Reasons for Thanks

This morning was humbling.

The congregation I serve, Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, decided to mark the thirtieth anniversary of my ordination.

I was talking with someone the other day and mentioned that the chief significance of this anniversary is that it shows how God has put up with me for thirty years. "No," this church member said, "He's put up with you a lot longer than that."

 True. Thanks, praise, honor, and glory belong alone to the God made known in Jesus Christ for His grace, love, and patience with a sinner like me. In light of this, it seemed appropriate to keep the entire day low-key.

During worship, Dan Mershon, with whom I work here, gave a thought-provoking sermon on the Gospel lesson, Matthew 22:15-22.

Folks from previous parishes were in attendance and it was so nice visiting with them during the luncheon.

Thanks to the people of Bethlehem Lutheran Church (Okolona, Ohio), Friendship Lutheran Church (Amelia, Ohio), and Saint Matthew Lutheran Church (Logan, Ohio) for sharing this journey with my family and me, for the inspiration you have given to me, for forgiving my faults, and for living your faith in Jesus.

And thanks to the people of Living Water, who made this a special day of honoring God and thanking Him for His goodness.

Seeing Jesus at Panera

On Thursday night, my wife Ann and I ate at Panera in Lancaster. Through their rewards program, we'd accumulated enough credits to order a free drink. Ann only wanted a water and told me to pick something out. I was in the mood for a smoothie and ordered one flavor, only to change my mind about the flavor a nanosecond or two later. We payed for our order and took a table.

Not long after, the manager came to us with two smoothies. "I heard you order the one smoothie and had already started making it when you changed your mind. You can have the second one on us!"

Now think about that. The first one was free and the second one was on the restaurant. How often does a deal like that come along?

I was sliding one of the smoothies across the table to Ann when she pointed to the most adorable little girl, sitting with her parents at a table nearby, and said, "You could give it to her."

Ann had overheard the little girl's mom say that she was going back up to the cashier to order a smoothie for her daughter as a dessert. I offered my free gift to them and then, for the next fifteen minutes or so, enjoyed watching this twenty-one-month old sip and pour and thoroughly enjoy her smoothie, freezer headaches and all.

If Ann hadn't noticed this family sitting not more than five feet away, we wouldn't have experienced any of that joy or the brief discussion we had with this young couple.

How much joy do we miss out on in life because we're so wrapped up in our little cocoons of routine and selfishness that we don't see others? Speaking for myself, it happens a lot.

Yet, I believe that we are blessed to be blessings. The love of God in us grows the more we attend to others and give away His love.

That was underscored for me when the dad told us, "That was such a blessing to us. Thanks." When he said that, I thanked God for arranging this little rendezvous and for inspiring Ann to keep her antenna attuned to others even when I'm blind to those around me.

There's a praise song we've sung both at my former parish, Friendship in the Cincinnati area and here at Saint Matthew in Logan. It goes like this:

Open our eyes, Lord
We want to see Jesus
To reach out and touch Him
And say that we love Him
Open our ears, Lord
And help us to listen
Open our eyes, Lord
We want to see Jesus

Jesus says that we see Him in those around us, in those we serve. Maybe one reason I don't see Jesus as often as I could is that I don't serve others as often as I should. 

I'm thankful that Ann opened my eyes on Thursday night. I got to see Jesus again in a Panera! How cool is that?

Interesting Thoughts on Bishop Hanson's Letter

Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), of which I am a part, sent a pastoral letter to all leaders of the denomination this past week.

Chris Duckworth reacts here. (The linked post contains a link to Hanson's original letter.) Chris's point about the difference between basic baptismal unity, on the one hand, and confessional unity, on the other, is right on.

I have deep respect for Bishop Hanson. But I think that Chris is right in saying that the bishop's letter misses the point about what's at stake in the August churchwide assembly's scheduled votes on a new sexuality statement and the sexuality task force's recommendations that ELCA congregations be allowed to depart from past practices on the ordination of practicing homosexuals in committed relationships and on the sanctioning of committed homosexual relationships. Basic baptismal unity is not sufficient to bind together a denomination which claims to have a common, specific understanding of the Christian faith.

The proposed changes, in spite of the facile arguments of the sexuality task force that their recommendations deal only with ethics and not theology, would be major and potentially disruptive of our unity.

The option left to individual congregations to decide what they will do in practice seems a shrewd political move, allowing congregations to agree to disagree. It may therefore appeal to our American penchant for individualism.

The sexuality task force seems to be betting that their approach will placate enough people to keep from tearing the ELCA apart. They may be right, at least organizationally.

But with the adoption of these recommendations, will we lack theological and confessional clarity if the assembly adopts the recommended policies? I think so. What good will our unity be then?

