Thin Places—Insights from Celtic Christianity about the Sale of Golden Gate Seminary’s Mill Valley Campus

Alice stumbled upon an exceptionally deep rabbit hole. Lucy Pevensie got a surprise when she hid in Professor Kirk’s magic wardrobe. Dorothy clicked the heels of those dazzling ruby slippers as she chanted, “There’s no place like home.” Marty McFly revved up Professor Brown’s souped-up DeLorean time machine with its “flux capacitor”. Today astrophysicists dream of moving quickly to distant corners of the universe through some theoretical wormhole in the fabric of space-time. The idea of discovering a secret portal to another world is an idea that has long fascinated people. Back in the 40s Lerner and Loewe even created a musical along those lines: Brigadoon. 

That mythical Scottish village makes for a great segue to an idea that we encounter in Celtic Christianity: the notion that on the earth there are “thin places”—spots where heaven and earth are unusually close, suggesting the possibility of free movement from one to the other or at least the idea that in such sacred places one might get closer to the divine. 

First, a disclaimer. There is no direct and only disputable indirect biblical support for such a notion. The metaphor of thin place does not appear in Scripture. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the concept is unhelpful or theologically suspect, but as a people who base their understanding of God on biblical revelation, it should give us pause to carefully consider the implications of such a belief. 

Experience teaches us the emotional power of place. In 1954 Perry Como first recorded There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays, a sentimental reflection on how memory and emotions are tied to the place we grew up—especially at Christmas. Likewise, some places have historical connections that stir the emotions. The Gettysburg and Custer Battlefields were such places for me. So was the Vietnam Wall. Sometimes the emotions stirred by place are negative. I once stood outside a Macumba temple deep in the Amazon. Macumba is a religion that mixes African and South American spiritism and includes practices associated with black magic. I felt like the very building exuded evil. Those who have visited the remains of Nazi concentration camps report similar feelings. 

And I think we have all visited spots where the sense God’s presence was unusually strong. Naturally enough a church building can have that effect. So can a Christian camp or retreat center, particularly if it is a place that you have visited repeatedly over the years and have come to associate with powerful teaching, and spiritual refreshment and renewal. 

Wild places of spectacular natural beauty can also have that effect. Such places are usually what the Celtic Christians had in mind when they spoke of thin places. Mountains have always tended to affect me in this way, a response common to many. 

And if we can find support for thin places anywhere in the Bible, a couple mountains immediately come to mind. The first is Mt. Sinai. If there is a biblical thin place surely this is it. It was a place where Moses went to meet God not once but repeatedly. Mt Zion—the site of the temple—was another. Clearly these mountains had special significance as places where Israel encountered God. 

But in other important respects they differ significantly from the typical Celtic thin place. For one thing these mountains were not, at least in biblical times, places of pilgrimage. After the exodus there is only one account of an Israelite journeying back to Sinai; that of Elijah’s trip to “Horeb, the mount of God” in 1 Kings 19:8. And the most sacred quarter of the temple mount was forbidden to all but the high priest and he was able to enter it only one day in the year—the Day of Atonement. 

Nor is there evidence that the earliest Christians showed any special deference to those physical spaces closely associated with the life and ministry of Christ. The stable in Bethlehem, his boyhood home in Nazareth, the Upper Room in Jerusalem—none of these spots were made into shrines or their locations even noted. Only centuries later did Christians attempt to find these sites and make them places of pilgrimage. There exists no equivalent to Mt. Vernon or Monticello in Nazareth. 

So what are we to do with the metaphor of thin place? What lessons can we Baptists learn from Celtic Christianity? 

First, there is no question in my mind that places of natural beauty, particular places that are physically removed from the rush of modern life, can often help us to spiritually reconnect. They help us pause and quiet our hearts and minds. The windswept grassy slopes of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area is one such place for me. Even Jesus would draw aside, either with his closest followers or by himself, seeking some lonely place for a time of prayer. These are not places with special spiritual properties. We’re not talking magic here. Whatever power they have is power we give them. 

Second, we must remember that God desires constant intimacy with his people. We ought not require physical retreat to connect with the Divine. Rather we ought to work to make all of life on earth a thin place—a place where mortal flesh can reach out and touch God. If we draw near to God He draws near to us. 

