Trinity Lutheran Church
Confirmation
Sunday School
I was not a big fan of Sunday School, but I loved Vacation Bible School. However, years later I really enjoyed teaching Sunday School. I taught first grade for three years with lots of creative activities that my students seemed to enjoy while learning a deeper lesson.
The church sent me (accompanied by two assorted parents) to a Sunday School convention at the prestigious Palmer House in downtown Chicago. For the big banquet we had chicken kiev with vichyssoise soup. I barely survived starvation.
History
Spirit of the Lakes
I attended Spirit of the Lakes UCC church for a couple of years but never quite fit in. It was a new church that gained notoriety by proclaiming faith amid a rather agnostic gay community. It was difficult for me to start something new, but I overcame this by giving a friend a ride each week. Later I convinced my best friend, Paul Green, to regularly attend with me. The church was an eclectic mixture of faith backgrounds coming together for worship in an old warehouse.
I was working diligently to integrate all aspects of my life, so I occasionally invited friends and family to worship services. My nephew, Peter, attended several times as did my niece Abbey. I really wanted my nephew Tony to play the piano as a guest artist, but it did not happen.
The one time my parents attended was rather surreal. They were welcomed very warmly and even laughed a little when they made an announcement that “whoever parked their crane out front – that is a no parking zone”. Everything was going great until we found out that the pastor was out this week and the guest speaker would be talking about Buddhism. Are you serious? It was an enlightening talk, but it should have been done as an evening education session – not made part of worship. It is great to understand other faith journeys and to have inclusive worship, but not to the exclusion of faith in one God.
Overtime the congregation thinned and the church reinvented itself by merging with another church. and smashing down the warehouse. They smashed down the warehouse to build faith based low-income rental apartments on the property. I set out to find another church that was more aligned with my faith traditions.
All God’s Children
After leaving Spirit of the Lakes, I made a shortlist of candidate churches to visit and started at the top of the list. All God’s Children was the first one up. I was a bit nervous since this was THE gay church in the metro area. Two things happened that got me to attend several times. First, there was not any social pressure or awkwardness when sitting by myself. The second was the uncanny ability of the Pastor to speak each week as if he were talking directly to me. Years later I found out that this was a common experience with him. Communion was amazing and always ended with the song It is Well with My Soul and rumbling timpani. This seemed like a good fit for me. Then the Pastor resigned. I sporadically attended during some controversy and removal of their new Pastor. They then had a series of guest speakers including a couple of friends of mine, so I attended regularly and even brought my parents once. I did not know anybody at all.
The tranquility of the services kept drawing me in. The traditional architecture of the building, the pipe organ, and clergy donned in white robes all made me feel much more comfortable than the warehouse at Spirit of the Lakes.
When I saw an announcement in the bulletin for help running sound I reached out and volunteered. This is something I can do well, and as a bonus, I would not have to worry about sitting alone. As a foretelling of what was to happen, I remember cautioning myself to not get too involved with the operations of the church.
There was one guest speaker, Paul Tucker, who was scheduled to fly up three times from the Cathedral of Hope in Texas. I was quite impressed with him and wondered why we could not just have him for our new pastor. He was calm, compassionate, intelligent, approachable, and personable. He missed the third week due to illness, so it seemed that door was closed before it had a chance to open. Several weeks later I was delighted when it was announced that he would be our new pastor!
Pastor Tucker’s first Sunday was the day that I ceremoniously joined membership and was named leader of the sound team.
AGC was an amazing group of people – many who instantly found home and community. For me, it was the opportunity to use and grow my skills for the betterment of others in a culture of trust and acceptance. For the first time in my life, there was a place where I could be me.
- Little by little I came out as the whole me without the fears that caused my life to become compartmentalized.
- The more I let my nerdiness out – the more teams recruited me.
- The more outspoken I became – the more my advice was sought out.
- The more visionary I became – the more my team grew.
- The more eccentric I became – the more endearing people were to me.
- The more I went out on a limb – the more trust was extended to me.
- The more I shared my opinion – the more decision-making I was given.
- The more my team was promoted – the more support we received.
But there was also balance.
- When I got out of bounds – I was gently reeled back in.
- When I made mistakes – I was called on it and allowed to make amends.
- When I fell short of expectations – I was extended grace as we learned and grew together.
- When I struggled with my bipolar – I was surrounded by people eager to be constructively helpful.
This was the first genuinely safe place where I could extend my wings, liberate my peculiarities, and be vulnerable to learning something new about myself. Isn’t this the essence of a faith community?
Then came a seminole decision on my part that forever changed everything.
The church was promoting “doing and saying the same thing” to deal with the unspoken culture where leaders learn that it is easier to act and ask for forgiveness later rather than asking for permission upfront. This is about the only way anything of substance ever got done. The voice of nope is strong and well-entrenched to protect the status quo from threats of innovation and common sense. Indeed, there is a hefty 10,000-pound elephant in the room.
Authority and responsibility always go together – you cannot have one without the other. At AGC these two are often decoupled with each given to different leaders.
I had a lot of irons in the fire – some 22 projects that were just not getting done and I was called on it. I was eager to address the issue head-on with facts. These projects were not stalled due to funding or laziness – I intentionally stalled them for two reasons. First, some of the work crosses into the domain of other teams and I have no idea who is responsible for doing the work. Second, I am not going to play the game of asking for forgiveness later.
I prepared a worksheet listing each project and the tasks that were stalled. I then circulated it to team leaders asking for them to simply mark down if my team is authorized to do the work or if the work needs to be done by another team. Very simple clarification of boundaries. From this, I could step up to the plate and finish the tasks that I am permitted to do and hold others accountable for those tasks I am not to do.
To me, this was a wonderful opportunity for the church to see the problem, acknowledge the elephant, and overcome this demon that has been so stifling to the membership for decades.
This was the beginning of the end for me at AGC. I was no longer playing by the unwritten rules of the culture and in the perverse spirit of saying that my worksheet was undermining communication and teamwork. Little by little over the next couple of years everything deemed positive about me was now viewed as deception and turned against me.
I did not back down, nor did I expose the elephant.
Technology Team
Over the years I noticed that congregants had two general opinions of the team: admiration and frustration – for the exact same reasons. But this is to be expected when dealing with a group of talented people. There is a certain mystic when the measure of teams success is that nothing is noticed. A well-designed website, properly behaving computers, non-intrusive worship arts (sound and video), and robust systems don’t (and shouldn’t) get noticed. Technology folk tend to work in the background and can accomplish a great deal without the need for much funding. With trust this is a great symbiotic relationship for both volunteers and for the church. Without trust the lack of communication erodes all this productivity into suspicions and dysfunction. This is what destroyed my team and led to the realization of how expensive contractors are to do this type of work. It’s pathetic that congregants donations now go to contractors instead of those who are truly in need. All because we don’t trust.
Click here to view the Tech Team Tribute.
HVAC Team
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Click here for more about the HVAC Team.
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