The Body of Christ

The truth is that seminary helped me get rid of my "stained glass voice" so that I could be more natural in sermons. But the cartoon above is Dave Walker's view of one aspect of seminary. He has a funny way of looking at clergy gatherings, like this view of a bishop's meeting where they are all vested and jumping in a moon bounce:


I'm sure he would have some humurous idea of what my day will be like today. I am traveling to Statesboro to gather with all the clergy of the diocese for a visit by our Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts-Schori. This is in place of our fall clergy conference.

I used to see these sorts of gatherings as a distraction from what I was trying to do here in Camden County. I would go, but I didn't look forward to these meetings. They were something that was expected, but not particularly enjoyed.

Over the past eight years, I have come to see that what we are doing in Camden County is inextricably linked to what is going on in the 70 other Episcopal Churches in our Diocese of Georgia and beyond to all Anglicans and beyond that to what every Christian church is doing everywhere. We are all doing one thing. But that concept is difficult to get your mind around.

Now I look forward to these meetings and to gathering with local clergy in our Camden Christian Ministerial Alliance and other opportunities to meet with fellow priests and pastors. In these times I get to hear what God is doing in their corners of the Kingdom, which makes the concept of the Body of Christ more real to me.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

For just as the body is one and has many members,
and all of the members of the body,
though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.
—I Corinthians 12:12-13a

A Pastor's View of Ministry

Over at Resurgence, in a series on Death by Ministry, Mark Driscoll asks,

In what ways should a pastor view their ministry?

• Ministry is your fourth priority after being a Christian, husband, and father.
• Ministry is your job, not your life.
• God rewards faithfulness, not just fruitfulness.
• Your salvation and righteousness are gifts from Jesus and not contingent upon your performance.
• If you do not Sabbath, God will impose a Sabbath upon you.
• A series of sprints, with nine natural breaks out of the pulpit, rather than a marathon.
• Jesus is the Senior Pastor and the church is His.

I disagree with the second point above and find something to like in all the rest.

For me, I tend to think of being a priest in terms of who I am called to be, more than what I am called to do. I am called to be a person who wants to be at the hospital in the middle of the night when someone needs me there. That instead of I am the one who has to go to the hospital in the middle of the night because someone called. Though to the degree that is true, I suspect that it applies to all Christians. We are all called to be increasingly more like Jesus, and it is the being that matters.

Do any of these work for you or is there another way you view the role of a pastor? What about the role of all Christians?

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

The Beer Test

When I was in seminary and backed into a corner on a theological argument with no good defense, my preferred response was "Yeah, but my bishop can beat up your bishop."

I actually said that on more than one occasion, but as Bishop Louttit visited the seminary each year and ate lunch with me and John West in our Refectory (churchy name for cafeteria), people knew that my bishop (pictured at left) was unlikely to beat up anyone, much less someone else's bishop. He is a great man and a wonderful pastor to us pastors. I don't care that he doesn't have mad nunchuk skills or bow staff skills.

I thought of this because a blog post at Resurgence in which a pastor enamored of The Ultimate Fighter contends that he knows why men aren't so big on church:

So, I'll just say that while young men are watching tough men compete, the reason they don't go to most churches is because they could take the pastor and can't respect a guy in a lemon-yellow sweater, sipping decaf and talking about his feelings.

I ran across this by way of a response from from Henry's Web which said,

If you determine whether someone is worth listening to based on whether you could take him in a fight, if you despise someone because they wear a lemon-yellow sweater, sip decaf, or talk about their feelings, then you need to seriously reexamine both your intellectual and your spiritual life.

He might be right, but the point still holds. Even though I don't own a lemon yellow sweater and I wouldn't wear one if you bought it for me, I wouldn't last as long as a bull rider in the rodeo if you put me in the ring on The Ultimate Fighter. I did once show a video clip in a sermon from the movie Fight Club, but I am quite sure that's not the same thing.

What I heard at The Church Planters' Boot Camp as I was working on preparing to start King of Peace was that a founding pastor has to pass the Beer Test. Now this was said in a non-denominational, but largely evangelical church setting where drinking alcohol at all, much less for communion, is not always permitted. But the idea was that if the pastor isn't someone you would drink a beer with (or coffee or whatever) then you would probably wander on away from the church before getting connected. They said this mattered less with established church's as there are many more reasons than the pastor to join a church once well established. The claim was that in the early days of meeting in a school (or in our case a house) the pastor has to be someone you would want to spend time with even if it wasn't at church.

