Our New Pastor is Really Weird (Bulletin Article 1)

Having been here 8 weeks now you likely already know that your new pastor is a little bit weird.  He wears weird clothes.  He talks weird.  He tries to be funny, but often fails.  He makes weird psuedo-Vulcan Star Trek hand gestures.  He likes weird music.  He walks weird and then seems to always forget where he is, stopping mid-stride.  He does things some have never seen before and says things others have never heard before.  In other words he’s an all around weird guy.  So much so he reminds me of a typical joke from the old Johnny Carson Tonight Show, “Our new pastor is so weird.”  To which the audience asks, “HOW WEIRD IS HE??”  Johnny responding to the begged question, “so weird he’s writing something in the bulletin to talk about exactly how weird he is!”  Even weirder, he’s doing it in the third-person.   

Trying to own my weirdness and explain myself in a little bit better and regular way, I thought including something in the bulletin weekly might help get to know me.  I also wanted to share with you why I speak, walk, sing, and gesture as I do.  That is the main purpose of these little notes.  It’s one way to help me seem less strange and know that the things I do, I do out of love for our Lord Jesus and His church.  They are practices and disciplines in my life and worship of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, firmly rooted in our Lutheran heritage and identity.  They are faithful Christian practices that I have found right and salutary in my own walk with the Lord and in leading the faithful in worshiping Him in Spirit and in Truth.  They remind me to worship not just with mere words, but with my whole person, body and soul.  They are reminders of who Whose I am and in Whose most holy presence we gather.  

Having a new pastor is always a difficult transition to make, because it is a reminder that what had been is in someway gone.  It is another reminder of that grief.  Because like people, no two pastors are the same in any way shape or form.  The new one will be weird compared to what came before.  For each pastor is different, with different gifts, different passions, and different styles.  Like a pair of shoes, it takes time for the new “weirdness” to wear off and become comfortable.  I hope these little notes will aid in that, but I can’t promise that at the end of them I’ll be any less weird.