I remember the days of old;
I meditate on all that you have done;
I ponder the work of your hands. Psalm 143:5

I was in Denver last week for the General Assembly of our denomination. While it was, I think, a good meeting in terms of content and outcomes, my greatest joy, as always, was the time spent with friends. I especially enjoyed a lunchtime conversation with someone I have known for a lifetime, dinner with friends from not so long ago, and what has become an annual face to face with a former colleague now a continent away. Perhaps my greatest joy came from the group of fellow pastors staying at the same hotel and with whom I shared more than one dinner or evening of good conversation. And they’re all young – young, as in young enough to be my sons (SPECIAL BONUS: Our son Christopher, the Air Force chaplain, was among them!).

Our last evening we were sitting around a patio table on a warm Colorado evening. Food, drink, and conversation were good. As it often happens when friends are together, we began to share stories of times past, the good old days. I decided it was best for me to just sit and listen.

“Remember when your parents had to print a map from MapQuest before a trip?” one of the thirty-somethings said, sweet nostalgia in his voice. Stories of MapQuest dead ends and Garmin failures followed.

“Remember when you had to go to AAA to order a TripTik or pick up a paper map you’d never refold into its original shape?” I thought but kept the memory to my Baby Boomer self.

I love having friends half my age, but, frankly, our good old days are not the same.

Memories of the way we were fill every good friendship.  They bring laughter and sometime tears. Memories bind us together and remind us of our common cause.

In Psalm 143:5, David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, writes, “I remember the days of old.”  Perhaps he and his friends regaled each other with stories of Philistine armies, a giant named Goliath, and a crazy king named Saul. Their remembering may have grown quiet as they remembered their fallen friend Jonathan.

Whatever the details of those memories, David summarizes them not as nostalgia, but as meditation on all God has done, pondering the work of God’s hands.

Yes, we laughed at funny stories, often about ourselves. We recalled hard times and defeats as often as victories. But what makes time with best friends, young and old, so rich and good is being able to meditate on all God has done and ponder the work of his hands.

The best memories of the days of old are memories of God’s great faithfulness.

It is photo directory time at our church. Most church-goers know the drill. Every member or family or regular attender is asked to sign up to have their photo taken by a professional photographer.  Around December each of us will receive a copy of the church’s photo directory with the portraits, names, phone numbers, and street addresses of all of those who participated. In the meantime, the directory company will try to sell us multiple copies of our portraits to give to family members and loved ones as Christmas presents. It’s designed as a win-win. The church members get photo directories, and the company makes money off the portraits it sells.

For all the hassle the process tends to be, I am all in favor of church photo directories.

“Who is that person who always sits on the left side towards the back?”

Right now our church is at the point of trying to get as many of us as possible to sign up to have our photos taken. Becky and I have made our appointment. Continue reading →

With apologies to all you N.T. Wright fans, I think I like the idea of “a home on God’s celestial shore” from the old Gospel hymn, I’ll Fly Away. (Theologian N.T. Wright insists that we should avoid talking about “going to heaven” and think more about “heaven coming to earth.”  He has a point often over-made by his enthusiasts. Psalm 90, the Psalm of Moses, however, reminds us:
                The years of our life are seventy,
                                or even by reason of strength eighty;
                yet their span is but toil and trouble;
                                they are soon gone, and we fly away. Psalm 90:10 [ESV])
 
I’ve been thinking about when I come to die not because of any health problems or other concerns – I’m hoping to make at least eighty years of life by Moses’ reason of strength before I fly away. What has me pondering death is a disturbing article in the Wall Street Journal. Under the headline “Inside Putin’s $26 Billion Quest for Longevity,” the story tells how “Russian state scientists appointed by Putin have focused on two key technologies: bioprinting, or 3D-printing living tissue, and xenotransplantation, or growing human organs inside mini-pigs, a porcine breed deemed genetically compatible to humans.” Continue reading →

Churchgoers of a certain age may feel a twinge of PTSD when they see a photo of an old Kodak Carousel slide projector. We remember the guest missionary setting up the screen and projector for the program after the potluck. And we remember our quick prayer, “Please not all three trays.”  But all three trays it was.

My apologies for loading the third tray of Brazil trip slides.

The photo in the header was taken in the woodshop of a friend in Brazil. He and his wife live not far from Igreja Presbiteriana and are faithful members of the church. The photo offers just a glimpse of the craftsmanship that emerges from this non-descript shop next to a non-descript house in a non-descript neighborhood.

Becky and I and Pastor Michael visited our friend and his workshop our last full day in Brazil. As we were admiring the beauty of his work, he told us a little bit of his story. His wife is an architect, but prior to the Covid pandemic, he had not yet settled into a satisfying vocation. His job as an Uber driver ended with the pandemic lockdowns. Forced to stay at home, he took up woodworking as a way to spend the time that was suddenly his to spend. Pastime became vocation. His vocation is now a growing business. Here is our friend’s business Instagram page if you would like to see more. Continue reading →

We are back from Brazil. The collage of photos is an incomplete chronicle of the trip, each photo telling a story – some of those stories are reminders of wonderful things in the past, and some point forward to relationships and works that may yet come.

Those reminders of the past are rooted in the many short-term mission trips to Brazil we were able to take over many years. Wonderful trips.

While the short-term missions phenomenon has not yet spent itself, it may not be as robust as it was prior to the pandemic. From the 1990s through the 2010s, short term trips were at the heart of many American churches’ mission outreach. Youth and adults alike would raise vast amouts of money, book passage to some foreign country and spend a week running a Vacation Bible School for the kids they found in the villages and towns of the foreign country, painting the building of their host church, or passing out evangelistic tracts to people whose language they did not speak. It felt so good to help those poor people, and feeling good is what American Christians are all about. Pastors would drop in for a week of training indigenous church planters and return home with a PowerPoint presentation for their sending congregation showcasing the amazing effectiveness of their teaching. Bragging rights never end. Continue reading →