Bishop-elect Eaton on Morning Joe, The Dave Matthews Band and Liberating Love

So as many folks I speak regularly with know, I'm in the midst of writing my "approval essay," which means I'm desperately trying to finish the really long assignment (roughly twenty pages) that I have to write before going to a final interview with folks in New England where we'll discern whether or not I should be a pastor.

This year's prompts for the approval essay are all questions about "missional leadership." In less churchy language, this means leadership that inspires folks in churches to get out in the world, spread the gospel and help other folks out rather than sitting around arguing about what new furniture to buy, etc. Luckily, the prompt also states, "this theme is motivated by a desire for a deep and rich conversation about the church and its participation in God's mission." So, I figure it'd be pretty darn missional of me to share my writings thus far, in order to spark wider conversation outside of just the folks I'll be meeting with a couple months from now.  What follows is the second part of a three-part essay, and it's specifically about my core theological commitments and missional leadership.  I'd love to hear what you think!

The Gospel, the good news of God’s act of liberating love in Christ, is a free gift of God for everyone. The Gospel is a free gift of God for everyone, and thanks be to God for this core tenet of Lutheran theology! Yet, we must humbly admit that in many congregations, such a beautiful theological foundation simply doesn’t play out in Lutheran practice. I’m painfully reminded of this problem when I all too frequently see “Camp Calumet” listed as the religion of friends or former campers on Facebook rather than “Christianity.” Why is that our young people in New England seem to relate primarily to a place in the woods hours away from home rather than their local faith community (if they have one at all)? This isn’t just a problem with young folks either, of course... most of my friends a few years older than me, many of whom are now starting families, don’t really feel a need to go to Church or even baptize their newborn children.

Even before starting seminary really, but especially since witnessing a “Conversation with the Nones” (folks unaffiliated with an organized faith community), a forum which Bishop Jim Hazelwood organized at the New England Synod Assembly this past spring, I’ve been thinking deeply about these issues. While I’ve certainly not come to any definitive conclusions, I have a hunch the problem is not primarily the way we worship or that we’re not progressive enough or even that we’re not welcoming to visitors on a Sunday morning. No, my sisters and brothers, our problem is deeper than such concerns: guided by the Spirit, we must discern how to boldly proclaim the good news of the ever-moving Triune God in a 21st century world profoundly hungry for such good news. To put it another way, the Gospel has not changed, and neither has the unique insights of our Lutheran theological heritage, but folks are understandably asking different questions than their ancestors were five hundred years ago, we must address these questions.

For example, what follows is the concluding paragraph of a paper I wrote for a Lutheran Confessions course during my first year of seminary:

The gospel is important to Lutherans because faith proceeds from the gospel and it is through faith that we receive the forgiveness of sins on account of Christ. Brought to contrition by the law we are in turn compelled to the promise of the gospel. This promise is known through the Holy Spirit working in spoken Word and visible Word, the sacraments. The promise of the gospel brings comfort to the conscience, and therefore allows for faith. Through faith we are brought into union with Christ, who exchanges righteousness for our sins, justifying us before God. Justification frees our hearts to do good works out of love for God instead of fear, serving our neighbor freely as the part of the body of Christ.

From a theological perspective, I think did pretty well here... not to be overly suggestive, but its a paragraph a Candidacy Committee could be proud of! Yet, while I still absolutely, positively confess everything written in the paragraph above, I don’t think it would mean much to the folks unaffiliated with a faith community at synod assembly, and it sure isn’t a missional way of proclaiming the good news. Folks like those on stage at synod assembly, and in fact most people I know, seem a lot more interested in being part of a strong community, in having the space to grow and explore their relationship with the Divine without judgement, and simply trying to put food on the table while sending their kids to college.

So then, what’s the answer? How can we boldly proclaim the Gospel to folks in a way that speaks to their contemporary context while staying true to our Lutheran tradition? Interestingly enough, just this morning, on the MSNBC show Morning Joe, Bishop-elect Elizabeth Eaton laid it out extremely well:

“... and I really do hope to be a voice for the good news of the gospel... this business about grace that we’re loved and deeply cared for by a God who loves us. And because of that, that sets us free to love the world and be in service to the world.”

In only four minutes and twenty-two seconds, Bishop-elect Eaton boldly proclaimed the Gospel to folks across the country as they were watching Morning Joe, eating breakfast and starting their day. Furthermore, due the immense communicative power of what I like to think of as “printing press 2.0,” or social media, Bishop-elect Eaton’s interview went viral, proclaiming the Gospel to folks around the world. A number of my friends who have very little connection to the Lutheran church were even discussing the interview on Facebook and Twitter, and even more importantly in offline conversations, building community around the Gospel. In fact, two days after the airing of Bishop-elect Eaton’s interview (I’m now writing two days after I wrote the beginning of this paragraph), the clip is still the most watched video on the Morning Joe website.

