On Tuesday morning, Marcos Ortega, Becky and I will begin what we are calling a “mission discernment” trip to Brazil. We will be gone for ten days and hope to come back with insight on possible LPC mission involvement with one or two Brazilian congregations. We will share the details with you and a recommendation to the Mission Committee. We are not anticipating a partnership as involved as ours with PLM in Guatemala, but we are seeking God’s direction for something that will be relational, mutual and focused on tangible ways to help bring the good news of the coming and here-already Kingdom of God to those living in difficult situations. Our intent is not to help sustain a congregation, but to find ways to come alongside a congregation and its people as they minister in their community. Continue reading →

From the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Code:

§ 3107. Drivers in funeral processions.

(a) General rule.–The driver of a vehicle which is being driven in a funeral procession may: Proceed past a red signal indication or stop sign if the lead vehicle in the procession started through the intersection while the signal indicator was green or, in the case of a stop sign, the lead vehicle first came to a complete stop before proceeding through the intersection.

(b) Visual signals required.–The privileges granted by this section shall apply only if each vehicle in the funeral procession displays lighted head lamps and emergency flashers and bears a flag or other insignia designating it as part of a funeral procession. Continue reading →

I doubt if any of the kids who filled the church bus yesterday morning know the meaning of the Latin phrase “Soli Deo Gloria.” But whether they know the phrase or not, what they were about as they headed into Center City Philadelphia, to Love Park, Logan Square and Project Share was an intense immersion into Soli Deo Gloria.

Two points of preface:

1. LPC folks who are in worship on Sunday and those who read the prayer joys and concerns in the e-mail version of the E-pistle will know more of the details of this story. The details need not be hidden. The names not mentioned and the details not offered here are not hidden to protect the innocent, but because they are not necessary, really a distraction to a wonderful story of grace that should be told.
2. Unlike, say, convenient and inconvenient, ordinate and inordinate are distantly related words, the former having to do with mathematics the latter having to do with things in excess and with a lack of appropriate moderation. Normally only the mathematicians among us have to think much about the ordinate; all of us need to be aware of the dangers of the inordinate. The title, of today’s post, then, begs an inordinate stretch of the definition of the word ordinate. Today it means the opposite of inordinate. Continue reading →

The other day Becky and I were streaming the movie Mission Impossible III from our Netflix account, a mindless diversion at the end of the busy day. Early in the movie, and really just part of the setup for rest of the story, a colleague of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is viciously murdered by the arch villain who will not know justice until the end of the film.  So there is a funeral scene, actually a graveside service scene, the kind that Hollywood likes a lot and that have little basis in the way graveside services actually go. The mourners are gathered around the casket and the pastor is droning on about the sadness of the death. As usually happens at Hollywood graveside services, the important action is at the edge of the crowd of mourners where clandestine contacts are made and important decisions are reached. We hope that a really good chase scene ensues. Continue reading →