So I don't know if this is a more highly evolved answer, but I guess I am suggesting is that guys don't tend to look for a pastor who can blacken their eye or bloody their nose, but someone with whom they wouldn't mind drinking a beverage of choice with while watching The Ultimate Fighter. If you think, I'm right, leave a comment. If you think I'm wrong, meet me on the playground after school and we'll settle this thing there and then.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

Grateful

Today is the seventh anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. In some ways, that day doesn't seem so long ago. It feels like the Bishop was just wondering aloud at the service if the laying on of hands would "take" given all my curly hair. But then again, I have less of that hair now and more of it is gray. There is also the picture here of the service reminding me that the sanctuary in which I was ordained is gone. I was ordained at Trinity Episcopal Church in Statesboro, the church that sponsored me in seminary. The church building alongside the Georgia Southern campus in which I was ordained has since sold and been demolished. The new church building sits on the bypass and has for more than a few years now.

I recall Canon Bob Carter's sermon that day in which he challenged me to be the person of Word and Sacrament God called me to be. There were some days after that sermon, when I was killing a rattlesnake at the church (seven so far), or chopping down pine trees on our grounds, or ripping out a wall in the house that was once home to King of Peace, when I would wonder about what all that had to do with Word and Sacrament. But the answer was that those actions had plenty to do with what Bob charged me with that day. The Bishop would tell me along the way that he couldn't afford for me to find out what a priest did for a living, because he needed me doing what I was doing.

I think too of all the wonderful things that I have been able to see happen here in Kingsland in those seven years. I know that much of it is what God got done in spite of me rather than because me, but I'm grateful for all of it. Grateful for the many opportunities to preach, to celebrate communion, the baptisms, weddings, and funerals I have been honored to be a part of. It's been a lifetime of good memories these seven years. There have been tough times too. But without those, the positive things we have seen happen in the lives of people in our church and community would hold little meaning.

And mostly, I am grateful that this isn't a farewell speach, but an anniversary. I'd like to think that I have at least figured out what I am to do as a priest. I have never forgotten the person of Word and Sacrament Bob Carter reminded me I was called to be. I know that the coming year will bring many more adventures in Word and Sacrament. And I know that there will be more for which I will be grateful when this anniversary comes back around next fall.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

What a priest looks like

You are a chosen people.
You are a kingdom of priests,
God's holy nation, his very own possession.
This is so you can show others the goodness of God,
for he called you out of the darkness
into his wonderful light.
—I Peter 2:9 (NLT)


The Images of Priesthood Blog is an outgrowth of the Habits of the Priesthood course at my alma mater, Virginia Theological Seminary. The images of what a priest looks like include the metaphorical and parables as well as literal.

As the site's intent is to work with images relating to priests as we understand the priesthood generally in the Episcopal Church, the criticism I have is probably not valid. But what I notice is that they do not work at all with the New Testament idea of a priest. Their are three ways priests are discussed in the New Testament: 1) The temple priests in Jerusalem whose work ended with the destruction of the Temple in 70 a.d. 2) Jesus as our great High Priest (in the letter to the Hebrews), and 3) the priesthood of all believers.

The New Testament words for the orders of ministry—Bishop (Episkopos), Priest (Presbuteros) and Deacon (Diakonos)—show our current Episcopal Church usage of "priest" as shown in the images of priesthood blog applies to the presbuteros, or presbyters, which means "elders." So the blog and its look at images of the presbuteros, commonly referred to as priests in the Episcopal Church today is a great look at the range of meaning for that term. I just want to also uphold that we have four orders of ministry in the Episcopal Church: Lay persons, Bishops, Priests and Deacons. And the laity are an integral part of the Kingdom of Priests who serve God.

And so to the others here, I add my own favorite photo of myself as a priest. A church planter has to be ready, like a missionary in foreign lands, to cut out a clearing and build a church. At King of Peace, we did both of those things together as a congregation. And this photo (taken after I had chopped at some roots under water that were blocking free flow of water out of a wet area) dates to a time in the life of King of Peace when I would chop away at trees with abandon alongside my wife, Victoria, or Mark or Gil pause to catch my breath and say, "You say psycho like its a bad thing."

Since then, we have tamed our seven acres, built a worthy building to extend our ministry in the community and made it possible for the lay persons to live into their own priesthood as they find and follow the ministries God has for each of them by virtue of that ordination service we call baptism. So the answer to the question of what a priest looks like...a priest looks like you, especially when you are serving others.

peace,
frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

And now God is building you,
as living stones, into his spiritual temple.
What's more, you are God's holy priests,
who offer the spiritual sacrifices
that please him because of Jesus Christ.
—I Peter 2:5