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One year ago, the moving truck delivered my belongings to Grand Rapids, where we accidentally bought a historic home. Thus began the unpacking and preparation for my new role as Michigan Conference Minister. That first summer, everything in my new garden was a surprise, as I reaped the benefits of gardeners who came before me, both at home and in my ministry. I survived my first Michigan winter, which felt longer than it probably was, since snow followed me to every church I visited. Eventually, I was rewarded with my first Michigan Spring, which was a spectacular way to spend a weekend. 

What a difference a year makes. The horrors of moving feel like a distant memory, unless you look at my basement, where I have hidden a few boxes I have yet to unpack. Still, I consider myself to be properly moved in, because these same boxes remained unpacked at my old house. It feels good to be settled. 

Today, on the first day of my second summer in my Michigan garden, I have the thrill of seeing shoots of green growth from seeds that I may have planted. Although my neighbor informs me that some of these may be weeds, at least they are now my weeds, in the gloriously green landscape I now call my home. Next week, when the national church gathers for General Synod in Indianapolis, I will be proud to invite others, as you all invited me, to consider a call to serve in the Michigan Conference, where the grass really is greener.

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Last week, I led my first retreat for the clergy of the Michigan Conference. I was thrilled that eighteen busy pastors took three days away to think about preaching through the Festival of Homiletics at the lovely Tower Hill Conference Center in Sawyer, Michigan On the first night, when we shared why we were there, a number of people said they were excited to reflect on their sermon craft, but I’d say an equal number said they weren’t exactly sure why they signed up for a preaching retreat, because sermon preparation had become more of a chore than a joy! I didn’t judge. I get it and I’ve been there. Whatever your calling may be, you know you need a retreat when the spiritual gifts that once excited you now feel like a burden or, even worse, a bore.

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Every Sunday I preach at our Michigan churches, I meet people who tell me this is their first time back in person in years. When I ask why, I’m struck how often they say that my visit caused the church to have a special coffee hour, which in turn caused someone to ask them to bring cookies. They didn’t come because they needed to see the Conference Minister. They came because the church needed the cookies.

I do not think people return to in-person worship in order to eat treats, but they may well return in order to deliver them. It’s easier to receive a call asking you to bring brownies than it is to get one asking why you haven’t been coming to church. The first call is an invitation while the second can sound like an act of desperation, or at worst, an accusation.

“Where have you been? We’ve missed you,” sounds too much like “Where have you been? Shame on you.”  Read More

“Before the pandemic, we had thirteen people in the choir,” the pastor tells me, while the moderator explains that it was a three octave bell choir made up of both adults, who all saw eye to eye, and youth, who never missed a rehearsal. But that’s nothing compared to the same choir as described by the church historian who adds that there was also a vocal choir whose large tenor section all had masters degrees in musical performance, perfect pitch and halos, because it wasn’t actually a human choir but an elite ensemble of harp playing angels.

Nostalgia is an unreliable narrator. The more time that passes between now and the glory days, the better that old church choir sounds. Same goes for the couples clubs who met for monthly dinners, the booming youth group, or the last live worship service before the shut down in 2020, that seemed so ordinary and lightly attended at the time but now gets bigger and better in the rear view mirror.

Over the last nine months, I’ve worshiped and preached at 45 church services in the Michigan Conference and in a spirit of humility, I do have a few observations. I recognize that year three of whatever we are going through feels harder than year one or two. For this reason, I am leading a clergy retreat with serious scholarships (use code MI 1/2) and we are holding a workshop on trauma for our leaders.  Read More

After the Shooting at Michigan State University

This Valentines Day, I do not send our 140 Michigan churches the sugary sentiments of a heart shaped box of chocolates but the prayers from my broken human heart after last night’s shooting at Michigan State University. We had church members who could see the scene from where they were locked down in homes and churches. Last night, as I checked in on our local pastors, I knew they were checking in on their churches, communities, families, workers, students, first responders and the weary world around them.

For, as every pastor knows, when tragedy hits, our churches grow much larger than the membership rolls. Churches become centers of care for the whole community, in buildings at busy intersections, in online gatherings, or on prayer chains. When violence locks us down or sends us into the streets, the church has the chance to blast past its walls, when preachers realize that their most important sermon may be the one that is offered to the stranger at the grocery store who recognizes them and says, “Pastor, just answer me this. How can God let this happen?”

I’ve heard that question a lot lately, from people horrified by whatever picture of the world they receive in the news of their own choosing, but it’s a question that we in the church have an ancient answer to. God does not let this happen. People do. It is people who let these things happen.

We saw it in the video of Tyre Nichols, killed by the brutality of human violence and the more devastating brutality of human indifference. We see it in the horror of the war in Ukraine, where, as in all wars, the poor pay the greatest price, while far away leaders philosophize to monetize their own safety. We see it in ourselves as a country, when the news of one school shooting after another becomes routine, in a culture drooling for violence as entertainment, but hardened to it in real life. We see it in ourselves as a nation of immature impulses and short attention spans, more interested in shooting balloons out of the sky than taking guns out of the hands of its own people. God does not allow that to happen. People do.

Yet somehow, despite the stakes, God, the great creator of all things, chose to create us with free will and mortal bodies. We could have been made to live forever as coddled infants, with our needs met, our decisions constrained and our capacity to harm the rest of creation minimized. Instead, we were created in the image of God, which means we have souls and bodies that were literally built for growth and change. Created with a limited time on earth, we were given the ability to choose between right and wrong, love or death, God or stuff, the care of all creation or the tedious worship of the self, all on a short journey through life whose purpose is to draw us closer to the one who gave us life to begin with.

As for the shooting in East Lansing, God does not let this happen. People do. It is God’s people who let the worst things happen to ourselves and to one another, from the violent act of taking lives, to the violent inaction of cynical indifference. But it is also God’s people who allow the most beautiful things to happen, from the courageous saving of lives, to the loving healing of broken spirits, to the humble repairing of the world from our own mistakes. This is what it means to follow Jesus, human and divine. Today, our Michigan pastors and churches are at the beating heart of it all.

Peace and Blessings,
The Rev. Dr. Lillian Daniel

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This January, I taught the History, Theology and Polity of United Church of Christ Polity to seminarians at Chicago Theological Seminary. When I say “at,” I use the term loosely. The class, originally planned as an intensive week in person in Hyde Park, switched to online, so my students were zooming in from Texas to Rhode Island. Their religious backgrounds also spanned a distance and yet they had all been led by the Holy Spirit to take this class as part of their discernment if they are called to preach, teach and lead our people. We had people raised Southern Baptist, Wesleyan, Roman Catholic, Nondenominational, or without much religion at all, each of them bringing the gifts and the struggles of their past spiritual lives into their new home under the big tent we call the United Church of Christ. You get the picture. My students were as big a bunch of “mutts” as the average UCC congregation in the Michigan Conference.  Read More