Little help here?
So I’m trying to figure out exactly what this blog will look like over the next couple of years. I’ve committed myself to putting some serious time into RLP. I thought maybe you could help me think about this.
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The Covenant Stories
Covenant Stories: The Passion of Steven
Story #28 in the Covenant series
Before reading this story you should read “The Advent of Steven” from last week.
I don’t know how the Kramers found our church. We’re off the beaten path and we don’t advertise. Maybe it was God; I don’t know. Jennifer was only 19 and David was 20, but they already looked beaten, worn, and creased. They were rough in speech and manner. He worked construction and she worked off and on at the 7-11. David Jr. was three and little Stacy was 7 weeks old. It was like meeting the people you see on “COPS”. One night Jennifer punched her mother in the nose. David was outraged because she was holding the baby at the time. He felt that any decent mother would have put the child down first. David was having his own troubles as he maintained a shaky sobriety. The last time Jim Beam got the best of him, he fought the police officer who responded to the neighbor’s call. They had to pry David Jr. off his leg before they could take him away to jail.
About a month after the Kramers started coming to church we were gathered together for our Wednesday night meal. Everyone was sitting around the tables chatting after supper when we heard a terrible scream down the hall. The first thing I saw was Lyle and Cathy running toward JoAnn, one of our deacons, who was carrying Steven into the kitchen. Steven was screaming in pain, and there was something in the scream that made every parent stop talking. We knew it was something serious....
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Covenant Stories: The Advent of Steven
Story #27 in the Covenant series
So what did you do in the 90s?
A couple in our church, Lyle and Cathy, spent the 90s trying to have a baby. They blew an entire decade doing the infertility dance. You know the infertility dance, right? First you try to relax and “let it happen”. Then you pray to Jesus, who you know could help but is often busy doing other things. After that you give all your money to doctors and do all the weird stuff they recommend. Finally, you bow to your partner and offer up your credit cards.
This dance will flat take it out of you.
None of it worked for Lyle and Cathy. For them it was one disappointment after another...
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Covenant Stories: 911
Story #26 in the Covenant series
There are defining tragedies for every generation, and those who live through them never forget what they were doing when the news broke. Pearl Harbor was like that, as was president Kennedy’s assassination. The people of this generation will never forget where they were when they heard that planes had flown into the World Trade Center towers.
Not only do we not forget where we were when a national tragedy happened, we never tire of telling the story. On the anniversary of these events, people tell each other what they were doing when they heard. It is a ritual that clearly helps us deal with the pain and grief.
On September 11, 2001, I was coming home from dropping off my oldest at school. I heard on the radio that a plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. By the time I...
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Covenant Stories: A Place to Be
Story #24 in the Covenant series
There are 23 Covenant stories behind us and more still to tell. But I’d like to stop for a moment and write something rather personal. A church is a living organism made up of the lives of the people who are a part of the community. And the life of a church is the sum total of all their experiences over time. Thousands of Sundays, Wednesdays, ceremonies, celebrations, and tragedies make up the story of a church. If someone tries to tell that church’s story, the best he or she can do is select a few moments, like snapshots, and try to communicate a sense of its reality. But you can’t really tell the story of a church. No one can. The only thing you can do is experience a church community by being a part of it.
So I’d like to tell you what Covenant Baptist Church has meant to me. Because I have been a part of this community for 20 years.
Jeanene and I came here fresh out of seminary in 1989, when the Baptist wars over the Bible were at their peak. I wanted to get a Ph.D. in New Testament and teach. I swore publicly that I would never be the pastor of a church – many people heard me say it. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake. It’s like double-dog-daring God. I’m not arrogant enough to claim that God would expend any divine energy just to teach me a lesson, but it is kind of funny if you think about it...
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Covenant Stories: Roberto's Mark
Story #23 in the Covenant series
In the summer of 1999 construction began on our church building. A few days before the foundation was poured, on a whim, I retrieved 15 or 20 small rocks from the ground directly beneath what would be our fireplace. I wanted a building as much as anyone, but I also knew that once we poured the foundation, things would never be the same. Some of the wildness of our land would be gone. A part of it would be tamed. It may sound silly, but I felt like I was rescuing these rocks. I didn’t want them spending the next century or two covered in concrete. I hoped the rocks would help me remember that there was a time when our land was completely wild with nothing on it designed by humans.
It was our idea to be as gentle as possible with our construction, minimizing the impact the building had upon the land. If that is your desire, you should know that you will have to watch the construction workers closely. People in the construction business are often forced to think about saving money and time, so they can be a little insensitive about flora and fauna. One can hardly blame them since their clients complain the most about money and schedules.
My first lesson in this reality was a painful one...
