More From the US Open

Well, the 1st Round of the 2011 US Open at Congressional Country Club is in the books and all I can say is “WOW!!” This experience continues to get better and better. After the three practice rounds, dad and I developed a strategy for watching the tournament. The plan today, which was carried out with great precision, was to go and park ourselves in the grandstands behind 12 green. This was a perfect spot because from the grandstands at 12 green you can see all of 12th green, 13th tee and 13th green (it’s a par 3) and you can see the 14th tee. Plus you could see some of the 11th fairway and 11th green. It was a great spot to see great golf and the way the tee times are set up (they start groups off both 1st tee and 10th tee) we did not have to wait long to see golf.

Once we started watching golf at 7:00AM, we stayed in that place and watched all but 3 groups come through. That is over 11 hours of golf! It was a lot of golf and a lot of sitting but I wouldn’t trade it for anything to be honest. I get to hang out with my dad (which, as he would definitely confirm, would be cool enough on it’s own) AND watch one of my favorite sports to play being played by the best in the world on the most beautiful and toughest course on the planet. I’d say that is pretty tough to beat. We saw some great golf, we saw some not so great golf. We saw great shows (chip ins from the bunkers) and not so great shots (struggling to get it out of the bunkers). All of it added up to a great day.

The attire that the golfers were wearing today was also interesting to point out. Most golfers wore understated clothing but then you had golfers like Davis Love III and his florescent pink pants and Bubba Watson with his camouflage pants. These golfers definitely drew attention to themselves but fortunately their game lived up to it too.

That is all I have for right now. There is so much to say that I can’t do in about 20 posts. The thing is though; there will be even more to tell in the next three day.

US Open Report #1

Well we’ve made it! This morning my dad and I rolled into Bathesda, MD to spend the next week attending the 111th US Open golf tournament at Congressional Country Club! My dad and I have only been planning this trip for the last 5 years so it is safe to say that he and I are more than excited about this coming week. In fact, I can even go as far as saying we are downright gitty. The journey started yesterday (June 12) when I took off from Cedar Lake after church and drove to Syracuse where I transferred my belongings to my parents’ car and started east toward Maryland. We drove for 6 hours or so and stayed overnight in a hotel in Mt. Pleasant, PA. First thing this morning, June 13, we headed out for the final leg of our journey to Maryland. We arrived at Herb and Joyce’s (our gracious hosts for the week) around 11:30AM. We picked up our ticket badges (which were like opening an entire room of Christmas presents on Christmas Day) and other necessary materials and we were at the gates of Congressional Country Club by noon. Herb took us to “the Club” and showed us around and took us into the clubhouse for lunch. Let me tell you something, the course was amazing and this clubhouse was incredible. It was a beautiful building and the course was in immaculate condition. I wish I could have just gone up and walked on a green just once but those greens are in fragile condition and don't need anymore foot traffic than they already had.

After lunch dad and I began our adventure investigating the course. There were not a lot of high profile golfers but there were a few (Padraig Harrington, Zach Johnson, Angel Cabrera, Dustin Johnson, David Toms, etc.) that we followed around for a little bit. Mostly, we wondered around the front nine of Congressional in awe that we were actually here, but we did chart some places that we want to watch a lot of golf action throughout the week and we found the practice tees and practice greens. I also bought a US Open hat (which is not a surprise to those that know me) and got some ideas for other things I want to get to remember this event.

Overall, it was a successful day and we are both pretty tired. But there is no rest for the golf nuts that we are. We will be back up and on the course to watch more practice tomorrow morning at 7:15. I will be blogging more of my experiences tomorrow evening and also look for pictures that I plan to post tomorrow night on my Facebook page. Stay tuned!

Ministry of Presence

Well, I now have two weeks of CPE under my belt and I must admit, it has been a fascinating experience. I am still adjusting and learning how to handle my newest classmates that come from far different life experiences and denominational history than I do. I am learning, as I am sure they are, to work together as a group, but I am confident that we will do just fine as a group.