This is absolutely amazing! What then about Bishop-elect Eaton’s message proved so powerful and resonated so strongly with our fellow Americans? If you look closely at the quote above, she paired two key concepts: love and freedom. The love of God in Christ frees us from our everyday, mundane lives into communion with the Holy Community and with one another, thereby allowing us to look upon our lives (and serve our neighbors through our given vocations) through the eyes of grace. The free gift of God in Christ, my sisters and brothers, is Christian freedom, a concept at the heart of the Lutheran theological tradition:

... a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor. Otherwise he is not a Christian. He lives in Christ through faith, in his neighbor through love. By faith he is caught up beyond himself into God. By love he descends beneath himself into his neighbor. Yet he always remains in God and in his love, as Christ says in John I [:51], “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." (Luther, Freedom of a Christian)

Not only is Christian freedom a central Lutheran message, but its also a message our world is profoundly hungry for. All too many Americans (if they’re lucky) have to get up morning after morning, sit in a long commute, only to then sit in a cubicle in front of a computer all day, all in order to barely put food on the table. As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, not only in America but around the world, an increasing number of folk face even greater oppression, whether it be from a corrupt government, disease, poverty, hunger, addiction, war or the bloat of their own extravagant wealth. At the same time, folks are more connected than ever before in one global, digital community; when we are inspired and when we are informed, we now have the ability to increasingly help bear each others burdens. Just talking about a loving God that cares for us and forgives us in such a unique situation is great, but it is not quite enough... we’ve been doing that in many churches for a while now.

We cannot just proclaim the love of God in Christ as some sort of warm fuzzy feeling we experience for an hour every Sunday morning that temporarily takes our pain away before we socialize over burned coffee. No! In doing so, we’re just ravaging God’s creation and wasting resources to heat, cool and maintain huge, comfortable but empty buildings where we deal out Marx’s “opiate of the masses,” (a drug we increasingly get paid less and less for). Such work is simply not sustainable, and even more importantly, its a waste of time. God’s love literally does something to us, it liberates us, it free us from the weight of whatever may oppress us into a new existence of discipleship in Christ:

The disciple is dragged out of his relative security into a life of absolute insecurity (that is, in truth, into the absolute security and safety of the fellowship of Jesus), from a life which is observable and calculable (it is, in fact, quite incalculable) into a life where everything is unobservable and fortuitous (that is, into one which is necessary and calculable), out of the realm of finite (which is in truth the infinite) into the realm of infinite possibilities (which is the one liberating reality). (Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship)

The life of discipleship is the one liberating reality, a realm of infinite possibilities, and this is profoundly good news! In this liberating reality, we’re freed to not just welcome in but in fact go out to folks like artists, activists, the LGBT community, singles and young people that the Church has turned away for far too long. In this liberating reality, we’re freed to discern with disciples how they can creatively engage with people of other faiths and with secular institutions to better serve their neighbors living in an increasingly pluralistic society. In this liberating reality, we’re freed to carefully and prayerfully move past our continued hangups around human sexuality while still being good stewards of the bodies and relationships that the Triune God has given us. In this liberating reality, we’re freed to embrace our theology of the cross and recognize that we don’t always have the answers. And in this liberating reality, we’re freed to actually step foot outside our church doors to boldly engage in Christian mission to our local communities and in our everyday lives.

How do we proclaim the good news of God’s act of liberating love in Christ to a world that’s so hungry for it yet increasingly doesn’t know what the heck we’re talking about? We simply follow Saint Paul’s example:

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us (Acts 17: 22 - 27, NRSV).

Part of the reason Camp Calumet is so good at cultivating Christian community is that its counselors teach about the Triune God through the culturally sensitive lens of “an unknown god.” Almost everyone I meet, Christians, folks who are “spiritual,” and even most atheists, seem to think there’s something outside themselves, something that they usually wish they could connect with better, even if its just the human spirit. The Athenians, despite all their idols of silver and stone, knew there was something else, something they really couldn’t put their finger on, and it was through the “unknown God” that Paul teaches them of Christ.

We’re all searching and struggling, groping for at very least this “unknown God,” and even the most anti-church campers at Calumet (and there’s plenty of them) feel much the same way. The counselors then don’t use gimmicky Christian rappers or acoustic guitar songs about kissing boyfriend Jesus, but rather teach of Christ through things native to the campers’ culture, using the near-universal yearning for the “unknown God” as an entry point. Perhaps my most cherished example of sharing the good news in this manner is through evening devotionals or “devos,” where the counselor usually plays a song or shares a story, leads brief discussion and ends with Bible verse and prayer. One of my favorite songs I used to play for devos is “Don’t Feed the Pig” by Dave Matthews Band:



Through its eloquent talk of the power of liberating love and the wonder of being grounded in the present moment, “Pig” profoundly speaks to the universal yearning for the “unknown God” inside each and everyone one of us. While I certainly was not nearly as theologically versed back when I was a camp counselor, I’d usually play the song and explain how for me, Christ was that source of liberating love Dave Matthews was talking about. It led to some truly amazing conversations (I mostly worked with teenage campers), and it did so while proclaiming the Gospel in a missional way that strongly reflected our Lutheran theological tradition.

