Musings on 25 Years of Ordained Ministry--8

Interlude #1: You wouldn't believe where I've been. The cities and towns I've been in...

As the story and mission of Joy began to gain a wider audience so to speak, Walt began to receive all kinds of speaking invitations, many of them overseas. He was gracious enough to invite Jan and me to join him on most of those trips. His graciousness allowed us to do some world traveling that I never dreamed of before.

My first overseas trip was actually a missions trip. Walt, Tom Eggum, and I headed over to South Korea to take in a conference at the world's largest church (they hit 500,000 members the week we were there back in 1985.) Then we headed into China, specifically to Beijing and Shanghai. We smuggled in some religious literature and handed it out on the streets. It was an amazing trip both seeing that huge church in Korea and then seeing China in the early stages of its dance with capitalism. We had the chance to visit a state church (so boring that a woman in the front row fell asleep and thumped into the aisle). But our guide, a non-Christian, couldn't stop talking about the stories he had heard, like the one about a man thrown into a lion's den and how God protected him.

Our first real overseas trip to speak was to England. Walt had been invited to speak at a large conference held in Brighton. So he took me and Jan, Paul and Carol, Tom and his wife, and of course, Walt took his wife Mary. The 4 of us guys spoke about the mission of Joy. And that one hour talk opened up several new speaking engagements overseas.

We spoke in Strasbourg France on a couple of occasions. (Jan and I took our kids one of those trips. I had been out all day and when I got back to the hotel that early evening I found Jan and the kids in bed, absolutely soaked with sweat from sitting in a hot, hot room with no air-conditioning all day long. I thought it was pretty funny. They didn't. On the last night of our time there we were walking through the city when someone yelled, "Jan Wright." There, in the middle of Strasbourg, Jan ran into an old work friend from St. Louis Park, MN!)

We made several trips over to Germany. Usually we were invited by the "Charismatic" Lutheran movement as the State Church Lutherans weren't all that keen on Joy or our mission. Our first invitation was to a major event in Nuremberg which attracted thousands of people. From then on, our speaking opportunities were usually to smaller groups of about 30-40. In those years Willow Creek and Bill Hybels were doing conferences in Germany drawing 5,000-7,000 people. We heard how the Germans flew Bill into Germany in first class and even brought him to one event in a helicopter. Walt and I, and our wives, on the other hand, flew over in coach and drove a rental car. One time we spoke in an old converted palace. As we were dragging our own luggage up 3 flights of very narrow stairs we had a laughing fit about what big potatoes we were. Truth be told, while it's always invigorating to speak to large crowds, the change to speak to smaller groups and hang out is usually more rewarding.

A couple of interesting (to me) notes: We had the chance to go into what had been East Germany. We spoke at a Lutheran convent (yes, Lutheran nuns) in Magdeburg to a group of "East German" pastors. These were men who had been beaten down under communism for all of their lives. When Walt talked about vision and dreaming they had no idea what he was talking about. There was a sense of oppression and hopelessness during those few days. One of the tougher conferences we had been a part of. It was gratifying on the last day to hear some of them begin to dream.

(My daughter often travelled with us. And often she celebrated her birthday overseas. In Magdeburg the nuns put some flowers together for her and did a little mini-concert for her. Very sweet!)

One year we finally had the chance to speak to State Church Lutheran Pastors at a Lutheran seminary in Celle. (We were there when the big train crash happened in that city). This was another tough speaking gig. A few of the pastors were extremely hostile to us. Outside of the conference room was a whiteboard where people could write comments on the conference. As we walked by it, Rudy, our interpreter, read some of them and groaned. We asked him what they said. He didn't want to tell us. Finally we forced it out of him. Some of the pastors were accusing us of being like Hitler. We sensed they didn't really like us! However, the next day the couple of pastors who were angry with us left. The rest of us had a great time. I showed them a video of our opening worship service on our new campus (the one with the Trash can guys). Some of the pastors stayed up until the early hours in the morning watching it over and over again.

We had the opportunity to speak in Norway (what a beautiful country) and Finland. We took a side trip into Russia and brought in some medical supplies. We were crammed into an old fashioned ambulance and driven to the care facility where we had a chance to spend some time with the children there.

We also had a chance to go to Australia. Jan and I actually went 3 times. One of our favorite countries. We've got great friends there. I became a big fan of Australian Rules Football and the Adelaide Crows!

As in Germany, we had our critics in Australia. This time it was the Lutheran Seminary, the control center of the Lutheran church. On our first visit they sent out letters telling people not to attend our events because our theology was so bad (mind you, they'd never met us or talked to us or read any of our stuff!). It didn't stop people from coming, however.

On our second trip over the same thing happened. On our first day there one of the pastors said we had caused quite a stir because I didn't believe in communion. When I laughed he said he was serious. An article, written in St. Paul, Minnesota, had made its way to Australia. The author had used my book to prove that I didn't believe in communion. But he had taken every sentence out of context. (When I got back to the States I found I was the topic of a discussion thread online. Friends of mine were talking behind my back wondering why I had bad-mouthed communion. So I wrote to the author of that article and provided the full quotes from my book which were actually extremely affirming of communion. I sent it off to the discussion thread as well. The author wrote me back and said, "I don't care what you wrote. I know your intent!" Lovely man!)

Finally, Walt and I got to meet with the seminary powers that be. It was such a sad meeting. They were fellow Christians. But no welcome. No prayer. They simply interrogated us for a couple of hours. No apology for making untrue claims about us. No apology for making claims when they hadn't read any of our stuff. Our host was so ashamed he lovingly but forcefully took the group to task for the way they treated us. But in the end, the congregations still came out and we had some great meetings.

Our third trip included a stop over in New Zealand. At the time I told people I was speaking at a seminar for all of the Lutheran pastors in New Zealand. Sounds great but there were only 12 of them. But what a great bunch of leaders. (In the morning I went out for a run down a dirt road when suddenly a huge dog charged me. I thought I was dead. It bared its teeth and barked over and over and over. The "charming" owner stayed in the house and yelled at the dog for about 3 minutes before the dog decided I didn't have enough meat on my body!)

Those overseas speaking engagements were great highlights in our ministry. With a few exceptions we had the chance to hang with other Christians in other cultures and dream together about how to reach our countries and world for Jesus. We met some truly awesome leaders.

Two other opportunities stand out:

Several years ago several denominations came together for a conference on the Holy Spirit with an emphasis on evangelism. We were invited to speak to the Lutheran part of the event. Both conferences (the leaders event and then the general conference) were held in New Orleans. I was asked to speak at another such event in Indianapolis and was able to bring the Good News Band along.

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the seminal conferences for me was the Robert Schuller Leadership event. Walt spoke at it almost every year. One year he asked me, Paul, and Tom to join him. We had the chance to speak for a few minutes from the pulpit of the Crystal Cathedral, one of the most recognized churches in the world. I was so nervous I could hardly breathe. I told people that for a preacher to speak from that pulpit is like a pilot of a single engine plane getting to fly a 747.

A year later we actually got to model our seeker service during one of the Schuller conferences. It was a memorable experience for me and to the Good News Band, to do our thing at that great church.

Over the years Jan and I have had the chance to go to Israel twice. I never had any big emotional faith experience in Israel. But I can say that the land got into my soul. It became a spiritual home.

And I've been to Rwanda 3 times. Words are always hard to come by when talking about the Rwanda experience. All I can say is I've fallen in love with the country (such amazing beauty) and the people (such amazing spirit!).