On Monday (10 August), Joy and I celebrated our 30th Wedding Anniversary and on Saturday (15 August) we will join in celebrating with Anna Rasmussen (former intern) as she marries Matt.

Joy and I were married at her home church, Trinity Lutheran in Norwalk, CA. Both of our fathers were pastors, and they each had a part in the service, but we asked Pastor Larry Christenson to lead us through our vows. We thought it would be better to have a more neutral officiant for that most important part. When Pastor came to the time of the prayers, he prayed a blessing for us that he learned in Africa, “Lord, would you be a friend to everything that is a friend of this marriage and would you be an enemy to everything that is an enemy of this marriage.” I remember feeling sobered when he interceded. Who could be an enemy to my marriage?

We live in a world that is averse to covenant, and a world averse to covenant lives in us. I could probably find external forces to blame, enemies to my marriage. But, if I’m honest, my own flesh has been my marriage’s most formidable enemy. Selfishness. Pride. Ego. Shame. Lack of grace. Missing fruit of the Spirit. Tim and Kathy Keller, in The Meaning of Marriage write, “If two spouses each say, “I’m going to treat my self-centeredness as the main problem in the marriage,” you have the prospect of a truly great marriage.” I don’t have to treat my self-centeredness as the main problem, it is the main problem. To think otherwise would be denial. No, my marriage is the source for more repentance, a daily cross for self-mortification, and a rolled off grave stone which has turned into a perfect dance floor on which two absolved sinners (who step on each other’s feet) have held a 30 year dance party. So far. God has been an enemy to everything that is an enemy to my marriage–even an enemy to my frail flesh. And he has been a dear friend to everything that is a friend to my marriage. Sweet succor. Healing balm.

For better and worse,

Nathan

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Join Emma Wersal and Nathan Hoff, a few retired pastors, a few who are in the thick of it, but mostly those who are training or exploring vocational ministry for a weekly discussion on the Call.

What is PLS?

The word “seminar” is from the same root for seed bed. PLS is meant to be a productive seed bed for pastoral imagination—a gospel greenhouse! Usually we number around 15-20 people interested in the pastoral vocation and also includes a few active pastors and few retired pastors.

What is the commitment?

Most Tuesdays starting 15 September 2026. We will begin and conclude promptly 7:30-8:30 AM (Pacific time). You can join in person at Trinity Lutheran Church in San Pedro, CA or join on Zoom.

2026 Fall Book Selection: The Pastor as Gardener by Matthew Erickson

My friend Winn Collier writes in the Foreward to this great book, “What might be healed in our churches if we pastors returned to this simple, God-awakened way of living our vocation? What might be healed in us?
But to be healed and restored, we’ll need a renewed picture of what’s possible. We’ll need new metaphors, or rather: old metaphors made new. We’ll need to rekindle our imaginations, which is exactly what you’ll do in these chapters (xi).

How do I join?

1. Subscribe to this Substack newsletter to receive a weekly communication, reminding about the meeting time, providing the zoom link, and some questions to guide our reflections.

2. Buy the book. I like to suggest contacting Byron Borger at Hearts & Minds Books--tell him Nathan Hoff sent you and he will discount the book by 20%. It is worth supporting Borger’s Hearts & Minds, as his bookselling is a ministry and treasure trove of thoughtful review and personal service, borne of a devoted heart and mind. In other words, it would be a great loss if A_az_n put yet another local shop out of business.

3. Join us in person or on zoom on 15 September 2026—7:30-8:30 AM PST! Have your book ready.

Calendar

Tuesdays, 7:30-8:30 AM PST
15 September 2026 Getting to know one another, and orienting ourselves to PLS. Read forward and introduction through page 4.
22 September 2026 Chapter 1, The Pastor as Gardener: Renewing a Lost Image (5-22)
29 September 2026 SPECIAL GUEST: Author and Pastor-Gardener Matthew Erickson joins us on ZOOM!
13 October 2026 Chapter 2, Mistaken for a Gardener: Exploring the Biblical Text (23-40)
20 October 2026 Chapter 3, The Way of the Pastor-Gardener: Examples for a Way Forward (41-54)
27 October 2026 Chapter 4, The Cultural Challenge and the Pastor-Gardener: The Environment of Ministry (55-72)
3 November 2026 Chapter 5, The Challenge of Pastoral Formation and Nurture: The Pastor-Gardener and the Community of Ministry (73-92)
10 November 2026 Chapter 6, The Challenge of Pastoral Practice: The Pastor-Gardener and Ministry Askēsis, Guides, and Practices (93-120)
17 November 2026 Chapter 7, The Church and the Pastor-Gardener: The Soil of Ministry (121-136)
1 December 2026 Chapter 8, Seasons and the Pastor-Gardener: Time, Growth, and Ministry (137-158)
8 December 2026 Chapter 9, Hope: The Defining Virtue of the Pastor-Gardener (159-174)
15 December 2026 Afterword and Closing Thoughts (175-end)

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3. Way of the Word & Prayer

Verse: Give me life according to your word! - Psalm 119:25
Our Community Way: God’s Word is the generating and regenerating source of our true life. Our individual and our common life will be marked by attentive reading and listening to God’s word.
Individual Time in the Word & Prayer: Read and mark and pray the Moravian Daily Text. Read the assigned morning and evening Psalm(s) audibly.
Common Time in the Word & Prayer: Whenever you are able, join the Trinity Community for 8:30 AM Morning Prayer and 8:30 PM Evening Prayer.

Way of Word and Prayer is a way of resistance to a culture that is full of words and conversations that are more marked by human promotion and propaganda instead of Divine promise. Other words destroy or set on fire, God’s word creates and gives life.

“Prayer is everywhere and always answering speech.” Eugene Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer. Harper Collins, 1989.

The Psalms are more honest than I have ever been.
More vulnerable than I have ever been.
More psychologically wise than the wisest counselor.
The Psalms communicate more feelings than I have actually felt.
The Psalms communicate deeper and lower pathos than I have experienced and more ecstatic praise than I am comfortable with.

Psalter is a five-booked library of human prayer, like the Torah is a five-booked library of Divine revelation. In the Torah, God speaks, and in the Psalter, we answer.

Psalm 1-42
Psalm 43-72
Psalm 73-89
Psalm 90-106
Psalm 107-150

The Psalter was Jesus’ prayerbook, as is evident by his own prayerfulness, as well as his teaching on prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is the whole Psalter digested. See John Pless’ helpful handout.

See the conversation between Bono (U2) and Eugene Peterson:

Quotes on Psalm 1 from Answering God (Peterson).

“The nonpraying world is a pushing, shoving, demanding world. Voices within and without harass, insisting that we look at this picture, read this headline, listen to this appeal, feel this guilt, touch this charm. It is asking too much that we move from this high-stimulus world into the quiet concentrations of prayer without an adequate transition.

The nonpraying world is also an intimidating world. We wake each day to a world noisy with braggadocio, violent with guns, arrogant with money. What use is prayer in the face of governments, armies, and millionaires? What motivation can we muster to pray when all the obvious power is already allocated to heads of state and barons of industry?

In prayer we intend to leave the world of anxieties and enter a world of wonder. We decide to leave an ego-centered world and enter a God-centered world. We will to leave a world of problems and enter a world of mystery. But it is not easy. We are used to anxieties, egos, and problems; we are not used to wonder, God, and mystery.”

And, again from Peterson.

We get ourselves ready to pray by looking at a tree, a transplanted tree, and seeing ourselves in it. “Before we can get to the great idea of True, an emotionally charged symbolic construct for which innumerable women and men have died, we must stare thoughtfully and long at a tree, Old English Treow, which gives us the word true (Treow), the ‘deeply rooted idea.’”

We come to the prayer book of the Bible to get training in prayer and the first directive is: “Go find yourself a tree, sit down in front of it, look at it long and thoughtfully.” Prayer begins not with what we don’t see, but with what we do see. Prayer begins in the senses, in the body, in geography, in botany.

Abstraction is an enemy to prayer. Beautiful ideas are an enemy to prayer. Fine thoughts are an enemy to prayer. Authentic prayer begins when we stub our toes on a rock, get drenched in a rainstorm, get slapped in the face by an enemy—or run into the tree that has been in our path for so long that we have ceased to see it, and now stand back, in bruised and wondering awe before it.

Torah-meditation is the action that moves us away from distracting words that push us this way and that; these words pull us into attentiveness. The transplanted tree is the image that focuses our distracted will, the will that is ever restlessly looking for and trying out the “right” conditions for prayer. The tree claims our attention and says, “Put your roots down here.”

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Wow God!

This isn’t a fundraising letter. I’m not trying to get something out of you. This isn’t promotions. I didn’t ask AI to help me write this.

This is a letter from my heart.

You are God’s dear child. He made you. He loves you. He sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, in flesh and blood, to find and forgive you.

All week, God has been doing his amazing work through his holy word: communicating, convincing, captivating, comforting, claiming in his love.

Most aspects of our lives are temporal. They have a season, and then an ending. Even a World Cup soccer player will, one day, retire. The barons of industry, the brilliant professor, the most influential influencer will eventually have a funeral. Times of ease will turn into times of trial. Thank God even seasons of suffering are also temporary!

Our relationship with God is eternal. We were made for an eternity with him. No, not wispy heaven clouds or a billion years playing the harp just on the other side of the pearly gates. The Bible actually reveals God’s plan for a new heavens and a new earth (Isaiah 65.17; 2 Peter 3.13; Revelation 21). Because Jesus will be at the center of it all, that new heavens and new earth will have no more sadness or sickness, sin will be completely forgiven and dealt with, and life will be as God always intended it—abundant and eternal. We won’t be angels or less human, we will be fully human. It will be beyond our imaginations!

That relationship begins nows. Eternity doesn’t begin when we die. It begins when we come alive through belief in Jesus Christ. Before Jesus ascended into heaven, to prepare this eternity for you, his friend John wrote, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20.30-31). Tonight we will invite anyone and everyone to simply believe in Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, and to have life—eternal life—in his name.

Now what? How do you nurture the eternity, the life of God that lives in you? How do you actually grow? How is this faith cultivated, sustained?

God’s answer is: CHURCH! Our response is: REALLY?