Camp Calumet: A "Missional" Faith Community

So as many folks I speak regularly with know, I'm in the midst of writing my "approval essay," which means I'm desperately trying to finish the really long assignment (roughly twenty pages) that I have to write before going to a final interview with folks in New England where we'll discern whether or not I should be a pastor.

This year's prompts for the approval essay are all questions about "missional leadership." In less churchy language, this means leadership that inspires folks in churches to get out in the world, spread the gospel and help other folks out rather than sitting around arguing about what new furniture to buy, etc. Luckily, the prompt also states, "this theme is motivated by a desire for a deep and rich conversation about the church and its participation in God's mission." So, I figure it'd be pretty darn missional of me to share my writings thus far, in order to spark wider conversation outside of just the folks I'll be meeting with a couple months from now. What follows is the first of three parts of my essay, and its specifically about a "formative faith community that has helped shape your understanding of missional leadership." I decided to write about Camp Calumet Lutheran in Freedom, NH.  Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Despite the task ahead of me, I feel immensely blessed as I embark upon writing my approval essay.  At the end of a powerful, affirming, even life-changing year at the Lutheran Office for World Community (LOWC) and Saint Peter’s Church in New York, I absolutely craved the opportunity to break away from the hustle of city life.  I thus decided to head up to northern New England for two weeks of time with friends, hiking in my home mountains and thereby beginning to unpack my internship experience.  While things were already going great, this processing time took an even better turn when I bumped into some of the more senior staff from Camp Calumet Lutheran in New Hampshire.

After catching up on each other’s summers, we got to talking about an international staff member seeking political asylum here in the United States.  Given my work this year on immigration issues at both Saint Peter’s and LOWC, we decided I should spend a couple days at camp both dialoging with that staff member and writing this essay.  So now I’m here, sitting in the dining hall of the camp I spent nearly a decade growing, working and serving at.  At one end of the room an older woman joyfully dances about as she sets up for a coming meal.  At the other, a group of young refugees laugh and hang out, talking really loudly in a bunch of different languages. In the middle of the room, two junior counselors Skype home to their friends in high school about “the best summer ever” that will soon come to a close.

I relay this story not take up space in a really long essay, or in a vain attempt to bolster my people watching credentials, but rather to describe what a truly missional faith community looks like.  What makes Camp Calumet a missional faith community?  Whether they intellectually know it or not, most of the folks here, staff, campers and others guests alike, quite visibly feel the Triune God at work not only in their own lives, but in the life of the wider Calumet community.  Teaching His disciples about the Trinity in John 16: 12 - 15, Christ states:

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you (NRSV).

Through such teaching Christ proclaims the profoundly good news to His disciples, both now and two thousand years ago, that not even God Herself can be alone.  God can only do Her work in Holy Community, the very work that lovingly gathers us up into missional community with God and one another.  When the folks at Calumet experience the good news of God’s act of liberating love in community, its readily apparent that they can’t help but respond, all according to their given vocations.  And whether it is through talking with friends at home over Skype, joyfully setting up dinner, creatively discerning how to leverage new opportunities or welcoming in people who the world has turned away, the folks at Calumet carry out Christian mission in a way that’s highly contextual, trusting the Spirit to guide them into truth amidst the chaotic change of our contemporary world.

I spent much of the past day here talking with staff of all ages about their experiences of missional leadership (using less churchy language) in order to help jog my own memory.  After sharing funny and profound stories over lunch, meeting a bunch of fantastic new counselors and going on a great sailing trip with two now senior counselors I trained years ago, I eventually identified two specific lessons I learned about missional leadership during my many summers at Calumet: 1) selflessness is only sustainable in community and 2) leadership means creating spaces for disciples to grow into leaders themselves.

Selflessness is only sustainable in community... The scene is a summer night in late June, 2002, with a bunch of young adults sitting around a fire on really uncomfortable benches, or if you were lucky, a creaky camp chair.  Earlier that day I, along with thirty-two other fifteen and sixteen year olds, had made a long trek up I-95 to camp in the back of our parents’ mini-vans for the beginning of an eight-week session of camp counselor training.  One kid showed up with a clothes trunk that looked like a coffin.  Another guy spent a couple hours sprinting through the campsite with a football.  Everyone was trying to establish an identity for themselves. It was a truly bizarre day, but around the campfire that evening, things quickly got serious once we started learning about “camper comes first,” or CCF, Calumet’s central organizing principal of putting the needs of campers and other guests ahead of your own.  I came to learn the most important thing one does during trainee summer is figure out how to live into this concept, and for someone like me who was more interested in hanging out with friends and chasing girls than selflessly serving others, such a task did not come easy.

