblies, district meetings, and that sort of
thing. Let them know out there that you are part of this renewal
movement within the church catholic. Talk to those folks. There's no
big secret here. Let them know. Wear your colors.
If you would, please, pastors and secretariat lay leaders, hold
your pastor's feet to the fire on this: Pastors, be familiar with the
Method. This would be very good. I know we are all tempted to do our
own thing and get enthralled with the sound of our own voice. We
figure we have to preach the entire gospel to the entire world in
twenty minutes. Be familiar with what your role is in each talk and
meditation. Luther Piel last year had this wonderful presentation on
the basics - on the absolute basics. And how we get away with
throwing in frills and all kinds of little bows and ribbons and bells
that really aren't necessary. Pastors, be familiar with the Method
because (thank Luther Piel for this), an emotional experience is not
necessarily a spiritual one. Anybody can manipulate a crowd to have
an emotional experience. It takes a dedication and a submission and a
humility to the working of the Spirit to be a servant of Christ
bringing men and women to an expansive experience of Spirit.
Be familiar with the Method, pastors. To that end, cross-
fertilize with the Anglicans and the Romans. Go talk to your priest
friends in town. See what they do. Use some of their resources. In
the meantime, be the chief ecumenical officer of your secretariat.
Somebody was talking about a Grand Ultreya looking at 15,000 people
out in Phoenix. When I was in Florida we had a couple of those, and
there were, I don't know, 400-600 people at Grace church in St.
Petersburg. Those were neat events, but it will have to be you
pastors who are willing to take the lead and make the initial contacts
in the ecumenical community. There's a whole lot more when you're not
on a weekend, but brevity, you remember, is the soul of both wisdom
and wit.
When you're on a Team, just be available - a ministry of
availability and presence. Everybody knows that, and yet there's
something that pastors can do that most lay folks cannot, and I don't
know whether it's by training or whether it's just because pastors are
who they are or whatever. We've been given the gift - most of us - of
a highly tuned intuition. You get on a weekend, especially Thursday
night - it really would be good for you to turn your intuition up on
as high a gain as you can get it - and be sensitive to the pain and
the heartbreak and the desperation that people bring to Thursday
night. Not everybody is as excited to be there as you are. Who
knows? Maybe they just got fired on Thursday morning. Maybe they've
discovered their kid is on drugs. Maybe they've had a terrible war
with their spouse the night before. You've all run into those folks
and, pastors, you're not there to do intensive psychotherapy with
these people but nevertheless, befriend them, call them by name, be
gentle. There's a time for joviality and we can be jovial. Try to
seek out those one or two or three or half a dozen who are there,
especially on Thursday night or Friday morning, who don't particularly
want to be there.
Now, this may offend some of you. Pastors, when you get on your
weekend, and when you get in to your pulpit at home, drop the "stained
glass voice". It's offensive, and it sets up a barrier between you
and the people that doesn't need to be there. It hides your humanity.
You become somebody else. If you got one of the stained glass voices,
crack it into a thousand pieces and let it go forever.
When you're on a weekend, make it a habit to train your memory so
that you call everybody on the weekend by name at least twice a day.
You may have to read their nametags, but go out of your way to walk up
to every person on that weekend at least twice a day and call them by
name. When you're on the weekend, heal as many as you can. You're
going to have the whole spectrum of spiritual depth there. There are
people who are spiritual lions. And there are people who are
spiritual wolves. There are people who are spiritual lambs. Be
sensitive to each one.
I disagree, by the way, that the opening music on Thursday night
ought to be secular music. Sorry! These are Christians. They are
there because they are Christians. Teach them the new songs. They
didn't come there with any kind of misunderstanding about why they are
there. It's a Christian weekend! We're going to lift high the cross
and we're going to lift up Jesus and He's going to draw you right into
His heart. We're going to start right now by singing Christian songs.
Pastors, if you commit to serve on a team, go to all the team
meetings. If you can't go to all the Team meetings, don't commit to
the weekend. (APPLAUSE)
Pastors, there have been three of us presenting. That's the only
statement that has gotten applause from the lay people. Hear
it...clearly. If you commit to a weekend, go to the team meetings. I
worked a weekend in Indian River, Florida. It was 160 miles one way
from my house over to Indian River and every Monday night for eight
weeks, I was across the state and back to Team meetings. It was a
women's weekend. On our last Team meeting they invited Sally to come
along and this group of women she had never met threw her a wedding
shower at their last team meeting. The following weekend was our
weekend. And the weekend after that Sally and I were married. It was
a busy time, but every Monday night for eight weeks - back and forth
across the state of Florida. If you commit, go do it!
