Stewardship Includes Culture Care | Lessons from the Last 15
The Dean of the Community of Saint Anselm (COSA) and I talked on Skype. He was in his quaint study at Lambeth Palace, the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury and working centre of the Anglican Communion. I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with my sliding glass door open, not too far from a palm tree. Rev’d Lewis had been doing something for a few years that I had just begun. He was part of the pioneering team in establishing an intentional ecumenical community of young adults in Central London, made up of residential and non-residential members. Inspired by COSA, we began the Theta Community at Trinity in Autumn 2019. We began with 5 residential members and 9 non-residential members, local young adults who joined our community for prayer, meals, and teaching.
In earlier years, we had tried ministry ‘at’ young adults, and ministry with young adults, and ministry for young adults. We had tried lowering the bar in young adult ministry lower and lower hoping that less commitment would mean more participation. It didn’t work!
“We had tried lowering the bar in young adult ministry lower and lower hoping that less commitment would mean more participation. It didn’t work! ”
I’d been following the Community of Saint Anselm in London since its conception and was excited about the thought of birthing a community like it in Southern California. Trinity owned some rent-producing apartments across the street. One year I suggested, “If an apartment opens up, can we hold it open for a residence for interns?” They said, “No.” Next time I asked they said, “Yes.” The first experiences with interns were so positive for the congregation, they agreed to do the same with a second apartment. Now we had a women’s residence and a men’s residence. Five in residence the first year, and nine in residence this year! Fourteen in the original Theta Community and Twenty-seven this year! But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Three months into our experience (experiment?!?) with the Theta Community revealed a gravitational pull toward compromise. California culture always moves toward a more relaxed, more casual, more flip-flop variation. Honesty, I’m kind of an Anglophile, but my intent was not to replicate a Lambeth Palace, high-on-the-candle community in San Pedro. So, I started to let lots of stuff slide. Community commitments we had made became more and more flexible. The chat with Rev’d Lewis came right on time. He spoke leader to leader. “Nathan,” he said directly, “You are in charge of the culture. Nothing is more important than your role in being a steward of the culture of your community. What is inflexible? What is adaptable? No one else cares about this as much as you do. You know what kind of community God has called you to be. Own it.”
“Culture is most simply and radically that which we cultivate. It is tending to the soil.”
So, just like our congregational constitution has a few unalterable bylaws, our community now has a few values that are unalterable. For instance, we would cease being if we forgot or neglected our call to be a community that embraces the way of grace.
This evening at our community vespers, we read the final section of long Psalm 107. In this Psalm, God is addressed as the God who controls the environment or atmosphere of a culture. God can make the wilderness watery, and the dry ground spring forth, and the land fruitful and multiplicative (Psalm 107.35-38).
God has taught me that he cares deeply about the culture of the Theta Community, and more broadly Trinity Lutheran Church, and more broadly San Pedro. This stewardship he has given to me is scalable and applicable in the Church Council and staff meetings and on pastoral care visits and young people gathered for catechism lessons.
Culture is most simply and radically that which we cultivate. It is tending to the soil. In Jesus’ parable of the seeds, it is not the seeds that differ from one another. Seeds grow. It is the soil that makes the difference. The seeds are going to seed. The gospel is going to gospel. You can count on God to be God. The variable is the soil. Hard soil, weed-ridden soil, bird-attentive soil needs cultivating. The culture of our communities and congregations are not beyond help. They might need a rototiller. They might need a truckload of fertilizer. They might need a protective scarecrow. But, be assured sower, there is no problem with the seed. It is the soil that needs attention.
If you would like to learn more about an internship www.trinitysanpedro.org/internship or the Theta Community at Trinity visit our website: www.trinitysanpedro.org/theta. To help support producing leaders grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ visit www.trinitysanpedro.org.greenhouse.
Lessons from the Last 15 is a series of articles from Pastor Nathan Hoff on the occasion of his 15th year in ministry at Trinity San Pedro.
“It seems like they need me,” I said pretentiously to a dear family I was visiting in the first congregation I served. Just shy of three years at that Call, I broke the news about our upcoming relocation to Southern California. It was the Fall of 2005, and I had recently received and accepted a new Call to Trinity Lutheran in San Pedro, California. How that family managed not to roll their eyes is more impressive as the years go by. I had a lot to learn.
October 31st will mark the 15th anniversary of my installation as pastor at Trinity San Pedro. They didn’t “need” me in the way I thought they might need me. They did need the Gospel, and I needed it too—as desperately as anyone else. I still do and they still do. We are a good match.