by Pastor Dan Baumgartner

Baseball great Satchel Paige once said rather famously “Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.” At the risk of rejecting his sage wisdom, I confess I’ve recently spent a fair amount of time looking back. I realized last month that my post-college life has now been cut neatly in half. I spent ten years in the business world, went to seminary for three years and as of June 30 I have been an ordained pastor for ten years. I’ve tried to identify some consistent threads from these ten years in ministry, and pull on them just a bit.

Learning to Pay Attention. This is the strongest theme in my own life and faith and ministry: paying attention to the presence of God. Most of my life has been spent figuring out what I could do, accomplish or initiate. But now I feel that my calling has much more to do with seeing what God is at work doing, and trying to follow. Practicing sabbath by finding time and open space to reflect and pray, reading certain writers (Annie Dillard, Wendell Berry, Eugene Peterson, Fyodor Dostoyevsky), hanging around people who pay attention, listening to scripture…these are things that cultivate my sensitivities and help me see God around me and in the life of our community.

The Ministry of Small Things. Even as we try to authentically live out our faith, we are inevitably pulled into a pervasive need for quantification. Big things are better than small things, more is better than less. If the church is growing in numbers it is healthy. If we have more and more programs, that is better. If we can say “I’ve accomplished this, achieved that,” it feels good. But those are often not kingdom motivations. For part of July’s Session meeting, our elders and pastoral staff went out in pairs to visit with some of Bethany’s senior members. When we regathered an hour or so later, it was clear that something remarkable had gone on. It had been fun. Many of those visited said it felt so good to know “we’re not forgotten.” Many elders felt like they had tapped into something deep and rich and humbling in hearing stories and sharing prayers with friends who have followed Christ for many, many years. Those things are hard to quantify.

Walking People into Jesus’ Presence. I am still captivated by the story of a group of friends bringing their paralyzed friend to Jesus by lowering him down through the roof of a crowded house (Mark 2). The more I am in the world, the more convinced I am that people need Jesus. I don’t mean to sound simplistic. It’s just that in a world that is remarkably dark and pain-filled in so many ways, the transformation that I observe happening in people’s lives occurs as they come to know God in Christ, and experience the Holy Spirit. I am bolder in talking about Jesus than I once was, in part because I am so convinced that we need Him. The picture of these men with their injured friend reminds me that we don’t have to do everything, but if we can just walk with people into the vicinity of Jesus, amazing things happen.

Satchel Paige might have had it wrong. Sometimes looking back is a good thing to do. At the ten year point, it certainly makes me grateful for all that God has done and for the gift of being in the community of Jesus at Bethany.