I favor, as I think all Christians should, full civil rights for all people. But the recommendations before the assembly have nothing to do with civil rights. They deal with theology, with what we say about what God has revealed to the world, with the exercise of what is known as the "office of the keys," the proclamation of forgiveness or condemnation on behalf of God. Whatever one's position on the recommendations, one must concede, I think, such sanctioned changes cannot be papered over by appeals to baptismal unity. The world will rightly want to know, "What exactly do Lutherans believe about the Sixth Commandment?" These proposed policies, which venture far from 2000 years of Christian belief, won't provide an answer.

Hello, Goodbye: How Do You Know?

Friends wonder as they consider the end of our happy seventeen tenure at Friendship Church how I know that our move to Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio is the right thing. How, in other words, can we be sure that this move agrees with the will of God?

Short answer: At one level, I don't know if it agrees with the will of God. That's where faith, trust in God, comes in.

One strong sign that God's hand is in a thing is when it entails leaving the comfortable to enter the unknown. God often wants us to leave comfortable pursuits and surroundings so that we learn to depend on Him. When we stay in our comfortable places, we can fool ourselves into thinking that we actually know what we're doing. Moving into the unknown is one way we can follow the wisdom found in Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight." (I love that!)

Of course, Saint Matthew is a solid congregation that's been around since 1852. The people of the parish are friendly, warm, and committed to Jesus. Logan is a beautiful town set in the gorgeous Hocking Hills section of Ohio, surely among the most attractive places in the world. So, it's not as though God is telling us to go into the wilderness to a land He will show us.

But I could have stayed at Friendship for another seventeen years, retiring at age 66, when my pension will be fully vested. I could have continued to live with comfort and ease which I might have deluded myself into believing was of my making. I could be like the rich fool in Jesus' parable who told himself, "Relax, eat, drink, be merry." (Of course, like that rich fool, I would have been further deluding myself into thinking that I was guaranteed tomorrow. There's nothing to say that I'll even make it to age 66. Or age 54, for that matter.)

Christ does comfort us with the knowledge that through faith in Him, our sins are forgiven and we belong to God eternally. But Christ hasn't called us to lives of comfort and ease. Our job is to follow Christ, wherever He leads: "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people,” Jesus told His first disciples (Matthew 4:19). He tells us the same thing. He also says things like:

• "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:37-39).
• “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 16:24-25)

None of this is to say that life in Logan is a grim prospect to us. NOT AT ALL. If things go as they usually do, we expect to make great friends there. We expect to love and enjoy Saint Matthew. We anticipate finding great restaurants, good hiking trails, and favorite places to shop.

But we are also being taken out of what has become a comfort zone these past seventeen years, the very sort of thing you'd expect God to do in the lives of His people.

When God takes me out of my comfort zones, my first response is almost always the same: I draw closer to God. Christians, even pastors, do that with the assurance that James gives in the New Testament. "Draw near to God," we're told, "and he will draw near to you" (James 4:8).

It's funny, as I've prepared for going to Saint Mattthew, though filled with excitement and anticipation, I'm also filled with a sense of how little I really know, not just about tomorrow, but even about today. I've been drawn nearer to God and have been reading His Word and praying more and with greater dependence than I would have had we decided to stay here in our comfort zone.

So, at one level, I don't really know that God wants us to go to Saint Matthew. But at another, I'm sure that our move to Saint Matthew in Logan agrees with the will of God. More on that tomorrow.

Hello, Goodbye: Why I Will Wear 'Clergy Attire' at Saint Matthew

Here's the bottom line from yesterday's post in this series: It doesn't matter what pastors and priests wear. Except when it does.

Hang in there with me on this. Every Christian is called to be an ambassador for Christ, charged with making disciples. Like the apostle Paul, told by King Agrippa, before whom he stood imprisoned, in chains, that he was mad to think that he could call the king to faith in Christ in a short time, the attitude of Christians should be that, in Christian love, we want all people to know the joy and liberation of life with Jesus Christ!

Christians are people with a message that can change people's lives forever. We must never confuse our message with the packages in which they're contained.

Whether the package in which the Gospel is presented is a cathedral with an enormous pipe organ and vested choirs, a storefront church in the inner city, or a suburban congregation housed in a plain building where worship is led by a praise band and a preacher in "casual Friday" attire doesn't matter so long as the message conveys the life-changing Good News of Jesus.

Christians devoted to Christ and His mission should, like Paul, be willing to become "all things to all people":

For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

What the pastor or priest wears when she or he leads worship should be dictated not by what he or she likes, but by what best facilitates the spread of the Gospel in the church and community in which they serve.

That's why as I become pastor of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, I'll be wearing an alb, cincture, stole, cross, and clerical collar to lead worship.

