Welcome, Holy Spirit

Young at Heart Message

I want to begin today’s message by sharing a story with you from my “former life.”

As most of you know, I owned a dog daycare, boarding, and training facility before I became a pastor.
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I started that business primarily because I wanted to do dog training. I wasn’t as interested in the daycare/grooming/boarding aspect of the business.
 
Of course, it grew into much more than training, but originally, my primary focus was on dog training.
 
When I first started dog training, I created a curriculum that I used when I taught training classes.
 
That curriculum was built based on what I had learned in my training programs to become a dog trainer and based on some of the techniques I learned while working with clients directly.
 
The curriculum included all the basic things you would think a training class curriculum might include:

·       Sit
·       Lay down
·       Stay
·       Come when called
·       Relax on a mat or bed
·       Walking politely on leash
 
All the things every dog owner needs to know, right??
 
I had what I thought was a pretty good system for running a training class.
 
And, my clients overall were happy with how the classes ran. They felt like they accomplished what they came for, and it was well-run.
 
At the same time, I was part of a professional organization for dog trainers, and that group had an active online discussion forum through Facebook.
 
One day, one of my colleagues asked how we ran our dog training classes and if people liked the classes. Specifically, they wanted to know how we taught people to teach specific behaviours.
 
I responded to the question by saying that I teach using this curriculum, and I teach the basic behaviours I listed earlier.
 
But I also said that I don’t teach my own dogs the way I teach my clients. In fact, I don’t really teach any of those things I listed in the way I might teach a client.
 
The person who asked the question in the forum asked me why I don’t teach my clients the same way I would teach my own dogs.
 
And that question really got to me! So much so that I ended up changing my entire curriculum for training classes to teach the way I teach my own dogs.
 
What I realized was that I was teaching training classes the way clients thought they wanted to be taught because it’s what they were told they needed to learn.
 
It wasn’t what they actually needed or wanted to learn.
 
What most dog owners believe they need to teach their dog is how to respond to cues when given.
 
Many people think that in order to have a well-behaved dog, they must be able to respond immediately to whatever commands we give.
 
If we holler “sit” or “stay” or “come,” they better listen. And if they listen perfectly, they are a well-behaved dog.
 
The problem is, most people quickly learn that even if their dog can respond perfectly (which is unlikely without a lot of practice and consistency) to every command they give, they still might have a dog that…

·       Jumps on people
·       Gets into the garbage
·       Barks obsessively
·       Chews on the walls
·       Pulls on leash
·       And any number of other “bad” behaviours
 
So, why do people believe that teaching their dogs how to respond to commands is the best way to train them?
 
Well, because that’s what they’ve always been taught.
 
It’s funny because when people interact with my dogs, they will cue them to sit or lay down or shake or roll over, and my dogs look at them like they are aliens. The only cues my dogs really know are “sit” and “go lay down.”
 
And yet, for the most part, my dogs are pretty calm and settled dogs, except perhaps the first 5 minutes a new person walks in the door.
 
When I changed my class curriculum, I started teaching people simply how to teach their dogs to calm down and settle – basically, how to relax.
 
If your dog knows how to relax and settle on their own, you don’t need to teach them any “commands.” They just do it because they’ve learned those are the expectations.
 
So, I share this lengthy story for a reason.
 
As I was speaking with my spiritual director the other day, I shared this with her because we were talking about worship services and creative ways to allow for the movement of the Holy Spirit in the context of worship services.
 
She wondered if there was anything that could be learned from my experience running dog training classes.
 
Specifically, she wondered if there was a similar sentiment among worshipping communities, including our own, which involves people believing worship needs to look a certain way because that’s the way it’s always looked, but perhaps needing something more and not even realizing it.
 
And, she wondered if I believed that worship needed to look a certain way because that’s the way it’s always been done.
 
And truthfully, I still need to mull this over.
 
But it got me wondering about how people worship God outside of worship services.
 
Before I went on vacation, we made a list of the things we do well as a church, and the things we needed to work on.
 
And one of the biggest things I took away from that was the tremendous sense of community that we share here at Good Shepherd.
 
We are together once a week on Sunday mornings.
 
Many of us gather in smaller groups for various other things throughout the week – either church-related or perhaps social gatherings.
 
But, most of the time, most of the people here connect with God on their own or in their own communities or with their own loved ones outside of worship service.
 
So, I am curious… in what ways do you feel the movement of the Holy Spirit or connect with God outside of worship services?
 
Here are a few examples I came up with to get us started:

·       Walking at Nose Hill
·       Knitting
·       Reading
·       Journaling
·       Baking/Cooking
·       Silence
·       Prayer
·       Yoga/Stretching/Deep Breathing
 
So, let’s take a few minutes to have you share some of the ways you connect with God outside of worship services.
 
Our A/V team will help us create a list again.
 
The Message
 
Today is Pentecost, so of course that means we think more about the gift of the Holy Spirit today than we might some other times of the year.
 
And I believe that the conversation I had when I was a dog trainer was the Holy Spirit speaking to me through a colleague.
 
So I wanted to do this exercise with all of you today because I think the Holy Spirit has been trying to speak to me now, too.
 
These questions about how we experience God in our every day lives are important.
 
We tend to focus our energy on our once-weekly Sunday worship, but so many of us clearly experience God and the movement of the Holy Spirit in so many other ways, too.
 
And of course there is value in our time together on Sundays!
 
I just wonder if the Holy Spirit might be moving us to think differently about worship.
 
Since today is Pentecost, it feels like a good day to think about this. And, because we are heading into the summer season, it also seems like a good time to think about experimenting a little bit with worship.
 
We’ve done this a few times before. We held a worship service in a circle after the Christmas party, and people seemed to enjoy that.
 
Perhaps it’s not an every week thing, but experimenting sometimes can be valuable.
 
So, I hope to consider doing a few new things during worship and I welcome your feedback after the services.
 
I hope we can have fun this summer and think about how we are in community together and how we feel God moving among us.
 
Is God calling us? If so, for what?
 
Let’s explore together this summer.
 
Maybe there are elements of God-connections that we’ve been missing out on?
 
Maybe there will be some deep movement of the Holy Spirit in the holy space between us that has not been tapped into?
 
Maybe “the Spirit will teach [us] everything and will remind [us] of what [Jesus] said while [he] was with [us].”
 
Let us open our hearts in Jesus’s name. Amen.
 
Let us pray:

God of Wind and Fire, on this Pentecost Sunday, we are more aware than ever of our deep need for you. It's true—we do not know how to pray. We do not know how to form on our lips the words to express the prayer that lingers on our hearts. Thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit— comforter, teacher, inspiration, and translator of every soul's deepest needs.
 
Guide and bless all of us today God. Free us from whatever safeguards we have placed around us to keep our lives and worship predictable. Free us to encounter you in a new way, that your Spirit might truly dance in our midst and inspire us to love and service in Christ's name.

God, bless us as we encounter the Spirit-filled celebration of this day.

Amen.

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