Within my first two weeks of being a “chaplain intern,” working rounds and responding to various issues and emergencies, I have had many experiences and conversations that have been profound, deep, and I can already tell, the transformation of Chris, the seminary student/student pastor, is rapidly taking place. When I say transformation, I mean that these experiences are continually developing me into a better pastor, better leader, and most importantly, a better person. The most profound and life-changing experience I have had so far was recently when I was in the room when a patient died. I must admit, this was a profound and intense experience. I have never been in the same room when a person dies. I have officiated funerals and I have been to funerals so I have seen deceased people but to be there in the room, to see the raw (but surprisingly controlled) emotions of the family as this person passed away and to see the body lying there, not made up, not embalmed, not in a casket was truly a surreal experience to say the least. I had great compassion for the family and truly felt a deep sadness as the family grieved and began making plans.

For the first time in my young pastoral career, I truly practiced a “ministry of presence” to the family. If you would have walked into that room you would have found me standing in the corner with a tissue box, trying to blend into the wallpaper as best I could. There was nothing I could have said to the family to ease their pain. I knew that and I am pretty sure they knew that too. I did pray with the family when they asked, but to be quite honest, that was basically the extent of my speaking. I listened when someone spoke, handed out tissues to those that were in need of one, and provided a shoulder to cry on. So I was there, didn’t say much and honestly I don’t remember saying anything of real substance (outside of the prayer… maybe…) but the family expressed deep appreciation when they left and I was left feeling that ministry had happened and that God was truly there with us, even in the midst of death. I did, though, want to say, “I didn’t do anything,” but the more I thought about it, the more I felt God telling me, “yes, you did more than you will ever know.” For that, I am thankful and I am comforted.

While I was in the room and in the midst of the situation, I felt good. I was not as freaked out as I thought I would be. I was able to care for the family in a way that they needed and overall I felt my ministry to them, looking back, was successful. When I left the room, I felt myself coming down from an adrenaline kick. It was hard for me to focus the rest of the evening. I made a couple more visits that evening but then I just had to retreat back to the “night room” and call it a night. That event affected me more than I gave it credit for earlier in the evening. I had witness a person died right in front of me. I distressed by reading and watching my typical late night comedy shows (The Daily Show and The Colbert Report). The majority of my evening devotion/prayer centered on this event and then I struggled to get to sleep. The next morning I was able to “debrief” about my experience with my supervisor, which helped greatly. Once I was able to talk to my supervisor about it, I was able to realize my feelings about it and I was able to move on from it (but I will never forget it). The rest of my shift was uneventful and for that I was extremely thankful.

Does this death make me dread CPE? Absolutely not. In fact, I appreciate CPE and chaplaincy even more with this experience. This experience has taught me valuable lessons on the fragility of life, the importance of family, and the sanctity of life at the final stages. This experience also has given me an even greater appreciation for hospital chaplains and funeral home directors who face life in the face of death every day. I don’t think I will ever do chaplaincy as a full time ministry opportunity but this experience and the other experiences I have had are invaluable to my continued growth and development as a pastor.

The coming weeks are going to get adventurous for me. Stay tuned as I report from different places like Bloomington, Indianapolis, Muncie, and Bathesda, MD in the coming weeks.

Two Down, One to Go

Well, it has been a long time since I have written for my blog but now that the hustle and bustle and downright craziness known as the second year of seminary has come to a conclusion, I figure it is now time to catch up on writing just for entertainment and reflection.

May 13th signified, officially, the end of my second year of seminary at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. It was another successful year of seminary and it is stunning that I have completed two thirds of my course work and only have one more year of to go. It has been an amazing and wild ride so far and I am looking forward to my third and final year of seminary. I have learned so much so far in my two years of seminary and especially in my second year. I truly believe that the classes I took in my second year have been the most formative, not only in my theological development, but also in my practical development of my career. I have been under the guidance of great teachers and advisors and have been on this adventure with great friends (some of which are graduating and moving away which isn’t cool but I will get over it) and I would not trade my experiences for anything. On top of that, if everything works out well, I stand an outside chance of getting all A’s and A-‘s by the time this is all said and done.