One reason for this is that for me to appear in anything else would be disrespectful to the customs of the church community there. This is their way of doing things. It's a way with which I'm personally comfortable as well. It's also likely the best way for me to reach most of the people who are apt to worship with us at Saint Matthew. If I were to appear to lead worship or preach in tennis shoes and jeans would put up unnecessary walls between the Gospel of Jesus and the people to whom I want to give its hope and sustenance. Such incongruity would be as jarring to people in that community as incense and a thurifer would be for worship at Friendship, the congregation I've served for the past seventeen years.

Now, during the interview process, the Saint Matthew Call Committee and I discussed building off of an alternative service my predecessor initiated there. It was established with the hope of attracting the spiritually-disconnected to Christ and to Saint Matthew. We talked about how that service might look a little different and how I might even look different for this service. I was impressed that these committed Lutheran Christians were willing to discuss with such passion and concern what it may take to reach out to others in this way.

They understand that it doesn't matter what pastors and priests wear. Except when it does. When it does is when it helps facilitate the mission of Jesus' church. At Saint Matthew, that means I'll be wearing traditional clergy attire again. I'm happy to do it and will do so with the prayer of a good Lutheran in my heart, "to God alone be the glory."

Hello, Goodbye: Why I Didn't Wear 'Clergy Attire' at Friendship

As I mentioned in the previous post in this series, a member of Friendship Church asked when I stopped wearing clerical collars, albs, and such here and whether I would resume wearing them when I begin my work as pastor at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.

The move away from traditional attire at Friendship was a gradual process, some of it deliberate and some of it purely accidental.

It had its roots in the door-to-door visits I conducted from October, 1990 to May, 1991. door-to-door visitation was a successful mode of starting new churches back in the post-World War Two-era. The former bishop of our Southern Ohio Synod, Ken Sauer, started a congregation in Akron.1 The late Jerry Fallwell, some will know, also used this method in the 1950s to start and develop his famous fundamentalist congregation, Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. This was still the proscribed approach in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), of which I'm a part, in 1990, even by that time, there was ample evidence that this was a relatively ineffective method for church planting in US suburbs. But being a good soldier in those days, I began knocking at doors and ringing doorbells.

What happened surprised me. I knew that the data showed that, counting all households on which I called, including those whose residents were away at the time I stopped by, I could expect about one of every twenty to express some interest in this newly forming congregation. But as I met with people, only one in sixty were telling me to send them more information about Friendship.

This troubling trend had gone on for about a month when I went to Cleveland for a presentation on how to develop worship services that are compelling to the spiritually disconnected. The mission director for our synod, the supervisor of my work as pastor-developer, was also there. During a break in the daylong session, I told Bob about my experience and sought some explanation.

Bob, it should be said, was a lifelong Lutheran, then in his sixties, precisely the sort of fellow you might expect to be a guardian of the usual ways of doing things. "What are you wearing when you go to door-to-door?" he asked me. I was wearing the same thing I'd worn every day of my work life as a pastor. "My clerical collar," I told him. Bob said, without missing a beat, "Lose it."

Bob understood the demographics of our area. He also had a firm grasp on the aim of any new mission church, which is to attract what are called "the unchurched," people who had either never been involved with Christ and the Church or who hadn't been active in a congregation for at least five years.

Metropolitan Cincinnati has a strong Roman Catholic presence. Most Catholics in the area are happily engaged in the life of their church and we had no designs on stealing Christians from our churches. But, in an area that is as strongly Roman Catholic as this Tristate area, there were and are also high numbers of "lapsed Catholics," some of whom are disgruntled with the Catholic Church.

Another large portion of the unchurched population of Clermont County, where I planted Friendship, was and is made up of people with conservative evangelical backgrounds.

To the first group, a guy in a clerical collar would seem to be "more of the same" they weren't interested in seeing. For the second, a clerical collar would represent a mysterious, impenetrable religion.

Either way, my clerical collar was getting in the way of doing what I was trying to do: Invite people who had no connection to a church to consider my invitation to consider being part of Friendship.

Armed with Bob's blunt advice to "lose" my clerical collar, I hit the streets of this community once more. Suddenly, one out of every nineteen households was expressing interest in this new church.

Still, when we began worshiping at Friendship on May 19, 1991, there I was in traditional Lutheran clergy attire. Then, on the second Sunday we worshiped in the stuffy gymnasium of the Withamsville-Tobasco Elementary School, I prepared to put on my robe. One of the founding members of the church, Roger, a lifelong Lutheran, said, "Mark, it's too hot for that."

I tended to wear traditional attire on only special occasions after that. It was a case of practicality meeting good Lutheran theology and a commitment to both hospitality and loving outreach.

