Lake Effect

Ministry is contextual.  Ministry in the Presbytery of Lake Michigan in Southwest Michigan means we deal with snow! 

Thanks to a lake effect.  Water vapor gets picked up from Lake Michigan by the wind, which carries it and dumps it on my driveway! Likely on yours, too!  Another lake effect is that although it may be cold here, it's normally colder in Wisconsin.  Thanks to Lake Michigan!  It has a warming effect.

Hey, we are the Presbytery of Lake Michigan!  This is where God has called us to serve.  If we stopped work because of snow, nothing would get done during the winter months.  Michiganders are toughened winter road warriors!  We are not easily deterred.  Then again, common sense prevails when wind chill temperatures dip dangerously low. Meetings get delayed and postponed, worship services canceled.  Like school students and teachers, we enjoy a free day!  This winter the local schools have already used up all their allotted snow days and we are just into February!!!   There was no normal January thaw this year, and the snow keeps piling up.  The piles standing guard at the end of my driveway are taller than me!  

I have served the Lord in the rain forest of Brazil, in the mountains of Pennsylvania, by a finger lake in upstate New York, and by the Atlantic ocean on Long Island.  I have learned that getting the right clothing and equipment are key to functioning in a particular place.  There is a local cultural knowledge, skill set and wisdom, that the locals have acquired to adapt to the locale and its requirements.  The new comer missionary/outsider pastor is wise to learn quickly.  Eileen and I bought wicker furniture in Brazil, down comforters in Cooperstown, and hooded windbreakers in Montauk.  In Kalamazoo, we bought a snow wolf!

The normal Michigander owns a snow blower.  Smart choice!  Me...no, I've chosen a more environmental friendly tool.  A snow wolf is a simple machine consisting of a bar with a big wheel in the middle, a large shovel on the front, and a handle in the back.  A simple machine, it provides leverage to push and throw snow more easily and faster than a shovel.  It provides a cost free aerobic exercise without a gym membership!  It is twice as fast as shoveling, and it saves the strain on one's back and heart.  AND it does not use fossil fuel or give off toxic emissions.  I've been a happy user for seven Michigan winters. However, this winter, I am experiencing its limits, my limits.  I need more horsepower!  When accumulated snow piles grow deep and high, it takes more and more horse (this man) power to move the mountains of snow up and over the mountainous snow piles.  How depressingly defeating it is to heave a shovel full up and watch in roll back down to where it started.   (Kind of like ministry.)  AND it keeps snowing.  I find myself standing in my driveway, while paused to catch my breath and allow my heart rate to slow, lusting over my neighbors' snow blowers.  That's a confession.  The 10th commandment warns against that type of thing, wanting what your neighbors have.  Until I get a whiff of smelly exhaust spoiling the fresh air of my outdoor adventure!  This reminds me of my environmental stewardship values, and I arrogantly steel my resolve to press forward with my environmental stewardship and witness to my neighbors. They sometimes stop and ask me, like Bill Cosby imagined Noah's neighbors asking him when building the ark, "What's that?"  "It's a snow wolf, a simple machine.  It's faster and easier on the back and heart than shoveling."

I could have chosen to live in a condominium, or pay someone else to do this winter chore.  I'm not ready and too cheap for that.  Nor am I ready to flee to somewhere warmer to escape the long winter.   Perhaps some day I will be forced to turn over this chore to another, and be free to retreat to a warmer place for the season.  In the meantime, I love it.  And I am grateful for the time or two my neighbor has had pity on me, during an extra heavy storm, and cleared my driveway with his nifty snow blower. And I will continue to give witness to the love of God in this place where it snows a lot.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote to the exiles in Babylon, "Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Take wives and have sons and daughters,....Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you in exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." (Jeremiah 29:5-7).  In other words, settle in and make a life for yourself in this snowy place! Make yourselves useful.  Have an effect on your community.  Incarnate the love of God where you are. So my challenge to the members of Lake Michigan Presbytery is this--what is your lake effect?  How are you giving witness to the love and grace and justice of God which we know in Jesus Christ?  What is the effect of the Spirit's wind, the effect of your congregation's ministry of presence upon your snowed upon neighborhood?

Blessed are those who shovel snow and on those who trust spring will come!

John