I have many fond memories that we owe to that pastor family. Whether it was playing with their son in the church education area, or at their house, we felt close to the family. When I resolved to finally buckle down and get this riding a bike without training wheels thing down, I learned in the church parking lot, and their son showed me how they had taught him. I remember that Pastor Dave would collect cards from the Star Wars CCG (customizable card game) at the same time my brother and I did (we might have introduced him to it or he introduce it to us, I can't remember). Being boys with limited allowances we had to temper how often and how much of the cards we could get (although still collected quite a few) whereas our pastor could (much to our awe) spend significantly more on the cards and amass quite the collection. We were always amazed each week at the new cards he would show us that he got. I remember when he was missing just one card, I got it, and eagerly awaited Sunday so that I could offer it to him for one of his extras of the many cards I coveted. Much to my dismay, he had acquired that card by Sunday too, and did not need mine.
But the point was, to put it simply, Pastor Dave was cool. His whole family was nice and we were close with them. I hadn't thought about it until this week when I thought of them, but perhaps it is no coincidence that shortly after they left our church for another one, I became more and more detached from church. I long attributed that to teenage religious boredom and institutional rebellion. And I'm sure that was there. I know the loss of my grandma sort of sealed the deal on my displeasure of God and therefore the church. But perhaps it all began when I lost the pastor that was close with my family. Perhaps it began when I lost the pastors I as a little boy trusted.
As a pastor today it is easy to take for granted what it means to be valued by the children in the congregation. In part because too easily, to some degree or another, I and others like me can take our children's spirituality for granted. Oh we have hopes, we care about that spirituality (especially its longevity), but we can still so easily take for granted what it means to nurture that spirituality not just for the tomorrows but for today and this moment. Seeing children as "valuable" is not enough. Even when we value them, I think how easily it is to miss how they value - and perhaps that's the thing that we ignore the most sometimes. I know I can. But we shouldn't, because kids are making value judgments in our church. I just shared some about how I related with a pastor couple as a young boy. Although much of that was recreational and relational, it certainly was spiritual. It was because I know that the way Pastor Dave and Pastor Kris related to our family was because of Jesus Christ. We had other great family friends who were not Christian, but this love was drawn out by Jesus. It doesn't necessarily look different, but it is certainly spiritual. Love experienced in the church is inevitably spiritual because it is happening with an awareness - sometimes subconscious - that church discloses the reality of God and of what it means for people to believe in God. It was spiritual because of how as I also mentioned it was perhaps quite formative towards my experience of the church in general. Like it or not, the pastor was a key image for the church for me. And I'm not sure any theological argument would have changed that.
But this blog is actually going to get more specific now. I want to because too often we might not realize the powerful impact there can be on a young boy. As someone who personally is not a big fan of children's sermons, I can tell you however how it gave me an elementary appreciation of Word and Sacrament. I remember in our wildest days phase in that church. We would spend church time in the education area with the pastor's son during church. We'd play and wrestle and generally have a good time, but we were called in for two things: the children's sermon and communion (and we didn't even take communion, we received the blessing). I could tell you then even as a wild little boy that there was something in church for me. I remember that we expected to be informed of when those things occurred. We may have sighed in exasperation some Sundays because we were in the middle of wrestling or something, but at the same time, that was our time.
Now we're beginning to hone in on the ministry of the church for a little boy. But I want to be more specific now. I want to tell you about the only children's sermon I still remember.
It was the one Pastor Dave did just for my brother and I.
I was seven when my father passed away. My parents were divorced and I lived with my mom in another state. So I didn't see much of my dad in my life before I lost him. Having lost my mother many years later, I can say there are advantages to losing a parent early (that sounds so horrible I know). I was too young, too immature to truly grieve like adults do a tragic loss. I knew what dead meant. I didn't have some illusion of Dad just being sick or that he will come back. But I didn't have the logic to struggle with death the same way I did when I was 13 and my grandma died or when I was 24 and my mom died. I simply processed it differently. I also didn't have as much of a life built on the assumption that Dad would be there in which to make life without Dad seem as impossible or tragic as it was for when my mother died. While I would come to have a lifetime of moments I wish he could have seen, I didn't have the experience of ones he saw to compare the emptiness of his absence. Yes there are some benefits. But of course it still hurt. I still wept. I still struggled with life and death, but in kid ways. And something we often forget is kid ways are very real for kids. Whatever benefit (in terms of grief) I had in losing my father early, it was coupled with the fact that I had the disadvantage that in addressing grief, the "kid way" of grief can too easily be ignored, or attempts to address it fail because of a lack of comfort the kid's way.
I did get to go to the funeral. But truth be told, it didn't seem to be one for me, at least as I recall. If memory serves correctly it was at a funeral home, I think we then went out for a meal afterwards. But I don't remember much from it. In fact, what I remember most of my own father's funeral is playing with power ranger toys with my half-sister who I rarely got to see. If something was done for me in my grief there, I don't remember it. But more likely than not, knowing as much as I do about funerals, there likely was nothing more than maybe adults trying to share with me their condolences (if that was the case, I'm sad to say all that went over my head). The only thing that stood out for me, was being with my Iowa family who I rarely got to see.
But then after it was all over and we returned home, Pastor Dave ministered to me. We went to the church. My brother, my mother, and I. I don't think anyone else was there. Maybe a musician. But what I remember happening was this, Pastor Dave called us up for a children's sermon like he always did on any given Sunday (although this of course was no Sunday service, there were no other kids). We came forward and sat there. Now with all this I can finally say my thank you note, to which I invite you all to enter, to know how 20 years later, I can recall the most important children's sermon of my life.
Dear Pastor Dave,
I don't know where you are today. But I hope you find this. I hope you know I still remember 20 years ago when you sat my brother and I down beside you in our small little church sanctuary. I remember that you read to us the Dr. Seuss book "Oh, the Places You'll Go" and used it to talk to us about what was happening in our family and to engage our loss with Gospel hope. To this day, I still think of that children's sermon every time I see, hear, or think of that book. I cannot even remember what exactly you all said, but yet it stands as a testimony that you were a pastor to me. And each time I think of the book, I can only think of how my pastor used it as a tool in his work to comfort me with the Gospel. As I serve as a pastor, and am asked to use the same Gospel to comfort and sustain people today, I appreciate all the more what it means to have been ministered to, to know that precious gift was not withheld from little me. And I hope that you can know, if for but one glimpse, that such ministry is not wasted on a child. From everything I went through during that time, today I remember very little, but I still remember you, whom God sent to me with that cartoonish book. I don't know if my mom asked you to do something or if you asked her if you could, but I know you did something. And I thank you for that. Just as much as every person should be able to look back at their childhood and be able to say that their pastor was there for them, so every pastor should know how thankful we are when it happens.
And now you know.