Since 1517, part of the Lutheran "project" has been to tear down the impediments to knowing and enjoying God erected by the institutionalized church. Built on the essential proclamation of the Christian faith that God declares sinners acceptable for eternity by virtue of their belief in Jesus Christ, the founder of the evangelical movement, Martin Luther, reformed the Mass (translating worship into the language of the people from the Latin); offering both elements of the Sacrament of Holy Communion; translated the Bible into German; composed hymns in the musical styles and language of the people; and wrote The Small Catechism to familarize families with the basics of Christian faith, among other things. In the centuries since, though it has often been overlooked by Lutherans, there has been an amazing and rich diversity of worship styles, musical expressions, and "proscribed attire" for clergy. That diversity still exists in the worldwide Lutheran movement.

That makes sense. Luther himself often railed against the Church's tendency to get hung up on what he called "adiaphora," basically meaning things that aren't essential to faith, salvation, worship, or church practice. The theologians who joined and followed Luther's lead in the Reformation agreed with him. The Augsburg Confession, a basic confessional document of the Lutheran movement written by other evangelical theologians during Luther's lifetime, describes the Church:

The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.

And to the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. Nor is it necessary that human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies, instituted by men, should be everywhere alike. As Paul says: One faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, etc. Eph. 4, 5. 6.

The point: Outward attire is just that, outward attire. Those in the Church should never confuse sociology for theology, the unimportant for the essential.

I personally was comfortable with clerical collars, albs, stoles, and such. But I had to ask myself some important questions:

• In trying to develop a new congregation built on sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with the spiritually disconnected, was I willing to leave my personal comfort zone?
• Was I Lutheran enough to major in the majors and leave the adiaphora behind?
• Was I Christian enough to tear down the impediments that might keep the unchurched from seeing Jesus?
  

When it came to my attire, I also had to ask myself another question: What would Jesus do? How would He appear to these people on a Sunday morning?

In first-century Judea, Jesus wore the common robe worn by others. His attire hadn't stood out from the crowd any more than had the first priests to don clerical collars back in the days of the Roman Empire. I adopted a kind of "casual Friday" look that helped many people to connect with me and with the Lord I tried to faithfully present.

Making Christ known must remain the preeminent goal of the Christian Church and of Lutherans. (Please read here.) God knows that not every one of my choices as pastor of Friendship Lutheran Church these past seventeen years has been right. But at least for the period 1991-2007, my choice in attire, irrespective of how unimportant that issue is in the grand scheme of things, was the right one and I feel, it helped Friendship make Christ known.

As I head for a new congregation though, I'll be going back to traditional Lutheran attire. In the next installment of this series, I'll try to explain why I think that is the right choice.

1And, in that period when people were hungry for church involvement, Sauer once told me, a pastor developing a new congregation might not have even needed the door-to-door visitation to get things going. "I had it a lot easier than you do now," he said. "In those days, it seemed all you had to do was put up a sign announcing that a new church was coming and you had a crowd."

Worryblockers! (Overcoming Worry, Part 4)

[This message was shared with the people of Friendship Lutheran Church during worship this morning. Today was my last Sunday at Friendship. But if you live in or ever visit the Cincinnati area, this is a truly great church, filled with the love of Jesus Christ, with warm welcomes for all people, and a tremendous commitment to service in Jesus' Name!]

Matthew 6:25-34
Many of you know that I love Walt Disney World. I loved it long before anybody from my family started working there.

Like others, I enjoy Disney World in part, because it’s entertaining, clean, and sometimes even educational. But the biggest reason for my love of Disney World is that, to me, it’s an inspiring place!

We may never, like Walt Disney, build amusement parks or a media empire--how many of those does the world need anyway? But Disney World inspires me to consider what all of us could do with the gift of imagination that God has granted to us.

Human beings have the awesome capacity to imagine or envision the future. It’s one of the main things distinguishing us from all the other creatures God made. That ability has not only brought us Disney World, but also little things like democracy, the space program, and every technological innovation in history. I hope that this morning, you’re envisioning a bright and faithful future for Friendship, for example.

Sadly, we human beings are likelier to use the gift of imagination in negative ways, though. Sin soils our souls and with it, our imaginings grow dark. We’re accomplished at imagining how everything that can go wrong eventually will, often creating the very bad things we dread!

A young man was deeply in love with his new wife and she with him. But the young man was insecure. Because he couldn’t believe that anyone could be so stupid as to actually love him, he worried that his wife planned to leave him or that she was seeing someone else. He checked on her all the time and was in need of constant reassurance from her. Finally, she couldn’t take it any more. Although she’d never had any intention of leaving her husband or taking up with someone else, she did those very things. Afterward, oblivious to how his worried imaginings had contributed to this trainwreck, the young man felt a perverse sense of vindication. “I knew this would happen,” he said. Worry is negative imagining and it’s a killer.