Eventually after years of growing and working at Calumet, I thought I understood the concept of selfless service quite well.  It was only many summers later though in 2008 when I realized the other half of the lesson, the part that makes selfless service truly missional.  This aspect is reflected in one of my absolutely favorite Bible passages, Ecclesiastes 4: 9 - 12:

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.  For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help.  Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone?  And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one.  A threefold cord is not quickly broken (NRSV).

In the summer of 2008 I graduated on the precipice of the Great Recession, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer, an important relationship was ending and the doctors thought I had thyroid cancer too.  One night in early August I found out my mother’s cancer had metastasized, and the next morning, despite being assigned as a counselor that week, I could barely function without bursting into tears at breakfast.  A close friend on staff offered to take my campers for a couple hours so I could sit, pray and get my head together.  At first my pride got in the way, but eventually my friend convinced me that to truly put my campers’ needs first, I needed to take care of myself.

It seems like a simple lesson, but it’s a profound one... no matter how great you are, you cannot shoulder the burdens of Christian mission on your own.  Missional leadership thus means cultivating faith communities where folks of diverse callings, gathered up by the Triune God, support each other as they engage in selfless service, for the sake of the Gospel.  Even God cannot work alone... He only works in Holy Community and more often than not chooses to work through apostles, evangelists and all types of disciples.  If God cannot work alone, no matter how much our original sin may tell us otherwise, how can we?  Engaging the way of the cross, we must recognize selfless service is only sustainable in community.

Missional leadership also means creating spaces for disciples to grow into leaders themselves.  I first learned this humbling but important lesson in the summer of 2010 while working with thirty-four fifteen and sixteen year old counselors-in-training (CITs) as they discovered how to become leaders themselves.  I went into that summer super pumped; I had wanted to be trainer ever since I was a CIT, and it was finally going to happen.  After working at Calumet for so many summers, I had much experience to share, and as I was about to enter seminary the following fall, I felt extremely qualified.  Furthermore, I perceived a bit of decline at Calumet over the preceding years, and this was my chance to turn things around by training a new group of amazing counselors!

If only I had read Exodus 18: 13 - 23 beforehand, I would have been saved a lot of soul searching that summer:

The next day Moses sat as judge for the people, while the people stood around him from morning until evening. When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, ‘What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, while all the people stand around you from morning until evening?’ Moses said to his father-in-law, ‘Because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make known to them the statutes and instructions of God.’ Moses’ father-in-law said to him, ‘What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. Now listen to me. I will give you counsel, and God be with you! You should represent the people before God, and you should bring their cases before God; teach them the statutes and instructions and make known to them the way they are to go and the things they are to do. You should also look for able men among all the people, men who fear God, are trustworthy, and hate dishonest gain; set such men over them as officers over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Let them sit as judges for the people at all times; let them bring every important case to you, but decide every minor case themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. If you do this, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all these people will go to their home in peace’ (NRSV).

I remember one stark conversation with a close friend on staff lamenting how it didn’t feel like I was doing much that summer.  Sure, I could give the trainees basic tips about leading conversations or demonstrate how to clean up a wet-bed, but on the whole, it seemed like most of the folks I was working with were already ready to be great counselors... they just needed a little time and the right environment to fully grow into that calling.  The gardening analogy for missional leadership is certainly overused, but my experience training new counselors in 2010 taught me its largely accurate.  Like Moses in the Exodus passage above, I found there was not a great deal of active ‘doing’ or gifting of knowledge in leading.  Instead, leading is much more about simply cultivating spaces where disciples can grow into the leaders God has intended them to be.  Perhaps the most poignant conversation I had today at Calumet was with a young adult who talked about how Church as an extremely hierarchal institution throughout much of its history.  He contrasted this with Calumet’s more missional model of leadership, where power is shared and the focus is not about what a single individual is doing. Rather, Calumet focuses on what God is doing through a community of growing leaders.  Missional leadership means creating spaces for disciples to grow into leaders themselves.

As I stated earlier, when the folks at Calumet experience the good news of God’s act of liberating love in community, its readily apparent that they can’t help but respond, all according to their given vocations.  Given that Calumet has proven such a formative place in my development as a missional leader, its follows that I believe empowering missional leadership in others primarily means cultivating faith communities where the gospel is experienced in ALL its forms.  Luther does a great job of laying out all the ways we experience the gospel in the Smalcald Articles:

We now want to return to the gospel, which gives guidance and help against sin in more that one way, because is extravagantly rich in his grace: first, through the spoken word, in which the forgiveness of sins is preached to the whole world... second, through baptism; third, through the holy Sacrament of the Altar; fourth, through the power of the keys and also through the mutual conversation and consolation of brothers and sisters (Kolb and Wengert, Book of Concord, 319).

