Archive for the ‘Community’ Category

13 Dec

How The Internet is Almost as Funny as God

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Brokenness, Community. Tagged: , , , , , , .

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Who knew the Internet and God had this one thing in common–a be-careful-what-you-wish-for sense of humor?

God recently showed his sense of humor when he answered my prayer for more preaching opportunities.

In my current setting I don’t have a formal, ongoing, paid position in my church. Instead, I use my Deaconess training* here and there with a mix of paid and volunteer tasks in my own church and in other churches around my area.

Some of my most favorite work–times I feel most alive–are the times when I get to preach or speak. I’m still working on developing a formal speaking ministry. But the preaching opportunities are easier to come by when neighboring pastors need back-up, so I prayed for more of them.

It had been months since I preached last, but then, this fall, my church invited me to preach our Advent series. That would be 3 chances to preach and I was thrilled! Then a neighboring pastor called me with an additional 3 dates this month for which he needed back-up.

Suddenly here was December with 6 chances to preach! I just had to laugh at God’s sense of humor in answering my prayer in such a big way!

In a similar way, the Internet showed its sense of humor when it challenged my fears about being relevant with my blog. Last week I wrote the post How Being “Relevant” Eludes Me (click the title to read that post) and I lamented to the Internet:

I have a ton of ideas about what I want to write about. But I just never know what’s going to resonate with people.

I watch my blog stats (the details that I can view as a blog administrator about how many visits there are to my blog and what posts are being viewed) more closely than I need to. And I fret when something I feel good about doesn’t get as many views as I wish it did. And I hope, in admitted vanity, that this blog will really take off.

I know all the right things I should be thinking about my blog–that if even one person is touched by my writing then I am doing good work here. And I am always, always glad to know when that one person is touched. Please keep writing comments and e-mails and Tweets and Facebook messages to let me know because, truly, that’s what keeps me going when one person at a time is indeed touched by my work.

But right or wrong, I want to reach more people. And sometimes I shake my fists at the Internet and ask, in all ignorance, “What’s it going to take?”

And the Internet seems not to answer.

And then I had this really crummy day when I almost didn’t write anything. Except I have been trying to write more often and I was determined to post on Monday or Tuesday. Monday was a migraine day and I truly could not write. So it was Tuesday or bust. And despite my depression knocking me down, the idea of skipping Tuesday was worse than the idea of cranking out something irrelevant.

And so, I wrote Eat, Sleep, Preach: A Deaconess in Depression (click the title to see that post) and that post got a lot of attention. In fact, it became my most viewed post ever! Wednesday was my all-time biggest day on the blog. Lots and lots of people reached out to me in one way or another to express empathy or appreciation for what I wrote. Thanks to all who supported me by reading, responding to, or sharing the post. I am deeply grateful.

And I had to laugh at the Internet’s way of giving me such a big day over a post that I almost didn’t write on a day when I just wanted to stay in bed.

See what I mean? God and the Internet are both hilarious!

* I was trained and consecrated by the Lutheran Deaconess Association (LDA), an independent Lutheran diaconate based in Valparaiso, Indiana. The LDA allows me to keep the title of Deaconess despite not having a formal call as they recognize a wide range of service as diaconal. For more about my journey of becoming a Deaconess, see my post How I Became a Deaconess (click the title to read that post).

12 Dec

Advent Meditation: God in Us

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Community, Inspiration. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

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This week I preached the second of three meditations for a weekly series I’m presenting at my church for Advent.

The series is called, The Arrival of Christ: Past, Present & Future. This week’s meditation is about Christ’s arrival in the present as, God in Us.

The meditation is inspired by John 13-14; please look that up when you get the chance.

>>>Click here to listen to the meditation or read a text version of God in Us<<<

6 Dec

Receiving Others as Gifts

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Community. Tagged: , , , , , .

Gracious God, who created all humanity in your image:
Make us grateful for the companionship of other people, receiving them as gifts of your grace.

The Deaconess Litany of the Lutheran Deaconess Association

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I’ve written a few posts in the past drawing from the Deaconess Litany of my Deaconess community. It is an extended prayer that we traditionally pray on Monday nights. The remarkable thing about well-written prayers like this is the way they can work into our hearts and minds and actually be a part of forming us as God’s people.

20131206-163719.jpgThe portion of the litany quoted above has been just such a formational prayer for me. This idea of receiving others as gifts of God’s grace has worked its way into the very fabric of my being. I want to share with you a few of implications of this that have emerged for me and one reservation I have about it:

  1. Receiving others as gifts of grace means that we don’t take them for granted. Gifts are not things to which we are entitled, in fact, they are often unmerited and unexpected. Approaching our relationships in this way leaves us open to the ways that others can surprise us.
  2. Receiving others as gifts doesn’t have to mean we “like” everything they do or say. Just as we coach children to say “thank you” when they get a gift from a loved one whether they like it or not, so we too can graciously receive other people in our lives.
  3. Receiving others as gifts of God signals that they are holy others as they are from our divine creator. The sacredness with which we hold their lives and the honor we show them are necessitated by the reality that they are God’s.
  4. One reservation that I have about this prayer is the potential of the “gift” analogy to be taken too literally, as if others are mere objects. (See my previous post about teaching children that people are not objects.)

