Musings From Behind the Pulpit
Lent is a season when, among other things, we acknowledge our mistakes and work to correct them.
Well, as you have observed these last seven and a half years, I make mistakes. In fact, like most people, I have made many mistakes in my life. And today I acknowledge that I made a mistake in the last edition of "The Trumpeter." This is my first step in working to correct that mistake.
It was a mistake that, if not made would have helped several, but fortunately it wasn't a mistake that directly hurt anyone.
What happened was that in my "Musings" I urged each reader to make a number of commitments, including among others: worship attendance, inviting others to worship, and participation in education and faith strengthening small groups.
That was not a mistake. In fact, not making that proposal would have been a mistake. [Our not seriously considering making the commitments would have been a mistake as well.]
What was a mistake was my suggesting that after making our commitments, we attach our commitment sheet to the December page of our household calendars. I then further suggested that on the Sunday after Christmas, we reread what we had written and size up how we had done.
I should have known better. My proposal had the potential to allow us to ignore our commitments for eleven months of the year and then in the last week of the year, look at them and say, "Ooops, I will do better in 2016."
But the goal of making these commitments was to get us to keep them - not just to see if we did. Thus I should have provided for us to attach the commitment page to each month's calendar page.
That way, when the time comes for us to flip the calendar to the next month, we will have to take our commitment page down, look at it, evaluate how well we did in the month just completed, and then attach it to the following month while recommitting ourselves to fulfill our commitments. This would repeat itself every 30 days or so.
As January morphed into February, I did just that. I looked at my commitment page (kept in my office rather than on the household calendar).
My review revealed varied results.
There was success: I did give more than my pledge;
There was failure: I missed worship on January 25. [We cut our vacation short and drove home from Lake George to enable Marge and Adam to leave for Cleveland that afternoon.]
And there was "working on it": I have moved closer to forgiving couple of people whose actions had made my life more difficult. [I usually forgive quite quickly and easily and so I am not used to having to work at the process. I have hopes that, with God's help, I will succeed before setting my goals for 2016.]
By reviewing my commitments as I turned the calendar to February, I found that success made me want to continue,; failure made me want to correct; and working on it, gave me hope that I will eventually succeed.
Bishop Schnase could have told me that. Many of us read his book, "Five Practices of Fruitful Living" when I gave the congregation the assignment of doing so over the summer.
The premise of the book was that "by repeating and deepening certain fundamental practices, we cooperate with God in our own growth in Christ and participate with the Holy Spirit in our own spiritual maturation." (p. 10)
A monthly review of the commitments we made and our progress toward fulfilling them is an example of repeating a fundamental practice so that it becomes a valuable second nature for us.
I guess this mistake, admission, and correction is good practice for me. For we are getting close to Ash Wednesday and the other 39 days of Lent and that season is a time when we have to face up to mistakes far more serious. For during that period of the year, we need to recognize the mistakes in which we let God and God's children down.
And once we admit them, we need to work toward correcting them. The commitments we made earlier this year should help.
Jim