In today’s Bible lesson, Jesus talks about worry. He notes that we tend to stew over our material well being. To that, Jesus says that life is more than food, clothing, or possessions. The things of this world fade away, rust out, or die. But God lasts forever. That’s why Jesus says we’re to seek God and the ways of God first and above all else. As we do, He says, we can trust that God will take care of our material needs.

Earlier this year, Friendship was faced with some daunting financial and spiritual realities. But the leadership of this congregation refused to yield to worry. Instead, they challenged us all to pray for Friendship, seeking God’s guidance; to maintain strong participation in the life of Friendship; to maintain strong giving, even to consider tithing, giving the first 10% of our income to the life and work of the church; and to invite others to worship.

Because you let God help you dare to imagine a different outcome and because thousands of other people joined us in prayer, Friendship is stronger than it’s ever been!

(And by the way, don’t stop now. Your commitment to those four priorities is more important today than it’s ever been. The salvation and well-being of thousands of your neighbors depends on your continuing to faithfully imagine a constantly strengthening and growing Friendship Church!)

As long as God allows this sin-drenched world to continue, providing His Church with time and opportunity to share the Good News of Jesus with others, bad things will happen to people, even to faithful people. But if we let Him, God will block worry from the lives of those who surrender to Jesus Christ and empower them to keep seeking His Kingdom.

In today’s Bible lesson, Jesus gives us some God-ordained worryblockers. These strategies will free us to imagine, work, and pray for God’s best, rather than worrying about the worst.

First: We need to live in what’s called “day-tight compartments.” At the end of today’s lesson, Jesus tells us, “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

It’s great for us to use our imaginations to dream, pray, and work toward good goals for ourselves, our church, and others. But Jesus knows that tomorrow morning, when you go to work or are hustling the kids off to school, you’ll have more than enough challenges on your plates; you don’t need to waste time stewing about everything that could go wrong the day after tomorrow, next week, or next year. We only can really deal with one day’s challenges--or more accurately, one moment's challenges--at a time.

Besides, when you borrow difficulties from tomorrow, which is what we do when we worry, you overlook the good things of today. Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day that the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.” We need to make a commitment to live in, savor, and enjoy this day that God has given to us!

I even encourage people to laugh more each day. It’s been shown that laughter is good for our bodies, opening up our blood vessels, making the jobs of our physical hearts easier.

Maybe that fact is behind the words from the Old Testament book of Proverbs, “A glad heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken...”

I love what C.S, Lewis said: “It is a Christian duty...for everyone to be as happy as they can.” No people have more reason to be happy than followers of Jesus Christ. Christ has killed off the power of sin and death over our lives and freed us to live boldly and happily with Him by our sides. We can live in day-tight compartments with assurance and confidence.

Second worry blocker: Seek out God’s will for your life! And for the lives of others. Jesus says that worrying about tomorrow won’t add a second to this life. (Nor, I would add, will it add any life to our living!) But when we seek God’s will, we gain access to what’s best in life. I believe that God strews markers along our ways through life in order to show us the way we should go.

Often, God does that through other people who, without our even knowing it, are acting as God’s cheerleaders for us. Years ago, for example, I read about a man who, as a boy, lived in poverty in a rough neighborhood. He was befriended by an elderly man who ran a drycleaning business. He often told this boy, whose life seemed to hold little promise, that he was a smart boy who would grow up to run a business of his own some day. In spite of his poverty and the fact that he came from a family of abusive alcoholics, that boy went to college and later became the chief financial officer of a multi-million-dollar organization.

You have the opportunity to be a part of such stories when you give to and volunteer for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Clermont County. Through Friendship's involvement in this organization, you have already given young people right here in our community the hope for a better future. I hope that you'll continue to work and pray for this important and worthy organization!

God envisions better lives for us than even we do. (That’s why I called my column here and named my blog site, Better Living.) So, we need to go to God for help in our daily living and decision making.

Third: We need to keep seeking God! Jesus says, “Strive [or, as we’ve traditionally heard it, Seek ye] first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

You’ve heard of heat-seeking missiles. Simply put, the guidance systems of these missiles seek out targets that emit infrared radiation. Focused on a specific target, thesy hit what they seek.

The God we meet in Jesus Christ knows the design of the human being better than anybody. He knows that you and I are desire-seeking missiles. We aim our souls at our obsessions. When, as Jesus speaks about in our lesson, we worry about things like money, food, and clothing, we may get them in overabundance. But in seeking out those targets, we crowd God from our lives. Seek to follow Christ and to live in His Kingdom above all else. God will take care our daily needs and empower us to help the poor and the hungry denied access to God's provision for them by the selfishness of the human race. But more than providing us with our daily bread, when we seek God, we’ll remain connected to God!

Seeking God first means not just regular prayer, Bible reading, weekly worship, and participation in service in Jesus’ Name, all of which are essential elements to being a Christian. I want to tell you today that it also means receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion every time it’s offered.

