Bergen, By the Sea

 The Bergen phase of our journey marks a different phase of this trip. We’ve been spending less time in conversations about secularity and more time as a family. We keep up on homework and hike mountains. We get up the next day and we do it again in this city about the same size as Fort Wayne, but nestled tightly between mountains and the North Sea. At the writing of this blog we’ve made it hiking up no fewer than 7 mountains and a decent number of other shorter hikes

 I realize this is an incredibly privileged experience. I’m deeply thankful for the Lilly Endowment making it possible financially and for the folks at Ford Street Church encouraging the time of renewal after a hectic couple years of pandemic and sanctuary construction. 

Of course, the chaos of the world does intrude on even this time. As we continue our stay there are constant reminders of the violence engulfing other parts of the world. We now see and hear Ukrainians regularly when out and about. The morning I wrote this one of NATO’s assets arrived in the harbor (it’s a German ship). We can see it from the place we’re staying. We’ve seen jets overhead and submarines emerge in the harbor as well. 

All of these things stand as reminders of the unsettled nature of things in the world, but I remain steadfastly glad for the opportunity. Recently there has been a huge amount written about the full on crisis American (and probably clergy worldwide) are facing. I encourage you to read up on some recent survey work by Barna on the topic.  (Glenn Packiam is doing some solid work to help clergy how to navigate this as well- check out a recent article at Christianity Today for more on that). Times of Sabbath and renewal are both biblical and beneficial for all people. They might just be needed by clergy more now than ever. I’m thankful to serve a congregation that anticipated this and supported this starting a couple years ago.

This has been a time to think deeply and reflect on leadership learnings, celebrations, and regrets of the last few years. It’s been a time to saturate those memories and reflections in prayer at a different pace.   

That being said, it is genuinely one of the most odd experiences of my life to not preach every week! As I think most people who know me understand, I love my work! I find myself missing the people of Ford Street Church and many colleagues back in Indiana as well. To be sure, the pain was felt deeply the week of Easter. We were far from family, Easter Egg hunts, Sunrise Worship and church breakfasts. 

The experience was made more difficult because Easter is marked in a very modest observance in Norway. Yes everything is closed from Wednesday evening before Easter until Tuesday morning after Easter (that made feeding 6 people from a dorm room sized refrigerator a special challenge!). For most Norwegians,however, this represents a chance to hike or ski. As a result church attendance rather than doubling actually drops by half. 

We spent Holy Week and the weeks following worshiping with Bergen Centralkirken, a United Methodist congregation. The congregation has a reputation for being more theologically conservative than most in Norway, and it didn’t disappoint in that regard even as there is more diversity present than that description might suggest. In fact there was even a charismatic stream present in the congregation. After our first Sunday there I said to Amy, “You know my Norwegian is still pretty rough, and they speak a different dialect here, so I could be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure a woman rose and spoke in tongues after the sermon and that someone else stood and gave an interpretation.” I’m confident after a couple weeks that my understanding was spot on.

Part of this suspicion was confirmed for me by Rev Dag Martyn Osteveld, who has been pastor of Centralkirken for 12 years. It’s actually a congregation he was born into and that both his parents attend and grandparents attended. Once upon a time the congregation had more than 1,000 children enrolled in its Sunday School. Today it operates a small kids church during worship and Sunday School is a thing of the past. Nonetheless, Dag Martyn has worked hard to help small groups ministry sink into the DNA of the church and the number of people who participate in small groups is similar to the number in worship (that’s pretty cool anywhere in the world)! 

The congregation itself is located near the main tourist area in Bergen. If you ever take a cruise in Norway you’ll probably walk right by or very near the church on a port call. It is a congregation with a worship attendance that is approximately the same as Ford Street’s which makes it either the largest or second largest UMC congregation in Norway. The pandemic has been difficult for the congregation, but not because people had differing opinions on masking or vaccination. Divisions such as these were largely absent in Norway as the pandemic was not so politicized here. Some folks just dropped out as the extended times in which worship gatherings were prohibited dragged on. Secularity can breed apathy and indifference as its most abundant crop.