Third, and finally, we would do well to reflect upon the importance of recognizing and protecting sacred spaces. Roman Catholics and other Christians who come from the more liturgical traditions have often been scandalized by the lack of reverence that they see in Baptist churches. We seem more willing to ascribe to purely secular monuments the kind of reverence that other believers have historically reserved for places of worship. We would object, and rightly so, to some plan to run hogs on the Custer Battlefield or to build condominiums along Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg. We wouldn’t tolerate a hotdog stand operating under the dome of the Jefferson Memorial. Such things would border on sacrilege. There are some corners of this planet that we deem worthy of protecting. We set them aside—just as we set aside Muir Woods and Yosemite—as shrines if you would, to the beauty and wonder of nature. 

I contend that the Celtic Christians were right, that there are places that ought to be regarded as sacred ground, places set aside for loftier purposes. Places that we ought not to profane because we have met God in those places—our own personal burning bush. While Baptists would not genuflect before a crucifix or an altar, we would do well to bow our heads and lower our voices when entering a sanctuary. And it ought to go without saying that we would do everything in our power to preserve and protect such places. And that is why I am so opposed to the decision to sell Golden Gate’s Mill Valley campus to a real estate developer. 

For half a century generations of young ministers met God at Golden Gate. In the late 70s and early 80s I was one of them. Kenneth Eakins, Robert Cate, William Hendricks, Clayton Harrop…the list goes on and on. These were men who opened God’s Word to me and demanded that I deal with it, not like some child in a VBS class but as a man who would spend his life entrusted with the sacred task of teaching that Holy Word to hundreds of others. They made me chew on the tough passages. They made me face my own questions and doubts. They made me grow. They made me spiritually “man-up”. So many afternoons I would make that long walk from class back to our apartment on Rice Lane, my head reeling from the profound insights that had been revealed to me. So many late nights I would be typing away on some paper or pouring over some text, trying to pull those new insights together in a coherent form that I might prove to my teachers that I had been worthy of the time they invest in me. 

And because of the unique setting of that magnificent campus I could delight in the happy convergence of the beauty of God’s Word with the beauty of God’s world—the same concept captured in the image of the Celtic cross, where the Cross of Christ is superimposed on the orb that represents His Creation. When after hours of study when my soul needed a moment’s refreshing, I need only look up from my desk and watch, mesmerized by the slow dance each afternoon of long fingers of fog sliding over the top of the coastal hills, trying but never quite succeeding in their quest to reach the valley floor below. Or I might step outside at night to stretch my legs, sometimes walking across the campus to that hilltop where one can stand and on a clear night see the lights of the city across the bay. Sometimes I would pray that the Light we learned about in class would shine back in return upon that beautiful but sin-sick city. 

The history of California tells us that at the time when John Muir was trying to preserve the giant sequoia groves north of Yosemite, there was a plan to cut the trees down and split them up into grape stakes. As I think about seeing the sacred ground of my beloved seminary campus turned into homes for multimillionaire hedge fund managers, or movie stars, or oil moguls, I think I understand how old John must have felt. 

Glen Land

GGBTS Class of ‘81

In Sight of the Promised Land

Very much alone, an incredibly old man made the slow, labored climb to the top of the mountain. Moses was 120 years old—way too old to be climbing mountains. While the summit of Mt. Nebo was only 2,631 feet above sea level, making it more a big hill than a mountain, Moses’ starting point on the Plain of Moab was 1,200 feet below sea level, which meant the hike to the top involved a climb of nearly 4,000 feet over rugged, rocky terrain through hot desert air. Exhausted, Moses rested a few minutes to catch his breath in the shade of a big rock (there were no trees here). Wiping his brow, he downed the remaining contents of his water skin. He needn’t save any for later. There would not be a return trip. God was granting him only a distant look into the land of promise. It would fall to Joshua to lead Israel on the next stage of a journey that began over forty years earlier in the court of Pharaoh. Moses’ work was over. He would die on this mountain, alone with God. 

He gathered his remaining strength, stood, and looked to the southwest, back toward Israel’s encampment. In spite of his many years his eyes were still clear, his vision sharp. But the rising heat from the valley floor rippled and distorted the view. He thought he could just make out dust rising as the people and their herds began to stir. They’d soon be on the move. Beyond the Plain of Moab, sunlight glistened off the waters of the Dead Sea. And though he could see no further in that direction Moses knew that far beyond those lifeless waters lay the blistering Sinai—Israel’s prison for a bitter forty-year sentence and Moses’ home for even longer, thanks to his years of sojourn among the Midianites. Somewhere out there Zipporah was buried in the desert sand, as was her father, Jethro. And Aaron… And Miriam…  And so many others… so much death. Not everything about a long life was a blessing. 