“But the Church has hurt me.” Unfortunately you are not alone. I’m sorry. I really am. The Church was meant to proclaim the good promises of God in Jesus, to reflect the mercy of God, to extend the compassion of God to every corner of the world. But, we have not. Too often we have injured instead of healed or proclaimed our own message instead of God’s. The Church’s message is forgiveness, but we need forgiveness just as much as anyone else. Will you forgive the Church? Will you forgive us for our failures? Will you forgive us for not reflecting the blazing beauty of God in the world? This song reflects my heart to you:

“But there are so many churches.” I know, that’s weird isn’t it? According to God, we are actually only one Church, but sometimes we have a hard time getting along (Ephesians 4.4-5). My view is simple. If you join any church where Jesus is at the center, you have joined THE CHURCH—Christ’s Church. Don’t worry about finding the exact right one, just listen and look for evidence that Jesus is at the center, Jesus is the main point, Jesus is the hope--then jump in! Here is a great song about that:

“But we are already really busy.” Jesus said it directly, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6.33). It is predictable what happens when we put God first in our lives or our family’s lives by prioritizing weekly worship: the other things fit better. This is one reason we offer a Sunday evening 5 PM worship service at Trinity. Many families have found it to be the best way to start the week. Before we know ourselves to be students or workers or athletes, we are recentered in the eternal identity given to us: the beloved of God. Before the Monday grind, we are immersed in Sunday grace—the Lord’s Day! Try it this Sunday—morning at 9:30 AM or evening at 5 PM.

“But I haven’t been baptized (or converted, or confirmed, or…).” No problem, that’s what God has called us to help with. Check out this if you want to know more: https://www.trinitysanpedro.org/baptism

I am so thankful that you were a part of this week of VBS! Now may God who began a good work in you, bring it to completion in the day of Jesus (Philippians 1.6).

Jesus’ peace, Nathan

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Dear Trinity Family, Jesus grace. We inherited a Valencia orange tree in the back corner of the yard on 602. Did you know that the Hoffs and Trinity share equity on the parsonage, so it is technically a shared tree? That orange tree sneaks through the old chain link fence to the lower parking lot. I love it when I see someone from the youth group or a VBS kid reach up and grab the juiciest orange they will ever taste in their life. It sets my heart at ease that you get a little fruit of the shared equity of this property–a little return on your investment. That tree typically bears MUCH fruit, more than we can handle. Occasionally, we have a wonky year. Sometimes it seems climate related, and one time it experienced the utter shock of the big transformer above it exploded boiling mineral oil all over that poor tree. The next year it seemed more anxious, suspicious of sharing her fruit out in the great wide open. Some years are different.

In her cycle of life, Trinity also has variant years. Usually, almost predictably, you are “full of sap and green” (Psalm 92) and “bearing much fruit” (John 15.8). In two decades, I can hardly think of a time when we have had to shake the tree to get fruit, whether it be financial giving or volunteerism.

Financially, last year our normal giving-to-spending ran in the red, but that year also involved raising over $500K to bring the Alpha complex to near completion. Overall, what a burst of generosity! Our financial reserves helped us weather the deficit in our budget. This year we are also running in the red, as we heard at the Annual Meeting this week, mostly due to increased tax burden on our taxable properties and unexpected property maintenance (HVAC system). We still have the rest of June to end this fiscal year strong! Then the next fiscal year is upon us, and our proposed budget increases a little over 6%. Everyone’s finances work differently. Some, especially retired folks, benefit from less regular disbursements. Bless you, and thank you for giving! Working folks often have more predictable budgets and can give the same automatically through bill pay or other regular means. Bless you, and thank you for giving! Other ‘gig work’ folks have good months and not-so-good months, and their giving is proportional to the roller coaster they ride. Bless you, and thank you for giving! Others are unemployed or under-employed (we are praying for you), and they show up and give in generous and creative ways to help around the church. Bless you, and thank you for giving!

I don’t feel like this is shaking the tree, but I would like you to stand and look at it with me. Ask. Pray. “What part in Trinity’s life am I called to participate?” “Can I, ought I, participate in helping Trinity end this year in the black?” “Have I really taken seriously the call of the Scriptures to give open-handedly, generously, proportionally to the work of God in this place?”

Finally, volunteerism. We need you! VBS registration filled up sooner than ever before! But volunteering is filling up slower. You have generously made room for interns to fill lots of slots previously held by congregational members. Thank you. This year, we will need you in more pronounced ways!

God has made you a fruitful tree, Trinity. Work, harvest, share, enjoy!

Jesus peace, Nathan

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Speaking of “fruitful,” it was a wonderful honor to lead Bob & Donna Bowker through a renewal of their vows yesterday—60 years after they made them originally. Bob even fit in his same tie! These two are dear, aren’t they. I don’t know who prays for more people in our parish by name than Bob. They were married and formed for most of their lives in the Episcopal Church, so I used the short service from the occasional services book of that communion. What a beautiful little service.

Opening collect: O God, you have so consecrated the covenant of marriage that in it is represented the spiritual unity between Christ and his Church: Send your blessing upon N. and N., who come to renew their promises to each other, and grant them your grace, that they may so love, honor, and cherish each other in faithfulness and patience, in wisdom and true godliness, that their lives together may be a witness to your love and forgiveness, and that their home may be a haven of blessing and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Benediction: May God the Father, who ordained that it is good for husband and wife to live in the covenant of marriage, keep you one. Amen.

May God the Son, who adorned this manner of life by his first miracle, at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, be present with you always. Amen.

May God the Holy Spirit, who has given you the will to persevere in your love and in your covenant with each other, strengthen your bond. Amen.

And may God the Holy Trinity, the source of all unity, bless you this day and for ever. Amen.

I was thinking of Psalm 128 for Trinity and for Bob and Donna:

A song of ascents.

¹ Blessed are all who fear the Lord,
who walk in obedience to him.
² You will eat the fruit of your labor;
blessings and prosperity will be yours.
³ Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
around your table.
⁴ Yes, this will be the blessing
for the man who fears the Lord.

⁵ May the Lord bless you from Zion;
may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
all the days of your life.
⁶ May you live to see your children’s children—
peace be on Israel.

"Lord Jesus, from your opened side your bride, the Church, was formed, and sanctified in your cleansing blood. Make your Church a fruitful vine, with many children who will rejoice with you at your table and celebrate your goodness now and forever. Amen" [1]

“This little handbook is dedicated to
the people of Trinity Lutheran Church,
San Pedro, California, who have walked
with boldness in the things of the Spirit,
with patience toward one another,
with love for the Lutheran Church”

-Larry Christianson, in the dedication of his book: The Charismatic Renewal Among Lutherans, published 50 years ago.

Pastor Christianson’s book is a treasure trove of biblical teaching, theological reflection, and pastoral and congregational advice. I wish I could do justice to updating it for it’s 50th anniversary. The chapters on infant baptism, the spiritual gifts, and others are as relevant today as ever before, and wouldn’t need any touching up. The historical sections, and counsel sections would need updating, not because they are inaccurate, but because the world and the church and church structures are so different. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13.8). The word of the Lord endures forever (1 Peter 1.25, Isaiah 40.8). And, it seems like everything else changes, or as Bob Dylan sang:

The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

Here we are 50 years after that book was dedicated to you, Trinity Lutheran Church, “who have walked with boldness in the things of the Spirit, with patience toward one another, with love for the Lutheran Church.” In the book, Christianson writes,

“Appreciate your heritage. The very word “renewal” implies an appreciation of the old. God is not an annihilator. He is a redeemer. He does not obliterate the old. He renews it. He does not make all new things. He makes all things new. A mark of maturity in any renewal movement is an appreciation of it heritage” (125).

We have a good and godly heritage to appreciate. Looking 500 years back, we can still appreciate the grace-saturated movement we called the Reformation. Looking 50 years back, we can still appreciate the Spirit-empowered movement we called Renewal. Looking back this last year, we also have much to appreciate.

There are temptations for churches that have glory in their story and a goodly heritage. Nostalgia, that blurry-eyed conservatism that remembers and pines after all the good bits, but neglects to remember the whole story. Israel was even nostalgic about their time in Egypt! “Remember the good ol’ days” they said as they walked from slavery towards liberty. Sometimes talk of revival is more accurately a desire to revive an old revival, instead of that refreshing and surprising and sovereign move of God. It is good to have a rear-view mirror or a back-up-camara, but it is not good to fixate on them when 99% of driving ought to be oriented forwards. We are mostly to look forward. But, annual meetings and church anniversaries are fitting times to look back and say, “Thus far the Lord has helped us” (1 Samuel 7.12).

All that said, the 50th anniversary of this little book by Pr Christianson makes my ache for an authentic move of God’s Spirit more acute. May we turn this longing into prayer, “my soul longs for you, O God” (Psalm 42). We have need of you. Our city has need of you.

Means of Grace

Holy Word: I primarily preached from the lectionary assigned passages, with the exception of an 11 week series on the Book of Revelation entitled: Seen and Unseen.

The Lenten season is an annual season of focused discipleship. As has been our tradition for the last few years, we shared in common prayer and a common book. This year, God On Mute by Pete Greig helped focus our attention on a biblical view of suffering and God’s power and prayer.

Holy Baptism (following are enumerated in my official report)
Holy Communion
Rite of Confirmation
Holy Absolution
Other Ministerial Acts (Marriage, Burial, Dedication of Prayer Chapel)

Leadership Team Reflections

I am so thankful for the leaders I get to work with around Trinity. Our various groups are led by absolute servants, and they don’t hear from me enough how thankful I am for them. It is dangerous to start mentioning Pantry, Altar Guild, Nursery, Women’s Bible Study, Omega, Telos, Theta, Catechism, Youth and Kids teams, Landscaping, Music and tech teams, Kipos Guild, Kitchen crew, nominating and endowment committees, campus renewal team, prayer teams,…

Then our church council is sharp, unified, prayerful.

After the elders pray on Tuesdays at 6am, I always wish I had pressed record so I could send it out to everyone. These leaders are inspired by Christ’s own love for his bride the church, and their earnest prayer is marked by affection and love.

The staff is a dream team. They each have their lanes, but we are all going the same direction and I love going with them! My view is that the congregation doesn’t exist to support the staff, but the staff exists to support the congregation. The congregation—YOU—are the body, reaching out, laying on hands in ministry, clasping hands in prayer, embracing, working, communicating. The staff is the skeleton, giving a framework for the body of Christ to be able to take shape right here. I think the staff does an excellent job.

