November: Naming Longings and Losses
In November we introduced another tool to help as we imagine the future for our churches - Naming Longings and Losses.
This spiritual practice of lament invites participants to enter into a process of lamenting the longings and losses that accompany any type of change that occurs as we work to faithfully innovate. Fears of loss can prevent congregations from pursuing faithful innovation altogether. Lamenting can create space for grieving losses as well as building trust in God’s direction for the future.
Many of us long for our ministry to look differently than it currently does. Some want things to look like they “used to” - back when the Sunday School classrooms were filled with children and our budgets were healthy. Others want to see changes in how the congregation is led, who participates, or what the congregation focuses on. What the depopulation realities in Iowa teach us is that Iowa was built for an economic reality that no longer exists and is never coming back in the same way. Our teeming farming towns with lots of family farms (and their kids that used to fill those classrooms) have not been a reality for some time now.
Many clergy and congregations fear they are going to lose something important to them (or have already lost lots of important things to them) as the congregation faces the future. These fears are a hard and heavy reality for congregations who have legitimate questions about whether or not they will exist for another generation. These fears are also a reality in congregations that are stable or thriving and want to keep things going just the way they are into the future. This spiritual practice invites participants to enter into a process of lamenting these longings and losses. Lamenting can create space for grieving losses and building trust in God’s direction for the future.
The practice is framed according to the basic structure of a lament psalm and begins with these questions as individuals.
What’s one wish you have for your congregation?
What’s something that used to happen (or used to be true) in the congregation that you wish would return?
What’s one thing you fear might be lost as your congregation moves into the future?
What’s something that has changed that you feel is a loss in the life of the congregation?
Lament has long been the practice of the people of God when they are facing hard things. Lament is the honest expression of our sorrows to God. It’s also how God himself grieved the injustices of this world when he walked among us in the person of Jesus. This kind of prayer saturates large portions of the Scriptures. It’s more than forty per cent of Psalms; the central theme of the book of Lamentations, and modeled for us by Jesus when he cries out from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
These are the different parts found in psalms of lament - not all contain all of these parts.
Address God: Direct your lament to God, framing the conversation about your longings and losses as a prayer.
Complaint: Name what you long for and wish was true about your congregation. Name your fears about what has been or could be lost as you move into the future.
Confession: Confess your need for God’s grace and forgiveness in your life.
Ask God for Help: Name what you want God to do for you. Express your longings and losses as a request.
Affirm Trust in God: Affirm your trust in God and God’s leadership over the future of your congregation.
Promise to Praise God: Praise God for who God is, what God has done, and what God will do.
- Adapted from Luther Seminary’s Faithful Innovations
In small groups, cohort members were asked to draft their own psalm of lament - these are shared from some of the members with permission:
Dear Lord, where has the noise gone that used to sound during our worship service? I don’t hear the sound of fretful babies, the crash of a dropped kneeler, or laughter when a youngster runs up the aisle to take a seat at the altar for a children’s sermon. Your presence is here Lord. I feel you amongst our church family. But we are growing old, the children have moved away, and there are few, if any, to inherit what we have strived to pass on to them. Help us Lord, in your mercy. We await your guidance. Thanks be to God!
Father God, our joy is dissolving. We need your Grace to continue and re gain our enthusiasm, our life, our joy and our desire to dance on the water. We ask your help as you have been our help for generation after generation. We thank you for your creation, your love, and your forgiveness. Through you all things are and will be.
Creator of the universe, Creator of life,
I feel like death is winning sometimes.
I miss the things I have lost
and I can't find anything to replace them.
Do you hear and see me?
Sometimes I feel lost and alone.
Do I know You are there?
I need help from somewhere,
will You help me?
I long for messages from You.
If I felt in tune with Your Spirit in the past,
why don't I feel that way now?
Please help me be attuned to Your presence.
I trust Your ever-present guiding hand in my life.
Create something new and beautiful with my life
so that Your will may be done and Your name be praised.
Dear God. We are concerned about our lack of attendance and joyfulness in our congregations, we miss gathering and fellowship within the community.
Oh Lord, give us guidance to bring those in need of help, guide them in the way of satisfying and comforting their needs as known only to you.
Be patient with us as we continue to move forward in what you are calling us to do. Lord we praise you and thank you for your guidance in all that you have done for us.
God of patience and love, we seem to be blind and deaf to our neighbors needs.
We yearn for your help in seeing and hearing these needs.
Help us to be more aware of those around us….their needs, their joys, their sorrows…..
We will try to be more intentional to listening to you,
And we will sing your praises and share your light.
