Heard the Word: Angela Hancock

Hancock preached on Matthew 22: 1-14. Now, if you're just reading this to gloss for ideas, that's great. I want you to keep reading. After you click the link for the text and read it. All of it. I'm serious. Go do it.

Yeah. Verses 13 and 14 are in there.

Hancock read the passage, then ushered up immediately into prayer, "Because after that, I think we need it."

My next post on Hancock's lecture deals with a lot of the underpinnings of this sermon, but for now, I just want to step it through, because it's construction isn't all that complex or original:

She begins with three contemporary stories of individuals who are 'invited.' Invited to church, invited to deeper faith, invited into faith-based relationships. And all three of them somehow turn down the invitation. But Hancock reminds us that there always comes another invitation. So...how do we handle this text?

She then hopped into the text, really imagining the scene with us, and acknowledges quickly that it isn't a normal story about the world as we know it. Something else is going on here, something bigger than that that we can't quite wrap our arms around.

And so, she jumps into the theological implications of the text, sorting through popular ways of interpreting it. It was like she was sorting through old photographs, looking for the one that matched the picture in her mind, and yet, there wasn't one there. She kept setting aside interpretations and digging further into the pile, eventually uncovering with us that this story is not something we can fit into a Polaroid frame. No. It's something much worse than that, she told us.

But she told us we could avoid the terrible. We could avoid the hard. We could just look at the text and avoid verses 11-14. Or 13 and 14. We could just make it a question of whether or not you will accept the invitation to the theological wedding banquet. And drop the mic there.

But Hancock pushes us to consider verse 14--verse 14 which causes us such holy confusion, which causes us to wonder what in the world is happening here, which causes us to want to fix the story. Again, we encounter the idea that this is not a normal story about a normal wedding banquet that Jesus is telling here. And so again, she moves through the traditional interpretations of this text: that the man is not righteous enough to be at the party, that the man is not faithful enough to be at the party, because he didn't care enough to take the robes offered him at the entrance to the party (literalist interpretation), because Jesus never would have said this and so he didn't.

For a moment, she steps back and looks at this interpretation, and uncovers our bias. We want so badly for the man to be kicked out because he deserves it. We want so badly for Jesus not to come off sounding like a jerk here. But then, there's verse 14 to deal with, and we find that it's true, this is not just a story about humanity's failing or a man who doesn't dress appropriately for a party. Instead, it's a story about God's way with us. And if this is how God deals with us, then what are we to make of this?

At this point, my notes dropped off. Because the interpretive turn that Hancock took was new to me. She insisted that Jesus is really the one kicked out of the banquet, that Jesus is the one who was found to be unworthy by the host and was bound, and tossed, and sent where nobody wants to go. It was Jesus who was chosen. Hancock concluded with an image of Jesus having offered his wedding robe to us, so that we could partake of the banquet. And then, she walked off stage.

So, my first instinct was to pick up my Bible and frantically locate the text and read the other stories surrounding it. Here, Jesus is talking to the chief priests and elders at the temple in Jerusalem. The two parables that Jesus tells before this refer to them (they finally realize). I could see how Hancock came to this interpretation. But I was also surprised that with as much openness as she had in the exegetical process in the content of her sermon that she didn't make this process more clear. Instead, she dropped it on us, then walked away.

This is a general critique of the Festival--it felt like most of the preachers didn't know how to end a sermon. So often, I felt like a burden had been dropped on my lap, needed still to be unpacked and given some kind of instruction in order to take it out into the world. So often with these sermons, I felt I would rather leave that package sitting on the pew when I left. Now, I'm going to err on the side of generosity and assume that these folks know they are preaching to professional preachers, and so they can toss a few harder passes at us than someone who is just picking up the sport of faith, but I couldn't help but shake this feeling that some of what they were teaching in doing this just WILL NOT translate in our congregations today.

But past this, I think this was an important sermon for me to hear because I am often so caught up in sermon delivery and structure. This sermon was not delivered or structured in any way that was surprising or even all that exciting. It was entirely the focus on the story, knowing that we would eventually get to the difficult part that I didn't understand, it was the promise that we wouldn't ignore that strangeness of it that kept me engaged. For me, it tied in nicely with Brian McLaren's session the previous morning about reshaping how we look at texts and how we might do better to engage them fully. For me, Hancock's message showed me how to deal with a difficult pericope that doesn't initially sound like it winds up in a place of grace. But through faithful interpretation and understanding, it might just do that.

