Eulogy for a Faithful Church

 

Sara Olson-Smith’s “Eulogy for a Faithful Church” is balm for the soul. It is a reflection on her first call to St. Peter’s Lutheran in North Plainfield; this ministry began as redevelopment work and became a ministry of holy closure.

              Pastor Sara’s care-filled storytelling captures a couple of linked realities well. It names the strangeness of first call—your first solo funeral, the unexpected connections created in the midst of the mundane, etc. At least to me it also lovingly remembers what ministry was like before Covid, and I hope it can maybe coax us back there in some respects. It also captures well both the grief and care of people in the throes of closing a beloved 117-year-old congregation.

              This book is girded by a powerful image and a refrain: The various depictions of biblical figures from the stain glass windows of St. Peter’s as framing for chapters and themes, and the quote: “Given this reality, how do I make the gospel known?”

              This book captures the jarring beauty in the banality of ministry; for example, the copy machine stops working and that leads to deep hospice-level pastoral conversation. The congregation makes a variety of hard and faithful choices; some of them lead to conflict, but this conflict is always depicted with the kind of grace that can only come with time and hindsight.

              Finally, the book lifts up the legacy of St. Peter’s. In closing there was new life: ongoing healthcare for folks in Chile, hunger grants, Seminarians assisted, and grants for congregations in New Jersey to experiment and start new ministries (my own congregation has received several such grants). Additionally, the physical building, stain glass windows and all, continues to be a place of worship, St. Basilios-Gregorios Orthodox Church.

              The main points Pastor Sara focuses the reader on are: Congregations matter to communities; even those who do not worship there miss them when they are gone. Because the church is more than individual congregations, closures do not mean congregants go without care. Closures aren’t failures—there is new life for us, because we are resurrection people!

              Having been the Pastor of one of the receiving congregations from St. Peter’s, St. Stephen South Plainfield, I especially appreciate the “cast of characters” lovingly described in this book. But, even if this book doesn’t hold a personal place in your heart, it is still well worth reading! I would recommend it to seminarians, or perhaps first call pastors, and to anyone who wants to know what faithful ministry can look like. Pastor Sara models well our work at its best: relational, filled with hard and fateful decisions, emotionally draining, saturated in story, catching glimpses of God doing a new thing and getting to point to it!