This idea of receiving others as a gift is emerging for a theme for me as I live out my faith. I’m still processing all of this, but I’m seeing connections among the types of books and ministries to which I have been drawn over the years and it seems to come back again and again to this idea. I hope to be able to write more about this as time goes on.

For now, please know that you are a gift to me. Thank you for reading!

Please connect with me either in the comments below, by e-mail at livingfaithjct (AT) gmail (DOT) com or on Facebook or Twitter (see the green buttons on the page); I love hearing from you!

Read other posts of mine about others as gifts:

The More Different We Are, The More We Need Each Other

Shutdown as Opportunity

3 Dec

How Being “Relevant” Eludes Me

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Community, Vocation. Tagged: , , , , , , .

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This is my view at my bistro table on the porch where I do a lot of my thinking, reading and writing.

One of my biggest challenges as a creative type is that of being “relevant” with my content. I fail at relevance on at least two counts, but I still want to believe what I say matters.

Relevance Fail #1

My first and most obvious failure to be relevant is related to what a theologian reportedly taught his students: to examine life with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. I’m sure that is brilliant, but, as my mother would say, “it’s not my gift.”

Maybe it should be my gift. But it isn’t.

The thing is, it takes me a long time to consume media and truly process it in such a way to be able to say or write something meaningful about it:

  • In my 30+ years of exposure to the Bible, I still have only begun to scratch the surface.
  • I still listen to music that I got in my teens and early twenties–not because I’m afraid to try new music, but because I’m still avidly enjoying the old stuff.
  • There are books that I read 10 and 20 years ago that I am just now mining for deeper insights than ever before–I’m nowhere near finished processing them.

I’m still dwelling on ancient holy writings, vintage music, and books from yesteryear. Shallow treatment of ideas, texts or other media is not in my nature. As an introvert I go deep with each source rather than branching widely into numerous outlets.

I’m not saying I ignore current events. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just that my brain won’t hold pages and pages of the latest news on top of everything else I am still processing.

In my human limitations I have to pick and choose the sources with which I go deep and those that I skim over or ignore. If I ever seem aloof, it is because my brain is deeply engaged in mulling over old information instead of absorbing the latest tidbits.

I fail at relevance because I don’t react to current events in a timely & meaningful way.

Relevance Fail #2

The other way that relevance eludes me is just in general trying to figure out what my readers (or potential readers) want to read and being able to deliver it.

I mean, I have a ton of ideas about what I want to write about. But I just never know what’s going to resonate with people.

I know other bloggers have dealt with this too, the idea that something you think is brilliant gets only a cool reception whereas something you just dash off quickly gets shared all over the place.

This is also a struggle for me because what I’m doing on the blog is, at least in part, a coming of age. Much of what is here is just me blabbing about my issues, my preoccupations, my fear of being irrelevant, etc. I want this space to be for us, but many times I need it to be for me.

So, I fail at relevance again because my content ends up being more self-serving than might be helpful. And when I try to be helpful to others, I’m still uncertain what to write about.

Reason to Hope

It’s possible, despite my relevance-challenges, that what I write and say can still matter:

  • The very depth with which I engage media actually serves me well in providing troves of ideas for what to write about. My constant thinking and processing of old information often leads to creative insights in the here and now.
  • Even though I’m not always quite sure what my readers need, I am listening. I may not be relevant by nature, but I am very relational. By being where people are and engaging with them I get a better sense of what they need.

What has been really cool is that since I started blogging and writing more I’ve been having more interesting conversations. Once I started putting my ideas out there and offering my two cents on just whatever I have gotten into great discussions with folks.

I’m finding new depths of engagement with people–even those I know best in my life. Just by putting myself out here in some way I have become more incarnational, more present to people.

Even if I am still processing old information and tossing around my own personal baggage, I’m here.

I’m showing up and making myself available. And I’m pretty sure that matters.

30 Nov

Sent to Serve

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Community, Vocation. Tagged: , , , , , , .

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I’m guest-posting for Zach Hoag’s Rooted: Revisiting Missional Church series today. My topic is Sent to Serve. I explain in the intro:

As a Deaconess I’m struck by the parallels between missional and diaconal theology. The missional mindset that we are sent on God’s mission to the world closely resembles the diaconal theology that we are sent to serve.

And here is a bit more:

A lot of times in church we think that serving God means that we would have to be a pastor or other paid church staff. We may think we can’t do that, but at least we could sing in the choir or praise team. Or if we’re uncertain about the up front stuff, maybe we could help set up communion or run the sound board for worship.

We often get into the mindset that the truly holy service to God is in the church. But the profound, and often overlooked, message of the sending rite is that we are sent to serve God in our everyday lives. Certainly pastoral duties, musical offerings and behind-the-scenes work at worship are acts of service, but wait, there’s more–much more to our serving.

>>>Click here to read the rest of the post, “Sent to Serve.”<<<

P.S. I know what it’s like to follow someone’s blog and then all of a suddenly they want you to go read their guest post somewhere else. When I was new to blog-reading I remember thinking, “I don’t want to read their site, I want to read yours!” But let me assure you, this post is all me and it is every bit as good as what you can read here. I love the generosity of bloggers like Zach in opening his (much larger than mine) platform to people like me. This is a great writing opportunity for me and a great reading opportunity for you if you click over for my post and the others in the Rooted series.

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