Now that the school year is over, my life will consist of being the best pastor I can be to the wonderful, loving, and patient congregation at Cedar Lake and participating in the Clinical Pastoral Education Program at Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee, IL. CPE is a requirement for commissioning/ordination in the Indiana Conference of the UMC. To be commissioned I have to have one unit of CPE. Riverside is the closest program to Cedar Lake so it was the most logical place to do it. Last week was orientation, which was three days of learning as much as I could about Riverside Medical Center, all of the do’s and don’ts, everything will be learning as a part of the program, and most importantly, began the process of learning how to deal with new group mates that will be along with me in the process. I am currently having mixed emotions about this whole thing. On one hand, I am excited to gain valuable experience and learn how to handle crisis situations but on the other hand, I would love to have the summer to rest and spend time with the wonderful people at Cedar Lake. But alas, I have to undertake this project so I am going in with the attitude that it will be a great learning experience and I am looking forward to the adventure that is ahead.

I will also be going to the 2011 U.S. Open Golf Tournament at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, MD (just outside of Washington D.C.) with my dad in June! This will be a blast! We will see the best golfers in the world play one of the toughest courses in the country. My dad and I have been anticipating and preparing for this trip for 6 years to the idea that it is now less than a month before we go is crazy to think about but it is almost here and I am pumped!

It will be a summer of action and excitement so stay tuned for more updates on this blog!

Passing on the Faith

The last couple of months I have been thinking a lot about faith. How do we “get” faith? Where does our faith come from? How do we keep from losing our faith? In my exploration of what we call faith, I began to ask questions about my own faith. Where did I “get” my faith? How is it that no matter what has happened in my life, I still have my faith when I get to the other side of the storm (even if it gets tattered and bounced around a little bit)? How is it that even when my faith is challenged and attacked, I am able to hold on to it? After a time of reflection, thinking, and prayer I figured out the answer to all of my questions: I was taught. I was groomed. I was immersed in the faith from the day I was born.

I was born into a Christian family. Along with being in a Christian home, I was born into a family of clergy. I am the 3rd generation Lantz to be called into ordained ministry in the United Methodist Church; I plan to join my grandfather and aunt who are already ordained clergy in the Indiana Conference. My great – grandfather Lantz was also an active Methodist as well. At one point, 3 generations of Lantz’s were delegates to the Old North Indiana Conference:Great-Grandpa Lantz, Grandpa Lantz, and Aunt Ann.

In addition to being “born into the faith,” my parents and all my grandparents made sure that I LEARNED the faith from a very young age. I was baptized into the faith as an infant by my grandfather and from then on, I began to learn and absorb the faith and what it means to be a Christian. When I was six weeks old, my parents moved to Syracuse where they began attending Calvary United Methodist Church.
Calvary United Methodist is the church that nurtured me in the faith of Christ. My church family at Calvary taught me what is was like to be immersed in the faith, and what it is like to be a part of a community of faith, surrounded by saints. At that blessed and sacred place, I was taught about Jesus and the Bible by saints like Betty Appenzeller and Shirley Bobeck, who faithfully taught Sunday school every week. Dorthea Littler, Mary Margaret Willard, and Naomi Colpitts were wise and strong widows of men who had given their lives to ordained ministry and were convinced that I was heading that same path of ordained ministry. Harriet Deterling introduced me to handbells and how music can be a true expression of worship. Jim and Lena Siens and Bill and Beth Fowler were couples that loved me and watched me grow in that church. These saints not only watched me grow up they also profoundly impacted my life’s journey and my understanding of church, religion, and faith.

