Bearing Witness to What I See

Dear Church,

My respect for the epistolary form notwithstanding, it feels presumptuous of me to speak in any kind of authoritative way to you. For I am neither an apostle nor the son of an apostle; just a pastor among pastors, standing amid the lamp stands gaping and awed but also, so very often, not a little frightened and bewildered.

I can only bear witness, therefore, to what I see from where I stand–in the midst of the people I am privileged to pastor, in the hopes that my testimony might raise an answering witness in your own heart.

God, give me words. How do I name what I am sensing? Help… 

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On the way out of a prayer meeting several months ago, I ran into a friend who placed a poem in my hands. The words have haunted ever since:

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned campsites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

I am not done with my changes.

(The Layers, Stanley Kunitz)¹From The Collected Poems by Stanley Kunitz (W. W. Norton, 2000). Copyright © 1978 by Stanley Kunitz. Used by permission of W. W. Norton. All rights reserved. This poem appeared in Poem-a-Day on July 29, 2014.

There is a quiet determination here, an iron, if slightly qualified, resolve to press on: 

I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go. 

I resonate with that.

And yet I am struck by the fact that it is a determination not uninformed, ever so mindful of the past–a past that was by no means easy, what with those scavenger angels wheeling with heavy wings over the now-abandoned campsites.

In Kunitz’ capable cadences, grief and hope flow in and out of one another, swirling, mixing into a nourishing, rare, and exquisite cocktail.

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At nearly twenty years into full time vocational ministry, The Layers hits me with peculiar force. They can prepare you for many things in seminary: give you tools for Hebrew and Greek exegesis, gird you up you with a working sense of historical and dogmatic theology, equip you with some basic skills to negotiate congregational life–preaching, teaching, leadership, pastoral care and counseling, yada yada.

But loss. The sense of loss that is inevitable in ministry, that indeed is intrinsic to it–this there is no preparation for. Nor can there be.

Here at mid-career, mid-life, I feel it. So much pavement behind me. So many milestones dwindling towards the horizon. Things that were that will never be again.

It is tempting, for grief’s sake, to look away. But Kunitz insists that we must not. We are compelled to look behind in order to gather strength for the journey. To use biblical parlance, we are called “to remember,” for right remembrance, we are told, is salubrious.  

It is fascinating to me how honest the biblical exercise of remembrance is. What is recorded for posterity is–rarely, at any rate–airbrushed and glossy. Little effort is expended to ensure that future generations think that their experience was anything more or less than what it really was: glorious and gut-wrenching, joyful and heartbreaking, triumphant and terrible; or that they were anything more or less than what they really were: faithful and flawed, failing and following, devoted and deeply divided in their loyalties and affections.

And yet, as ever, it is the promise of God that keeps birthing and rebirthing future for these people. For us.

Twenty years in: My “Remembrance” –

Churches planted

Leaders raised and blessed

Saints strengthened

Skeptics won to faith

Territory gained for the kingdom

Friends, friends, so many friends

Shared meals and intimate conversations

Worship in living rooms and Sunday gatherings where the Spirit would fall, fall like rain on

weary land and the sons and daughters of God would prophesy

Inspired sermons

Healings and miracles and breakthroughs

Joys and triumphs too numerous to count

Yes. I remember.

But that is not all. Not even close. These also I remember–

Dreams that miscarried

Leaders who turned away

Saints become skeptics

Skeptics never won over

Territory lost

Farewells, farewells, so many farewells

Confrontation and difficult conversation

Worship that went nowhere and prayers offered to a closed and brassy heaven

Flat sermons

Non-healing, no-miracle, non-breakthrough

Heartache and heartbreak and a desperate wondering: Will it always be this way?

Yes–These also.

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We are compelled to look behind in order to gather strength for the journey. To use biblical parlance, we are called 'to remember,' for right remembrance, we are told, is salubrious. Share on X

All of that and more is with me at this threshold, this place where I stand looking back at what has been, pondering what is, wondering what will be.

And “threshold” is the exact word for where I stand. This year–both for me personally and for the congregation I lead–has been almost unendurably difficult. Loss and chaos and transition. The landscape has shifted on us so many times, demanded entirely new adaptations and then just as suddenly rendered them irrelevant. It would be difficult to overstate the sense of disorientation that has been our near-constant reality this year. Bewildered among the lampstands indeed.