The word Sacrament means mystery. In, with, and under the bread and wine of Holy Communion, Jesus’ body and blood mysteriosuly come to us. In ways none of us fully understand, Jesus Himself enters us. We gain a physical connection with God.

In Communion, we also enjoy a connection with every believer of every time and every place, including those already in eternity. When Jesus said that we’re to take the bread and the win in remembrance of Him, He didn’t mean that we’re to look back nostalgically to when He walked on the earth.

Anyone with even the faintest knowledge of Christian faith knows that following the God we know in Jesus Christ isn’t about looking backward. Religion looks backward, Biblical faith looks forward!

• The people of Israel got themselves in trouble and forgot God when, in the wilderness, they looked back nostalgically to their enslavement in Egypt.
• The wife of Abraham’s nephew Lot was turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back to the city from which God was leading her.
• And when the angels appeared to the women at the empty tomb on the first Easter to announce that Jesus had risen from the dead, they said, “Tell Peter and the others to meet Jesus in Galilee, where He’s already gone ahead of them!”
  

No, that word remembrance that Jesus used at the first sharing of the Lord’s Supper was, in the original Greek, anamnesis, in my Caveman Greek, unamnesia, if you will. In Holy Communion, the walls between us and eternal timelessness with God and other believers are torn down. We are membered again, re-membered, re-connected to God and to all who have ever believed in the God we know in Jesus Christ.

In the fellowship of Holy Communion, we’re enfolded once again into the family of which we become a part when we believe and are baptized. Sins are forgiven. God’s love is seen and touched and tasted.

And something else happens. I once visited a shut-in who was dying. I gave Holy Communion to her. When we finished, I saw this woman beaming. She knew she would die soon. But in Holy Communion, God had given her a foretaste of the new and everlasting future that awaited her. God had given her a new vision. She could live or die today knowing that she was in God’s hands. She knew, as Jesus reminds us in today’s lesson, that she was of more value than all the birds and flowers of the fields. Christ had died and risen for her. (And for you!) By seeking God, worry was banished from her life.

God wants to block worry from our lives. Let that happen...

• by asking God to help you live in daytight compartments;
• by seeking God’s will for your life, including how you can help others overcome worry and see the possibilities in their own lives; and
• by continuing to seek God through prayer, Bible study, service in Jesus’ Name, weekly worship, and by receiving the body and blood of Jesus every time Holy Communion is offered.

Don’t worry about your life; let God give you his peace...always.

'Forever Together Again'

[Today was my last Sunday as pastor of Friendship Lutheran Church in Amelia, Ohio, a congregation I was privileged to have started seventeen years ago. I excitedly anticipate beginning my work as pastor Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, on November 1.

[This is a song which I presented a cappella at the end of today's worship celebration. The congregation then sang it with me. The melody I composed is so simple, that folks were able to sing along readily.

[Briefly, the story behind the song is that many years ago, when I was a young pastor, one of my mentors was Pastor Richard Jensen, a systematic theologian, former missionary, and one-time preacher on the ELCA's weekly radio show, then called Lutheran Vespers, now called Grace Matters. In his work, Dick did a lot of traveling and found himself always having to say, "Goodbye." This bothered him, he told me, but he took great comfort from the fact that as a believer in Jesus Christ, he knew that one day, there would no need to say, "Goodbye." Believers in Christ live in the assurance that in eternity, we'll only say, "Hello!"

[As I contemplated my leaving Friendship and this community, I thought of Dick's words and composed this song. If I think of it later, I may record it for the blog.]

Forever Together Again

Some day, I’m going to see you again
I’m not the one to say when
But I know I’m going to see you again

One day, when we no longer grow old
We'll walk on streets made of gold
And I’m sure, I’m going to see you again

The hardest part of living today is learning to say, “Goodbye”
Each sad farewell reminds us that we aren’t in control of this life

Some day, the hope we hold will prove true
We'll live with Christ ever new
And it’s then, we’ll be together again

The hardest part of living today is learning to say, “Goodbye”
Each sad farewell reminds us that we aren’t in control of this life

Some day, the One we trust with our lives
The One Who promised we’d rise
Will bring us together again
Will bring us together again
Forever together again.

Copyright 2007, Words and Music by Mark Daniels

Hello, Goodybe: Whatever Will I Wear?

As I've prepared to take on my new call as pastor of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, I've also been saying goodbye to the people of Friendship Lutheran Church, Amelia, Ohio. I've been the pastor of Friendship for seventeen years. Part of that process of transition has involved publishing old pictures on the Friendship news blog. Included are the three below, taken at Friendship's first worship service on May 19, 1991:

[Click on image to enlarge.]