Below him to the west lay the great rift valley of the Jordan. He could just make out a thin, twisting, green, line snaking its way along the desert floor. That would be the Jordan River. Like the Nile of his youth, the Jordan’s muddy waters offered vegetation along its banks a place to flourish in a land with precious little rainfall. Moses briefly wondered how Israel would manage the crossing. It was early spring; the river was in full flood from the winter rains. Suddenly very tired, he set the question aside. It was no longer his concern. Joshua would have to deal with that one. 

Leveling his gaze he looked to the western horizon where he saw another thin green line rising above the barren slopes of what would come to be known as the Wilderness of Judah. That would be the central hill country of Canaan, in full flower from the rains. Due west of Nebo and just out of sight beyond the horizon was another summit: Moriah, the place where Father Abraham was once ready to offer up Isaac. And though Moses couldn’t have known it, almost 500 years later another leader of Israel would build the temple on that very same spot. 

His eyes followed that line of green hills north until they disappeared in the hazy distance. Finally, he looked due north. There, barely discernable on the very edge of sight over 100 miles away, the land rose to a lofty 9,232’ above sea level. This was a real mountain. In time it would be known as Mt. Hermon. Over fourteen centuries after Moses climbed Mt. Nebo he would stand on that other mountain. This time, appearing in his heavenly glory and accompanied by the prophet Elijah, he would wait in attendance on the Son of God at the occasion of Jesus’ transfiguration. 

But that was far in the future. For now, as his time on earth drew swiftly to a close, he caught a glint of white on that distant peak. Moses was a man who had spent his entire life in subtropical deserts. On the very day of his death, just maybe, he got his first and only glimpse of snow.

MOVIE REVIEW: SON OF GOD

A few weeks ago I was one of the Lynchburg area church leaders who attended a private pre-release screening of the new movie Son of God which officially opened today. Son of God was produced by Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, the husband and wife team who were the executive producers for The Bible, the 10-hour TV miniseries that premiered on the History Channel in March of 2013. Footage from The Bible was edited to create this new feature-length motion picture about the life of Christ, the first major motion picture about the life of Jesus since Passion of the Christ was released ten years ago. 

Mark Burnett and Roma Downey have impressive resumes both individually and together. Five time Emmy Award winner Burnett is one of the pioneers of the “reality TV” genre with such shows as Survivor and The Celebrity Apprentice to his credit. Downey has been nominated for an Emmy of her own. She is best known for her recurring role as a tender-hearted angel in the series Touched by an Angel. In addition to co-producing Son of God, she also appears in the film in the role of Mary. 

I only saw the first installment of The Bible when it came out last year so this was my first look at their portrayal of Jesus. The excessive artistic license in that first episode of The Bible turned me off. (I think they lost me when Moses was shown engaged in a sword fight with young Prince Ramesses.) So I went to today’s screen with very low expectations. I was pleasantly surprised. This is a compelling film. 

The issue of artistic license is still in play. As a serious student of scriptures I found myself regularly annoyed by the writer’s ignorance or at least indifference to the chronology of events as recorded in the Gospels. For instance, in the gospel account of Jesus reading from the book of Isaiah in a synagogue, the event took place in Galilee at the beginning of his public ministry. In the movie it happened near the time of his arrest at an unspecified location but apparently somewhere in the vicinity of Jerusalem. But since gospel chronology is a matter that even the scholars debate, I’m willing to cut the production team some slack. What they did capture admirably was the spirit and thrust of the gospel story. The viewer is offered a compelling and reasonably accurate account of the life of Christ and the meaning of that life for you and me. And I must say that Diogo Morgado, the young Portuguese actor who portrayed Jesus, did a marvelous job in presenting a winsome Savior. 

Son of God is certainly no substitute for reading the Gospels for yourself. But it does offer a moving and visually satisfying artistic portrayal of the greatest story ever told, one that people who would never open a Bible would watch with interest. As a pastor I will encourage my members to use this film as a non-threatening evangelist tool, something that you could invite an unchurched friend to watch with you and that will offer you easy and natural opportunities for further sharing of the Good News.

