Decorating for Christmas!

On Saturday of this past weekend the congregation gathered to decorate the Chapel for the Christmas season. After two hours or so, the tree was erected and decorated with a colorful angel on top, the nativity scene in place, and garland, wreathes, branches, decorative snowflakes and lights hung throughout the room. Outside lights will be soon to follow, making both the inside and the outside festive and elegant as Christmas day approaches.

The Things We Don't Expect

Life is not linear; and most often, it is the unexpected events along the circuitous route God has us on which give life its sense of adventure and intrigue. Not only that, but by keeping us on the less direct path to wherever it is in life we think we are headed, God reminds us of His sovereignty over our lives and begs our trust in Him. Joseph, while living life as the privileged son, never expected to live his entire adult life in Egypt; King David, while he tended his sheep, never expected to one day rule Israel; and Paul, while persecuting Jewish Christians, never expected that God would use him to bring the Good News of Christ to the Roman world. It is in the surprises in life, the things we least expect, that God makes Himself most known.

Living in Montana is something I had hopes for, but never anticipated. Living in Cooke City, Montana is something I never considered. Being appointed as a pastor of any church is a ridiculous notion I laugh at even now. Yet, the Lord has combined all three unexpecteds into a great privilege and blessing in my life these last one and a half months. Truly, being called to ministry here in Cooke City, Montana is an appointment I never expected and one in which God is already revealing Himself in unexpected ways.

My name is Haley Goranson and I am the newly appointed interim pastor at Mount Republic Chapel of Peace. Originally from Minnesota, I did my undergraduate work at Crown College in St. Bonifacious, MN and graduate work at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts, where I graduated from in May 2009. I have ministered for two summers in Yellowstone National Park, many summers at Camp Victory, a Christian youth camp in Minnesota, and lived overseas both in Lithuania and Kyrgyzstan. Cooke City is not terribly different than those non-western, non-first-world countries, other than the locals and I speak the same language... sometimes.

The day I placed my faith and trust in Jesus Christ I pledged my life to be at His disposal, promising to go and do whatever and wherever He might call me. I was twelve years old. I did not know then that life is filled with uncertainties, and now it is the uncertainties in life that plague me. But while my recognition of those uncertainties has increased, so also has God increased my faith in Him who is sovereign over them. He has taught me to expect the unexpected and to discover who He is in the midst of those surprises in life we least expect.

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

Change is a part of being the church, although sometimes change in a church is like trying to alter the course of a large supertanker in the ocean. It can take miles and miles and a long time. Other times, change comes about quickly and, really, it is all we can really count on in our life with God. When God does new things, it is often not kind of like things that went before. Rather, they are completely new - like crossing into a new land or meeting Jesus for the first time.

And so it is in our life in the church. Usually the biggest change in a church is changing pastors. Mount Republic Chapel of Peace has a small advantage in that they are used to it, since they rightfully consider themselves a training ground for new pastors. They serve that mission very, very well and I am truly grateful to be a recipient of that grace and love, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the loving people of this congregation.

And so the changes continue. My family and I will be moving to the Mid-Coast area of Maine, to Rockland - the Lobster Capital of the World - in November. Rockland Maine is 2900 miles from the mountains of Cooke City. We will be moving from 7600 feet above sea level to about 26 feet above sea level. Rockland is right on the ocean and is about a half mile from the first place to see the sun rise in the United States. I will be pastoring the Congregational church there. We are very excited.

I am also excited for Mount Republic Chapel of Peace. Transitioning between pastors is always a difficult thing, but Mount Republic has learned to make this a smooth transition. They go out of their way to welcome and care for their pastors, which is a great blessing. Bible studies will continue; the snowmobile ministry to Crandall will go on; worship will be joyful and moving as always; and Mount Republic will continue to be a refuge for local and traveler alike, a place where God is working on God's people and in God's creation and in God's community.

I have changed the title of this blog to Mount Republic Chapel of Peace Blog and made it possible for whoever the pastor is here to update the blog. My personal blog has kept all my entries on this blog and will continue as a personal reflection blog about ministry, etc. The title of that blog is "A Pastor on The Edge of God's World".

There may be one last update from me, otherwise, Haley Goranson, my successor, will update this blog.

May the Lord be with all of you. You are a gift to the mountains, the community and the church.

With love,
Pastor Seth

Summer comes to a close

It has been a busy summer up here in Cooke City and at Mt. Republic Chapel of Peace. Weddings, baptisms, two church services on Sundays, picnics, gatherings and many a traveler to the Park. Then, on Tuesday, I woke up and it was 29 degrees with light frost on everything. I drove through town and, in part because of constant and relentless road construction, there was hardly anyone in town. Slowly, the summer residents are trickling away. In a few weeks, there will be a few die-hard summer residents and locals left. And, more than likely, our first snow-fall will be in the next few weeks as well.