Goals for 2026-2027

1. Most pressing need in this house: Foyer and Dining Room. I think we are really great at front door hospitality, but need to help people find the next two steps in the life of the church: evangelization and discipleship. There are a few ways to do this, but the Alpha Course is my favorite option. I am currently talking with a couple leaders who could help us in this area in the year to come.

2. Sabbath. Have you noticed an increase in broader conversation around the sabbath? Joy and I are planning to take a 3 month sabbatical in the summer of 2027. I wonder if God is calling all of us more broadly to rest? Not sloth or laziness or passivity, but the quiet waters where the Good Shepherd leads us and restores us. Lets pay attention to God’s command and invitation to remember and observe the sabbath day. What if our Friday nights were known for sabbath celebrations? Candles lit. Warm bread. A glass of wine or another fitting substitute. A song of prayer. Then joyful connecting conversations. Maybe you have local extended family who could join you? Maybe you could invite another Trinity member or a neighbor to join you? In a growing technological age, celebrating artificiality, what if we became known for putting our screens down and looking each other deep in the eyes. Human. Being.

3. Safeguarding. We have grown in the area of safeguarding, which is defined as: the proactive measures and policies put in place to protect the health, well-being, and human rights of individuals, particularly children, youth, and vulnerable adults. We have seen, first hand, the destruction that can come from unhealthy leaders and unhealthy environments. This is and will be an ongoing priority while I am the pastor at Trinity. Ideally, we would have a safeguarding team who can help us shape healthy measures, policies, and training. Read my recent article if you want to know more: https://nathanhoff.substack.com/p/shattering-leaders

BIG GOAL: I have listed as a goal now for a few years, to acquire nearby alley lots ($700K-4M?), develop them, sell as low cost as possible, prioritizing folks of all ages looking to root in the ministry of Trinity, and invest in the neighborhood. It hasn’t happened yet, but I keep praying, and even sketch out ideas, and invite others to pray with me. I could show you my sketches if you are interested :).

Family and Personal Reflections

This is Trinity’s 105th Annual Congregational Meeting. You are dear to God and dear to me. It is a great privilege to be your pastor. You elected to Call me your pastor, 21 years ago. Your vote wasn’t unanimous. I don’t blame you. I was 30 years old and pretended to know more than I actually knew. I don’t know how much more I know now, but I pretend less. It took a lot of faith for you. It took a lot of faith for me and Joy. The goal is not to shape a life that requires as little faith as necessary; A budget that requires no earnest prayer or challenge; A plan that we can accomplish apart from the Holy Spirit intervention. We need God, and we might as well get used to it.

Thank you for celebrating our sesquicentennial this year (50 years for both of us, 30 years of marriage, and 20 years at Trinity. That was over-the-top. Another pastor whispered to me, “They really love you don’t they?” You showed it so well.

Joy Hoff—this year has been a doozy. Cancer sucks. All the devoted care that you gave year-by-year to our kids and to so many others was refocused for your dear brother and father. What a marvel to watch you. I don’t know anyone who has a better intuition about what to do next. You always know. It comes from the way you were made, but also from the One who continues to make you. But, I mean it when I use the word marvel. August we will celebrate our 30th anniversary and I think we should go do something fun. Also, the above sabbath goal is for you too.

Jesus’ peace,
Nathan Hoff

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“Hi, my name is Nathan. I’m the pastor of a local church, and I need some help.”

I’ve contacted G.R.A.C.E. two times in my tenure at Trinity. G.R.A.C.E. stands for Godly Response to Abuse in a Christian Environment. Their mission is: To empower Christian communities to recognize, prevent, and respond to abuse. I have referred other leaders and organizations to them because their values align with the heart of God, and because of how helpful they were to me in fulfilling their mission, which unfortunately aligned with my need. I would encourage everyone to go to their website and become aware of the profound importance of safeguarding in the church of Jesus Christ.

Most people don’t want to think about this. That is why I am writing a stumbling bumbling article. I am not saying anything fresh. Others have said it better. But, usually around 500 people read my articles (thanks by the way), and I hope my experiences of not knowing what to do will be used to bring a little more awareness.

I didn’t know what to do about a confirmed account of abuse that stretched far back in our congregation’s history. The perpetrator was dead and every attempt to track down the name or identity of the victim was a dead end. GRACE helped me understand my responsibilities. They also helped reframe the issue not so much as a problem to be solved (to salve my conscience) but as an opportunity for “fostering cultures that care for survivors, safeguard the vulnerable, and hold abusers accountable.”

I didn’t know what to do when I found out that a once trusted former leader was accused and had confessed to sexual abuse. Should we communicate to our current congregation and/or to those who were around during the tenure of the former leader? How should we communicate to our people? What if there were other victims? What do we say? What do we not say?

Here are a few things I learned.

• God is watching. A shepherd’s shepherding is ultimately not judged by their charismatic dynamism, their pioneering spirit, their sacrificial service, their gifts, their weaknesses, or their competencies. Their shepherding will be judged by how they treat sheep. Ask the prophets who spoke by God. “Woe to the shepherds…” Jeremiah 23. “Prophesy against the shepherds…” Ezekiel 34. “Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing” Matthew 7.15. The Good Shepherd is jealous for his flock, and he is watching.

• Victims are watching. There are many victims in every congregation. Search “percentage of people who have been sexually assaulted.” Or, “percentage of people who have been sexually harassed.” It is lamentably high, even the most conservative statistics. When you talk or write, victims are listening and reading and wondering: Do they treat this seriously? Is this a place or person that is safe or dangerous for me? Can I find healing here, or will my worst fears be confirmed? Is this a healthy place to bring my kids?

• Sinners are paying attention. How will they talk about sin, failure, or even grave injustice? Will they “cut off” the guilty? Do they believe that there is a limit to God’s forgiveness? Am I a lost cause or beyond redemption?

• Language is important. Indiscretions. Inappropriate behavior. “Locker Room Talk.” “Boys will be boys.” Misconduct. Adultery. Sin. Consensual. Moral failure. “Didn’t live up to my own standards.” “The Devil made me do it.” “I was attacked by Satan.” Euphemisms that minimize are unhelpful, worse, they are untrue. Jimmy Swaggert famously cried (the first time he was caught), “I HAVE SINNED!” True, we have all sinned, but his use minimizes what he actually did. “He experienced moral failure.” True, but the passive voice is insufficient to describe an active offense. Ambiguity is a servant to the one using it. All descriptions are accurate for certain actions, but does the language we use, minimize what actually took place? For instance, “Sexual sin” or “moral failure” or “consensual” does not sufficiently encapsulate what happens when one dressed as a shepherd (in title, office, or attire) harms one who is in their charge. That is abuse.

• Offenders often offend more than once. In our consultation, G.R.A.C.E. told us that statistics reveal that offenders are more often than not, serial. They also said that they are usually exposed when they have done their most brazen act, as they usually become increasingly emboldened. Neither of these are always the case, but are more often the case. This also means that even though an organization knows about one victim, there are more-often-than-not others.

• Certain environments are more at risk than others.
  -Martyr-leaders or pioneer-leaders can develop a self-justifying attitude that the organization or constituency owes them for their sacrifice.
  -Isolating loneliness leave leaders more vulnerable.
  -Celebrity culture breed and rewards and benefits from narcissistic leadership. One of the conclusions from the report commissioned by the trustees of Soul Survivor after their pioneer pastor’s abusive actions were exposed stated, “when an organisation is seen as successful, people do not look carefully enough about what the price may be for such success.” Mr Pilavachi [their pastor] was, they write, “the goose that laid the golden eggs”.
  -Long-tenured leaders often operate with more latitude because of a high-trust environment. Their honored history buys them policy passes.
  -Legalistic environments can drive this dark stuff into an underground vault labeled “shame.”
  -Grace as “toleration” environments can excuse this stuff as all “under the blood” or “taken care of at the cross” or “there but for the grace of God go I.”
  -Required reading! The very helpful articles is from Wade Mullen, The Toxic Triangle, where he synthesizes the research of Padilla, Hogan, and Kaiser. “Destructive leadership emerges not as an isolated phenomenon, but through the convergence over time of three critical factors: Destructive Leaders, Susceptible Followers, Conducive Environments.” And, “Certain environmental conditions make it easier for destructive leadership to thrive:

  • Crisis or instability that makes people more receptive to control

  • Loyalty culture, where questioning is equated with betrayal

  • High power distance, where leadership is idealized and unchecked

  • Contradiction between what’s said and what’s done

  • Lack of accountability

  • Non-existent, weak, or unenforced policies”

• Absolution is different from qualification. The shed blood of Jesus is sufficient to cover the deepest injustice, the worst offense, the most despicable sin. Even Augustine, Luther, Manning, Capon, Forde have still have not adequately proclaimed the monergistic, grace alone, even for ragamuffins, 200 proof grace, bottle of pure distillate Scripture, the radical gospel! The true gospel is better news than any of us have believed and better than any of us have had the words to proclaim. “What language shall I borrow?” Holy Absolution, that all of your sins, ALL OF THEM, are forgiven for Christ’s sake. These words are for everyone—even perpetrators. But, they are NOT the same as qualification for leadership. Holding leaders accountable is not withholding absolution, but neither is absolution unaccountability. Tim Keller called this “the weaponization of grace.” There is a difference between “God is for you in Jesus Christ,” and “God is for you being a leader around vulnerable people.”

• Character does not come through the laying on of hands. Anointing is not a sign of integrity. I am a child of the charismatic movement. I used to believe that prayer with the laying on of hands could accomplish anything. I don’t believe that anymore. Laying on of hands is the right move for communicating the ministry of Jesus: anointing the sick, epiclesis for the coming of the Spirit, and deliverance. But, the laying on of hands does not transmit virtue. Patience cannot be acquired by a touch. The Spirit orders our disorders, and cultivates the virtues through a long habitus in the same direction. Maybe this is why we are told not to be hasty with the laying on of hands? (1 Timothy 5.22). Also, anointing is not a sign of integrity. One leader I knew felt that he hadn’t gone “too far” because he was still prophesying and speaking in tongues. He figured that God must not have left him since he still showed evidence of the Spirit’s power in his life. There is no one more dangerous than one with evident public gifts matched with a vapid private life. Heidi Baker stood on stage with an impressive public leader and pointed at his head and said, “too big.” Then she pointed at his heart and said, “too small.”