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Covenant Stories: The Blanket
Story #22 in the Covenant series
On the blanket in 1995. The girl who hugs me at the end is my daughter, Reiley, who is now 20
Kenny came up with the idea for the blanket years before he and the others started our church. He used to talk about it with his friends and say, “If I ever start a church I want a blanket for the kids to sit on with me during worship.” Kenny didn’t like children’s sermons, as they are called, and I’m inclined to agree with him. Our blanket time has been a more informal thing. Sometimes I have something to tell the kids. Sometimes I listen to what they have to say. Most of the time I have no idea what is going to happen until we sit down, which makes the blanket time perhaps the most unpredictable element of our worship. It also makes the blanket very difficult to explain to the sort of person who needs every part of worship to have a theological justification....
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Covenant Stories: Main's Folly
Story #21 in the Covenant series
If you go down the road on the right side of our property, past the building and past the storage shed we had to buy because someone kept stealing our lawnmower, all the way to the back and beyond the labyrinth, then just beyond the cactus patch where JoAnn Chappell saw the big snake that one year, you’ll see a patch of healthy and thriving cactus. It is all that remains of something we used to call “Main’s Folly.”
While we were clearing the land for the building back in 1999, we made quite a few piles of brush and wood at the back of the property. Someone had to burn those piles, and that job fell to Michael Main and me...
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Covenant Stories: Clearing the Land
Story #20 in the Covenant series
There is something magical and exciting when a church building project moves from the cerebral world of ideas to the physical world of dirt and work and sweat. The marking of that special moment is often a ceremonial ground-breaking with painted gold shovels. The pastor and some of the deacons heft a small amount of loose dirt in their shovels and smile for the cameras. That’s as close to the land as most of them will get in their construction project. After the ceremony, the people in suits leave, and the construction team begins the actual work. Something about that scenario didn’t set right with our church. A number of us had been walking this land for close to a decade, dreaming of someday seeing a building there. We felt a passionate connection to our land. The plants, while hostile and thorny, were familiar to us and loved for their wildness. We wanted to be a part of the construction. We wanted to get dirty. The suggestion was made that we clear the building site ourselves instead of hiring someone with a bulldozer. I don’t remember who suggested this, but I don’t recall a single dissenting voice...
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Covenant Stories: Joe's Napkin
Story #19 in the Covenant series
With Trinity Baptist Church on board to help with financing, we were ready to move forward with the construction of our first building. Before we could build, the property needed a topographical survey, but our land was so covered with vegetation that it was practically impenetrable. Apart from a narrow road down the right side of the property and a small clearing at the back, it was a solid mass of trees, cactus, vines, and thorny plants. A few years earlier, I put on heavy clothing and boots and managed to make my way from the back of the property to the front. It took me an hour, and I spent much of that time crawling. Not stooping, but crawling on my belly. As far as I know, I’m the only person who ever made the attempt. And I only did it once. I did find a massive Juniper tree near the center of the property that day. We now call it “Old Man Cedar.” That tree will have its own story later on....
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Covenant Stories: No Right Answers
Story #18 in the Covenant series
The next chapter in our story is one I tell with fear and trembling. It is one of the lowest moments in our church history - at least for me. My fear is not of telling the story but of being the only one to tell the story. I’m sure everyone who was involved remembers it in their own way and with their own spin. At the time I felt trapped in the middle, trying to hold the church together, trying to keep everyone happy, and trying to do the right thing. In the end several families left our church and others were very angry with me. It was one of the few times in my life when no amount of good intentions or careful negotiation could prevent a painful outcome. There seemed to be no right answers.
It was 1998 and we were still meeting at Rolling Oaks Christian Church. We had just formalized our agreement with Trinity Baptist Church to move forward with our plans for a building of our own. With their financial backing and help, for the first time I felt confident that our church would survive and put a building on our land. It all began with a phone call from a nervous-sounding woman. She was cautious in speaking to me but very clear and straightforward.
“My name is Mary.* I’m an ordained Baptist minister and a chaplain at a hospital here in town. I’m in a long-term, monogamous relationship with a woman. Her name is Karen...
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Archive of my High Calling Writing.
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Works in Progress
“Bearing Witness,” a Foy Davis story set in Fort Davis, Texas when Foy was in 3rd grade. Part one is roughed out. Should be ready next week.
“Lenten Satchel,” a short essay on the strange items that make up my Lenten journey this year. Because of Tracy’s comment.
“Talk to the Hand” Finished. Posted 3-12 at rlp
“Last Things,” an essay about my final days at Covenant. Soon to be published by the Christian Century. Will be linked here when it is online at the CC website.
My Latest Book
I’m proud to announce that Turtles All The Way Down came out in November of 2009. This was my first experience with the Consafo model of social media community publishing.
2000 copies were printed. We sold well over 500 as advance purchases or in the weeks leading up to Christmas. This paid for the printing costs completely.