As I stated a bit earlier there is a charismatic thread in the congregation that Dag Martyn explained to me later in a couple of our extended (a couple hours each time) conversations. 

It turns out that Bergen, in spite of being a very secular place with very low church attendance has been home to two very successful congregations operating in a more Pentecostal/charismatic thread. These churches have large worship attendance and are each structured around a male leader with a strong charismatic personality. 

The fact that these churches thrive so conspicuously in Bergen is at first glance a confusing thing. Why would secular people be drawn to churches with outrageous and non-normative experiences such as speaking in tongues, healing, etc? Why would Norwegians who typically reject “macho” type men and authoritarian leadership styles flock to this decidedly American model of ministry.

I think the answer lies in this reality: just because people don’t expect divine action in their lives doesn’t mean that they aren’t hungry for it. Furthermore, living in a secular society can leave everyone feeling a bit uncertain about meaning in their own life and in a whole host of related topics. People are searching for certainty. So, these American-style mega churches have a market.

Unfortunately, what Dag Martyn has discovered is that these larger churches in the community also generate a spiritual body count. There are unhealthy practices that can be associated with the theology that leave people feeling burnt out and the leadership dynamics have very often left people feeling used and run over. 

So, the United Methodist Church in Bergen has become a place of healing for many folks exiting these situations and at the same time has absorbed some measured demonstrations of the Holy Spirit that they have brought with them. 

Dag Martyn is by my estimation a terrific and big-hearted pastor. He is trying very much to meet his people where they are. Though he is undoubtedly more traditional than I in a few ways (and certainly more comfortable with the charismatic than I) he and I got along well because we both love Jesus and the church.

Dag Martyn is also a great example of how difficult it is and will continue to be clergy in the secular West. On the one hand he has people coming to him that are more fundamentalist, literalist, conservative than himself, as already described (not sure if the labels are perfect but I’m trying to capture something here so stick with me). On the other hand he seems to feel increasingly out of place in the UMC and feels some distance from some colleagues that he perceive to be increasingly liberal/progressive/post-modern. 

The church he serves will likely remain with the UMC as some traditionalist congregations in other countries depart and  Dag Martyn may remain as well, but the cross pressures are inevitable and inescapable. He exists as a man caught between winds blowing in different directions attempting to be faithful. Whatever you think of his theology I think we should pay close attention to his predicament, because his reality in some form or fashion will continue to increase as a reality for all of us. 

I think we make a significant error when we decide that faithfulness to Jesus looks like being faithful with people who only think like I do. There is A LOT of this thinking present in our world. Most people get news from sources that reinforce their worldview. We know that most social media algorithms tend to insulate us as as well by bringing us either things we like or things that enrage us, thus enfolding us into comfortable cocoons of like-minded people. 

Faithfulness to Jesus keeps us in contact with the world he loved and for which he gave himself. Faithfulness to Jesus Christ can be uncomfortable precisely because it puts us in company of people we think are wrong, crazy, sinful, selfish, etc. and people who are often pressing on us uncomfortably from different directions. The necessity of these kind of biblical relationships- think of the disciples who resemble a wide diversity themselves- has become even more pronounced in an era in which the old settled order of the dominance of Christianity has broken down and Christians find themselves morally, politically, socially, and according to identity, fragmented by the pressures of the time. 

There have to be easier ways to live than to be trying to live as a faithful witness of Jesus Christ in this era. Yet, for me, Dag Martyn reflects a reality I strongly identify with: there is no other way I CAN LIVE. To quote Luther, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” 

Faithfulness to Jesus calls me to a place and missional context in which the winds of culture and history blow from every direction. It calls me to the windswept place most people live all the time, a place of tested relationships, occasional doubt, occasional hurt and heartache where the wounded wander in from every direction. Yet, as people who love Jesus we dwell in this very real place as witnesses of God’s hope. God is at work in this world and will never forsake this world or us. God has given all in Jesus Christ for love of all.