The gospel, the good news of God’s act of liberating love in Jesus Christ, is really, really awesome!  Not only is the gospel really awesome, but it also frees folks to serve their neighbors and their world, or in other words, to act missionally.  Why then would one not want to cultivate faith communities where the gospel is experienced as much and in as many ways as possible?

In my experience, most pastors know how to perform a baptismal rite, know how to preside over the Eucharist and many can give a pretty decent sermon.  Where congregations often fail however is the fourth way we experience the gospel; they don’t cultivate strong faith communities where “members” and those outside the church walls alike can engage in mutual conversation and consolation.  If there’s one thing Camp Calumet is good at, its cultivating just that sort of missional community, through strong and fun Bible study, culturally aware mentorship and profound discussion on the shores of Lake Ossipee.  Lutherans deeply believe that all folks, not just pastors and other “religious professionals” are called to God given vocations.  Having learned missional leadership at Camp Calumet, I will follow its model of cultivating communities where the good news of God’s act of liberating love in Jesus Christ is experienced in all its forms, thereby inspiring folks to grow into and missionally live out their unique callings.

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

NH 4000 Footer Essay (Pt. 5): Hiking Paths and Moments of Transfiguration

What follows is part five of a five-part essay I'm writing for the NH 4000 Footer Club.  You can find part one here, part two here, part three here and part four here.

From Zeacliff in early morning fog, August 2012.

It's good to be almost done with this thing... it took me over eight years to hike all of New Hampshire's forty-eight four thousand foot mountains, and at a number of points, it felt like it might take nearly as long to write this essay.  But here am I, sitting in Queens nursing a coffee and looking at a blank screen nearly six months after summitting Mount Carrigain, trying to figure out how to conclude... how to write part five of five.  My general thesis when I started this whole thing, as stated in part one was: "the paths we trod in life simply serve as vehicles through which we realize the growth (or potential for growth) already stirring within and around us," an idea I still agree with.  Another key point I made in part one concerned the presence of God in the mountains: "Unfortunately, while I often marveled at Her handiwork during my mountaintop experiences, God Herself didn't seem to really want to show up... or at least it felt that way."

The path up Bondcliff, August 2012.

While I did find God over my many hikes in the Whites, although as typical, She didn't show up where I expected.  And actually, it shouldn't be all that surprising that God was around in the mountains... think about how much Jesus liked hanging out on them.  The Sermon on the Mount was well, preached from a mount.  On the night of his betrayal, shortly before his death and resurrection, Jesus visits the Mount of Olives.  Perhaps the most amazing story of Christ on the mountaintop however is the The Transfiguration.  Referenced in three of the four canonical gospels (and perhaps referenced in the other), the transfiguration is the story of Jesus taking Peter, James and John up an unnamed mountain and becoming ablaze in a bright light, shining with all the glory of God.  Elijah and Moses then decide to show up as well.  From one perspective, its the moment where God most revels Herself in Christ to humankind.  Predictably humankind however can't handle God in all Her glory... Peter tries to control the situation and asks to make three tents for Elijah, Moses and Jesus so the moment can last longer.  Before Peter really even finishes making his proposition, God proclaims, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”  The disciples fall to the ground, and when they get up, the moment is over... Elijah and Moses are gone and Jesus is back to normal.

What I've realized, is that in a more limited sense, moments of transfiguration happen all the time in the mountains.  They're fleeting and impossible to seek out yes, but they're there, and for me at least, these moments of transfiguration don't come from gazing at the beauty of the forest or far reaching vistas... they take place in momentary and miraculous connection with the Other.  Said in less theological student language, I experience the glory of God in the mountains in moments of deep connection with another human being.  Christ is not only the intermediary between humankind and God, but also between us all... the brief moments when we see Christ in others are the only times when we can truly connect, when we can truly know what another person is all about.  And for me, these moments of transfiguration, these moments when the glory of God even in a limited way shows up in the face of another human being, are most likely to take place while atop the high places of creation.

Atop Bondcliff, August 2012.

Working with Calumet campers at the Mizpah Springs Hut, hiking the Southern Presidentials with a loved one and summiting Mount Isolation with a best friend... there were transfiguration moments on those paths.  Taking a short stroll to the top of Cannon Mountain after my first week of seminary with another close friend, essentially climbing up a waterfall with three folks to bag Moosilauke during one of the best months of my life, conquering the horseshoe of the Northern Presidentials with my brother... there were transfiguration moments on those paths.  And while hiking alone but also while waiting out a late summer storm in the Guyot Shelter with two middle-aged women who couldn't have been more in love and while speaking with an eighty year old man near the summit of Owl's Head who had just bagged his last 4000 footer with his adult son... there were transfiguration moments on those paths.

