Sometimes I think you have me confused with God.
It's not an awfully bad place to be; in some ways it's a real compliment. I'm
just having a hard time living up to it. The problem is, I can't read your mind.
Most of the notes we get on the Faithworks forms are unsigned and undated. They're
important information: concerns about how we spell or pronounce a name in prayer;
angry or hurt because we failed to visit someone who was sick. Sometimes they're
complaints, sometimes concerns, sometimes requests for prayer. The last one
we received was urging someone to notice when people are not attending church
or need help.
I don't know how to respond to those notes. I can't follow up when they're neither
signed or dated. I don't have a way to track down the details, to learn precisely
how we may have failed or who we have failed. Handwriting can be difficult to
read, so we give it our best guess and sometimes we misspell the names of those
for whom we pray. If your request for prayer is unsigned we don't know who to
ask for a correction. It's especially difficult when the notes are directed
to me - I don't know who to ask for forgiveness, I can't know how many were
effected, and I can't prevent a new problem from occurring. I always feel like
I've let people down if I don't pray with them before surgery, but I can't visit
you in the hospital if I don't know you're there.
There are a couple hundred of you to keep track of and you're all very different
from each other. Some of you guard your privacy while others are very open.
Some of you worship with us every Sunday and others come only now and then.
Some of you accept help and others are offended by the offer. So I've decided
to treat you all like adults - hoping that if you need our help, of if I let
you down, you'll tell me.
Yet there is one point with which I am in absolute agreement with that last
note writer: someone should notice when people are
not attending church - and that someone is you. If there's someone you miss,
someone you know who's hurting or lonely or hospitalized, it's up to you
to reach out to them. We are all members of the body of Christ, and
the work we share with Christ is to lift each other up. We're hard on the heels
of Easter, my friends, and a risen Christ so concerned about others he'd already
left for Galilee by the time his mourners came to visit his tomb. It doesn't
take a mind reader to know what Jesus wants us to do.
Pastor Jim
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. Ephesians 4:15
From the Shepherd's Song Newsletter -- March 2008
Copyright 2008 by Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
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E-mail your comments and questions to Pastor Jim in care of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at gslc@sirus.com.