As you can see, in these snapshots from my younger, thinner, and bearded days, I was wearing what has become standard attire for Lutheran clergy leading worship. Seeing them led one Friendship member to ask when, exactly, I stopped wearing this attire during worship at Friendship and whether I would resume doing so at Saint Matthew. The short answers to those two questions are: Early in Friendship's life and yes.

But the questions might warrant a lengthier examination, beginning with describing just what "standard attire for Lutheran clergy leading worship" is and what it's all about. Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll talk about why I stopped wearing this attire over the past seventeen years and why I'll take it back up again once I'm in Logan.

The bottom picture of the three seen above shows me in...

• A white robe, which is called an alb, from the Latin alba, for white.
• What my one-time seminary advisor, the eminent theologian Hans Schwarz, called the rope, tied around my middle, is called a cincture.
• A red cloth draped over my shoulders, an example of what's called a stole.
• Beneath those articles of clothing, I was also wearing what's called a clerical collar for my dress shirt.

In seminary worship classes, we were taught the meaning of each of these pieces of clothing.

The alb is meant, broadly, to represent the purity of God. In ancient times, clergy went clothe-less beneath these garments, an apparent repudiation of their reliance on anything but God. They may also have had in mind Saint Paul's call for Christians to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and [to] make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires" (Romans 13:14). These ancient clergy also wore the alb shoeless. I don't know anyone who follows these precedents today. It wouldn't be such a hot idea. After all, we clergy have enough reputation problems these days; we don't need to add to them by going around in our altogethers under our albs!

The alb may also allude to the vision of believers in heaven given by the risen and ascended Jesus to John. John wrote down this vision in the book of Revelation. You can see that here. The problem with that symbolism is that all who have followed Jesus are in white in John's vision, not just those who've filled the pastoral or priestly roles.










The cincture, according to some sources has only a practical use: keeping flowing robes from tripping up clergy. But I seem to recall some more pious purpose attributed to it, though I can't recall what it was.









The stole, worn over the shoulders of clergy members, is supposed to refer to the special burden of leadership--to lead the church diligently--and alludes to Christ's words in Matthew 11:29-30:

"Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

But, of course, this call is issued not just to clergy, but to all who believe in Jesus Christ.

Stoles are usually colored according to the season of the Church Year or, as in the case of the pictures of me above, according to the particular occasion. Friendship happened to begin its life on Pentecost Sunday, when the assigned color is red.

Stoles can be multicolored, though, and often, as is the case of the one pictured to the left, they're adorned with various symbols of the faith or with the season with which they're associated. The stoles I own were woven by a nun who was a fine artist, a participant in the Greater Columbus Arts Council's Artists in the Schools program, which my wife administered in the early-1980s.


Ask most clergy who wear clerical collars and they'll tell you that they symbolize their office. The shirts, they'll say, are signs of Christ and the Church having set them apart to fulfill a certain function.

And I'm sure that they've become that for many people. When clergy walk into a hospital room or a nursing home, the personnel in those places will generally know what the clergy person's function is and what they're doing there. (Although, in an age of terrorism and various predatory behaviors, it's always advisable for such facilities to require clergy to carry some form of identity or to register as a visitor as well.)

Years ago, I was angered by a pastor's wife who told me why her husband routinely wore his clergy collar. "Restaurants always let us get tables quickly when Bob wears his shirt," she told me, giggling. But this is the opposite of what the collar is meant to represent in today's Church. Clergy aren't supposed to be privileged characters, only Christians who fill a particular function.

The office of pastor is a calling and a privilege. But its function is to be a servant of the servants, someone who encourages and helps others in the Church to do all that God has called His people to do. If Jesus bent down to clean the filthy feet of His disciples, who am I to use Jesus and my office in His Church as a pretext for getting faster service at a restaurant? Jesus promises all believers that "the last will be first, and the first will be last" anyway. So, there's no need for pushing ahead. We're called to a different way of life!

The story behind the widespread adoption of the clerical collar as the uniform of pastors and priests is pretty humdrum. It was only after the fact of its use that the explanations mentioned above came to be used. When much of the Christian Church came to be centered in Rome, the Roman (Catholic) Church adopted the organizational scheme of the Roman Empire. Since the Bible never outlines a specific mode of organization, the bishop at Rome had to adopt some way of organizing and administering the far-flung church and adopting the system of an empire that had been so successful for so long made sense.

The uniform of the local bureaucrats for Rome's empire was the clerical collar. They were clerical workers. So, as the local administrators of Word and Sacrament, parish priests began wearing the same attire. When the Roman Empire died, the bureaucrats disappeared. But by that time, their uniform had been adopted by the priests.

This is one more example of how through the centuries, the Church has adopted and adapted customs and even holidays already extant in their cultures and "Christianized" them. Some people point to the recasting of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia as Christmas as though it somehow takes away from Christmas or the celebration of Christ's birth. No, it was a convenient leap from celebrating a holiday about light to remembering the light of the world who came into our lives in Jesus Christ.