A Future and a hope

A healthier future for our leaders, our participants, and our organizations requires addressing the toxic triangle mentioned by Padilla, Hogan, and Kaiser: Destructive Leaders, Susceptible Followers, Conducive Environments.

Dear Leaders

Union with Christ is more important than what you do for him. I wish I could remember where I heard Tim Keller say something like: you can bluff an accountability group, you can reveal or not reveal parts of yourself to a supervisor, board, or bishop, and you can lie to your spouse, but you can’t fake genuine communion with God. No polity or governance model can protect you. Only union with Christ—abiding in Christ can dynamically nourish and sustain you in true faith and the Spirit-borne fruit of holiness. You are not a tool. God doesn’t instrumentalize or utilitize you. I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. Song of Solomon 6.3. I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15.5. Christian leader, do you really want to be a great leader? Wake up, meet God, and then do it again and again and again.
Subterranean character matters. David Gergen was an eyewitness to power. He was in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton administrations before becoming a pundit that I loved. He passed away last year. I heard him at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda after publishing his book in 2000: Eyewitness to Power. He had insight in to all of the presidents he worked with, but his reflections on Nixon and Clinton have stuck with me to this day. Nixon had the greatest intellectual gifts and Clinton had the greatest people skills and memory than anyone he knew. He recalled Clinton going up to people who had made $5 donations to his first run for AG in Arkansas (?) and remembering their names. Gergen said that when Clinton was on trial for his abuse of Monica Lewinsky, and he would raspy reply, “I really don’t recall,” Gergen knew he was lying. Gergen summarized both Nixon’s and Clinton’s downfall—their character couldn’t prop up the weight of their public gifts or charisma.

Pastor Jim Anderson has worked with many leaders and congregations in distress. His chart comes from that experience: The Ministry Wall of Strength. In it, anointing (that subjective, but publicly recognized unction), gifts (spiritual or personality charisms), and abilities (natural) are all, as it were above-ground. You can see them. They are evident. What you can’t see, because they are subterranean, is character and wholeness. If you look at the chart below and draw a darker line under ‘abilities,’ it would be more accurate. Character and wholeness are not always broad and foundational like this chart shows, but are often thin or even non-existent. Exterior gifts can not sustain interior immaturity. It will shatter. You will shatter. Everyone that benefited from your anointing or your gifts or your abilities, and everyone they know, and every organization that you lead will also shatter. Tend to the subterranean!

Eugene Peterson called this congruence:

The Christian life is the lifelong practice of attending to the details of congruence— congruence between ends and means, congruence between what we do and the way we do it, congruence between what is written in Scripture and our living out what is written, congruence between a ship and its prow, congruence between preaching and living, congruence between the sermon and what is lived in both preacher and congregation, the congruence of the Word made flesh in Jesus with what is lived in our flesh.

Isolation is death. It is not good for man to be alone. Then he sent them out two-by-two. Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto.
Restoration is a way of life, not something that happens after disastrous failure. After 15 years as pastor at Trinity, I wrote 15 articles in a series titled Lessons from the Last 15. Here is what I said about restoration.

A spiritually sick pastor is not a long term blessing to the congregation. They end up barking at the flock, or worse, taking advantage of the flock in some way. That is the shepherd’s problem in Ezekiel. Who hasn’t seen or heard of pastors who fail in some cataclysmic way that disqualifies them from public ministry? Misuse of money-sex-power, and boom, damage is done to precious people, and to the public witness of the Gospel. Some of those pastors re-enter far too quickly, and some after a respectable amount of time has passed. Next comes a public statement about a “restoration process.” Before I was ordained, I decided I would live in a restoration process instead of wait until I did something terrifically stupid and damaging. If that restoration process meant coming clean about my stuff-I would do it. If it meant humbling myself before another brother or even a group-I would do it. If it meant renegotiating rhythms of grace so they were sustainable, I would do it. That is what I aimed to do: a preemptive restoration process.

Leader, You are called to be healthy shepherds. You are called to this hard and holy work. Few are willing, and maybe you are wondering, but this work is worth it.

Dear Followers

If it is coercive, it isn’t discipleship. The call to discipleship—to follow Jesus, involves a cross. Matthew 16.24. Discipleship involves challenge. But it is never coercive. A leader can’t make discipleship decisions for you. Jesus even said, “let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Some did and some didn’t. He didn’t make a decision for the rich young ruler, because it wasn’t Jesus’ decision to make. Notice the difference between a leader or organization that is controlling instead of challenging.
You don’t exist for your leader’s platform or his ego. The longer you are in a sick environment with sick leadership, the sicker you will be. Reality twisted. The Overton window at work: what was once unacceptable will become “worth considering” and then acceptable and then popular. You are not called to conform to your leader or be transformed by your organization. You are called to be transformed by Jesus, and so are leaders. Paul didn’t say, “Follow me.” He said, “Follow me, as I follow Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11.1.
Healing is available. But probably not in the same system where the sickness was cultivated. A new beginning in a healthy community might be necessary.
For those who have experienced any degree of abuse: My colleague, Kierra Blackstad has more training in trauma and instinctual empathy than I. When I asked her what she would add, she said: “You are loved and brave and I’m sorry about what happened to you. I’m sorry if institutions haven’t heard your story well and have covered it up instead of doing justice.” I agree.

Dear Environments

Institutional survival is not as important to God as it is to you. “But, he is the one who is our best fundraiser. The orphans will suffer if we expose him.” “If this comes out, the movement itself will be harmed.” Jesus’ letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 reveal that God is less interested than we are in perpetuating institutions. Organizations can serve the purposes of God, but they can also subvert them. When an institution’s means undermine their ends, it is better that they don’t survive unless radical reform takes place. Institutions are important, but not ultimate. CYA is not a Biblical value.
Welcome the prophets and stop treating victims as the problem. “When Ahab saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, O troubler of Israel?” 1 Kings 18.17. In sick institutions, the actual troublers are seen as keepers of the status quo, and victims and prophets are seen as troublers. The whole prophetic corpus is a clear and direct testimony to God’s penchant for good trouble. Rep. John Lewis stood on the shoulders of the Biblical prophets, “Speak up, speak out, get in the way.” Weep when you watch this video of a congregation giving a perpetrator a standing ovation while leaving the victim comfortless. Prophets keep unity true, justice authentic, and love real. They don't let us get by with cheap talk. They call us on stuff. They don't let leaders say, "Peace! Peace! Where there is no peace." Welcome that band of women and men who so align themselves with the pulsating justice and truth that pumps through the sacred heart of Jesus, which grants courage to speak out sacrificially. Welcome the prophets who dream about the Kingdom of God and dance upon injustice!
Culture will eat your strategy for breakfast. Chuck DeGroat has some of the most helpful research and writing on narcissism in the church. He writes, “healthy systems matter. They distribute power instead of concentrating it in one person. They cultivate shared leadership, meaningful accountability, and clear boundaries. They resist the instinct to protect the leader at all costs. They create environments where concerns can be raised without fear of retaliation. And they cultivate emotional intelligence (self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, social awareness, and clarity of values).”
Learn about safeguarding. Safeguarding defined: the proactive measures and policies put in place to protect the health, well-being, and human rights of individuals, particularly children, youth, and vulnerable adults. So much of our response is reactive instead of proactive. May our reactions be righteous, but also our pro-actions. It is important to know what to do after you have been in a car accident (reactive). It is also important to wear your seatbelt (proactive). Even if you are in a more free association, network, or independent, that does not release you from your responsibility to protect the vulnerable. You don’t have to wait to have a bishop or committee or initiative to tell you that this is a priority. “We didn’t have to safeguard because no one has the authority to tell us what to do” is a weak sauce excuse, and you ought not to be trusted with the vulnerable.
Who is on your board? Are they all friends of the key leader? Do they all look like the key leader? Is there any generational representation? Gender representation? Experiential representation? Racial/Ethnic representation? Vocational representation. You don’t have to like DEI to believe the scriptures: “In the multitude of counselors there is safety” Proverbs 14.11. It is wise to hear what the lawyers say, but isn’t more important hearing a victim’s voice. A lawyers job is to protect you from exposure. A victim’s job is to expose you to the need for transparency and honesty and integrity. Diane Langberg names the temptation, “prioritizing legal obligations versus caring for the vulnerable.”
It is not just the leader. Diane Langberg notes, in a helpful podcast, the relationship between the key leader and the inner circle. “Most leaders have an inner circle that are designed for good reasons, like a board of elders or deacons or something like that. When the leader begins to deceive themselves and then begins to justify what they’re doing, they need the inner circle to be okay with that. So the power of words and the power of position and the inner circle’s commitment to this same system, which has given them a place of authority and esteem ends up becoming contagious. The blindness of the leader becomes the blindness of the inner circle.”

When churches ask Chuck DeGroat if they can narcissist-proof their church from unhealthy leaders he tells them, “First, we tend to assume the problem lives inside one person. If we can identify that person, or remove that person, then the system will be safe. But in my experience, narcissism rarely flourishes in isolation. It is sustained by systems that reward it, excuse it, or depend on it.”

What can I do?

There is so much that is covered in this one article. My goal is to produce a follow-up discussion guide to go with this post that could be useful for a leadership team, or board, or for a small group of leaders. I’m also interested in discussing this privately or publicly. Email me or leave a comment below.

