A Letter from Father Michael Carney

Hey Byron!

I was just looking at your blog about the Sunday service, and don't know if you are down in the dumps after yesterday, but in case you are, I thought I'd send you a note.

It sounds like yesterday wasn't a mountaintop experience at Keepville! I'm tempted to write that you just think it should have been because you live in Pennsylvania, with its great rolling hills. Here in Michigan, we've got wonderful woods and rivers, but we're flat as a pancake. No mountaintops here! :-)

What makes a service awesome? The decibel level from the praise band? The number of ladies (or men!) who cry? The amount of emotional manipulation wrung from the congregation from some ego maniac's test - I - mony?

Personally, I can say that at our church, the services ARE always awesome. It's just that I don't have eyes to see it most of the time. And the more I look over my shoulder at whether or not the service IS/WAS awesome, the more I'm looking at myself, or at others in a way I shouldn't. And the only One I'm not looking at is our Lord.

Why are the services at our place always awesome (yours too, I'm sure)? Because the Lord Jesus Christ has promised He would be in our midst if even two or three of us gather in His Name. Praise bands, tambourines, "Christian comedy" aren't in the equation and might even be a distraction.

The apostles conquered Rome without these things. Do we need more than they had? Or do we depend on bells and whistles because we're afraid we don't have what they had?

Frankly, I'm not sure if I'm really ready to see the Pastor jumping up and down and snorting and hollering while preaching ! If that's what you do, can I come sometime? And do you allow popcorn in the church? :-)

God has called you to be the pastor of your flock - that means "shepherd" (as you well know) - not karaoke singer, or talk show host, or Keepville's answer to American Idol. Something tells me that you are a good one. And though I don't know very much at all about your Holiness tradition, I know that we grow into holiness. It requires time, a bit of sweat, sacrifice and patience. Didn't someone say that half of life (marriage, church, etc.) is showing up? We can get revved up on the mountain - at the retreat, hearing the guest speaker, etc. These are good things. And yes, Peter wanted to build a few tents up on the mountain of Transfiguration - to live there. But that's not what happened. Most of our life is lived down in the valley.

Is God there - where we really live - or not?

God is doing something in us in the ho-hum times. He knows what He is doing, and would tell us if we would understand it or if we would go along with it!

I think, too, that ho-hum times wean us a little off of our entertainment addiction. And they prepare us a little bit for the Cross which our Lord carried and the other cross He tells us we must carry. The apostles never seemed to get it, that when the Lord spoke about His "glorification", He wasn't talking about Palm Sunday. He was speaking of Good Friday.

I like looking at your blog, mostly because I like you and think of you as a friend. Sure can't say why - one "chance" meeting in Grand Rapids and a lot of shared carbs at Eat'n'Park isn't really enough for a friendship, ordinarily. But I know we have a very good Friend (the best!) in common. and in Him we're brothers. Pretty DIFFERENT brothers, but still brothers.

You're right. Your blog doesn't have much in the way of sermonizing. Maybe it should, I don't know. But there are plenty of good blogs that do (and some not so good, too.) I like seeing the pictures and reading the comments. They're all about pretty ordinary, pretty normal things. A man has a good wife, nice kids, friends. He works hard, for others as often as not. He gets a little hot under the collar sometimes. He's on the PETA "Wanted" list. Oh, yeah. And he and his wife are committed Christians.

Not a bad sermon, in my book.

Well, this has gotten pretty long-winded. Sorry for tiring you out! And forgive me if I talked down to you or misread what you wrote in your blog. You seem like a guy who's used to winning - and yesterday seemed like something of a defeat. It wasn't, but somebody (an angel, but with black leather wings) wants to make you think it was. Your parishioners need a strong and faithful father in Christ - and I'm sure that you are that. They need you to be a father much more than they need to see you do an American Idol imitation.

They all might not know that yet, though!

End of MY sermon, at last!

I really look forward to seeing you again, whenever God allows. Thanks for praying for Victor, our good friend and helper - the crack addict. He's in a recovery program now and seems to be doing okay.

your friend and brother in Christ,

Fr. Michael