I had many moments of transfiguration while hiking the many paths and summits of New Hampshire's White Mountains, moments where I saw the glory of God in the face of the Other.  And all these moments of transfiguration helped me realize the growth that was taking place within and all around me.  And because of all these moments of transfiguration, I am truly blessed.

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Calumet Yellows Reunion Sermon: Rowdy Faith in A Rowdy God

What follow's is a rough manuscript of a sermon I preached this past Sunday at Camp Calumet Lutheran during a reunion retreat weekend for the previous summer's teenage campers.  There's a few inside jokes throughout the text, but hopefully they won't be too distracting.  For a full Twitterfeed from the event, click here.  For more info about our curriculum for the weekend, click here.  I'd love to here what you think!

So, you may have heard at some point that we’ve been live tweeting throughout the Yellows 2012 Reunion. There were some pretty good tweets out on the tweetosphere this weekend… on one end of the spectrum we had some about exploring our faith. On the other, we had some about the smellyness of our farts… all of these were good tweets. That said, my favorite tweet of the weekend was one of the first… it was written by Rachael. She was probably heading back to her cabin Friday night when she wrote something along the lines of “that was a rowdy devos.” A rowdy devos… a rowdy devotionals… who would have thought! Those two words don’t usually go together, but Rachael was definitely right… while we were learning about each other’s faith and playing people bingo and singing a bunch of camp songs, things got pretty rowdy.

[ROWDY SONG INTERRUPTION]

Ya know, sitting by the fire last night, thinking about the weekend and going over the Bible texts for today, I eventually realized why I liked Rachael’s tweet so much… it was filled with really, really good news. And that good news is that we have a faith that can make things get a little rowdy… we have a rowdy faith. In fact, God Herself was getting a little rowdy in today’s gospel story. It’s a pretty well known one… three wise men, or sometimes we call them the three kings, came from the east, or from basically really far away, and told King Herod they came to worship the baby Jesus because they were led by a star in the sky. Herod wasn’t a big fan of baby Jesus, so he tried to use the wise men to find Jesus and kill him, but luckily, Herod’s plan didn’t work… Instead, the wise men followed the star all to Bethlehem; they knelt down and worshiped Jesus, and eventually, they went back home by a different road.

Now, I imagine you’re wondering, how was God getting so rowdy in the story? The answer begins with the fact that God didn’t put that star in the sky for some priests in Jerusalem or for King Herod… She put that star in the sky for three wise men from far away, which means three folks that were far outside God’s old covenant with Israel. By putting that star in the sky for the three wise men, God proclaimed the good news that all are welcomed, that all are saved and that all are loved through Christ. You see, for all the religious authorities and King Herod, this news would have been completely unexpected… they thought the Messiah was only coming for Israel… by shaking things up, God was getting pretty rowdy.

[ROWDY SONG INTERRUPTION]

You see my friends, we have a rowdy God, and we have a rowdy faith, and that is amazingly good news. And you know what, we learned a bit this weekend that at least in some ways, we have a rowdy church too… As Lutherans we have the largest charitable organization in the United States, Lutheran Social Services, shaking things up and helping folks out… that’s pretty rowdy. Through it's Young Adults in Global Mission Program, the ELCA is sending about fifty young adults, some just a couple years older than you all, abroad ever year to shake things up and help folks out… that’s pretty rowdy too.  We also have offices at the international, national and state levels advocating for a more just society.  Of course, our church needs to do more… the world is changing really, really fast, and as faith communities we’ve got to change too. In our world, in this time and place, the church can’t look like it used to. We talked a lot this weekend about what Calumet means to us as well, and for me at least, by providing such a powerful model of serving others, of loving others and of worshiping God in fun and life giving ways, Camp Calumet is one place that represents the change we need to make as a church… it’s a place shaking things up with a rowdy faith in a rowdy God.

The good news of the rowdy things God is doing through Christ… that’s what today’s gospel message is all about and it’s the same good news that Christians all over the world are celebrating today. You see, today’s a very special church holiday called Epiphany… in many Spanish-speaking congregations it’s actually a bigger celebration than Christmas. On Epiphany, the reason we read the story of the wise men is that when God put that star up in the sky, guiding folks from far away to the newborn Jesus in Bethlehem, the good news that through Christ, God loves, accepts and cares for all us was proclaimed. So my friends, as you go home on this Epiphany Sunday, celebrate and share the good news of our rowdy faith in a rowdy God… a God that loves you and you and you… a rowdy God that loves all of us, whether we’re young or old, gay or straight, black or white, rich or poor, whether we’re outgoing or shy or even a weird kid that loves cats, fireworks and margarine. In short my friends, celebrate God’s good news, and get rowdy.

