October 12th - 13th, 2007 - Living Faithfully

The Oregon Synod has organized and presented Living Faithfully events for the past 8 years. Each was centered on an attribute that builds faith, namely; prayer, study, worship, service, invitation, giving, and the theme of this year’s event, encouragement.

This year’s Living Faithfully started at 1:00 Friday afternoon and ended 3:30 Saturday afternoon. There were Creator members who attended both day. I spent most of my time with Eileen, Nita and Pastor Dayle but I was able to say hello to Paul, Debi, Stephanie, Luke and Sara between work shops and the other events. Paul and Debi knew many of the attendees from past churches they had attended and Nita introduced me from the Women of the ELCA event she attended last week at Jantzen Beach Red Lion.

We gathered to learn about encouragement, to encourage each other, to prepare for worship and to worship. I have taken part in other synod and cluster events as well as past.Living Faithfully events. The participants I meet at Living Faithfully are a unique group. Predominantly they are deeply engaged lay members, together with pastors and synod leaders.

I’m sure everyone was spiritually drawn to, or inspired by, different parts of the event. For me, the Worship and Music workshop on Saturday was special. We tasked with working on the music and the Prayers of Intercession for the worship on Saturday afternoon that would close the event. Marty Haugen and Susan Briehl, the keynote speakers this year, divided the workshop into two sections to accomplish those tasks after their presentation.

The presentation before the work that needed to be done left us 30 minutes of work time. We faced a daunting task of group writing 3 occasional verses to the tune of In The Singing with lyrics taken from one of the day's readings that Bishop Dave was preaching on, 2 Timothy 2:8-15. The group wrote a verse and a half in that time. We were given homework to write another verse. Taking up that challenge my verse was used after a brief collaboration with Mr. Haugen:

In our suffering, in our hardships,
Tempted to forget the chosen;
We remember that the gospel
Moves unchained through Christ’s salvation.

Not a verse that will likely endure but it fit the occasion and it was used. How Marty Haugen simplified the words by grafting a piece of the half verse the group composed impressed me. He said writing occasional verse was all about the deadline and syllable count. Of course he is steeped in the doctrinal correctness of the lyrics. I'm usually thinking someone is going to shake their head and exclaim "You think we believe that!"

The part of Living Faithfully that was open to the public on Friday evening was Songs and Poems of Encouragement. Bishop Dave captured the beauty of the event in his sermon Saturday when he said that singing Marty Haugen music, with Haugen performing, is to know that he is touched by God. Bishop Dave also remarked that Susan Briehl, with each poem she read, would pause for a moment and find the poet’s voice within her. She read from Denise Levertov and a number of other poets. We were touched by the poetry and, with the music, we sang for the moment. We also sang to practice for the Saturday worship.

Saturday morning I chose to attend, after the keynote talk, to experience Turn My Heart: A Sacred Journey. It dealt with individual sorrow, loss and brokenness. There was an aspect of public brokenness where this workshop/liturgy moved into lamentation. There were stories about Christian response to 9/11 and how lamentation moves us to God.

Throughout the event I enjoyed my conversations with Eileen and Nita. Not to complain but it is hard to for me to connect after the services and I apologize for that. The “exit music” needs to be played or a chore or two needs to be done and then everyone in the narthex is already involved and talking. This was the perfect opportunity to catch up with Eileen and Nita and we three took advantage of it.

The Saturday service that ended the event used an evening setting of Holy Communion called Unfailing Light By Marty Haugen and Susan Briehl. There is something about worship that you have contributed to and anticipated that moves the effect of the service to a new level.

I was also impressed with Bishop Dave’s sermon. Beyond what I have already quoted he read some of his poetry. I don’t know what to make of this but there was an Augsburg Fortress book display in the narthex. One of the first books I picked up as I waited for the first workshop was Luther’s Wit. I opened to a passage describing how Luther went through the Bible looking for verses where God laughs and Luther found only one, Psalms 2:4.

I wrote this as the first entry in my notes about the event to remember this. It was this psalm that Bishop Dave chose to rewrite using his own poetic skills. He quoted it in his sermon that was about 2 Timothy.

I don't know what to make of it beyond how it beautifully tied the ending event of Living Faithfully back with the beginning for me.

I knew Living Faithfully would change my experience of Sunday worship, but that is another blog entry.