Age segregation is a curse in too many churches, LPC included.

If you are a Facebook user you’ve probably seen those memes that pop up on your news feed every so often. There might be a picture of a typewriter or the Skipper and Gilligan, SpongeBob Square Pants or an Apple 2 computer. You are supposed to click “like” if you remember what’s pictured in the post.

Yeah, I am that old. And, yes, I remember dial telephones (harvest gold and permanently attached to the wall). I can report accurately that the S.S. Minnow set sail that day for a three-hour tour, a three-hour tour. Most of my friends in the Baby Boom Generation cohort are likely to say, “Me, too.”

Sure it’s kind of fun to remember the way things were, things mostly (and rightly) forgotten. And maybe those kids who don’t remember ought to know why people still ask, “Can you dial the number for me?” and why we talk about typing a document. And, really, if you think about it, Thurston Howell, III, was so typical of the 1%. We should have known. Continue reading →

I hope the NSA doesn’t make its finding about me public. It knows too much, and the report would not be flattering.

This morning’s newsfeeds are full (still) of the NSA spying scandal. The president has come up with some proposals that seek to balance national security interests and personal privacy concerns. Apparently the civil libertarians are not buying the balance. The tilt is towards snooping. One way or another Big Brother is listening in on our phone calls and reading our emails and texts.

To be sure, this is an important policy issue. The cynic in me says that whatever new policies are written somebody somewhere will be able to listen in or read over my shoulder whether I want them to or not. I don’t particularly like the idea, but I am pretty sure it is reality. Continue reading →

Christian welcome is more than sliding down the pew to make room for a visitor

A couple days after Christmas I received an email from a good friend and colleague who had left our area last spring to accept a new call serving a congregation in the Midwest. It was great to hear from him. He had a favor to ask. A young man in his congregation – 23 and a recent Stanford graduate excited about serving God wherever God would send him – was heading to Brazil in January. He sensed a call to Brazil, even though he’d never been there, and wanted to get a flavor of the country, and, especially, God’s people there. Doug, the young man, is smart, a mathematician and a musician, self-taught a nearly fluent in five languages including Brazilian Portuguese, but he had no contacts in Brazil and no itinerary other than a round trip ticket to and from São Paulo for a month of who knows what. Might I make some contacts among my Brazilian friends on his behalf? Continue reading →

May he grant you your heart’s desire
and fulfill all your plans!
May we shout for joy over your salvation,
and in the name of our God set up our banners!
May the Lord fulfill all your petitions! (Psalm 20:4-5, ESV)

Earlier in the week I offered some reflections on the past year in our life together at LPC. It was a good year. And in case I need to say it again, what a joy and a privilege it is to be called to serve and to live life with such a wonderfully faithful people as those God has called together at LPC to be a part of his amazing family of faith. Thanks be to God for Langhorne Presbyterian Church and her people. Continue reading →

First things first. They say that “auld lang syne” is literally the “old long since.” Of course the old long since is best celebrated in the Robert Burns poem of the same name and the song version of the poem. Thanks to Guy Lombardo, the tune of Auld Lang Syne has become synonymous with New Year’s Eve and our farewell to the old year as it becomes the old long since.

But before 2013 is the old long since, maybe we should pause for just a moment and give it its due.

As far year-end reviews go, I am still partial to columnist Dave Barry whose 2013 edition lives up to my expectations.

I’ll let the humorist cover the world and the nation. How about LPC and our life together?  I think it was a good year. The unofficial number crunching shows us ending the year with a modest budget surplus, with worship attendance and membership up, with growing commitment to mission beyond our doors and study and nurture within our walls. Continue reading →