Boreas

I had somehow forgotten about the cold. 

For the first time in nearly four years I’m experiencing an Upper Midwest cold wave. I knew back in Virginia during the wee hours of December 29 when Joyce and I piled into the van, pointed it northwest, and drove off into the rainy early morning darkness, that I was headed back to the once familiar world of winter in Wisconsin. What a way to mark my 60^th birthday. Drive 938 miles. Long hours of cold rain across Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio (it was a miserable trip), was followed by a brief bout of freezing drizzle in northwest Indiana—thankfully no more than a minor nuisance. For some miles I watched the car thermometer mark time to falling outside temperatures. It went from the low 40s around Dayton to the upper 20s as we entered Chicago. But it was when we stopped off at the Forest Oasis of the Tri-State Tollway north of O’Hare that the first real blast of arctic air hit us. 

It is amazing how quickly one can move across a frigid expanse of wind-blown asphalt from warm car to warm rest stop. You just need to be appropriately motivated. The cold was already threatening cardiac arrest and it had not jet cracked 20°F. But the wind! Ugh. Yet as bad as this was, I knew that just beyond the northern horizon loomed conditions far worse. By the time we arrived at our daughter’s apartment in Kaukauna, Wisconsin—just 22 miles southwest of Green Bay—the temperature was down to zero and the windchill was too bad to discuss in polite company. 

That night it got down to -15°F. The windchill hit -31°F. The following day the high was 0°F. 

I’ve experienced worse. Back in the early ‘90s shortly after we first moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, we had eight straight days when the temperature never made it up to 0°F. Two successive nights it dropped to -30°. That’s what the mercury actually recorded, not windchill. The windchill was down around -65°F. One day the HIGH was -20°F. We actually had a window crack due to the house’s contractions. But that was a long time ago. I was 39, not 60. Maybe I was tougher then. Or maybe today I’m just missing that insulating layer of 25+ pounds of fat that I starved off last spring. In any event, there are things about life in the deep freeze that I had allowed myself to forget, such as… 

·         The sensation almost akin to physical assault that you experience when you step out into wind-driven cold inadequately clad. I gave away my faithful old down parka years ago. I could have used it this week.

·         The way cold burns, especially unprotected ears. This is followed by that weird hot redness that those ears experience hours later in a warm room.

·         Icicles on my mustache.

·         Frosted mucus in my nostrils (yes, that is every bit as disgusting as it sounds).

·         The dry skin. Cold air is unable to retain much moisture. Heat up that already dry air, and the relative humidity drops drastically. With an indoor/outdoor temperature differentiation of 70 to 80 degrees, without some kind of humidifier the indoor air on a cold day has the moisture content of the Gobi Desert. Static electricity creates painful shocks. Your nostrils dry out worse than on a transoceanic flight. You find yourself constantly reaching for the hand lotion. Your throat gets dry. You become more susceptible to colds. For the last 24 hours I have had a dry, scratchy throat and an annoying cough.

·         The way cold penetrates. Physicists will tell you that this is an illusion. The problem is not cold coming in but heat escaping. But any Upper Midwesterner will tell you that those physicists have never spent a winter in Green Bay. The cold up here has a malevolent will. It is reaching out for you. It will find any crack, any gap, any opening that would defeat a determined cockroach in order to enter your place of refuge. So determined is the cold that denied that crack it will just force its way through wood, rock, concrete, or steel. It comes through solid walls. It comes through triple-paned glass. Sit near an exterior wall in an otherwise warm room and you will feel the chill of its icy fingers tickling the back of your neck, your wrists, your ankles. And like an army laying siege to a city of old, the longer the cold encamps outside your door, the more effective it becomes in finding a weakness in you defenses.

·         I had forgotten the glossy sheen of snow banks that have thawed, refrozen, and become petrified—little embryonic glaciers.

·         I had forgotten that thin narrow band of iron-hard ice that forms along the edge of city streets, the result of snowmelt that has refrozen in temperatures so low that road salt is rendered useless.

