Church with no pastor

Easter with Jonathan, Leslie, Leila & Nora & the McArthurs (from Casa)

This spring our pastor, Karen Smith, has been gone. Her mother died last fall and she and her family wanted/needed to be close to family for this semester.

That left two of us families here in charge. Leslie, with some theology classes under her belt, was chosen to be the substitute pastor. Her husband, Jonathan, is very musical so he and Gerald kept the music going. We had several other faculty and staff attend and the usual rotation of American exchange students. The services were shorter and more simple and most of the time we just had Bible readings, music, communion and testimonies.

I have really enjoyed this time because I believe strongly that ‘normal’ people should regularly be at the front of the church talking about what God has been doing in their lives. We need to walk together through life, sharing as we go – to get a more complete picture of the body of Christ. We get so placid in our pews, expecting to be fed and watered by only one person without having to do any of the feeding and watering ourselves. But to hear from the not-so-eloquent, the shy, those bursting with something to say, etc. was truly a blessing. It also helped me a great deal to be asked to share. I had to sit down and think through things and put them into words when I may have never done this. Gerald collected his thoughts on his friend Craig’s death, and hopefully I’ll share those on here too.

And every-so-often, Karen would send a sermon. I commented to an exchange student how weird it must be to have someone read the sermon of someone we often talked about but whom he had never met. “Actually, I really like it . . .” he replied – “I think it’s like the early church. They would have heard all about Paul but never met him. Instead, he sent letters and they were read to the whole group.” What a neat perspective.

It did make Lent and Easter a rather crazy time. All the planning, cooking, hosting and services left us rather exhausted. Being without a pastor is certainly not something I would want to do all the time. But through this experience and another time when we had an interim pastor in Topeka, I have learned that it actually is a chance to be pushed to lead and grow.