Join me in prayer:

Pour yourself like precious gold
Into what is broken
Take these pieces, make me whole
Beauty still unfolding

Even in my wounds I see
Jesus, You’ve been good to me
Scars of gold
How You hold my heart together (Ellie Holcomb / Taylor Leonhardt / Jess Ray)

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In 1849 Søren Kierkegaard wrote The Sickness Unto Death. He pointed to faith in God as that which allowed the believer to, “find themselves, and no longer have to try despairingly to be themselves—or despairingly not to be themselves.”
Consider those two options. First, despairing to be themselves. In an earlier age the individual mainly conformed to outward societal, familial, or religious expectations. In our modern age individuals mainly conform to an inward “authentic self.” (Charles Taylor’s expressive individualism). For many this has felt like trading a desperate attempt to fit in, with a desperate attempt to be themselves, and both felt out of reach. Kierkegaard’s diagnosis is confirmed. It is an inner torment, a sickness unto death, to be unable to find oneself, or escape from oneself, in oneself.
Consider the other option of despairing not to be themselves. Where is the line between finding oneself, to so altering oneself as to no longer be oneself. Dissatisfied with one’s real face or authentic complexion or true color or facial shape, “Sephora Kids” are 9-14 year olds who purchase lots of product and develop complicated routines often documented online. “Looksmaxxing” is maximizing one’s attractiveness and runs the spectrum between “softmaxxing” which is grooming, skincare, fitness, and practicing tongue posture (its a real thing), to “hardmaxxing” which includes more severe interventions like elective plastic surgery or bone-smashing, which is intentionally hitting facial bones to try to alter their shape (also a real thing). Trying despairingly to be ourselves inevitably leads to trying despairingly to not be ourselves. If an authentic self or an improved self won’t save, then who will save us from this sickness unto death?
That is where faith must come in. Faith in the Creator who looked at all he had made, including the man and woman and said, “It was very good” (Genesis 1.31). They would struggle to believe this, and we do too. Faith in the Incarnate God who took on flesh to redeem flesh. Faith in God the Spirit who would be breathed out on Pentecost to help the church believe in God and to believe in what God believes about them. I am not a fan of the qualifier, “maxxing.” Why are two x’s needed? But, if two x’s or bold font or all caps enhance something, then the Holy Spirit is the one who FAITHMAXXXXXXXXES. The Holy Spirit helps us believe that we have come to the end of trying despairingly to be ourselves—or despairingly not to be ourselves. The Holy Spirit is the helper we need to be Abba’s own dear child. Not an enhanced or authentic version of ourselves, but his. In the Small Catechism, Luther gives the meaning to the introduction to the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven means that God encourages us to believe that he is truly our Father and we are his children.” Paul tells the Galatians, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying “Abba! Father! So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Galatians 4.6-7).

Come Holy Spirit, and maximize my faith in God, that my slavery to enhancement or authenticity might come to its end, and that believe in my own belovedness might begin. Amen.

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How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord;
My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.
For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.
From Psalm 84

And if I were a painter I do not know which I’d paint
The calling of the ancient stars or assembling of the saints.
Rich Mullins

Late have I loved you, O Beauty
Ever ancient, ever new!
St. Augustine

I have often affirmed my conviction that the true apology of Christian faith,
the most convincing demonstration of its truth…are the saints
and the beauty that the faith has generated.
Pope Benedict XVI

Blessed be God: the Father, + the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
And blessed be his kingdom now and forever. Amen.

Since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, looking to Jesus in penitence and faith.

The Word became flesh
And dwelt among us. (John 1)

Christ is the icon of the invisible God;
All things were created through him and for him. (Colossians 1)

For the Holy Angels that ceaselessly adore you, who deliver messages from your throne, and are assigned to guard your precious children: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Abraham and Sarah, our ancestors in faith,
and all who journey into the unknown trusting God’s promises: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Ruth and Boaz, and all who, through love and devotion witness to the covenant of God: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch, and all who ask questions And all who are swept into apostolic witness hat you would provide insight into your word and plentiful water to baptize all who seek you. With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Mary, the mother of our Lord and God, and Joseph, her faithful spouse and all who say, “Yes” to God’s call: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For John the Baptist, Elizabeth and Zechariah and all the prophets, and all who speak the truth without counting the cost: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Peter, James, and John, and for all who forsake all to follow Jesus: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Apollos, Priscilla, and Aquila, and for all who deepen our faith in humble learning and instruction: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Perpetua and Felicity and the whole army of martyrs, and all who have faced death for love of Christ: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and John Chrysostom, and all who enable us to reflect on the mystery of Christ: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Peter of Alexandria, Egeria the Pilgrim, and Olaf the King, and for all who lead the Church into new paths of discipleship: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Monica and Augustine, and for all who nurture faith in the little church of the home and the big home of the church: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Patrick, and all who bear witness to trinitarian life and love: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Carolina and Clive Staples and for all who praise God in poetry and song and writing: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Martin and Katie,
Larry and Nordis,
Brother William and Sister Aimee,
Dietrich, Gudina and Tsehay,
Count Nicholas, and Hans Neilsen and Bishop Bo
And all reformers and renewers of your church: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For Coretta and Martin, and all renewers of society: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

For the martyrs and peacemakers of our own time, who shine as lights in the darkness:
For all the unsung, forgotten, and quiet saints of our faith, whose names are known to God alone:
For all those in our own lives who have revealed to us the love of God and shown to us the way of life: With thankful hearts
We glorify our God in whom they put their trust.

Let My Prayer Rise Up
Holden Evening Prayer - Psalm 141
m: Marty Haugen, 1990, 2016

Let my prayer rise up like incense before you,
the lifting up of my hands as an offering to you.

O God, I call to you, come to me now;
O hear my voice when I cry to you.

Keep watch within me, God; deep in my heart
may the light of your love be burning bright.

All praise to the God of all, Creator of life;
all praise be to Christ and the Spirit of love.

Let the doors of this church be open for all to meet God as he speaks in his holy word, and as his holy people respond in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. May heaven meet earth in this place as the sanctuary meets the street. Draw in all who are hungering and thirsting for your presence, O God, as the evening sacrifice is lifted. Then satisfy them in the morning with your steadfast love.

Peace be to this house
And all who enter here in the name of the Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 29.19b)

The merciful Lord be present at this altar to + pardon, + strengthen, + bless, + feed, and + hear his people.

God bless this altar
Nourish and strengthen us until at last we gather at the heavenly banquet to feast with the Lamb and all his saints in glory everlasting. Amen.

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe. The heavens and earth cannot contain you, yet you are willing to make your home in human hearts. We are the temple of your presence, and this building is the house of your Church. Be present always to guide and illumine your people. And now, O God, visit us with your mercy and blessing as we dedicate, not only this space, but ourselves to your glory and honor in the name of the Father, + Son, and + Holy Spirit.
Amen

For more information on the All Saints Prayer Chapel and for a calendar of the saints, visit this site: https://www.trinitysanpedro.org/chapel

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Pope Leo doesn’t live in the real world. His own words betray him.
On Easter Sunday, he called for a prayer vigil, at which he spoke: Prayer is not “an anesthetic to numb the pain provoked by so much injustice,” but rather in prayer human thoughts, words and deeds “break the demonic cycle of evil and are placed at the service of the Kingdom of God. A Kingdom in which there is no sword, no drone, no vengeance, no trivialization of evil, no unjust profit, but only dignity, understanding and forgiveness.” Prayer, he continued, is “a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive,” particularly at a time when “the balance within the human family has been severely destabilized.”1

The pope thinks prayer is “a bulwark against the delusion of omnipotence.”

The pope believes that there is a “cycle of evil” that is “demonic” and that prayer can break it.

The pope lives in an alternative Kingdom where “there is no sword, no drone, no vengeance, no trivialization of evil, no unjust profit, but only dignity, understanding and forgiveness.”

He also has ridiculously unrealistic views about refugees and the defense of the unborn that don’t really work in the ‘real’ world.

If we only lived in the ‘real’ world, His Nesting Place should just close up, because bringing an unplanned pregnancy to birth is surely a lifetime of trial and one impossibility after another. Courage House should give up because the trafficker has power, control, and money, and the trafficked have none. No real future. No real hope for a better life. Plus, what can a little life-vest ministry do in a tsunami of injustice? In the ‘real’ world, MLK Jr. should stop dreaming. In the ‘real’ world, Tubman should obey her master. If God visited the ‘real’ world, he should destroy it, not die for it. Think how much of the Bible would have to be altered if we only believed in the ‘real’ world. Israel would stay in Egypt. Moses would keep his mouth shut. Deborah would know her place. Daniel would eat whatever he wanted. Job would curse God and die. Sarah would die barren. Eli and his sons would go on taking advantage of the pious. Jesus would have to take back the Sermon on the Mount, and his disciples would have been accurate consultants. In the ‘real’ world, Jesus wouldn’t have time to waste with the children. Jesus would still be in the tomb.

Pope Leo doesn’t live in the ‘real’ world, but neither does he live in John Lennon’s Imagine world—a make-believe positive secular humanistic world. Pope Leo believes the faith that he confesses: Alleluia, Christ is Risen. On the third day he rose again. I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen. This ‘real’ world is passing, and the new one is coming. The resurrection of Jesus from death’s grip is only the first fruits of God resurection stragegy (1 Corinthians 15.20). “Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is.”

No, Pope Leo XIV doesn’t live in the ‘real’ world. Do you want to?

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Our All Saints Prayer Chapel represents figures spanning time and space. It is among the most comprehensively (small ‘c’) catholic cloud of witnesses gathered in one place—outside of heaven. You can find the full list of saints here. Sometimes commemoration days align in what seems preternatural.

April 9th is one of those days. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his twin sister Sabine were two months old when the Azusa Street Revival began in what is now called ‘Little Tokyo’ in Los Angeles. It was on April 9th, 1906, 120 years ago today, in a home on Bonnie Brae Street, the modern Pentecostal movement was birthed. There was clear evidence of the move of the Holy Spirit: tongues, interpretation, prophecy, discernment, healing, and controversy. There was also Joel 2 and Acts 2 signs: sons and daughters, slaves and free, old and young unity and empowerment. The LA Times was suspicious, as this article from a few weeks on suggests:

Colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howlings of the worshipers, who spend hours swaying forth and back in a nerve-racking attitude of prayer and supplication. They claim to have “the gift of tongues,” and to be able to comprehend the babel. Such a startling claim has never yet been made by any company of fanatics, even in Los Angeles, the home of almost numberless creeds. Sacred tenets, reverently mentioned by the orthodox believer, are dealt with in a familiar, if not irreverent, manner by these latest religionists.”^[1]
- Los Angeles Times, Wednesday April 18, 1906

Trinity San Pedro is a resevoir resourced from this stream of the Spirit’s flow from Azusa Street, down through the Foursquare Gospel Church (Sister Aimee), and the ministry hosted by San Pedro 1st Foursquare (now Bethany Christian Fellowship), when a young pastor Larry Christenson went down to 10th Street in San Pedro and experienced a refreshing that welled up in him and flowed through him like streams of living water.