Critique all the talks. Every one of them. Critique all the
talks. If your secretariat permits, be liturgically creative. I love
the Lutheran Book of Worship, too. But if you can be liturgically
creative, do that!
Keep within time limits. One of the real problems I've always
had with the Via de Cristo movement and the Cursillo business is that
we do not exercise any kind of decent stewardship of our bodies. We
push them from early in the morning 'til late at night and it's not
right. Pastors, do some theological reflection here on what it is to
take good care of people's bodies and what kind of witness it would
make. Work with your rectors, your rectoras, your secretariats. Get
everybody in bed by 10 o'clock. If you can't get the Lord's work done
between 7 in the morning until 10 o'clock at night, you may as well
just stay home. You can get it done, but exercise some good
stewardship.
Finally. Pastors, pray in the chapel. When you have to go over
there with rollistas who are scared half to death, and who knows that
they might do a good job, but they're afraid that they're just going
to foul themselves up real bad, learn to pray. Go into the chapel at
night and pray. Hold people's hands and pray - out loud. This is the
best experience you can have. It's the best gift you can give.
Be enthusiastic without being silly. Be passionate without being
manipulative. Above all things you pastors have got to be transparent
to the presence of Jesus. If he's going to show up anywhere, he's
going to be in the chas and he's going to be in you - the rectors are
too busy and the other Spiritual Directors are worried about whether
their talks are going to go off. Okay, it's you. You have to be
there. You are the Lord's own cha. By the way, I had a friend who
was rector a year ago. I said, "Chuck, I want to be on your weekend.
I want to be half time kitchen cha and half time music cha. Best
experience I ever had!
One last thing. Be under spiritual direction yourselves. What I
mean by that is that we call pastors on weekends and pastors in the
movement "spiritual directors" when really all that we are is
administrative officers who sign up other clergy to come on weekends
and then to give talks. That's not spiritual direction. Spiritual
Direction out of the Roman tradition is a specific learned skill.
It's a discipline under which you place yourself. Over the last
eighteen months, I've had the wonderful experience of running into a
Jesuit in my home town of Fayetteville who is a Spiritual Director,
and it has been the most marvelous experience I've ever had. I meet
with this guy pretty regularly. I thought I prayed pretty well. I
can pray. I know how to pray. That has been my chosen path for
spiritual direction. The man has opened up vistas to me. I just
suggest to you, pastors (and hold their feet to the fire, lay people),
get yourself under spiritual direction so that you can grow in the
Lord Jesus in an intentional way.
God loves you and so do I. Brevity - the soul of wisdom and wit.
ED HANSEN: We now have time for questions and answers. Anyone that
has a question, I would ask that you please come to the center
microphone and address your question to whomever.
PAUL BOWMAN, LIGHTHOUSE: I want to address my remarks. I'm a new
delegate. I haven't been a delegate to the secretariat 'til this. I
want, first of all to second what Pastor John has said about the
responsibilities of pastors on the weekend. But I also know that
Lutheran pastors cannot handle Via de Cristo alone. They're going to
have to assist us in recruiting other pastors so that they don't burn
out. From memory, I've been able to identify eleven denominations
that participate in our weekends and we still have pastor burn-out.
And so we want to encourage that the Lutheran pastors recruit some of
the other pastors in their communities. They're the first contact
through the ministerial associations that you can make. We can't do
that. We can follow through with visits. We can get them on
weekends, but we really need you to help us to recruit them. We don't
want to just lose people by attrition, either. Pastors burn out, but
they also move on. We need you when they come to the first
ministerial association meeting which I understand you don't attend
with all that great regularity, but that when you do that you take the
opportunity to recruit the replacement of the pastor who's left. I
don't know whether you have a group of pastors that will meet as a
group so I'm only suggesting these things as information for input to
your meeting if you meet. We recognize that it's a lay movement. We
particularly recognize that we wouldn't be in existence today without
the help of the pastors. We need their direction and so again I
second Pastor John's suggestion that they learn the ministry of
discipleship and leadership to help us. It helps us to recruit
people, too. Insist that all the pastors be critiqued and you be one
of the persons that help critique them so that we don't have
denominations on our weekends and we do. In Via de Cristo in New
Smyrna Beach, or we wouldn't have enough people in a weekend. Don't
disappear on a weekend. Hang tough! Get your pulpits filled and let
your assistants handle with the liturgical responsibilities. Try to
fill in as much as you can on the entire weekend. Arrange to be an
important part of the weekend - the transparent view of all of us to
Christ himself and I would just again submit that this is some of the
things that if the pastors meet that they discuss and take on as
responsibilities to help us from burning out and to help us to succeed
in these weekends. I think that that covers more than I probably
should have said. Thank you all.
