Robert Hendrickson - Yearning: Authentic Transformation, Young Adults, and the Church

Copyright 2013 by Robert Hendrickson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, the scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record of this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8192-2868-0 (pbk.)

ISBN-13: 978-0-8192-2869-7 (ebook)

With thanks for the life and ministry of
the deaconesses of Saint Hildas:

Mary Johnson, Josephine Lyon, and Ruby Helen Thompson

We ask for their prayers, that those who carry their
name at Saint Hildas may also share in their living
witness to the Christ who came among us to serve.

I AM RELUCTANT TO EVEN BEGIN with acknowledgments simply because it is so easy to forget someone when so many have been such a part of ones work. It is important that I begin by thanking those who have made Christ Church, New Haven the place it is over its history and today. Throughout these pages you will read many peoples reflections on a place and people that have been vital in the Christian journey of so many. It is a curious and holy place full of brilliant, funny, quirky, and prayerful people who it was my privilege to serve. If youre ever in New Haven, Connecticut, do yourself a favor and stop in to take in not only its liturgy and architecture but to say a prayer in the midst of a place that seems a living embodiment of the beauty of holiness.

My thanks especially go to the interns of Saint Hildas House and Ascension whose reflections you will read. I hope youll hear the passion and commitment each of them has for sharing the gospel in deep and lasting ways. It takes courage to come to a new place, to commit to living in intense community with strangers, to encounter stories of brokenness each and every day in challenging work placements, to pray in a way that is unfamiliar and demanding, and to learn to express how God is moving in their lives in new and challenging ways. If leaders across our Church could look to their courage and self-giving and find themselves inspired, we would open ourselves to a movement of the Spirit that could only be described as a great awakening indeed.

I especially want to thank our intern (and now seminarian) Jordan Trumble who had passion and vision for this project and whose commitment to the power of Christian community comes alive in her reflections on these pages. I can only say to rectors looking for a curate in a few yearshire this woman! Youll have gained a woman of humor, insight, and energy who will help your parish grow in every way that matters.

In addition to our interns, three guest clergy have also contributed essays from their own experience. Erika Takacs, Steve Rice, and Bob Griffith are all priests of great dedication, vision, clarity, and energy. Their ministries inspire me and I am honored not only to have their contributions to the book but even more so to call them friends.

The dangerous temptation in many Church circles is to attribute the health or success of a place to one individual or anothera great priest or pastor or a stellar musician. Yet, I dont think it would be amiss to give a gentlemanly nod to David Cobb, the rector of Christ Church, whose leadership and presence have brought Christ Church into a new era of engagement with the city and beyond. As a new priest, it is easy to fall prey to one camp or another, to this method of ministry or that. Father Cobb does not let one forget that prayer is at the heart of the Christian life, of ministry, and of the Church as a whole. His combination of knowledge, care, spirituality, humor, and talent make him a mentor who has formed countless men and women for ministry in deep and lasting ways. Those who serve with him will learn to pray, read scripture, celebrate the Mass, and more, all with deeper understanding of just how God is with us in those moments if we can only get out of the way.

It would be a great scandal if I did not mention just how much the editor of this book, Sharon Pearson, has provided energy and guidance at crucial moments along the way. Despite my own relative disorganization, she kept things moving along and deserves much credit for its completion.

Finally, my deep apologies and thanks to my wife, Karrie, who has heard me say, more than once, Well, in my book We are never prophets in our own house and I think that may be because those who love us must hear all of the trial versions of every prophecy (and also hear all those that dont come to pass).

To those I have forgottenwhen the next book comes along just remind me so that I might write something truly profound and tear wrenching in your honor.

W HEN CONVERSATIONS MOVE FROM THE larger culture into the Churchs orbit of concerns, or when the reverse happens, it often means the question is played out. There is the topic spiritual but not religious, which is beginning to wear thin. There is the constant anxiety-driven need to discover what will save the church as numbers declineor the effort to pretend numbers do not mean much. Given the weight of attention that has shifted to blogs and social media, particularly as a point of working out positions and predictions and prescriptions for the future of the Church, there is something remarkably stable and enduring about a book. The last message I read about the spiritual but not religious, or that post that made so much sense out of the absence of young adults in the church, swiftly sinks into the distancejust before I get my comment ready to post.

Though it will abide on bookshelves for an extended period of time, this book is a witness and an account of a moment in time and of a particular constellation of people, many of whom are parts of a particular community with its own history. It grows out of what people have discovered as they have sought to know and follow Jesus Christ within the life of the Episcopal Church, mostly through one parish and its worship and commitment to discernment with young people. This church has also been a leader within the Anglo-Catholic movement and then within the progressive side of that movement. This book grows out of a conversation just as real, though much slower, than the ones that keep us at our screens and keyboards.

Christ Church, New Haven is known for a profound and beautiful liturgy enriched with deep respect for beauty as an expression of human dignity in response to God. Splendid music, carefully thought-out movements that allow multiple ministers to move without confusion, and an abundance of incenseincense we make ourselvesare the obvious markers for which we are known and respected in some places, in others, not so much. They are the obvious markers, but they are not, to quote James DeKoven, the thing itself. Not many years ago, after a particularly involved and spectacular ordination held here, a diocesan staff member said to me half-joking, Now I know Im not an Anglo-Catholic. My response was quick, Thats not what being Anglo-Catholic is about. Its not the incense or the vested subdeacon, the chanted Gospel or the polyphonic setting of the ordinary in Latin.