I received the email from “Elder Peter” just yesterday. I haven’t yet responded, but I’ve been thinking about it.  Elder Peter, a recent convert from Islam, wrote to tell me about all that God is doing in his life, and then, amazingly, he told me what God wants to do in my life.  He’s so excited for me that he wrote in all caps:

GOD FURTHER DIRECTED ME TO GO TO THE INTERNET TO SEEK FOR A TRUSTED CHRISTIAN THAT I CAN DONATE THE SUM OF $3.2 MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS FOR HUMANITARIAN WORK OF GOD AFTER MY SEARCH I FOUND YOU AND DECIDED TO CONTACT YOU

SO FORWARD YOUR CONTACT TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS TO ME IF YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN PROPERLY UTILIZE THIS FUND TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND ABOVE ALWAYS FAST AND PRAY ALWAYS.

$3.2 million U.S. for the humanitarian work of God. Elder Peter, I have some good ideas: that new eye clinic in Burundi, a new building for the school in Hunting Park, help in resettling the victims of Volcano Fuego’s eruption in Guatemala.  We could come along side Igreja Presbiteriana as they reach deeper into Favela Ventosa.  Or what about a gym for our growing youth program at LPC? Continue reading →

Preaching is an odd art. It hardly makes sense in a small screen, short attention span, “who says so?”world such as ours. Where else in our world do we expect people to sit and listen for half an hour o more? We tend to judge preaching as we judge the what comes to us on our screens, by its ability to entertain, amuse, and confirm what we’ve already decided is true. Every preacher knows she or he has an audience to which they must play. We are tempted to learn our art from from the Jimmys Fallon and Kimmel.

The preacher can dress down and the sermon be dressed up with Power Point and video clips; it’s still and odd thing, this art of preaching. Indeed, preaching is at odds with the culture, but the church keeps on insisting that it is at the heart of who we are and what we do. Pastors are required to earn advanced degrees, they learn Greek and Hebrew and take courses in homiletics, the name we’ve given to this odd art – all for the sake of preaching. Continue reading →

Becky and I are back in Langhorne, having flown to Wichita, Kansas, and then journeyed by car from Kansas to Washington state, helping our son and his family on a move to his first pastoral call in the high desert town of Ephrata.

Our trip took us through “A River Runs Through It” country.

The photo at the head of this post was taken Sunday in Yellowstone National Park as we followed the Lewis River from Grand Teton towards the geysers.  It was a glorious day made all the better by the nearly-eight year old in the back seat who was seeing “real” mountains for the first time. Continue reading →

Ephrata Community Church, Ephrata, Washington

This early edition of the E-pistle gives me time to get to Kansas and join the journey to the Pacific Northwest.  Thursday morning Becky and I will offer some extra hands for the steering wheels and some extra voices of encouragement, entertainment, and maybe a little discipline as our son and his wife and their four kids and two cars travel from Kansas to Washington state where Christopher will begin his duties as Pastor for Family Life at Ephrata Community Church (EPC), just over the mountains from Seattle. We’re more than happy to tag along.

All this has got me to thinking about life in ministry and about wandering. Continue reading →

I don’t know when I first heard the line, but I like it and intend to keep using it until it is sent to pasture, there to graze with all the other tired clichés.  With apologies to a cliché long retired, the new line says of children and youth, “They aren’t the future of the church; they are the church.”  To be sure, they are no more the church than the old folks club or the harried parents group or the how-do-I –find-time-for-church cohort of young professionals and tradespeople. But children and youth as they come to know the love and trust the ways of the God we meet in Jesus Christ are, by definition, the church.  Along with all those others who likewise love and trust Jesus Christ.

That’s what makes weeks like this past week at LPC so glorious.  Yes, it was VBS week, and LPC folks will see the wonderful remnants of it tomorrow morning in worship as the chancel will, for one more day, remain that beach on shipwrecked island.  We will hear a sampling of VBS singing from some of the kids who learned those new songs this past week. Continue reading →