·         I had forgotten the stony-faced stoicism of people forced out of warm homes and cars on some unavoidable errand. They move with all possible dispatch from Point A to Point B, finding the straightest, fastest route through the cold, like some hapless trapper being forced to run a gauntlet of tomahawk-waving Sioux warriors. They move with the efficiency of water finding its way downhill. Eyes are narrowed to slits. Focus is dead ahead. Misguided Southerners think Yankees are unfriendly. Southerners just don’t know what it is to be really cold. 

The ancient Greeks had a name for the cold. Boreas was the Greek god of the cold north wind and the bringer of winter. His name meant “North Wind” or “Devouring One”. Boreas was very strong and possessed a violent temper. Boreas is in a particular foul mood as 2013 gives way to 2014. The last week of the dying year brought record cold to much of Wisconsin. We are warned that even colder air will arrive before the first week of the new year is behind us. The forecast HIGH for Monday is -10°F. By then I should be back in the gentle latitudes of the Virginia Piedmont. But my wife, my children, my grandsons, and millions of other unfortunates will have to face the rage of Boreas. 

Climate scientists inform us that the tipping point for the formation of those massive glaciers of the last ice age passed quickly. It was only a matter of a few years, not centuries, that transpired before those continental ice sheets began their inexorable push south. Thousands of years later the scars of that glaciation are visible across the Upper Midwest. Only a blink of geologic time has passed since ice stood a mile deep over the very spot where I type these words. Just a few bad winters in succession…

Thank God for global warming.

Just 12 Minutes a Day…

Most Western Christians have never read their Bible through from Genesis to Revelation. 

Most Western Christians don’t ever read the Bible outside of church except perhaps in a moment of desperation during a personal crisis. 

Not surprisingly, most Western Christians are shamefully ignorant of the contents of Scripture. Their Bible knowledge consists of a few disconnected stories and random verses picked up along the way in Sunday school classes or while listening to sermons. That knowledge is second hand—not personal. It has been widely acknowledged that the Bible is the least read bestseller in American publishing history. 

Contrast this sad state of affairs with what is typically the case with Muslim Background Believers (MBBs). MBBs are Christians who grew up Muslims and then converted to Christianity. On average, by the time a Muslim man has made the decision to follow Christ as a baptized believer he has already read the Bible through not once, not twice, but FIVE times. 

Five times… 

What about you? Have YOU read the Bible through five times? Are you a regular Bible reader at all? Are you a serious student of Scriptures? Have you ever read your Bible from cover-to-cover? If not, why not? 

We are busy, busy people leading busy, busy lives. One of the frequently offered excuses for our failure to read our Bibles is a lack of time. But let’s look at this scientifically. Just how long would it take you to read your Bible through? 

We know the answer because somebody took the trouble to time it. There are about 807,361words in the Bible (depending on the translation): 622,771 in the Old Testament and 184,590 in the New Testament. That means about 77% of your Bible—almost 4/5ths—is Old Testament, the part that Christians are most ignorant of. It takes just 70 hours and 40 minutes to read the Bible through—just under three full days. And that’s out loud. 52 hours and 20 minutes to read the Old Testament, 18 hours and 20 minutes to read the New Testament. The longest book, Psalms, will take just 4 hours and 28 minutes. It takes a mere 2 hours and 43 minutes to read the Gospel of Luke. 

You can read the Bible through in a year in less than 12 minutes a day. 

Can’t you commit to giving 12 minutes a day—30 seconds out of every hour—less than 1% of your day—to reading God’s word? Millions do so every year. My wife has done so every year for nearly 30 years. And it shows. She KNOWS her Bible. On January 1, 1987, when our son, Joshua, was 8 years, 8 months, and 13 days old, with no prompting from Joyce or me he took it upon himself to read the Bible through that year. Each night he set his alarm so that he would be up 15 minutes early so that he could do his Bible reading before school. On December 31, 1987 he closed his Bible after reading Revelation 22:21. Mission accomplished. A few years ago there was a TV game show called, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? My question to you is, are you as committed to discipleship as this fourth grader? 

I suppose it is a consequence of our fallen natures that good habits are hard to cultivate while bad ones get started all too easily. At Rivermont Avenue Baptist Church where I serve as senior pastor I want to help my members develop the habit of daily Bible reading. Here’s how: 

First, beginning January 1, 2014 I am encouraging all of my RABC family to start a daily Bible reading program. While there are many ways to approach this, I’m suggesting the easiest approach: Reading the Bible straight through from Genesis to Revelation, about 3 chapters a day. 