Heard the Word: Yvette Flunder

All. Right. I think all of us from Eden were ready for Flunders' message. We were ready for some church. We were ready for some celebration. And she did not disappoint. Her message title, "God is a Mighty Good Healer" was based on a phrase her grandmother would use while working in the kitchen. Flunder remembered how out of nowhere, her family would hear her grandmother exclaim, "Hey! Hallelujah!" from the kitchen while she cooked. A remembrance of God's incredible work in the world would strike her, and she wouldn't wait to celebrate. She would do it right then and there.

Flunder preached on John 9: 1-11, what she calls the "second spitting incident" in Jesus healing ministry to the blind (see Mark 8: 23-26 for the other). Early on, I could see how Moss' lecture about preaching the blues was at play in Flunder's message, so I honed in on that as she preached.

Right up front, Flunder laid on us the biblical blues, exploring the very real problem of blindness in biblical times--20 out of every 100 people was blind in some way, whether it was near- or far-sightedness, cataracts, or another sight impairment, there were no options for correction then. She used this information as a springboard into discussing the problem of blindness in places in the world today where good medical care, nutrition, access to clean water, and eye care are not accessible. She sang the eschatological blues, helping us to see the issue in the here and now.

And for most of the sermon, she riffed between the two of these, building the tension between the biblical blues and our present circumstances. She nuanced it all as she moved through the text, teasing out its meaning, walking it through in these terms. Her celebration was introduced here--that Jesus' healing isn't about just getting better...it's about "removing stigma so that we could return to productivity." And Flunder does celebrate this for a while, sitting with the idea that if we are changed, we can change the world. If we are free, we can free anyone who we come into contact with.

And as she builds this tension, she worked up to the theological blues--that many of us are unwilling to be healed. That many of us resist God's healing power because of what will be expected of us next. When the man's eyes were healed, he had a charge--to go to the "pool of sent" and to return to productivity. How many of us resist God's healing because we don't actually want to be productive?

But she continued to celebrate--to celebrate the times when we do heal. To celebrate the imagined space in which we all walked out into the world whole, bearing stigma for our difficulties no more, and preaching the gospel by sharing our experience.

But probably the coolest moment of the sermon for me was when she was able to connect her vision of wholeness with that preaching moment. She told us that she was, "Preaching in tongues." She said that her mere presence at this festival, and the fact that she was preaching out of her culture and that we (a significant majority WASPs) could understand her was the work of the Holy Spirit at work in the world and in the church that she wanted to celebrate. I want to come back to this and write more about cultures represented here, but that moment really was of note for me.

Flunder's sermon was excellent. But I'm also excited that I was able to apply Moss' lecture to it. I really believe that having a capacity to speak about and for tragedy is an important part of preaching, and Flunder gave me an excellent model for how to do that faithfully.

Heard the Word: MaryAnn McKibben Dana

MaryAnn McKibben Dana

MaryAnn McKibben Dana is a pastor and writer (check out her blog The Blue Room) and mom and spouse and denominational leader and spiritual speaker and OH MY WORD WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING WITH MY LIFE??? Seriously. She's one of those people who, when you read their bio, you think, "How. How? How!" But then, when you hear her preach, she's so nice and wonderful and focused and passionate, you think, "Oh!"

So, she's a regular congregational preacher like most of the Festival attendees, and her message "Lips, Stomach, Heart" based on Matthew 15: 10-28 was a really fine example of a preacher who has wrestled with her text, come up a with a bloody lip, and is sharing her honest learnings with the assembly. Her movement from an image of "Jesus caught with his compassion down" to a God of ever-increasing grace was thoughtful, aware of the listener, couched in our current context, and really accessible. I can see why she's a great congregational speaker.

One piece of her message that struck me was her commentary on our current culture of saying more and more about less and less and her commentary on our snark-obsessed virtual world. She reads the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman through this lens. And if Jesus' words are less than kind, our cultured response would be to expect, even demand, snarkiness back. Instead, Dana called us to something greater, to one-liners that elevate. She said, "The Canaanite woman does this: She polishes the defiled words [Jesus spoke to her] off, and hands them back and says, 'There. That's more like it.' That's our job as preachers, too, in an age of snarkiness."