[LOUD, ROWDY ENDING SONG ABOUT GOD’S LOVE]

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Calumet Yellows Reunion Weekend Update

I've been amazingly blessed to have the opportunity to help out as chaplain at Camp Calumet Lutheran in New Hampshire, where over sixty teenagers and former Yellows campers from the previous summer have reunited for an awesome weekend of fun, friends and exploring their faith.  The theme of the weekend has been the "The Best of Calumet," with gourmet grilled cheese for lunch, favorite songs from the summer and a bunch of awesome option time activities like tubing on the toboggan run, a bonfire on the beach and an epic game of broom-ball.  Earlier in the day, we talked about what Calumet made to us and made time capsules to reopen the coming summer.  Especially as many of the campers will be entering into one of Calumet's leadership programs for future staff this coming summer, it ended up being a really important conversation.  All the kids and counselors have been "live-tweeting" the retreat on Twitter using the hashtag #CCL.  Just a couple awesome things they've come up with:


@bishophazelwood Having deep conversations of our faith #CCL


Sledding was the fabest thing I've ever done @djericpike #CCL #yellows2012 #yellowsreunion2012

There are many different types of love and it means many different things to many different people #ccl

To check out our whole Twitter conversation, either search for #CCL or check out our Storify page.

In terms of some of the stuff I've been working on, we've been talking about ways we respond to God's love, types of service we do, the world we live in, and how it all relates to our identity as people of faith.  Campers have been tweeting the bishop and presiding bishop about what they've been talking about as well.  Gotta go get my costume ready for a theme dinner, but I'll write more soon.

God's peace,
Dustin 

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Calumet Youth Retreat Plan: Faith, Identity and the World We Live In

Friends, as part of my internship this year I have the honor of chaplaining a retreat up at Camp Calumet this coming weekend in New Hampshire.  It'll be for sixty youth between ages 13 - 15 who were Yellows campers at Calumet last summer.  I haven't done one of these in a while (and never one this big), so I'd love to hear your thoughts:

Looking back on the past year, it’s pretty easy to get discouraged.  Amidst continued economic problems, superstorms, long elections and the tragic school shooting in Connecticut, not to mention what might be going on in our own personal lives, it’s easy for all of us to wonder where God is in everything we’re facing.  For young adults coming of age in such challenging and changing times, figuring out what it means to be a person of faith can often be particularly difficult.

Luckily, our Lutheran tradition offers the world the precious insight that God is gracious God who loves all Her children.  In a world where we’re hungry for acceptance, love, community and meaning, whether they’re a person of faith or not, the central Lutheran insight that God loves us is indeed very good news.  But the question then becomes, how do we respond to the good news that God loves us in the actually world we live in?  Perhaps putting it even more fundamentally, how does God’s good news affect who we are?

Throughout our weekend at Calumet, we’ll be exploring that very question through four steps, with 1 John 4: 7 – 12 as our guiding framework:

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Our first step during devotions on Friday night will be to think about how we live out our faith in everyday life.  We’ll be doing this through a fun bingo activity where participants can sign off on squares about what types of service, etc. they participate in.

Our second step during the Saturday morning session will be to think about issues facing our world and how Lutherans are responding to such issues.  Participants will break into groups and answer quiz questions about various facts (multiple choice, true/ false, etc.)  They’ll then break into small groups and discuss what they’ve heard.  If there’s leftover time, they’ll report back some of their responses to the larger group.

Here are just a few of the facts about the world we live in that we’ll touch on:

-       Lutheranism is no longer a Western tradition.  Roughly 5% of the US population is Lutheran, while roughly 50% of the Namibian population is Lutheran.  There are more Lutherans in Lutheran World Federation member churches in Ethiopia and Tanzania than in the United States.

-       Despite nearly eliminating hunger in the US back in the 1970s, nearly one in four American children live in a household facing food insecurity.  One quarter of children below the age of five are stunted worldwide due to lack of proper nutrition.

-       In 2011, Lutheran World Relief helped nearly 5 million people in forty countries.  Lutheran Social Services is the largest single charitable organization in the United States, based on revenue.

-       One third of US teens report being bullied in school, while 8% of students report being injured or hurt with a weapon at school.

-       ELCA Lutherans advocate for social justice through a national office in Washington, twelve state public policy offices and the Lutheran Office for World Community in New York.

-       Nearly a quarter of American young adults have no religious affiliation.  New England is the least religious area of the country.

-       Average global temperature increased by about one degree Celsius over the 20^th century.  The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets lost 36 to 60 cubic miles of ice per year between 2002 and 2006.

-       The ELCA’s Young Adults in Global Mission program sends roughly fifty young adult volunteers to serve abroad each year.

-       In developing countries, women tend to work far longer hours than men. In Asia and Africa, studies have shown that women work as much as 13 hours more per week.

-       After a strong effort since 1990, nearly 90% of primary-school aged children are now enrolled in school worldwide.  Most countries have achieved relatively equity in primary school enrollment between girls and boys.

