What does God have to say about it?  We’d like to know.  We consult gurus and mediums, gaze into crystal balls and study the movement of the stars, the alignment of the planets.  God or gods, we’d like to hear from whoever or whatever it is that’s bigger than we are.

Orthodoxy, that wonderful consensus of what most faithful Christians have thought about the really important things, insists that gurus and mediums are useless, that it is foolishness to think we might find wisdom in the stars or reliable guidance from a glass ball. We’ve been suspicious of some of our own who claim to have heard a word from a Holy Spirit disconnected from the love of the Father or the witness of the Son.

We Christians know that if we want to hear a word from God, we must prayerfully go to his Word, to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The way those of us in the Reformed Tradition put it is that the whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for God’s own glory, our salvation, faith, and life is to be found nowhere but the Bible. Continue reading →

Years ago I heard a conference speaker repeat a line attributed to C.S. Lewis who described his father as “a man wed to a dull routine.”  I was young at the time and remember thinking that being a man wed to a dull routine was something to be avoided; not something I would want said about me.

I am afraid I have become a person wed to a dull routine.  It’s not all bad.

Tuesday afternoon as I walked across the icy parking lot toward my car, I felt a cold and wet sensation on the bottom of my foot. My shoe had sprung a leak.  A crack in the sole; ice water seeping through. I had thought that pair of shoes might last a few more miles, but suddenly it appeared as if it was time for a replacement pair.  I knew exactly what to do, for I am a man wed to a dull routine. Continue reading →

The Annual Meeting. It is a requirement of both church and state law. Maybe we would be done with it if we weren’t so required.  I mean, after all, it takes away good nap time on a Sunday afternoon, and when do we ever not just vote unanimously for whatever action items or nominations come before us?  How do you spell rubber stamp?  Try a-n-n-u-a-l-m-e-e-t-i-n-g.

LPC is holding its Annual Meeting this coming Sunday.  1:00 p.m. for those not napping.

But what if our Annual Meeting is more than fulfilling the requirements of civil and ecclesial law?  What if we look carefully and see God’s fingerprints all over what we are tempted to see as an exercise in rubber stamping? Continue reading →

The Away Team is off to Guatemala tomorrow afternoon. Our southern contingent, the Brazilian Four, leave Belo Horizonte at 2:30 tomorrow morning.  They will arrive in Guatemala City 12 hours before we do. We’ll get about the business of becoming one team very early Sunday morning. Such joy!

For me the joy of the mission trip will be diminished just a little because of news Becky and I received earlier this week. For the past ten years we have been Plan Padrino sponsors of  a couple of students, a boy and a girl, at PLM School. One of the privileges of being an Away Team member has been sharing a meal with our sponsored kids and getting to know them a bit more year by year. Continue reading →

If you drove by LPC yesterday, you could not help but notice all the activity in the Chapel parking lot. The crane, a chipper, and other equipment.   And if you stayed for a while, you would have seen the ash trees come down.  In this round of tree removals – it isn’t the first and won’t be the last – 20 or more (dead) ash trees on our south side of Gillam Avenue parcel are being removed.  First, thanks to our Trustees who are such good stewards of the church’s property.  Thanks, too, for the generosity of the LPC congregation that allows us to undertake such projects.  But, second, no thanks to the EAB, the emerald ash borer.

The first emerald ash borer to arrive in North America booked passage on a freighter from China sometime around 2002.  Apparently he invited friends and family to join, for sixteen years later, 40 million North American ash trees have been killed by the infestation. You may read the sad story as told by Penn State.

Emerald ash borers are little green insects, beetles about a third of an inch long.  Their destructive power is immense. Continue reading →