Second, daily Bible reading guides will be published in the newsletter and on our website at http://www.rivermontavenue.org/. 

Third, beginning Wednesday, January 8, I will lead a weekly Bible based on these readings. The Scripture passage for each study will be selected from among the chapters that we read the previous week. For example, since we will have read Genesis 1-24 during the first week of the year, my study on January 8 will be a passage selected from those chapters. Each session will be a stand-alone unit so you are not penalized if you can only attend sporadically. Each class session will be videotaped and posted on our website. 

Fourth and finally, daily Bible reading is not intended to be in-depth study. But as you read, questions will naturally arise. If you find yourself puzzling over a question generated by your reading, I invite you to post those questions on this blog and I'll try to help you find the answers.

We are trying to raise our congregation’s biblical literacy in 2014! I encourage you to spread the effort in your own church. 

It takes just 12 minutes a day. 

Pastor Glen

Comparative Thankfulness

Thanksgiving Day will soon be upon us.

What does it take to make you thankful?

That might seem like an odd question. But thankfulness is relative. It varies from person to person and from time to time. Just as one man’s junk is another’s treasure, that which stirs gratitude in one heart may dissatisfy another. The same thing which brings us joy and thanksgiving at one point in life can lead to disappointment later on.

One of the ironies of life is that the more we have, the more it takes for us to feel grateful.

Consider the case of Saudi Prince Alwaleed. In 2006 Forbes estimated that the prince was actually worth $7 billion less than the prince believed. The day after the list was released Alwaleed called the person responsible for the rating at her home, almost in tears. Never mind that he has his own 747, complete with a throne. Never mind that his “main palace” has 420 rooms. Never mind that he possesses his own private amusement park, his own zoo, and a reported $700 million worth of jewels. Never mind that he's the richest man in the Arab world, valued by Forbes at $20 billion. None of this was enough. As the late Texas billionaire, H.L. Hunt, once famously said, “Money is just a way of keeping score.” The Saudi prince was not grateful for his score.

But one need not be a prince to allow your possessions to diminish your sense of gratitude.

For most of our first ten years of marriage Joyce and I had a regular routine when we bought groceries together. Joyce would prepare a shopping list organized by relative importance with the “must-have” things listed first and those things wanted but not essential, last. She would then figure out how much money we could afford to spend on food that week. I would bring a calculator. As we wandered back and forth across the store, working our way down the list, I would keep a running total of how much we had spent. When we reached the amount that was budgeted for food (having made an allowance for sales tax) we headed to the checkout. Back then we were thankful when the money lasted longer than the shopping list. It’s been a long time since we had to take a calculator to the grocery store. Our expectations are now greater. We take more for granted.

Tennessee Williams once said, “You can be young without money, but you can't be old without it.” I think old Tennessee was on to something. You can delight a young child for hours with nothing more than the cardboard box that a refrigerator or washing machine was shipped in. What parent has not watched a toddler find more amusement with torn wrapping paper than the gift it once enclosed? Why must the day come when we open that package and ask ourselves, “I wonder how much this cost?”

Our accumulations, our expectations, and our sense of entitlement all color our sense of gratitude and thanksgiving. But so does loss.

Few of us think to daily thank God for our health until our health is in jeopardy. We are not likely to offer up a prayer of thanksgiving, “Thank you, Holy Father, for my healthy heart, lungs, breasts, prostate, liver, ovaries, __________ (fill in your favorite organ) until you are shaken by the fear that good health may not be something you can take for granted. But having once known that awful dread, only to be reassured that good health is indeed still yours, you suddenly find yourself face down on the ground thanking a merciful God for sparing you disease and maybe even death.

But lost health is not the only thing that can change our perception and alter what constitutes thankfulness. For years on end we may take for granted the presence of our children or grandchildren as we celebrate holidays, birthdays or the like. Then life’s circumstances change. Once familiar faces at our holiday table are suddenly far away. And too late, we are aware of what we should have been thankful for all along but only in retrospect—made finally conscious by its loss.

Between now and Thanksgiving Day our Rivermont Avenue family will be deeply involved in collecting, wrapping, and shipping Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. We have all been moved by the stories of the profound gratitude that these simple gifts generate in the hearts of poor children around the world. Gifts that our own kids would take for granted fill these children of the Majority World with joy, wonder, and profound thanks. We will bless them by these gifts. May they, in turn, bless us with their example of thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Day will soon be upon us.