On Sunday, April 8th, the Second Sunday of Easter in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached his final sermon based on the Moravian Daily Text for the day: "Durch seine Wunden sind wir geheilt" – Isaiah 53:5 ("By his wounds we are healed"). Later that day he was transported to the Flossenburg Concentration Camp and the next morning, April 9th, was hanged by the SS in the courtyard of the detention building. His last words: "This is the end—for me, the beginning of life." His remains were likely incinerated and buried in a mass grave nearby. His family found out about his death four months later when they were listening to the BBC radio, and a broadcast of a memorial service in Bonhoeffer’s honor was being held at Holy Trinity Brompton in London.

Morris Vaagness used to say, “There is plenty cost to Pentecost.” Saints William Seymour and Dietrich Bonhoeffer would agree.

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“I love covering my own personal failures with my brothers’ fidelity; and so, together, we fulfill the law of Christ (Gal 6:2). A vivid image of this is provided when we chant the Hours together in choir. You can drop out of the psalmody for a few words or even a couple verses, to clear your thoat or catch your breath. But you really have not missed anything because your brothers’ singing has carried you.” Brother M. Simeon, O.C.S.O. (Erasmo Leiva Merikakis).

Part of being a member of a community is embracing the reality that I will be a burden. Others will need to have patience with me. I will need more forgiveness from others than I ever hoped or imagined. If the communal accountants keep on tracking, I will run deeper in the red instead of operating safely in the black. Eleison.

Burdensome Leaders

Leaders of communities are no exception to this. Pushing when we should have been patient. Passive when we should have pushed. Confusing challenge with exasperation, communicating indifference instead of grace. Eleison.

On Abbots and Abbesses—fathers and mothers of communities, Sr. Joan Chittister writes, “It is their weakness itself that becomes the anchor, the insight, the humility, and the gift of an abbot or prioress, a pope or a priest, a parent or a director. But only if they themselves embrace it. It is a lesson for leaders everywhere who either fear to lead because they know their own weaknesses or who lead defensively because they fear that others will know their weaknesses. It is a lesson for parents who remember their own troubles as children. It is a lesson for husbands and wives who cannot own the weaknesses that plague their marriage. The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century. (47).

A Damn Thought

I don’t want to be a burden: a damn thought believed by young and old alike. Synonymous phrases would be: Don’t count on me (I might let you down). I don’t want to be in a relationship (I might disappoint you). I don’t want to be in a community (my weaknesses might be exposed). I don’t want to live (too risky). Might as well call a thing what it is—a damn thought. As in, a thought whose source and most native home is hell.

When I am old, I want to be a burden. I don’t know another way. Who am I kidding? I am a burden already—a blessed beloved burden. Others have to bear with me, and I with them. Together, we need more of God’s love in Christ Jesus than we used to admit, and it is the best thing about us.

Even Jesus was a burden. Bounced on his mother’s lap when colicky. Always borrowing rooms, or a lady’s water jug, or other people’s donkeys, and even the tomb in which he was buried (temporarily). Every one of the ways Jesus burdened those around him became the greatest blessings to those around him.

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Here come the dreamers
The artists who see things no one else does…yet.
The poets who rearrange old words in new ways.
The potters who give shape to lumps of clay.
The film-makers who help us reframe old plotlines with fresh storytelling.
The LEGO creators who use blocks to move us with new renditions of the old old story.
Designers who make beauty function, and function beautiful.
Musicians who, in an age of dissonance, give us a shared song to sing in tune with heavenly harmonics!

Here come the impostors
The posers! At least that is what their hearts tell them. Some of you have an inner critic, and outer critics too, who confirm your worst inside voice.
To the misunderstood, and those who feel like they have to continually justify why they are doing something more than utilitarian or useful.
And the angst! And melancholy.
The niggling feeling that something is just not right with the world.
Or with your work.
Or with you.
Tonight, you are welcome. And you don’t have to justify a dang thing!
We love what you bring to the world, and the church, and we love what God is doing in you and through you.

Here come the patrons
Generous early adapters, initial supporters, the first to applaud when everyone else is suspicious.
The guy who bought your first work of art, or lady who fawned over your song.
The people who believe in you.

Here come the beauty-makers, redeeming all that is hideous
The story-tellers, spinning a better story
The blues singers, for when lament is the only proper refrain
The gospel choir, which sings about our deliverer to the soul that is bound
The dancers who dance upon injustice

Come one, come all you dreamers, you impostors, you patrons, you artists.
God, the creator is in league with you.
Even if the church has been long indifferent about your vocation, tonight that isn’t true.
We see the truth, the beauty, and the goodness of God in you and through you, and this God in Christ is for you.

What next?

The Garden Gala had two big goals: scatter the seed and harvest some fruit!

1. Scatter the seed

Casting broadly this good news: God is doing something to cultivate beauty, truth, and goodness in the artist community of San Pedro! The gospel is creative, artistic. It takes the form of words, and tangible acts of embodied love, and is sung and seen and heard. It makes something out of something else. The gospel takes sinners and takes and remakes them holy. Christian artists have a particular vocation to bear witness to this creative work in as many media as exist. Trinity, we are partners in this! The Gala’s goal was to tell this story, to broaden the awareness of this ministry, and invite the participation of artists and patrons. IT WORKED! About 70 folks from our community and beyond tasted and saw (and touched and heard and smelled) that the Lord is good! We want this news to spread, and wonder if you could help share the story of Kípos, possibly by sharing this video or the link to this article with Christian friends or folks in the arts community? Join us in scattering the seed.

2. Harvest some fruit

Artists and supporters had something to share, and share they did at the auction. Beauty was bounding out of the library and into the breezeway. Proceeds went to support Kípos. Up until this point, the resources to make Kípos possible came from two grants from Creo Arts and from the generosity of Trinity providing the space for the gallery and studios. The studio income has gone to defray energy and practical costs related to keeping that space open and the guild going. This fundraiser was a first for Kípos. The net fundraising so far has amounted to over $3500, which is a great first harvest! Geoffrey and team are working on what it would take to make Kípos sustainable year-to-year. For that, we will certainly need patrons—people who are captivated by this vision and want to participate financially. At this time, we don’t imagine Trinity’s budget being impacted by Kípos other than the loss of the full potential income from the space, which is sacrificial on the congregation’s part. Here is a link if you would like to give to Kípos.

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After decades of living ‘after virtue,’ bereft of a shared orienting moral language or lens, we face one of the, if not the greatest, ethical tests in history—how will we use or be used by artificial intelligence? How will we live in this era?

The credo of privatized moral subjectivity is emotivism’s “you do you.” We are experiencing it writ large, the old Western alliance that long shared a commitment to a ‘rules-based international order’ and valued democratic governance and human rights is crumbling.1

Have we ever been less ethically formed than we are now? Alasdair MacIntyre grimly describes the state of our moral universe: “grave disorder.” To borrow and adapt the prophet Isaiah’s confession: I am one—ethically undone, and I live among a people—ethically undone.

Recent interviews with those driving the AI ship do not alleviate my anxiety. Peter Thiel suggests transhumanism or hybrid-humans will be a kind of salvation. Your humanity will be enhanced or uploaded into eternal existence. Anyone who stands in the way of it? Maybe the anti-Christ, he suggests. Alex Karp, Palantir CEO, warned against regulating or stalling "discussion about human rights that obviously only serves people who, like, somehow wanna live in a world that doesn't work." In an interview with Tucker Carlson, “Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, admitted that he hasn’t had “a good night of sleep” since ChatGPT launched in 2022.” He also failed to give an adequate answer to the ethical orientation of ChatGPT, even suggesting it would give geographically tailored moral advice depending on the popular view of a given continent. Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, doesn’t know if the AI models are conscious, and suggests a slow down to pump the brakes would be the wisest, but that there is no shared willingness to do so. He also doesn’t think our constitution will keep up with the new world that is coming. Elon Musk’s Grok has a “spicy mode” that undresses photos of other people, including kids. It also seems to have a fondness for Adolf Hitler and multiple shades of white supremacy.

We are not ready for all of the ethical deliberations that are upon us. That does not mean that we should just let them happen to us. We should not just go prone, or go victim-mentality, or go wherever or do whatever our ‘overlords’ command. There is a discernment that can not wait, and may be summed up in one prescient question.

The discernment that cannot wait

Where are you going to draw a line? If you don’t answer this question, you will go where they tell you to go, and in hindsight, it might not be where you want to go.

Here is an example. In the absence of a line, most people went where Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg told them to go. Deeper and deeper into algorithmically-determined places mediated through their handheld device. We gave these to our kids as a gift, or an experiment, or let’s be honest, as a babysitter. We didn’t want them to get behind the technological curve! Or, lonely because they were left out of social networking. They have to have one to be able to communicate with us if there were a school shooting! The results are in—for our kids and us. Truncated attention span. Numb, foggy, listless, pornified, malformed, nihilistic, lonely. More consumptive and less constructive. “I’m super busy” persona, but our screentime reports expose hours of sloth.

Without a pre-determined line, we went where he told us to go, and now it is really hard to go back. So, now where are you going to draw a line?

For some people, it is going off the grid, and for some, it is getting a flip phone or a brick. For some, it is moving outstate on some acreage, and for others it is embracing a communal rule of life. For some, it is refusing to use plastic straws, and others eschew purchasing anything from Temu. Paul Kingsnorth moved with his family out to the hinterlands of Ireland and has a writing cottage connected to the interwebs for limited hours. Does he suggest we all do the same?

No, his suggestion, “First: drawing a line and saying, “No further.” Second: making sure that you pass any technologies you do use through a mesh of critical judgment. What – or who – do they ultimately serve? Humanity or the Machine? Nature or the technium? God or his adversary? If we interrogate everything we come across in this way – if we question the technologies that are served up to us, accepting those that serve the common good, rejecting those that undermine it and holding our line against them – then we will be approaching the kind of sensible and intelligent relationship with technology that our Machine culture seems intrinsically unable to offer us.”2

Orienting Convictions

I have a few orienting convictions that should be stated before I answer my own question: How I plan to live in the AI era.