As I grew up and moved on to college and the rest of my life, the faith that formed in my church at Calvary in Syracuse has stayed with me. Just because I have grown up and moved away, doesn’t mean that they have forgotten me, leaving me to find my way alone. In fact, Calvary is the church that is sponsoring me on my journey in the ordination process, helping me advance my call into ordained ministry. That church is still involved in some way in my life as it enters a new phase. The faith my parents, grandparents and church family passed on to me has become the foundation of who I am. It is this foundation that strengthens me to continue doing what I do in my life today. This faith, passed down to me from all the saints who surrounded me, taught me, and encouraged me is the rock that I lean on in tough times. I thank my home church and family for passing the faith to me, allowing me to grow and hear my call into ordained ministry.

I have never forgotten my faith and I credit my parents, grandparents, and the saints at Calvary United Methodist Church in Syracuse, IN for passing the faith on to me. But my question is, What good is faith if we do not pass it on to our younger generations and others? If we as a church, as the body of Christ do not teach the faith, the good news of the love, grace, and mercy of Jesus Christ will not spread and continue on in future generations. It is our job to pass on our faith, just as those who cultivated our faith passed their faith on to us. Passing on our faith is why Sunday school for children and youth is so important. In passing on our faith, we must allow our children to watch us and to learn from us. This is why we encourage children from a very young age to not only be in worship, but take part in the whole worship experience. In passing on our faith, we need to be intentional about creating opportunities for everyone to experience the love and the grace of a church family. Even when they are infants, welcoming them into our church family, embracing them as a church family, surrounding them with love and grace, models how a church family should operate. The more we involve our younger generations in our church, the more we teach them about the faith. The more we teach them about the faith, the more likely it is that they will have a strong foundation to cling to when the storms of life come. In turn, they will grow up and teach the faith to their children and their children’s children, creating a body of Christ that is strongly rooted in the faith.

Not only was Jesus our Savior and the Son of God, but he was also a practicing and well taught Jew. Even though Jesus is our Savior, He still had to be taught the Jewish faith and the traditions of His people. A great example of this is seen in the Gospel of Luke 2: 41-52 where “boy Jesus” is sitting among the teachers “listening and asking them questions.” Son of God learned and formed his faith from watching and learning from his elders. Even Jesus was passed on the faith from his elders and as Luke 2: 52 says, Jesus “increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” Jesus didn’t grow in his faith out of his own ability, he had to experience the faith lived out by his elders.

As a church we must stop assuming that the generations younger than us will learn the faith and the faith traditions of the faith will learn simply by being told. Children need to EXPERIENCE the faith and the faith traditions. They need to EXPERIENCE the Bible and what it means to us as Christians. They need to EXPERIENCE the love, grace, and mercy that come with the faith. It is our charge, as adults, to help our children and the children in our church grow, not only physically, but in their faith as well. We must be deliberate in creating time, space, and opportunities to pass on our faith to the younger generations by sharing our faith with them by modeling love, service, and grace in our interactions with them and with others.

Hating Hate

Last week a friend of mine made a comment that got me thinking. The comment was, “hatred objectifies the other, making it easy to overlook the mere humanity of another person & see only the fallen/broken nature capable of evil.” So this got me thinking about hatred and I posed the question, is it possible to hate hatred? Hatred is kind of a foreign concept for me but I completely understand that for many people, it is a very real and very personal feeling. People have a hard time believing me when I tell them that I have never hated anyone, but I haven’t. I’ve been agitated with people or people have upset me, but hate has never been a feeling that has entered my thoughts. I don’t know why really. Maybe because I grew up in a house and in a family where love was so dominant that it completely destroyed any hate; maybe I have never had a reason to hate someone or something. If there is one thing that I do hate, it is hate itself. Like you, I have seen what hate can do, not only in a historical context (I am a history nut after all), but in the context of the Christian faith and those that claim to be preaching the Christian faith.

So, why do I hate hate you ask? Well, in a nut shell here’s why: 1) Hate starts wars. Every war in history had its root cause grounded in hate, hatred for a group of people, hatred for a way of life, retaliation for a hateful act. 2) I have seen what hate can do to friendships, relationships, and families and it is one of the most destructive things I can think of. 3) Hate is the exact opposite of what God wants us to do. I truly feel that when the author of Genesis in chapter 1 verse 31 said “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good..." they meant it.

