Tribal Church

Yesterday, I was pacing the halls of the church. In front of my office, I was going back and forth–kind of forgetting stuff, and then forgetting what I forgot, and then deciding to forget it on purpose. But, mostly, I think I needed to blow off some nervous steam. I was preaching on a difficult subject, and felt way over my head. And that walking back and forth, and even the mental gymnastics of remembering and forgetting helped me through the tension.

When I was in college, I was Jack Haberer’s janitor. He was a pastor, and I was picking up cigarette butts from the memorial garden. At the time, he described me as the least air-headed airhead that he knew. (He was also the first person to ever publish my work…so for all of you beginning writers out there, you can just never know where publishing breakthroughs might occur.)

Recently, when I went to the movies, I left a prepaid movie ticket in the car. Figuring that I’d just use it later, I paid for another one. Then I dropped that one. It slid out of my coat pocket when I was getting money out for popcorn. Someone found it when I was in the restroom. When I started looking for the ticket so I could get my parking validated, I couldn’t find that either. One of people I was attending the movie with said, “Rough night?”

And I had to respond truthfully, “Nope. This is every night.”

I always know when God is calling me to a new place, because my life begins to fall apart where I am. And I begin to lose my keys. Like, five times a day. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but for me, if I’m trying to make a decision, it’s a sure sign.

The forgetfulness slips in before worship services because I still get nervous. Jittery. I blank out on stuff. I’m not paralyzed with tension. I rarely feel anxious in the pulpit. But it’s just right before, there’s a bit of anxiety that creeps in. Still. After ten years of preaching on a regular basis. Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe it means that I’m still taking it seriously.

I just finished Born Standing Up by Steve Martin. I’m a big fan of his. My dad took me to see his show when I was a little girl, and since that day, I nursed a secret dream that I would be a comedian. Umm…that didn’t work out. But I still can’t forget how inspiring he was. It was so over-the-top.

The interesting part of the book was that he doesn’t talk about the jokes so much. He talks about his philosophy behind why he was so funny. He writes about the cultural movements that set up his career. He explains the excruciating endeavor of filling twelve minutes with interesting material. (Imagine that. Preachers do twelve minutes every week.)

And he talks about his anxiety. He was anxious when his crowds grew from 200 to 2,000 to 12,000. And, Martin speaks his worries as a comedy writer: “What if writing comedy was a dead end because one day everything would have been done and we writers would just run out of stuff?”

And that’s where my worries as a preacher and a writer seem to coincide with Martin’s. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat at my computer to write a sermon or an article and thought, “I’ve got nothing. I’ve said everything already. I’m just saying the same thing over and over again.”

But he gives an important piece of advice, “I assuaged myself with my own homegrown homily: Comedy is a distortion of what is happening, and there will always be something happening.”

There’s a common thread of truth in there for us too. We are to preach about what’s happening, here and now. And there will always be something happening.

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