1. You shall not erase God. This flows out of the fount of the decalogue. Idolatry is deifying anything that is not Deity. It is the first command because it was our first sin. The devil did a full frontal attack on Deity and on humanity when he said to our first parents, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” You just need to know what you don’t know. This led to hiding. In their imagination, God was now a threat to their own divine designs, so God had to be erased.

2. You shall not erase humans. I don’t actually know if this is different from the first conviction. The commandment prohibiting murder (erasing humans) is really a restating of the first commandment prohibiting murdering God. Blasphemy is profaning the sacred, including the sacred image that humans bear. Erasing humans is erasing imago Dei. The New Testament says that erasing humans is more than spilling their blood. It is also carried out by hatred or even uncharitable naming (Matthew 5.22, 1 John 3.15). Technology can be used as a tool to diminish, profane, and fragment humans into one-dimensional bytes, pixels, or categories. When Elon’s Grok undresses your neighbor, it is more than lust, it is violence. Murder. Erasing.

3. Against technological docetism—machines appearing to be human or humans appearing machinely. It does violence to the human to personalize or humanize technology or to mechanize or digitalize humanity. This includes giving human names, emotions, affect, or personality to machines. It also includes not using mechanical or technological language to describe human experience (bandwidth, download, unplug). We are made imago Dei, not imago techy.

4. Humans rest and work, die and are raised. Hybrid humanity is not enhanced humanity, it is diminished humanity. It will be subhuman to be uploaded into eternity, or to have the machine downloaded into the body.

5. We were not made for technology. It will not be our master. Jacques Ellul, in an interview entitled The Betrayal by Technology, starts by pointing out the illusion, "that technology makes them more free. If you just use enough technical aids, you will be freer." When technology becomes personified-when it tells you what you can do or can't do, when it makes promises, it becomes demonic. Technology can be a servant, but never a master. If it serves human flourishing and the cultivation of beloved community, it can be tested, evaluated, re-evaluated, used, or rejected.

6. Embracing technology is optimistic, quick, and easy. It hides its own deficits, conceals what it steals, and obscures the collateral damage it wrecks. Suspicion is the wisest posture towards technology’s positivism.

7. Technology aims to homogenize, fantasize, and fanaticize.
   Homogenize. The more people that want to look the same (Instagram face), buy the same thing (Amazon), or watch the same thing (Netflix)—the more $$$ to gain.
   Fantasize. How many entities benefit from wanting us to want to look different, want to be different, want a different partner, want a different community, want to be in a different time or a different place. Technology aims to make the world our oyster, but removes us from the particularity of human life. We can live everywhere, anytime, with anyone, but the cost is not living here, now, with these people.
   Fanaticize. The algorithm’s enemy is contentment. YouTube, OnlyFans, and TikTok doesn’t want us to be satisfied, but to be dissatisfied enough to keep on scrolling. This can only be done by presenting more opportunities for dopamine hits which are caused by the promise of something more fantastic than I’ve seen before. None of these machines will alert you with a notification that says, “Maybe that’s enough for you? Have you considered going outside and breathing air and touching dirt, taking a walk, and saying ‘hi’ to a neighbor or the people in the other rooms of your house?”

8. The promises technology makes are unrelated to our actual hierarchy of needs. It promises efficiency, knowledge, convenience, decadence, and leisure. None of these promises address the actually aches of the human soul. Even if AI keeps all its promises, we will remain lonely, listless, and adrift.

In part two of this short series, I plan to answer the question: How I plan to live in the AI era. I will be answering this primarily as a human and as a follower of Jesus. Of course, those core identities have ramifications for my political life, my pastoral life, my relationships. But my concern is not political theory, or advice for other pastors. I hope that my grappling with the lines that I don’t intend to cross will spur others to name the lines that they won’t cross.

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Pastoral Leadership Seminar

PLS New Book Announcement

Thank God, a child seven years old knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd. For the children pray thus: I believe in one holy catholic Church. Martin Luther, Smalcald Art XII “Of the Church…

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9 months ago · 4 likes · Nathan Hoff

What is PLS?

The word “seminar” is from the ‘root’ for seedbed. PLS is meant to be a generative seed bed for pastoral imagination—a gospel greenhouse! We number around 15-20 people interested in the pastoral vocation including a few active pastors and a few retired pastors. This term, we will read Spiritual Care by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The reading sections are small, and will include much more time for reflection around the themes and maybe a few attending articles.

What is the commitment?

Ten Tuesdays starting 20 January 2026. We will begin and conclude promptly 7:30-8:30 AM (Pacific time). You can join in person at Trinity Lutheran Church in San Pedro, CA or join on Zoom.

How do I join?

• Subscribe to this Substack newsletter to receive a weekly communication, reminding about the meeting time, providing the zoom link, and some questions (usually) to guide our reflections.

• Buy the book. I like to suggest contacting Byron Borger at Hearts & Minds Books--tell him Nathan Hoff sent you and he will discount the book by 20%. It is worth waiting a little longer and paying a little more to support Borger’s Hearts & Minds, as his bookselling is a ministry and treasure trove of thoughtful review and timely service born of a devoted heart and mind. In other words, it would be a great loss if A_az_n put yet another local shop out of business.

• Join us in person or on zoom on 20 January 2026—7:30-8:30 AM PST! Have your book ready and the first section read. Invite others that you think would benefit from this little company of curious ministers.

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We stand because of who Jesus is—the very form of God (Philippians 2.6), the icon of God (Colossians 1.15), the logos of God (John 1.1).

Jesus is…

God of God,
Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made,
being of one substance (homoousian)
with the Father
by whom all things were made.

Homoousias (ὁμοούσιος) has been ringing in my ear these days, as it has for 1700 years in the ears of the whole church. The Council of Nicaea discerned that homoousias was the best word to describe the way the Father and the Son share the sameness of being. Ousia in Greek is a noun meaning “being” or “substance,” and is used in the prodigal son story (Luke 15.12) when the son asks for his share in the ousias, or property that is coming to him. The church early recognized that Jesus is a Son who has share in his Father’s ousias—his being, his property, his substance. Homoousias—same substance.

Nicaea clearly communicated the difference between the Creator and the created, and confessed that Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, was with the Father, begotten from eternity, and was Creator-being, not created-being. Pope Leo and Patriarch Bartholomew were in Nicaea last week, and demonstrated an unbroken succession of faith that reaches far back and stretches to today. It embraces East and West, North and South, young and old. I could hear the little voices of Tara and Serafina on Sunday morning joining with Pope and Patriarch to believe and confess the same faith.

We stand because of who Jesus is. (Homoousias) He is God.
We stand because of what Jesus does. (Parousia) He comes to be with us.

On Sunday after we confessed our Nicene-belief in who Jesus is, we heard a promise coming from his own mouth. He takes his place with us in not knowing the day or the hour of his own coming, but that he is coming (Matthew 24.36-37). The word his uses for coming is parousia (παρουσία). Again ousia is ‘being’ and the prefex par is ‘with.’ His parousia is literally his ‘being-withness,’ often translated ‘arrival’ or ‘coming’ or ‘presence.’ The historical-cultural background of parousia is fascinating, as N.T. Wright briefly shares:

So Sunday after Sunday, we rapturously stand at the voice of our Good Shepherd who speaks to us from gospel-pulpit and gospel-altar, and practice for his ultimate parousia when we meet him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4.17). We are sheep that recognize his voice (John 10.27-28). We are awakened from our slumber (Ephesians 5.14). Ordinary, ‘as-often-as-you-do-this,’ week in—week out Word and Sacrament, are Jesus’ means for parousia, and prepare us for his parousia.

“In the liturgy the proclamation of the Gospel is preceded by “Alleluia,”…which is the joyful greeting of those who see the coming Lord, who know, His presence, and who express their joy at this glorious “parousia.” “Here He is!” might be an almost adequate translation of this untranslatable word.” For The Life of the World. Alexander Schmemann, 33.

We stand out of respect and we stand in rehearsal. Our ears are being tuned to recognize that voice. Our feet are being trained to move toward him—to meet him—to follow him. Let us rise and greet the gospel, for it is the voice of our Good Shepherd.

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Dear Trinity, Jesus’ grace. Since September 7th, instead of “The Word of the Lord—Thanks be to God” after the scripture reading, we have been responding:

Reader: Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy

Congregation: and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it for the time is near. (from Revelation 1.3).

This Sunday we will reach the last chapter, Revelation 22, and could bookend that beginning blessing with an ending exhortation, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near” (Rev 22.10). The seals have been opened, now don’t seal them back up just because you reached the end of the book, or the end of this series.

How do we keep these words unsealed among us?

Some have kept the words of Revelation unsealed by talking a lot about the book. Holding the Bible in one hand and breaking news in the other, this view often interpreted Revelation through the lens of contemporary events and figures. Midcourse corrections ensued when the interpretations didn’t materialize. No less than Jesus himself said clearly, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” Matthew 24.36

I think there is a healthier way to keep the words of Revelation unsealed: hear them, practice them, say them. Learn Apocalyptish–the language of God’s Country–the Kingdom. Justo Gonzalez calls it “reignese.” We keep the words of this book unsealed when we practice these ways of communicating with one another. There are many Apocalyptish lessons to learn, but here are three important ones:

Apocalyptish Lesson One–Exhortation

“Hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” “Do not fear what you are about to suffer.” “Repent, or I will come to you with the sword of my mouth.””Don’t tolerate what is intolerable.” “Take the scroll and eat it.” “Beware of despair.” “Beware of assimilating to the world around you.” “Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.” “This calls for wisdom.””Do not be seduced by a world system or political movement that has an expiration date like everyone before it.”

In Justo Gonzalez’ terrific book Mañana, he writes, “Mañana is much more than “tomorrow,” it is a radical questioning of today” (164). And, “So long as we proclaim the Reign, but make little effort to speak even a few words of “Reignese,” our witness will hardly be credible” (163). Gonzalez illustrates the point with this example. Lets say someone believes the future belongs to Japan, and is planning to move there, make their home there, and supposedly longs for that place. The credibility of their commitment would be resting on whether or not they are actively practicing and learning Japanese.