Over the summer, I did several outdoor weddings. The most exciting was down in Crandall, Wyoming, just east then south of Cooke City, over on the Chief Joseph Highway. The wedding was to be at 2:00 and everything was set up beautifully. It was sunny and a light breeze blew over the mountains.

The clouds began to build and then a large black cloud surfaced over Hunter's Peak. I thought it would blow to the north of us. And I was right, except for a weird effect that comes off the mountain. Hunter's Peak is a large cliff face facing the east. My theory is that it creates downdrafts when the wind and pressure is just right. This day, it was just right. 10 minutes before the wedding, the eastern moving winds suddenly reversed direction and in a moment I was trying to stand up in a 90 mile an hour straight-line wind heading west. It knocked down two very tall and very beautiful pine trees.

Amazingly, the fallen trees just missed the wedding chairs and setup. Even more importantly, they just missed the guests who had just started to seat themselves. Even the CD player, bent and beat up from the fallen tree, still worked. God must have been looking out for the couple, though the groom had some momentary second thoughts. The bride was bound and determined to have an outdoor wedding.

As I led the service, I kept listening to the creaking of cracked tree tops and broken branches slipping and falling through the trees. It was a little nerve-wracking, but the couple said "I do" and were married happily.

Fall is in the air now and the calls for weddings have stopped. The moose have come down out of the high country, at least a couple times. And last night, the wolf pack was howling by the stream behind our house. All of these are signs that the weather has changed. It happened overnight and we can smell it in the air. The great thing about living up in Cooke City, the highest town in Montana at about 7700 feet above sea level, is how sensitive we become to the changes in the weather. It is 70 degrees today, just like it has been for the past 4 or 5 weeks. But it is different now.

It is a subtle sensibility, and as a pastor, I always have to think about the spiritual implications of such things. Our faith life is a sensibility as well. We do not just agree in our minds to a thing and then it is done. We develop a sensitivity to the invisible things of the spirit and hopefully seek to increase our sense of those subtle movements of God in our lives. It is not easy and there are many things we can do to mask what some deeper part of ourselves already sense. But sometimes the greatest act of faith is to simply stand there and feel the changes in the weather, however subtle they may be.
Peace to all,
Pastor Seth

The Busy Season

For most pastors, the summer is the slow time. Clergy groups don't meet. Staff take long vacations. Worship relaxes a bit. But up here in the mountains, everything is in reverse. Summer is the busy time up here and can be a lot of fun.


Last week we had our Outback Express Vacation Bible School, with 13 kids. We had a great time and the kids all learned a lot about Australia and about Jesus, though not necessarily in that order. They had hikes, a cookout, lots of crafts and Bible stories. Peter was the focus of the week and as a pastor, I can't think of a better person to learn about Jesus through than Peter. He was impulsive, made a lot of mistakes, never thought things through and mostly just made a nuisance of himself as a disciple. A lot like my relationship with God.


We also had our annual Memorial Service for those people who died during the past year. This past year, we celebrated the lives of many long-time residents and "people of influence" up in these here parts. It was a beautiful day, filled with music and remembrance.

Coming up, we have "Christmas in August", a legendary event in Yellowstone National Park. It was started (according to one version of the story) by some Christian Ministry in the National Parks participants who were trapped here in August during a snowstorm. We have a Christmas service in the morning and a dinner in the afternoon. It is quite the event, but as a pastor, few things are more strange than trying to preach the Christmas story in the middle of summer. As a theologian and student of the Bible, however, it is probably the most likely time of Jesus' birth - the middle of the summer.

Summer moves fast up here. Weddings, renewal of vows, baptisms and special services are all packed into about 4 months. Then, in the space of a couple weeks, all the people who spend their summers here go home for the winter. In those couple of weeks, the church goes from worshiping almost 100 or more on any given Sunday morning to as few as 10. There are a few weeks of adjustment, and then everything normalizes to a small, intimate and devoted Sunday group that live here year-round.


My wife, Kate, and daughter, Rhiannon, have been traveling for 3 weeks and have not been around. A fast summer without my family around is a bitter-sweet experience. The other day, I was walking the dogs on Lulu Pass. The flowers are all in bloom up there and it is a riot of yellow, purple, red and green. I think they may all be gone by the time my family returns on Friday and that is a little sad. But the dogs love it and so do I. I am trying to take some pictures to remember it by.