So often, I get caught up in a culture of quick retort and snark. It's funny, fun, and oftentimes immediately gratifying. A deft smart response often gets a greater reaction (and support, really) than does a thoughtful one. How often, then, as a preacher, am I able to just as quickly respond with words that elevate? With words that take the conversation to a more balanced, peace-filled space, where ideas can be handed back with a little sheen of grace on them. Actually, I think that this is the pastoral care aspect of what Anna Carter Florence was talking about in her discussion of living in a parable universe--when we see sacramentally, we can preach sacramentally, but then we must also live sacramentally in our everyday conversations. One liners that elevate. Gonna let that one marinate.

Dana appeared to be a confident preacher, who brought her own style to the preaching moment. One classmate pointed out that she was herself, even down to her patterned pants, not trying to dress down or up or around or any other way that looked uncomfortable for her. She moved. She gestured. And she seemed like herself.

Her preaching inspired a conversation between a classmate and myself about how women use their voices. We talked about the breathiness that so many women adopt when addressing a large group (Dana did not do this, but 4 of the 5 women who asked questions afterward did.). Where does it come from? I said that I thought it was a way of sounding humble and unassuming. To speak with breathiness is to defer in some way, but my friend said that she found it to be sickeningly sweet. Both of us agreed that it can be one way that women choose to make their voices smaller in society. I began thinking about how clearly Anna Carter Florence and Barbara Brown Taylor spoke today, how I was captivated not only by their words, but by the strong, clear tone of their voices. It's something I need to pay better attention to in myself. How often am I minimizing myself through my voice or actions (or humor, as is often my case)? How might this be diminishing the message I have been tasked with giving?

Heard the Word: Barbara Brown Taylor

Barbara Brown Taylor and students from Eden. Boom.

You can access the full-text of BBT's sermon here courtesy of Time.com.

It started of well. A hymn about darkness (Brian Wren's "Joyful is the Dark"). A vivid reading of Exodus 20: 18-21 and Luke 9: 32-36. The beginning of a sermon titled, "Inside the Dark Cloud of God." Taylor set out her preaching task early on--that while instead of preaching in the direction everyone was looking, that she instead was wandering from the crowd, looking in the opposite direction, and finding God in the darkness.

Taylor made clear that this was not some apophatic effort on her part. Rather, through Exodus 20, she digs into the idea that God IS dark. Dark like a cloud. And that dark is so, so much harder to look at, but so very formative to who we are as people of faith. She called us into a place where we wandered into the darkness, telling us that the darkness was not a place to pass through, but is actually God's home. This home is completely off-putting--we have no sense of control, of direction, of ability to use any of the tools and equipment we rely on in the light. Instead, we only have what we came in with, and the stark faith that we realize has only really taken us where we want to go anyway. The darkness, Taylor said, inspires us to hold out the broken pieces of ourselves to God and to say, "Here. Do what you want with these." It is place of true humility, true uncertainty, and true promise.

And then the sermon ended.

I wish I were kidding. As we rose and shared the responsive prayer ("A Prayer for Darkness in an Age of Glare" by Rod Jellema), I was confused. What just happened? I turned to my preaching professor who was sitting next to me and asked him, "What just happened?" He was uncertain as well. And as others filed out the door, I continued to ask myself and my classmates, "Seriously. What just happened?"

Because I had just started to step into the darkness of that cloud with Taylor. I had just begun to see how the resourcelessness, the darkness, and the loneliness might just be something where God could do some amazing work. And I was preparing to step in more fully. I was preparing to learn how the preacher might lead into that cloud. I was hoping to also find some grace in that cloud. But my expectations were left hanging, and I was left completely disoriented. Was she leaving us in the cloud to illustrate a point? Was she just pressed for time? Why didn't she deal at all with the Luke text? What is going on?

And so, after scribbling my notes, I went to make my way out of the sanctuary. And exiting at (nearly) the same time (I had to loiter just a few moments) was Barbara Brown Taylor herself. And I had to tell her. I had to stop her and say, "You know, I am completely disoriented by your message." And her response, "Well, you should be. It's not something that is preached on often. We don't talk about it." She went on to say that Scripture, Christian tradition, and our own experience all testify to the darkness, but that we still don't talk about it. And we need to. And that's when she laid it on me. "So, that's your job. You preach it so that it's not so disorienting in the future." Whoa. That was heavy. I mean, I still managed to smile for the photo, but whoa.