Our third step will be to reflect on what it means to be a person of faith in the world we live in.  We’ll do this by discussing how what we learned in the morning session relates to what the 1 John passage reads in our small groups.  We’ll then take some time to think about what it means for us to be a person of faith and then break into different stations where we can express our identity.  This can be done through writing, taping of YouTube videos, art, and perhaps even a skit performance.  What we come up with will be shared with the wider world through a variety of avenues (LWF Youth Blog, NE Synod blog, etc. are possibilities)

Our final step will be to gather around Word and Sacrament during Sunday worship to showcase and discuss what we’ve experienced over the weekend.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

NH 4000 Footer Essay (Pt. 2): Overnight at Mizpah

What follows is part two of the five-part essay I'm writing for the NH 4000 Footer Club.  You can find part one here.

My very first trip up one of NH's big peaks took place in 2004 as a young camp counselor taking teenagers to the AMC's Mizpah Spring Hut for Calumet Lutheran Ministries.  Before that first summer I hiked up to Mizpah, the outdoors in general hadn't really ever been my thing.  I had technically been a Boy Scout for years, and even had recently earned my Eagle Scout Badge, but campouts had always been more about building fires, chopping down trees and generally screwing around with a ragtag group of friends than actually enjoying any real hiking through God's creation.  I had also been a camper at Calumet for a few years and counselor the prior summer as well, but even then I was more interested in getting a great tan or flirting with girls than soaking up the untrampled beauty of the White Mountains... when possible, I'd always go on the easy canoe trip with a few campers rather than a hike.

Boy I was goofy.

Upon first hearing I had to help lead an overnight to Mizpah, I was pretty bummed... the trip up the Crawford Path was technically categorized as one of the "hard" hikes Calumet offered, and it additionally meant two days away from my "epic love" that summer.  I was also at nearly the pinnacle of my neo-flower child phase, and thus had great concern about a long day of sweaty hiking messing up my "sweet" bleached-blonde locks.  Eventually though I came to terms with my fate and even heard from a few of my fellow counselors that it was amazing trip. The moss covered forest floor looked like some sort of fairy garden and water from the spring was supposedly the tastiest in the world.

Following my usual practice that summer, I fell asleep during the bus ride to the trailhead despite being responsible for campers.  I awoke as the bus pulled into Crawford Notch near the AMC's Highland Center to an absolutely beautiful valley all around me... I had never, ever even come to close to seeing such wondrous creation during my Boy Scout trips.  As we headed up the Crawford Path, I quickly realized that it wasn't all that bad, even with the heavy pack on my back.  The kids that usually sign up for the hard hike at Calumet tend to actually like the outdoors, and that definitely seemed to be the case on this trip.

A similar "fairy-garden" on Wildcat Mountain.

Right around hitting the Mizpah Cut-off, things seemed to flatten out pretty substantially AND the fairy garden deal started happening.  Long before getting to a summit, seeing such lush, beautiful forest for the first time already made the trip well worth my effort.  Soon enough though we reached Mizpah Hut and I was once again astounded, this time that such things existed up in the White Mountains.  The clearing around the hut was filled with birds that seemingly lacked any fear of people and I specifically remember hearing Uncle John's Band being played by the hut crew as they started preparing dinner.  Calumet couldn't afford quite such plush accommodations for our group however, so we instead found a couple platforms at the nearby Nauman Tentsite.

Eisenhower, Pierce and Jackson from Mount Monroe.

Once we set up our tents on the assigned platforms, the trip's head counselor quickly suggested we take the "optional" Webster-Cliff trail up to the summit of Mount Pierce.  Most of the campers seemed pretty enthusiastic about the idea, so we grabbed our Nalgenes and headed up a decidedly steep (although short) trail to the summit.  Despite the tough grade, I felt hungry to reach that summit... a feeling I had never felt before, and I remember it sort of surprising me.  

It didn't take our group too long to summit, and since most of us had never been above treeline before, there was a strong sense of camaraderie through our shared experience.  I felt honored to be part of that moment with my campers and fellow counselors, and we stayed above treeline for much of the afternoon.  Mount Eisenhower and even Washington seemed like a close hike away and  I remember wishing we could keep ascending up the Crawford Path to the top of New England... the whole world seemed in front of us, all-embracing and filled with adventure.  Being a sentimental fellow, I quickly realized how this reflected my own life situation as recent high-school grad soon to go off to college for the first time.

After heading back into the trees and down to our tents, I suppose we had dinner, told a few stories and went to bed... I frankly don't remember much more about the trip.  Looking back on it though, that trail up Mount Pierce helped me recognize two things.  First, I realized that much like the ecstasy of looking forward to the summit of Washington for the first time, the joy I felt during my last summer before college, the joy of having a bright, untarnished future ahead of me, was fleeting.  Second, I comprehended the great hunger for future mountaintop experiences within me for the first time.

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.