Peace to all!
Pastor Seth

The blessing of Pride

For me, it is always a challenge to keep something like a blog up to date. I suppose once one has some readership, one is obligated to at least make the effort to update it regularly. I will try to do better with the upkeep of this blog.

Last week, I was in the great city of Milwaukee for my denomination/association's annual meeting. (My association is the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches). It was great fun to be with fellow pastors and to see old friends. My denomination (there are many who hate it being called that) is really an association of congregational churches who consider themselves, piously and with great pride, "the continuing congregationalists". The title is probably correct, given how much the UCC sacrificed in terms of congregational church governance when they formed in the 1950s. The NACCC are the churches that didn't go with that merger. Like other groups who splintered and split (the Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, etc. etc. ad infinitum), we have no association with the other congregational bodies in the nation, which is ashame and a testament to the very human quality of churches in general. Nonetheless, I take pride in my Congregational history and in the history of my denomination.

Normally, we consider pride to be the root of all evil, but I think it has a lot to do with priorities. If we know the source of that which we take pride in, we can avoid the pitfalls of self-aggrandizement that occurs when we claim the thing we take pride in for ourselves. As a monotheist and a Christian, the source of all which I take pride in ideally is centrally located in God and Jesus Christ. So when I say I am very proud of Mount Republic Chapel of Peace, that is what I mean to say. The reason I am proud of the church I pastor is because while I was in Milwaukee, the congregation ran the service. One person even said, "I guess we don't need a guest pastor to come in every time the pastor leaves on a trip. We can do this ourselves." That is exactly right.

In the corporate world, since I always worked in lowly customer service positions, I was very aware that there is no position in the company that can't be done by someone else. In church, it is a little different. God uses those things that make us uniquely individuals to do God's work in the world, so it can be likely that there are things to be done that no other person can do. Likewise, every church is unique and unusual and cannot be replaced. And so when the congregation steps up to lead services when the pastor is gone, it is a time to rejoice and be proud that the unique individuals that make up a church can make the time of worship a unique experience for everyone present.

Of course, if I say that it means the pastor is always replaceable (s/he is, in many ways) because the congregation can do the service without his/her presence, it would mean a lot of pastors would lose their work. But it brings up an important point - what is the purpose of a pastor? If the congregation can do the service on their own (most can), and the services provided by the church can be done by leaders in the congregation (there are many), then why have a clergy? Some groups don't - the Quakers, many Anabaptists, the Amish, some emergent/house movement churches. Most do, however, and that is a good and holy thing. I won't answer the question, but I think it is valuable for a congregation to reflect why they have a pastor and what the pastor does that they either cannot or will not do for themselves.

In the meantime, as a pastor, I feel blessed to have a congregation that is willing to step up and lead worship for each other. And that seems worthy of a certain amount of God-centered pride.

Peace to all!
Pastor Seth

Is It Really June 7th?

Yesterday, we went to Bozeman to celebrate Kate's birthday. It was a beautiful drive, as always, through the park. On our way home, it was raining. Then the clouds broke about 20 miles outside Cooke City. The clouds floated low on the mountains and the rain made the colors of spring stand out. We unloaded all our supplies that we picked up from Costco just before the rains started again. After about 20 minutes of rain, it changed over to snow. I thought, fortunately, it is not sticking on the ground. And as we walked the dogs, we pointed out to our daughter that it could always be worse - you could be the guy on the motorcycle who just drove by in the driving snow. It is always an adventure weather-wise up here. Many people, though, who live here year-round have had enough of the snow and winter. I told my daughter, 'At least you will have bragging rights wherever you live from now on. Besides, it will all melt...someday?'

I am aware my last several posts have been about the weather. I don't mean to be discouraging. I actually find it to be an adventure and a little crazy. I mean, you would have to be a little crazy to live up here anyway, so why wouldn't the weather reflect that? For the past several weeks, it has been beautiful up here - high 60s, rain in the afternoon, everything turning green. I just also know that for a lot of people, our unusual weather is unusual everywhere. So we all talk about it...but as my friend Jeff said the other day, "no one ever does anything about it."

We had a "Hymn Sunday" in church this morning, which went very well. We sang some old favorite hymns and talked about the history behind the songs. It was very interesting, and it is always surprising how many hymns are born from adversity and difficulty and God's transformation of that trouble into assurance, hope and trust. And, the guy on the motorcycle who drove by last night was there this morning.

This Friday, we are hosting the girl's choir from the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Billings, Montana. They will perform a concert for us and we are hoping for a large turnout. I think it will be great fun.

Peace!
Pastor Seth