“You’re here?!”
I get this response a fair bit when I’m at church on a Sunday when I’m not preaching. I suppose people have seen on the sign or the eblast that Dayle or a guest is preaching and figured that means I’m out of town. I still am tempted to tease the surprised person: yeah, I do have to show up for work occasionally!
Perhaps the surprise level calls for some deliberation about when I preach and don’t, when others preach and what I do when they do.
I’ve always work collaboratively in ministry. I sometimes say ‘I don’t know what I’m good for but I do have cool friends.’ As I meet people with common interests I like to work together with them. About half my books are co-written or co-edited affairs. I just think cooperative projects are more interesting than readers hearing what all I think. When I was in elite academia I was warned, jointly-authored material won’t help you in tenure review. Which is strange, since nearly every scientific paper ever written has a team of authors. In the humanities we still want work for which one person gets 100% credit.
I’ve done the same as a professor. At the seminary in Vancouver the school put in a cap on the number of guest lecture appearances because I kept inviting so many. I just get transfixed by the beauty someone else can bring, and want to share that with others.
We have a history of world class guest preaching at TEMC, both in our summer Festival of the Word and from our pastoral staff besides the senior. When I bring one of my friends to preach, I want to hear them. I also want folks to hear my voice as a liturgist, prayer-leader, one who approaches God other than by preaching. So sometimes with a guest I’ll preside over communion, as with last Sunday when Trygve Johnson preached. Sometimes I’ll have a liturgical role as a sort of second or third prayer leader, as when Kate Sonderegger preached for us in the summer. Sometimes I won’t have a roll at all, and will just be present in the congregation. Honestly, I love this—it helps me experience church as you do, and lets me be more available to you for longer. Right up until the service starts and the moment it ends I can be greeting people, welcoming new people, hearing requests for prayer, getting caught up with your lives. Not leading from the mic lets me lead from the back, as it were.
So don’t think if I’m not on the sign that I’m not in the building that day. Sometimes I’ll be away, indeed. Sometimes, as with this next Sunday, I’ll be here but teaching the older students’ Sunday School class. And sometimes I’ll indeed be out of town.
But if I’m in town, where else would I want to be on a Sunday morning? I love what our church does, who our church is, and can’t wait, week by week, to be part of it.