Apocalyptish Lesson Two–Encouragement

“I will grant to eat of the tree of life.” “You will not be hurt by the second death.” “I will never blot your name out of the book of life.” “The prayers of the saints, rose before God.” “God hears your prayers.” “This is a tough season, but it isn’t the last season.” “The accuser is going to not only lose his voice eventually, but be locked away forever.” “Evil will consume and destroy itself.” God says, “Behold, I am making all things new.” “Surely I am coming soon.”

Apocalyptish Lesson Three–Doxology

“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” “Worthy are you!” “Amen!” “Hallelujah!” “Amen. Come Lord Jesus!”

We keep the Revelation book unsealed by keeping our eyes and ears and lips unsealed, by staying faith-attentive, by believing that there is more than meets the eye.

Watching and waiting with you, Nathan

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Longing Statement

I believe that the single most determinative question in charting our path is, “What do you love? What do you long for?” My longing statement is more important to me than a mission, a vision, or a personal creed. It has remained consistent for many journals.

I want to be an abbot
                 and an apostle
I want to pay attention
                 to speak hope
                 and a future
                        a destiny
                 and a warm welcome
                 into the hearts
                         the lives
                 of spiritual sons and daughters and
I want to relate to
                 and cultivate
                 a movement
                 of abbeys
                 of houses
                 where the culture of God's kingdom
                 is desired
                 and displayed.

Attunement

Attune me O God
to the reality of your
attentiveness and
affection.
Questions:
—Where are you?
—What are you feeling?
—Where are you feeling?
(breathe into that place).

Asculta

Paying attention
without intention - Nouwen

Today I find that I am
the person who has left home
and lost the key
to get myself back there
Benedict, your message
is an invitation to interiority
Your experience is that of
a person who regains
their sense of themselves
Benedict, teach us to
return to the heart.
- Prayer at the shrine of Benedict at Fleury, St. Benoît sur Loire, trans. Esther de Waal.

“On this scene there appeared the man who built an ark to survive the rising storm, an ark not made with hands, into which by two and two human and eternal values might enter, to be kept until the water assuaged, an ark moreover which lasted not only for one troubled century but for fifteen, and which has sitll the capacity to bring many safe to land (15). The ark which he was building was to contain a family. So for St. Benedict the monastery has become a community of love and the abbot a man who is expected not to be infallible or omniscient, but a man who will exercise his discretion as the circumstances demand.” (19).
- Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict. Esther de Waal; Liturgical Press. 1984.

“Quiet”

Our latest guest, a common loon,
Arrived this winter unannounced
And bringing gifts – guests do that,
Bring gifts – filling heart and home
With beauty: wild, elusive, sleek,
Low in the water, this contemplative
Loon is an icon for living present
But detached. I rarely see him fly
But he can fly. This loon dives, dives
Long and deep. No mere surface
Bird, he goes for the depths. When he dives
I think he prays, searching deep waters
For what keeps him and us alive,
Grace and quiet, buoyant with Presence.
- Eugene Peterson, poem from Holy Luck.

In the night of our technological barbarism,
monks must be as trees which exist
silently in the dark
and by their vital presence
purify the air.”
- Merton, Basic Principles of Monastic Spirituality

What is contemplation?
It is spiritual wonder
It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being.
It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source.
- Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

What do you put in the front of your journal?
What orienting statements, quotes, verses, or poems do you live by?

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Blessed Reformation Sunday! In 2016, we enjoyed sabbatical summer. We called it “And we’re HOFF!” We were on the move and in the “Lutherlands” 499 years after Luther’s nailing the 95 Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Monuments everywhere, as the former East Germany readied for plenty of protestant pilgrims in 2017! Monuments have to be dusted. Movements shake off and stir up the dust!

Lots of Lutheranism is more monument than movement. But, nearly every movement eventually turns into a monument. I’ve been to the little plaque down near Little Tokyo in LA near where the Azusa Street Pentecostal revival began in 1905. That first Pentecostal church closed their congregation and lost their building in 1931. Or maybe you’ve seen the iconic “Jesus Saves” illuminated sign of the Church of the Open Door in Downtown LA, but the church moved long ago. It isn’t just corporate movements that get co-opted into being nothing more than monuments. It can happen to you and me, personally. Our living-breathing testimony can become a monument to a past movement. Our salvation can become an old story or a plaque or certificate that is as valid and real as the nose on your face—but gathering dust because it stopped moving.

A sure way to re-animate, is to MOVE! The life of the disciple is a moving life. Jesus’ words ring true to disciples now, “As you go, make disciples of all nations...” Matthew 28.19. Don’t bother dusting your old monumental faith. Get it moving, and the dust will fly!

How do you get it moving?

1. Pray big cosmic prayers and small personal prayers. I’m praying for reconciliation for some people I love who have irreconcilable differences. I’m also praying for some stuff about which I’m only telling the Father. It is deepening my anticipation and engaging my faith. Dust is starting to fly.

2. Go somewhere. Call someone. Offer to pray with a brother or sister in Christ that you haven’t seen for a while. Invite someone to Church. Call the Pantry and offer to help. Go on a prayer walk around your neighborhood. MOVE! Dust will fly.

3. Pray to God for a move of his Spirit now. At Trinity and in your own life. Pray one of my favorite prayers with me from Habakkuk 3.2, “O Lord, I have heard of your fame, and I stand in awe of your deeds. IN OUR TIME MAKE THEM KNOWN. In wrath, remember mercy.”

Before you know it, the monument will be moving, and the dust will be flying!

Following Jesus together, Nathan

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Have you heard of Practicing Benediction?

I have another substack called practicing benediction which is also free, as benedictions should be. But, if you would like to support that site and become a paid subscriber, I will be glad to send you a copy of Practicing Benediction, with the linocut print on the cover.

Practicing Benediction

Good words for times, days, every person, and every situation

By Nathan Hoff

A Confession

There is a secularity that creeps in, then settles in my prayers. What a terribly ironic place for secularity. Why does this happen? I grow weary of praying for matters that are beyond my own fixing. I wish to settle well within the land of control, and not on the borders of surrender. I pray safe. I pray pious platitudes. I pray other people’s words every night and day (psalter), but struggle to mean them ex corde—from the heart. From my heart.

But, in praying those old words, my heart eventually awakens to the gaping chasm between the psalmist’s earnest cries and my lack of the same. I begin to ask how long it has been since I actually prayed. I begin to awaken to my own aches—body and soul—and realize that they have been wordless intercessions, deep calling out to deep, even without my mind noticing. I begin to move past the anesthetized amusements that have numbed my longings and silenced my pleas. I feel again. I feel for others again. My heart breaks, and I remember what it is to share heartbreak with Jesus and with those to whom he is attentive and ever-present. My protective measures quieten. My “techniques of evasion” (R. Williams) are relinquished.

A Call

I have been teaching from the Book of Acts on Wednesday nights. Our Theta Community is exploring insights into community life from Luke’s sequel. Last night we noticed how our early brothers and sisters were steeped in the Psalter, just like Jesus. Andrew R. Jones notes “In the first four chapters of Acts, we see six different Psalms are quoted.” Our community shares a similar priority. We pray the Psalms every evening and every morning—and every 60 days we begin again. We’ve been doing this since 2019. In Acts 4.23-31, after Peter and John were released from detention, they went right to their friends and prayed Psalm 2.1-2. In it they found meaning in their trial and they found solidarity with Jesus—their truest friend, acquainted with trial, detention, and worse. Like my experience, the Psalter indexed their lives to the life of God, and their interpretation of their trials and suffering to “God’s holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4.30).

The Psalms are earnest prayer kindling. We need that now. A renewal of life in the Spirit is not accomplished through exterior measures, human intervention, or impressing God with our program. The Psalms put us in touch with our inner poverties, and open our eyes to the needy landscape conditions that can not quench our thirsty souls.

O God, you are my God;
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalm 63.1

The Psalmist is attentive in a way that I have become dulled; maybe we have become dulled. Drought conditions, around and within, reveal our thirst. Earnest prayer is our empty cup, and God is living water. God gives good gifts, but the greatest gift God gives is…God. “I seek you.”

Do you feel your need for God? Let the psalm be your prayer as if your water ran out, your fridge was empty, your wifi dropped, Amazon stopped delivering to your neighborhood, and you lost the passwords to all of your subscriptions.

A Cultivation

How do we cultivate earnest prayer?

Earnest prayer is waiting prayer—patient prayer. Joy (my wife) was returning to LAX after I had been gone the first half of the week, and she had been gone the second half of the week. I left early just in case of traffic on the 405. I watched and waited for “find my friend” to refresh on my phone revealing that she had landed. I watched as she disappeared into the tunnel headed to the Bradley terminal and then I knew it was time to drive. And look. And take one more loop around the arrivals level. And, then I saw her face. Now I’m a believer :). Earnestness is a condition of anticipation—expectation—yearning.

In the path of your judgments,
O LORD, we wait for you;
your name and remembrance
are the desire of our soul.
My soul yearns for you in the night;
my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
For when your judgments are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. Isaiah 26:8-9

Our earnestness for the corum Deo is also a sign that we are made in the imago Dei. We are earnest for the face of God because we are made in the image of God. And God is earnest. For you. For me.

I will return again to my place,
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,
and in their distress earnestly seek me. Hosea 5:15

Our earnestness is cultivated when we access some mutual affection with the heart of God.

Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Matthew 9:38

Our earnestness is cultivated when empathy is turned into intercession.

[He] implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” Mark 5:23

So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. Acts 12:5

Our earnestness is cultivated when we pray with Jesus, in Jesus’ name, in solidarity with Jesus.

And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Luke 22:44

Our earnestness is cultivated when we pray with all the saints.

Paul writes: As we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith? 1 Thessalonians 3:10

Finally, our earnestness is cultivated when hope won’t let us go. Cynicism, coolness, despair are earnestness-killers. Earnestness is a sign of hopeful faith—that we have not given up.

And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end. Hebrews 6:11

A Benediction for Greater Earnestness

May you know that God is listening, even when you aren’t speaking.
That your flesh and bones are supplicating
That your sighs, too deep for words, are deep calling out to deep
That your tears are liquid prayer.
May you trust that you do not need to overcome God’s reluctance
but only lay hold of his willingness (Luther).
May you be hidden in the wounded side of priestly Christ
who prays in sympathetic solidarity for you
to our Father
who “can refuse him nothing” (Mother Basilea Schlink, The Weapon of Prayer)
+ In Jesus.

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