I still don't know about the message itself. Part of me is cynical enough to wonder a little bit about whether it was an excellent tease for her latest book. But part of me is feeling like the sense of unease I felt (and still feel) about that message is illustrative of the deeper truth of the thing--that darkness is disarming and uncertain, and you can't preach on it without experiencing a bit of it yourself. In any case, now I have to go read Learning to Walk in the Dark. Not such a horrible task, I suppose.

Heard the Word: Anna Carter Florence

When Anna Carter Florence came to Eden for Opening Convocation in fall 2013, I sat next to her at the post-Chapel picnic as my then-nine month old daughter attempted to grasp baked beans off of my plate. She was gracious and interested in my daughter, in my experience of seminary as a mother, and of engaging the conversation around her. Since reading Preaching as Testimony for preaching class this last semester, I feel further in love, and so I was looking forward to hearing what she had to say today.

Technically, this was a lecture, but I'm still going to categorize it as sermon. Her work came out of her challenge to herself and her students to live in "A Parable Universe" (incidentally, this was the title of her lecture)--a universe in which one lives in and actually expects to collide constantly with flashes of insight that can only be glimpses of the kingdom of heaven in the here and now. ACF operates with the idea that the kingdom of God is constantly interrupts and itself into the here and now. I think I'd take the approach that the kingdom of God is always available, always there, and when we are startled by it, it's not because it's just now shown up...it's because we've just now been able to perceive it.

And so, her lecture introduced the idea that parables actually happen all the time, all around us, and as preachers, our job is to look for them and to find the words to describe them to others. I. Love. This.

Now, ACF could have left it there. She could have handed us this lovely method for sermon preparation, for living the preaching life, and then dropped the mic. But she didn't. Instead, she expertly dug into Matthew 4: 12-25, acting as professor of preaching to Jesus' first sermons. She says that Jesus' first sermon sounds a lot like his preaching mentor, John's--Repent! For the Kingdom of God is near! But, she says...he doesn't just stay there. He looks around. He lives in Capuernaum, and actually lives there. He listens. He learns. He gets to know the peoples' language, their plight, their vernacular and their lives so that when he preaches his next sermon, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people," his message is much more his own. And she goes on to illustrate how Jesus mastery of parable is what makes him so easy to understand. His preaching is made up of the stuff of gossip, of town concerns, of worry, of fretting, of beautiful moments, and of tough times. Jesus sees the opportunity for parable all around, and so he speaks them. (Context matters, it seems.)

For Jesus and for us, parables are a way of putting words to how people have been seeing the Kingdom of God all along. They know how to do it already. The preaching task, then, is to have the observational clout and the guts to point it out.

I'd be leaving out something if I didn't mention how at ease ACF's presence is. While she wasn't preaching, she still gave me the sense that there is something stripped away about her--something raw and no-nonsense, something genuinely interested in the deeper thing happening in whatever is happening. What would it mean to be so keenly aware the something deeper in the preaching moment? What would it mean to walk to the pulpit with that in the absolute front of your mind--the expectation that the moment in itself is a parable? Because for me, the Kingdom of God is like listening to a female preacher tell the story of God's Kingdom here and now.

And so, I wonder if there was a parable in our prior meeting: That the Kingdom of God looks like a community gathered for lunch after church. A lunch in which, among others, an infant and her mother and a celebrated preacher all sit together and observe what a wonderful, beautiful thing it is to watch an infant try to grasp a baked bean, chubby fists chasing it across the table in the midst of a smiling atmosphere that drinks in this realm of God.

Heard the Word(?): Kevin Kling, Storyteller

Kevin Kling!

So, this was billed as some kind of talk entitled, "Preaching with Holy Imagination," but I don't think that's what actually happened. Instead, I think Kevin Kling treated us to some great stories. I kept waiting for the preaching application, for the explicit link between what he was doing and what we were doing there, but I never really heard it. So, was it preaching?

Before we jump into that one, let me first say that Kling is an immensely talented storyteller. He spoke about seeing grace in the everyday things of life, and through his stories it was easy to see that he finds humor and relationships to be the means of that grace. He had the audience immediately with his wit and ease. He shared about himself in ways that could have been uncomfortable, but he did so with a grace that made it friendly, made it personal, made it sharing.