What does it take to make you thankful?

Glen Land’s 10 Rules for Avoiding Personal Disaster in Pastoral Relations with the Opposite Sex

1. Always remember what your primary role is: you are first and foremost a pastor. You are not primarily a counselor, though you will be called upon to offer counsel at times. Your expertise is in spiritual matters, not psychology. Consequently, do not get involved in long-term counseling situations of any kind. If you cannot deal with the issue in 2-3 sessions or if the issues are beyond your training or comfort level, refer.
2. Never initiate a hug with a female to whom you are not related and who is not old enough to be your mother—and seldom even then. Only accept hugs in public or in the presence of the woman’s husband. Physical contact is just too easily misconstrued. Even if your intentions are as pure as the driven snows of Antarctica, you have no control over what that other person may infer from what you intend as an innocent gesture.
3. Keep your study door open when meeting alone with a woman. If matters of confidentiality require the door to be closed, make sure the blinds are open and that the secretary is in the next room. NEVER meet a woman alone after hours.
4. You can never know with certainty what that woman is thinking—much less what her fantasies involve. You are paid to listen attentively and smile with understanding, even when you would prefer to be home watching TV with your shoes off and your feet up. You may be the only man in her life to treat her with even polite respect. What you intend as professional courtesy may be misunderstood as implying far more. You can never know for sure what she is hearing or how she is processing what you say and do.
5. If a conversation or other interaction with a female takes an uncomfortable turn, terminate the interaction at once and inform Joyce (my wife of 40 years) before the sun goes down.
6. If you find yourself wanting to spend more time with a woman than your ministry responsibilities ought to require, interpret that as an alarm going off: “Lane Encroachment Alert!” Get some physical and emotional distance between you and the woman—fast.
7. Never engage in any conversation or activity with a woman not your wife that you would not be glad to do in Joyce’s presence.
8. It is sometimes unavoidable that ministry responsibilities will encroach on personal/family time. If it does happen, make SURE it is truly unavoidable. Never make it a habit to put parishioners of either sex over Joyce.
9. Of course adultery can be physical. But it can also be emotional. You are not immune to flattery. If some attractive female is constantly telling you what a wonderful preacher/teacher/listener/etc. you are, it may well turn your head. Believing that every compliment you hear represents brilliant and unbiased analysis of what you say and do is the first step toward becoming a damn fool. Always remember that the people at church generally only see you at your best. They don’t see you unshaven, sweaty after mowing the lawn, or with that scary face that first greets you from the bathroom mirror in the morning. They don’t have to put up with your bad moods, bad attitudes, or bad breath. Joyce does. They get the “Main Street U.S.A. at Disney World” version of you—not the version with the cracked sidewalks and potholes.
10. Be prepared to sacrifice any relationship with any church member—regardless of how innocent it may seem to you—if the alternative is harming your marriage. Some women may see you as a surrogate father. Some may see you as a surrogate husband. You CANNOT, DARE NOT fill either role, even if only in the most platonic sense. Down that path lies personal disaster.

Some additional thoughts:

First, this list is my own. It reflects my own life circumstances and my own weaknesses and temptations. I think that most of this would apply equally to any man in ministry, and probably to any woman as well. But I would encourage you to develop your own list tailor-made for you. Feel free to appropriate any or all of my list without attribution, but change it around as needed to fit your own circumstances. For example, some of you may be trained and certified counselors. In that case you would probably wish to rethink item #1. But even in that case carefully consider if the roles of pastor and clinical counselor are truly compatible. It’s a debatable point.

 

Second, while I don’t claim that any of this is original with me, I cannot identify any specific sources. This is more practical wisdom than research. It represents conclusions arrived at from forty years of pastoral ministry experience. I wasn’t taking notes. I was learning—sometimes the hard way.

 

Third, I am grateful that God, in His providence, spared me the pain of great personal moral failure. I’ve seen too many ministry colleagues fall by the wayside, including some dear friends. Only a fool believes he is immune from temptation. In my case I suspect that some of my “obedience” was mostly a matter of good luck.

 

Finally, living by these rules may cost you. Over the years it led to two women leaving churches I served. One wanted me to be her father. One wanted me to be, in an emotional support sense at least, her husband. I was a disappointment to both. – GL