watershed: a community church in Stoughton, Wisconsin

Sometimes I have a hard time saying what I mean. As best as I know how, here's an honest take on where I'm at right now.

It’s been long, busy days around watershed the past 2 months. We’ve moved into a new ministry location. God miraculously provided us a building, and He is providing everything along the way. After years of being nomadic, God brought us into the heart of Stoughton, in a building that we could not afford to buy but are leasing for a great price.

This entire blessing comes in the midst of a difficult budget season when finances are more than just "tight"... when the blessing of God and reality of crisis are enough to fracture your psyche.  It is here in the midst of all of this that many volunteers within the watershed family have worked tirelessly to make this huge move into our new hub happen.

There are moments in our journeys of faith when we are sure that God has opened the door for us to walk into a miracle, and yet the obstacles leave us wondering if it may all come undone.

You believe that God is in it, with you and calling you but you fear that you may just be fooling yourself. Recently, I was talking with a friend about the reality of walking by faith and leading a community that is not a business but a family of people. What matters to us? Relationships or budgets? The walk of faith or foresight and control?

The fact that we have gotten this far is a miracle in and of itself. There is something symbolic for us that a community, started in a living room would be graced by God to have a sign in the middle of the city as we seek to be an outpost for the Kingdom of God.

Last week, I finally recognized that I was feeling very tired. Celebrating and thankful for sure, but also just really tired. I needed to catch my breath for a moment. Just as I was turning on my "out of office" email reply, I saw one more email come in and I decided to read it.

A respected pastor I know was telling about something in his church, and share a poem from  Wendell Berry, a writer, subversive Christian, and sustainable farmer. Normally I save poems for my "later" reading, but this time dove in...

MANIFESTO: THE MAD FARMER LIBERATION FRONT

By Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise, and vacation with pay.
Want more of everything made.
Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery any more.
Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something they will call you.
When they want you to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute.
Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace the flag.
Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot understand.
Praise ignorance,
For what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium.
Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant,
That you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees
Every thousand years.
Listen to carrion–put your ear close,
And hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world.
Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable.
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap for power,
Please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head in her lap.
Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and politicos can predict the motions
Of your mind, lose it.
Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn’t go.
Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary,
Some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

After reading the poem, I sat there stunned and a bit emotional because in the midst of the joy of blessing and the fear of crisis, and the doubts that come from wondering if you run a church like a church and not a business, will you ultimately fail in this world, God provided an email poem for me at just the right time.

Jesus knew I needed Wendell Berry to remind me that doing it the right way, waiting on God and practicing resurrection is at the core of this journey that Jesus has us on. It was a gracious reminder that God is here, with us and for us and that we have to stay on this journey of faith regardless of how we may tire from it.

As I drove through Stoughton the next day, past an empty store front, a bar, and a craft store, I looked up to see the sign for watershed. Our little symbol that God is our living and resurrected God who has placed us in the middle of the city to practice resurrection. Follow Jesus regardless of how hard the journey is, never resign yourself to worldly tactics and never stop believing that our God reigns.

In the midst of the mighty acts of God’s blessing, He still shows up in the simple but profound faith building acts of kindness. A great friend, a timely email, a poem, and a little sign in downtown Stoughton.