All of Kevin's stories had a sweetness and an edge to them--many of them involved his navigation of life as a person with a disability. And I noticed that Kling is a master of taking the audience right up to the brink of grace, and then giving it a flick of humor, sending the moment off in a fit of laughter. And observing this made me wonder whether grace is experienced as fully when it's packaged as a punchline. In speaking with my classmates afterwards, everyone seemed to have enjoyed his talk. And rightfully so: his vignettes were masterfully crafted, his presence was unassuming, and he kept us with him the whole way.

For me, the experience lacked seriousness, and for some reason, I equate this with grace, with preaching. It's likely this says more about me than it does Kling. But then I began to wonder whether the grace of the experience was just in the experience itself--in laughing together, in glimpsing what life for someone who is differently-abled than me is like without feeling exploitative, in hearing familiarity and difference in our lives, in hearing his witness to the power of prayer and sacramental vision. I don't know.

And I still don't know if I think this was preaching. But I can tell you that I'll be chewing on that for a while.

Heard the Word: Rev. David Lose Festival Of Homiletics 2014

David Lose looks quite pleased with himself.

Monday, May 19, 2014--6:30pm
"Singing Songs Old and New"
Ephesians 5: 15-20

Full disclosure: It took us like 25 minutes to walk the 3 blocks between our hotel and Central Lutheran Church because our little group of six is terrible at maps. When we walked into the church, worship had already started. We registered, then took our seats a few minutes into the sermon. So...maybe I missed some key parts. Keep that in mind as you read on.

Shortly after sliding into my seat, Lose began to talk about the phenomenon of hearing a song on the radio--a song one hadn't heard in years--and upon hearing it, being able to recall every word. At this, he launched into the chorus of "American Pie," with the 1,800 person congregation joining him. At the conclusion of the chorus, the assembly seemed genuinely amazed by the experience, and I sat stunned. These are not my people, I thought.

As Lose continued, he did talk about song having different functions--of building comradery, of helping to pass the long, difficult hours in certain dark periods of life, of uniting, of teaching the faith. He continued on in this vein for a while, fleshing out several examples, making some tidy connections. And as he concluded, he challenged those assembled to imagine a world without song. And then he asked us to imagine if the congregation would lead the world in song. And then we proceeded to BUTCHER "Amazing Grace" in a way I have never experienced...and I have sung "Amazing Grace" with a room full of people with advanced dementia.

As you can probably tell, this message bothered me. Deeply. I mean, it was all very nice. It was all very sweet. But come on! Music is so much more than nice and sweet! Maybe it's my reading of Moss informing my thoughts here, but music is so much more than what he's even touching on. And what Paul is calling the Ephesians to in this letter is so much more than nice and sweet hymn-sings. Music can be a weapon, subversion, unifying, sanctifying. I was waiting for the thunder of this message and only got a light mist, reminiscent of the drizzle falling as we walked to the church.

Even more than the surface nature of the message, I was bothered by the...well...the churchy-ness of it all. It felt like church people talking about and enjoying how great it is to be church people and how great it is to sing church songs. Which is wonderful. If you are a church person. I picked up on church music quickly because I love music and because one space I could regularly make music was in church. But your average unchurched millenial isn't going to walk in off the street knowing the verses to "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." Sorry, Luther. So, what then? In Lose's imagined congregation leading the world in song, what song are they singing? And would anyone else know the words?

I was also bothered by the smallness of the vision. It seemed in Lose's final vision that he was asking the world to join in one song, blending in harmony as they sang the words. But what hymnal would the world be using (because it was made clear it would be from a hymnal)? What version? What tempo? What language would the words be in? This is a long-winded way of saying that what I heard in this message was a vision of the world that doesn't actually take a pluralistic, multicultural, varied, beautiful, diverse world seriously. And that bothers me. Deeply.

Music? Yes. But singing the old songs because that's all you know? No. Definitely not.

Heard the Word: Rev. Frank A. Thomas on Happy

Last evening was commencement for Eden Theological Seminary's Class of 2014. Rev. Frank A. Thomas Matthew 5: 1-12. Having read one of his books for the preaching class I took this past semester, I was excited to experience his message firsthand. His message was dynamic, relevant, connected to the gospel message, and delivered in a way that made me feel spoken to and not preached at.

Rev. Frank A. Thomas--See? He talks with his hands.

offered a message entitled, "What Makes You Happy?" based on

Thomas' "exegetical bridge," as he called it, was to draw the connection between Pharrell William's hit song, "Happy" and the Beatitudes (working the translation from "Blessed are..." to "Happy are..."). Beyond just making a nicely little connection and pointing us towards a great pop culture artifact (he tipped me off to 24hoursofhappy.com--a 24 hour music video of people being happy to "Happy."), he dug deeper into both Pharrell William's story and the message of the Beatitudes to categorize 'happiness' as "offering your gift to the world in the purity of your call and in the discipline of your hard work." 

