Two Christmas Gift Ideas

Back when I was a new pastor, called to serve a church in northwestern Ohio twenty-three years ago, God blessed me big time: A pastor named Ron Claussen was serving a neighboring parish composed of two congregations, each about three miles from me.

The day after I arrived on the scene, Ron visited and encouraged me. Before leaving that day, he gave me the best advice on being a pastor I've ever heard. "Love the people," he said.

This was a needed call away from self-absoption and toward servanthood which, in my better moments, still informs my life, not just as a pastor, but as a human being.

Over the next six years, whenever I was disappointed that I wasn't proving to be the Lutheran version of Billy Graham, packing them in Sunday after Sunday, or whenever the grey winter skies, so prominent on the flat farmland of that reclaimed swamp land, surrounded me, my wife co-conspired with Ron. She called him up and said, "Ron, it's time." Unaware of their conspiracy and amazed by the providential timing, I'd get a call from Ron, who asked, "Want to go out to lunch today?" Because of his listening ear and his solid Biblical counsel, I always felt better after those lunches!

The area where we served in northwestern Ohio included the most-heavily Lutheran county in the United States, Henry County. (The building facilities of the church where I served as pastor, Bethlehem Lutheran Church of Okolona, Ohio, set on the line between Henry and Defiance Counties.) We used to joke that you couldn't spit without hitting a Lutheran there and Lutheran church buildings dotted every hamlet and just about every other country road. Each congregation was close to being packed to the rafters on Sunday mornings. Because there were such strong ties among those churches and because, unlike the rest of us, Ron had taken the time to figure out how everyone in a four-county area was related to each other, he was known and beloved by every member of every one of those churches. We pastors thought of Ron as our "bishop" and of ourselves as his assistants.

But it wasn't just the Lutherans who sensed the powerful presence of Christ and His love in Ron. Congregations of several different denominations facing pastoral vacancies schemed to cajole Ron into becoming their pastor. He also had an easy way of relating to non-churchgoing people, an authentically friendly manner that earned their confidence and their trust.

When he became development director for the Filling Memorial Home of Mercy in Napoleon, Ohio, a Lutheran facility for severely and profoundly mentally retarded children and adults, churches and individuals from throughout our area became more deeply involved in volunteering and financially supporting the institution. On a bigger stage, Ron shared Christ's love and "loved the people." They, in turn, saw the Filling Home as a great way to share the love of Christ with those in need and, at the same time, support the ministry of a pastor they had come to revere. (One of the auxiliary blessings that flowed from Ron going to the Filling Home is that he and his wife and family joined the congregation I served as pastor!)

Ron has retired and now confined to a wheelchair as the result of being victimized by polio back in 1952, he still is loving the people. He has an active email ministry and last year, wrote and published What? God...You Want Me To Do Something?

I heartily recommend What? God...You Want Me To Do Something? to help you or someone for whom you purchase it as a gift to grow in faith. It's composed of 52 weekly devotional pieces that each conclude with a challenge to the reader to compose their plans for living the devotion over that seven day period. The devotions, in other words, are a lot like Ron: A terrific communicator of the Good News of Jesus Christ, his living has nonetheless always been his greatest witness.

Ron now has another project to help you grow in your faith. It's an audio CD of seventeen devotions based on the New Testament book of James. It's called Count It All Joy!

James has had a sketchy reputation among we Lutherans ever since Martin Luther wrongly dismissed it as an "epistle of straw," worthy of being burned and of excision from the New Testament. Fortunately, we Lutherans lived up to our reputations as people of God's Word and didn't follow Luther's advice. (Neither did he, by the way.) So, it's great that Ron has chosen to use it as the basis for the inspirations on Count It All Joy!

While I haven't heard Ron's new CD yet, I can well imagine that it will be well worth your money, not to mention the time spent in listening to it. Ron's faith is rooted in God's grace. But he also has a passion for the subject of how we respond to God's grace, how we go about living each day in ways that please God and let others experience His grace. In addition to being major themes of Ron's ministry, they're also major themes in the book of James.

You can order either What? God...You Want Me to Do Something? Or Count It All Joy by going to this link, printing the order form, filling it out, and sending it to the surface mail address mentioned there.