Looking around the landscape of our nation and the Christian church as a whole, I am saddened at the amount of hate that is being spewed. There does not seem to be a debate in this country without one side spewing hate on to the other side and vice versa. This disease has touched everyone in some shape or form and its hold is strong and unforgiving. Hate takes on all forms and hides in all places. Hate takes the form of politics (it has found a special place in the illegal immigration debate, and in our treatment of our President) and tragically, it takes on the name of Christianity and Islam. You can say what you want, but there is definitely a theology of hate on the fringes of both Christianity and Islam. You need to look no further than comments from Pat Robertson concerning Haiti or comments from Osama Bin Laden concerning the West to see how hate can even affect our faith.

To hate hate is a desire to overcome any hate that you may have within ourselves and instead of hating those that you don’t get along with, you love your enemies and you pray that the love, grace, and mercy of Jesus Christ will overcome the darkness in their hearts. We as Christians know that the love of Jesus Christ will always overcome the darkness of this world and that love is like a kick to the face of evil and Satan. It might be a cliché but it is a true statement and is as profound as it was when the Beatles first sang it: “All you need is love.” Love, along with grace and mercy, will always conquer hate.

P.S. Thanks to Suzanne Miller for contributing to this post!

LIVESTRONG: A Story of a Bracelet

A couple of months ago, I went in for my formal clergy assessment with a psychologist. It is a standard procedure in the United Methodist Church’s certification/ordination process. I had to do a series of evaluation and then met with a psychologist to discuss the results. The psychologist that conducted the interview/assessment was very good and it was (oddly enough) an enjoyable experience. One of the first things he asked me when we sat down, however, surprised me. One of the first things he asked me was about the wristband on my wrist. The wristband on my wrist, I thought to myself. I had forgotten about the wristband that I had on my wrist. It was a LIVESTRONG bracelet and he asked me why I wore it. To be quite honest, I answered him with a basic answer, because I didn’t really know why I wore it, I just did. Well, a couple of nights ago I was taking a walk and it dawned on me why I wore this bracelet and I thought I would share its history and its meaning.

When I was a freshman in college, the LIVESTRONG bracelets came out to raise awareness and money for Lance Armstrong’s foundation that focused on cancer research. My mom bought me one of the bracelets because, 1) it was a dollar and 2) it was very much a popular thing to have and 3) it raised money for a very good cause. So I started to wear the bracelet and before I knew it, the bracelet never came off. The bracelet became a part of me and a part of my “fashion” sense. I wore it because it was cool and it was for a good cause so I thought, “I know enough people fighting cancer that I can easily wear this.” So, I wore it. In fact, I rarely took it off and when I did take it off (if I was officiating an athletic event), it always went into a pocket and it stayed with me.

This bracelet and I, over the years, have been through a lot together, and honestly, this bracelet has come to be a symbol of my life. This bracelet has been snapped and replaced, dirty and clean, sweaty and cold, oily and muddy. It’s been to weddings and funerals. It’s been with me during great baseball games and bad baseball games. This bracelet has been with me through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It has been with me through the most successful times of my life and the biggest defeats and let downs of my life. The bracelet has come to symbolize my life and it has begun to develop meaning.

So why do I wear it? Well, I wear it for multiple reasons, for multiple people. I wear it as a reminder of where I’ve been. I wear it as a reminder of where I am going. I wear it as a reminder of the great things. I wear it to remind me of the not so great things. I wear it to remind me of my family that loves me no matter what. I wear it to remind me that there are truly great friends and mentors in my life that care for me and love me even if I do some ill-advised things. I wear it as inspiration to keep going and persevere when the nights are long and the seminary papers seem to never end. I wear it as a reminder to pray, to spend time in devotion and prayer. I wear it as a reminder that God is always near and always present, even though sometimes it seems like God is far, far away.

It is nothing fancy, nothing exciting, and to be honest, you may have never noticed that I wear it. But over time, this bracelet has developed meaning and it has now become a part of my life, a part of my story, a part of who I am.