LPC people know the names of the people and the place. John and Jess Cropsey. Kibuye, Burundi, East Africa.  For eight years we have heard the names and have gotten to know John and Jess just a little bit. They visit with us from time to time.  We have learned about the wonderful work they are doing in that little town we had never heard of before – in a country few of us could have found on a map.

John is an ophthalmologist serving as part of the medical mission team at Kibuye Hope Hospital.  This video was shot five years ago, but still captures the heart of what John is doing.  Indeed, the blind are made to see.

The Kibuye team is building an amazing center of healing in what may be the poorest place on the planet. Continue reading →

A week ago, I was off to a Presbytery meeting where, among other things, LPC’s own Casey Huckel was examined and received by the Presbytery as a candidate for ordained pastoral ministry.  Of course, Casey’s examination and reception were the highlight of the meeting for our LPC delegation, but not the only highlight.  Yes, we are Presbyterians and sometimes it seems we are just a bit taken with our “decently and in order” ways.  But debating procedural minutiae or hearing reports of God’s astounding work in the mission field, there was a good spirit and strong hope in our meeting together.

I like this Presbytery of the East.

We met at the Bethlehem Stetz Reformed Church, EPC, mailing address in Glen Rock, PA.  The church’s website says, “Just four miles west of New Freedom, PA, on State Route 851.”  No offense meant, but it felt pretty much like the middle of nowhere – the rolling hills of the southern York County farmland.

It turns out that this nowhere location for a church building has meant something important, and maybe in its time something to give offense. Continue reading →

Jesus calls us.

According to the old hymn,
Day by day his sweet voice soundeth,
saying, “Christian, follow me.”

Jesus calls – not to be confused with Jesus Calling, the title of a phenomenally popular devotional and dangerously wrong book of the same title. The book is a particularly good (or bad) example of American Christians’ tendency to outsource the hard work of reading Scripture and praying diligently.  Why not let someone else do it and have her work in your inbox every morning. More here.

Jesus call us.

I will be heading out to Glen Rock, PA, this morning for a day and a half of presbytery meeting.  I am looking forward to it, and none of it more than that item of business that comes mid-morning on Saturday.  The Ministerial Committee will call Casey Huckel to stand before the assembly with these words from its report to the presbytery:

Casey comes before the Presbytery with the recommendation of the Ministerial Committee, which examined him on September 9. The presbytery will examine him as to Christian experience and growth, the motive for seeking ordination, and a statement regarding the person’s call to ministry. Continue reading →

You may have seen the story from Japan about the Buddhist temple where they have asked a robot to serve as their new priest.  So far Mindar, the robot, mostly just preaches the same sermon over and over, but its designers are hoping that developments in the field of artificial intelligence will lead to a cyber priest whose programming and the use of algorithms will allow it to offer spiritual advice and pastoral counseling. I would think it could be really good at balancing budgets and keeping calendars.

With my retirement planned for next year, I think I may be getting out of the clergy business just in time.  But, also what an opportunity for LPC to be on the cutting edge of pastoral technology.  It’s not too late for us to change the call for our October 6 congregational meeting from electing a pastor search committee to electing a pastor programming committee. Continue reading →

Photo of John Williams “Deacon” Teague and an anonymous enslaved family

Can the Cross overcome the #hashtag?

In preparation for Sunday’s sermon from Psalm 148 and the unity to which biblical worship drives us – kings and all people, young and old together, I have been thinking about identity, and in particular identity politics* and how at its best it calls us to own and to celebrate who we are, even our God-given who-we-are-ness, and how at its worst it divides, antagonizes, separates, and destroys those things that best hold us together – family, community, country, and, yes, church.

I am who I am. My identity comes from a hodgepodge of nature and nurture, history and circumstance, serendipitous encounter and life-changing event. God has taken this stew of life and used it, graciously, to mold and make me who I am.  I have an identity which is layers deep, years wide, and not yet complete.

A piece of my identity has to do with my family; the home in which I was raised, and generations of homes stretching back to obscurity. Continue reading →