PASTOR BRIAN: I have some good news in that line. I met with a
pastor every two months and we have coffee and breakfast. I keep
saying "Hey, you got to get involved in this." He was spiritually
burning out, and finally, a week ago he said, "I made a commitment
that either this fall or next June my wife and I are going to go." I
think that's how we do it - one on one - and most pastors in this
movement I know are doing that, one-on-one evangelizing for Via de
Cristo as well as especially for Christ. So thank you.
DIANNE BOWMAN, LIGHTHOUSE: I made weekend... Sunshine #5 in Miami.
At this time, Paul and I had been married at St. John Lutheran Church
22 years ago in Orlando and there was no Cursillo except the Sunshine
down in Miami, there was the Roman there were other groups, but the
Cursillo was still down in Miami. Paul and I made that weekend and
when we came back in 1977, we were so thrilled and immediately wanted
to get into a group. The pastor of St. John Lutheran Church had
sponsored both Paul and I. We didn't know anything. When we came
back, we didn't know anything except what we had experienced over
these four days. When we came back, we ended up going into a Roman
Catholic group for our reunion. We would go to Ultreyas at the
Episcopal church. Since then Paul and I feel that we have truly been
blessed because we have worked on just about every number weekend in
the central Florida area. I was proud to participate in Broward C
correctional #3, and that was an ecumenical weekend. What I'm looking
at here at this particular time that y'all are meeting is a growing
need of all churches to come together for Jesus Christ - not to
proclaim a banner of denomination because when we have our weekends
and we have just had our fourth weekend in New Smyrna Beach we have
Baptist ministers who have come on the weekend as a candidate. We
have Episcopal priests who have served on the team along with Baptist
preachers. I was raised a Baptist. I married a Lutheran. I became
Episcopal at this time, but Christ is not a denomination, and I think
what we in order to grow in our Cursillo movement and when we're
looking at Cristo the terminology - you know how terminology gets us
all bogged down - but I know that we're all here today under the same
banner, and that's of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I just bless you all
and know that this is going to be a tremendous, tremendous time for
all of us. Thank you.
ED SIMONSEN, RAINBOW: I'd just like to address to the clergy so that
they could respond to one of the questions about having clergy the
whole weekend. We know, indeed, the kind feeling in congregations as
when the pastor is away, he's not dealing with them, so I'd like them
to kind of maybe answer how they deal with their church. I've been
fortunate to be in congregations where members who have gone on a
weekend have addressed that question to the church h council and
they've given me. I don't have to come to them for weekends to do
whatever I want as long as there is somebody in the pulpit but they
have said you can be outside your vacation four weeks -- after that,
come to us and we'll decide on it. I think the other thing is
secretariats can be helpful to get clergy there if they do a simple
thing -- is pay the congregation whatever the substitute pastor would
get. That sure makes for good feelings between the congregations and
the movement. So pastors, how do you do it?
PASTOR TOM: I'd like to think that we don't ask any pastor to serve
more than one time per year. I think that after that it can become a
drain on the congregation. It happens, especially when the movement
is new that you have to go back and ask somebody or for whatever
reason to serve more than once a year but I'd like it for us to have
that guideline that we wouldn't ask any pastor to be away from his
congregation more than once. I recognize your applause for the remark
also that pastors should attend every meeting. My philosophy on that
is if there are three pastors on a team, one of them should be at
every meeting not necessarily. I wouldn't demand that all three of
them would be. That's my philosophy. I recognize that the building
of the team is very much a part of the weekend and the dynamics and we
should be there as much as we can. Pastors do have other things to do
and sometimes the burn-out comes when we're expecting them to do more
than they can afford to timewise so I think somewhere-draw the line
somewhere in the middle there. Definitely, clergy be there but at
least one of the three at all the meetings. Try not to ask them to be
on more than one weekend a year.
PASTOR BRIAN: A though came to my mind. In my congregation, while
I'm away, since this is a lay led movement. I encourage lay people to
preach when I'm gone and provide a sermon if they're not able to but
encourage them to do it as well. That's my answer to that so we don't
have to pay a pastor to preach while I'm gone, the lay people can.
CORKY SPITLER, ATLANTA: I made Atlanta Lutheran Men's #18, and I'd
just like to respond to that, too, because I was serving a
congregation right after I got out of seminary where they were not
supportive of Via de Cristo. Nobody ever went from that congregation
but they allowed me to go and serve on a team and pay for a supply
pastor because I approached it by saying that this is a ministry to
the whole church and we're connected to the whole church I'm asking if
you would allow me to go and do this as your pastor to be a pastor in
the whole church. However, if for some reason that you can't, that's
okay with me and I will take that weekend as a weekend of personal
vacation and do it that way. Once there was the realization, that I
was going to sacrifice for that there was no problem that might be
another way that it could be done, too.
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