Over and over, Thomas came back to this phrase, molding it, defining it, redefining it, growing it, and eventually planting it into the hearts of those gathered to hear. By the end of the message, Williams' song had been redefined from a catchy hit to a call to discipleship, a celebration of living out the gifts God has given each of us in a way that is pure and disciplined. Perhaps one of the most powerful layers Thomas added to the message was his inclusion of Mother Teresa's "Anyway" poem. By the end of the message, he had everyone there responding to being "Happy, Anyway."

I think what stuck out most to me about experiencing Thomas' message in person is that his presence wasn't anything particularly striking. He talks with his hands, which was great for me to see. So far, I haven't seen many people who talk with their hands as much as I do preach from the pulpit. Seeing him do it helped me to understand how it might be possible for me to do the same. At the same time, he did have a nervous habit of messing with the tassel on his mortarboard cap, and pushing on his glasses.

But embodiment isn't want captivated us. It was the message itself. I had a deep sense that Thomas was simply convicted of the truth of his message, of the work he had put into it, and of the Spirit's work in its reception. It was the message that connected us to him in that moment, the message that did all the work for him. No doubt he read the room well, though, several times stopping and calling us to listen harder, to catch on to what the Word was speaking, and to respond to it ourselves. He was both teasing and gentle, assertive and generous, and he brought me to a space of excitement, honor, and truth about my own sense of call and how to live it out in the world.

The whole evening was a proud event. I watched people who I've watched come to bloom over the course of the last three years experience a culminating moment, and any time that happens, it is such a celebration. There was sweetness, a tinge of sadness, but overall excitement at the idea that if each of these people is able to live into the purity of his or her call and pair it with the discipline of his or her hard work, the world will be changed. That is reason for celebration, indeed.

Heard the Word: David Ruhe

David Ruhe, looking quite happy.

Today, I headed to Eden Theological Seminary for a special worship service for those graduating this evening. The preacher was David Ruhe, a pastor in the UCC tradition currently serving at Plymouth UCC in Des Moines, Iowa. His message was entitled, "Welcome to the Wilderness," using Exodus 17: 1-7. Now, I must be perfectly honest and say that I was there with my 17 month old daughter Jo, which made for an interesting experience. I had come armed with sliced bananas, Cheerios, water, and a variety of quiet toys in order to make it through the service, and mostly succeeded. I was able to sit through the whole sermon as Jo bot up and down from the chair next to me, played quietly, and ate and drank. Though my attention was diverted through much of the sermon, I was able to follow it pretty well. I attribute this to Ruhe's humorous, storytelling style. Below are just little things I wanted to make note of:

• Scripture Reading: Graduating student Cheree Trent Mills read Scripture, and did a fantastic job. I am wondering if she spoke to Ruhe beforehand, because I felt like her reading centered so strongly on   verse 4: So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
• Ruhe is a great storyteller. He shared the story of the first spaghetti dinner he did as a youth director right out of seminary, and it was great. He included such great descriptions of the scene, his feelings, expressions, and voice that I could really see the scene. A standout: his description of wheeling like a wild animal kneeling over its prey to growl at the senior pastor as he checked up on him. Ruhe also used a lot of impressions and caricatured voices in his sermon that really worked for him.
• Ruhe was funny. Even my 17 month old caught on and laughed, because he had everyone there chuckling along with his tales.
• His message about ministry was a simple one--about how entering ministry is entering into Moses' leading the Isrealites through the wilderness. But what Ruhe emphasized was that it needn't be a lonely space for new leaders. Instead, it could be a humerous space. A space shared with the laughter of colleagues. A space filled with the stories and misgivings of those who have come before you. 
• Ruhe didn't dig all that deep into the Scripture passage (or if he did, I missed it in trying to keep the Cheerios flowing), but he did make enough of a connection to keep it rooted there--seems like what I often do.
• Grace of this Message: Honestly? I think a part of the grace is that I could listen with one ear while tending a toddler and not feel like I missed anything. The other? He found a way to say, "Welcome to Ministry" without it sounding like either a threat or apology. That's hard to do.