One of the things that I have the privilege of doing is going off to continuing education. It’s a good chance for me to learn and sharpen the tools in my toolbox.
It is a duty and a delight. I love learning. The next few posts will be about a recent continuing education trip back in April.
Some pastors choose not to go away for events like this for a variety of reasons. I happen to not be one of those pastors because I know that I have much to learn and I know that my learning will benefit myself and the congregation I serve.
I went to two events. The first was at Valparaiso University, about 90 minutes outside Chicago. The other was at Wheaton College, west of Chicago. I highly recommend both events.
The first set of posts will be about the time I spent at Valparaiso with about 500 other Lutheran pastors, church musicians, and other church workers. The conference was called the Institute of Liturgical Studies. This year’s focus was on Christian funerals. I knew that it would be a powerful event, but I didn’t realize how powerful of an event it would be.
We had wonderful speakers, vibrant worship, and lots of chances for conversation between colleagues about funerals. In addition to the learning, we experienced first hand what a community goes through as it experiences the death of someone. Tom Long was a plenary speaker. His new book, Accompany Them With Singing, is a great read.
We were also blessed with Tom Schattauer from Wartburg Seminary. He spoke about Ben Larson, a seminary student who died in the January earthquake in Haiti.
There were lots of great workshops, including one I went to with Walt Wangerin. He has been diagnosed with lung cancer and has talked openly about his certain death. I picked up his new book Letters from the Land of Cancer and started reading it.
Oh yeah – and there was the campus community to help focus our conversations… One of the campus pastors at this Lutheran college, The Rev. Darlene Grega, had committed suicide just a few days before this conference on funerals was to begin. She was a beloved member of the Valpo community that everyone knew. Which made her unexpected death all that much harder.
Just to give you a sense of how difficult things were on campus – I went to a workshop on the funeral sermon that was led by Fred Niedner at Valpo. He talked about his ministry as a pastor and a theologian on campus and how from time to time he had to preach funeral sermons. He had intended to share a little bit about funeral sermons he had preached throughout the years, and he did that for a few minutes. But then the conversation changed at we found out that he was to be the preacher for Pastor Grega’s funeral the following Saturday. As he told us that, he lost his composure. I could tell how hard this was for him and how much he cared for this woman who had made the tragic and unfortunate decision to commit suicide.
Lots to process. Lots that was excellent about this event…. More to come later….