And…

And…

And…

Not bewilderment only. Astonishment, too. I see green grass sprouting from scorched earth. New relationships forming, new believers trickling and then pouring into our church, new hopes and dreams and expectations for the future, a new and very robust sense of the Spirit’s presence and power, a new hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Innocence is being restored. Against all odds. We planted this church five and a half years ago, and the sense I have (ahh, here are the words!), is that we are younger now than when we first started.

Yes, that’s it! How is that possible? How is it possible for a people who have every right to be jaded and cynical and mistrusting to keep showing up with open hearts and open hands and a burning desire to fling themselves into the good, hard work of being the church?

“Ah, Lord God! Thou has made the heavens and the earth by thine outstretched power…nothing is too difficult for thee!” (Jeremiah 32:17, ‘Arndt KJV-inspired paraphrase’)

Who but God?

It astonishes me. The purity. The sweetness. The freshness of it all. Younger now than when we first started. Yes.

And that includes me. I might have expected at this stage in my ministry that I would have grown in complexity. And I think for a time I did. But by the grace of God even that–all of that–has been shattered and lost to me.

I am getting back to basics. Discarding the old wineskins. Returning to a “first love” kind of faith. Like waking up from a dream, I am remembering…

That Jesus is Lord of the church, always Lord

That his gospel encompasses everything 

That Word and Sacrament are good food

That love is a sufficient and more than sufficient ministry strategy

That we are at our best when we give the Spirit free reign

That God is good and it is good that he has given us each other

That it is okay to laugh and play and dance and sing with all our might

That happiness and naiveté are not the same thing

And that we are wisest when we are foolish for Jesus

I am remembering. The pages of the book of transformations are turning and I can see that I, we, you, all of us–we are not done with our changes.

Not if Jesus is raised. Not if the life-giving, life-renewing Spirit is poured out.

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Threshold is the exact word for where I stand. The landscape has shifted on us so many times, demanding entirely new adaptations. It would be difficult to overstate the sense of disorientation that has been our near-constant reality. Share on X

If you’ve found this point of this “epistle” less than entirely discernible, allow me to make a sermonic move my congregation is used to: “I’m saying all this to you just to say…”

The Story is never over. 

Renewal is coming. 

You are being carried by wise and capable hands, Church. 

In the midst of one of the several brutal stretches this year, one of my colleagues said to me, “Andrew, let me ask you something. What do you think Jesus knows about you that he knows that this is the right time for all this to be happening to you…?”

What a question–a question for which there can be no definitive answer. Surely it is just the fact that Jesus knows things about me (us) that I (we) do not currently know that ought to–and did–inspire confidence and courage to keep going forward, in spite of it all. That must be true.

But I think more can be said. I think whatever it is he knows about me–about you, about us–whether we know it or not, he knows because he put it there.

More still. 

He knows that it is the right time–whatever it is–because he is the Lord of time and history proceeds not by might or power but by his will and according to “fullness of time” realities.

And more yet. 

Jesus knows that he and his Father never give up. That he finishes what he starts. That by the Spirit the plan of the Master Craftsman and his Son are being worked out, inexorably, amid all the changes and chances of this mortal life. 

So says Paul: “Being confident of this: that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to carry it to completion until the day of Jesus Christ…” (Phil. 1:6)

And again: “In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory… ” (Eph. 1:11-12)

So, then. Hear the invitation:

Lay down the leaden weight of your despair. 

Listen to the nimbus-clouded voice directing you to live in the layers of the faithfulness of God,

and not in the litter of failure and frustration. 

And above all, keep your heart steady in trust. 

For God has never abandoned his people.

Jesus has never forsaken his promise.

And he never will.

And that promise includes you.

Hang in there. We’re in it together.

Grace and peace be yours in abundance,

~ Andrew

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I am remembering. The pages of the book of transformations are turning and I can see that I, we, you, all of us–we are not done with our changes. Not if Jesus is raised. Not if the life-giving, life-renewing Spirit is poured out. Share on X

*Editorial Note: Letters to the Church is Missio Alliance’s newest long-form series. The latest letter to our growing collection will go live each Friday throughout the rest of 2025. We invite you to prayerfully listen to the Spirit as you read, asking God what you might say to the Church in your own voice. ~CK

“Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what God is saying to the churches.” (Revelation 2:29)