Soon: Why I stopped wearing this attire at Friendship and why I will resume doing so at Saint Matthew.

Photo History of Friendship Lutheran Church

As I've prepared to take on my new call at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church and done some packing, I've presented something of a photo history of Friendship on our church's news blog. Here are links to the entire series, for those who might be interested.

First Worship Service
Surveying the Land
Groundbreaking (actually in April, 2002)
The Building Committee Meets
Worship, Withamsville-Tobasco Elementary School, 1993
Showing a Little Kindness
Friendship's 1997 Picnic
More From the 1997 Picnic
Lord's Table, Banners, 1994
Karen Hendrickson, Whose Christian Witness Inspired Us All
Capital Campaign Kickoff, 2001
More Capital Campaign Kickoff Pictures
Youth Kindness Outreach, ca. 1995
Vacation Bible School, ca. 1996
More VBS Pics
Maybe the Convict Picture Wasn't the Way to Go
Some of the Publicity for Our First Worship
More From Friendship's First Worship, May 19, 1991
Scenes from Friendship's First Easter, 1992
Land Dedication and Spruce-Up, May 3, 1992
Another Picture from the Land Dedication/Spruce-Up
One of Our Early Advertisements
I Don't Know How to Rotate This
Our Billboards
'Friendship Profiles'
In the beginning...
More Pictures from the Groundbreaking
Construction Photo #1
Construction Photo #2
Construction Photo #3
Construction Photo #4
Construction Photo #5
Funeral for Karen Hendrickson, August 26, 1999
Funeral for Karen Hendrickson, August 26, 1999, Part 2
Hummingbird

Hello, Goodbye: What I'll Miss

"For better and worse," an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America staffer told a crowd of newly-called pastor-developers and their spouses, including my wife, Ann, and me, "your congregations will reflect your personalities, your strengths, and your weaknesses."

We sat in a large hospital-affiliated meeting facility in Omaha in July, 1990. We were part of a group recruited by our denomination's Division for Outreach to start new congregations across the country. In August, my family and I would move from our rural parish in northwestern Ohio and head for the Cincinnati suburbs where we would develop a new church. Spouses were invited to this gathering so that they would better understand the peculiar pressures, demands, and joys associated with starting new churches from scratch.

When I think about what I'll miss as we leave the congregation we started, Friendship Lutheran Church, Amelia, Ohio and prepare to begin life at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, apart from the people here, the thing that comes to mind is that denominational staffer's words.

To a remarkable extent, Friendship does reflect me and my personality. One part of me, the one infected with the common human ailment of sin and arrogance, will miss that most about Friendship.

Like me, the people of Friendship and the church culture we've evolved over time, has little patience for baloney. We've been relaxed in our reverence for God. We've never been wed to rigid ways of doing things. We've always thought it was more important to be Lutheran Christians in our theology than in our sociology, to be Christians by conviction and by relationship with God, rather than by culture or by religion. (For more on just what Lutheran theology is, take a look at this introductory post by a British Lutheran blogger.)

And, as was true of Martin Luther himself, who was always looking for ways to make Jesus Christ accessible to people, in part by translating the Christian faith into everyday language, we've sought to lower the barriers between today's people and Christ through a less intimidating worship style.1

Friendship has largely become the church I'd always dreamed it would be. That's very comfortable for me. (In a later post, I'll discuss the ways in which it hasn't become the church of my dreams and why that's okay.) And while I'm not among those Christians who think that believers should court discomfort, I do think that we are called "die to the self"--to allow Christ to break us free of the tyrannies and idolatries of selfish desires and from our love of ease--so that our new selves, our God-made, God-oriented selves can rise.2

Christ doesn't call us to lives of comfortable repose. In The Cost of Discipleship, Lutheran theologian and martyr to Nazism Dietrich Bonhoeffer put things bluntly, "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die."

In some cases, following Christ may entail, as it did for Bonhoeffer, actual physical death. But for all Christians, pastors included, it must entail a willingness to sacrifice one's arrogance, the hubris of our pretended self-sufficiency.

In my case, there has been a subtle arrogance associated with seeing the development of a church which, "for better and worse..." reflects my personality, my strengths, and my weaknesses.

Putting such arrogance to death isn't to be compared the martyrdom of a Bonhoeffer, the sacrifices of a Mother Teresa, or the risks taken by a Martin Luther, of course. It's easy for others to excuse the subtle pride I take in the development of Friendship. The congregation's continued existence seems to vindicate my vision, my style, my personality. I sometimes see the fact that Friendship is still around although some in my denomination thought a Lutheran congregation couldn't get off the ground in our community and others dismissed our thematic worship, blending the old with the new in a less formal (but still liturgical) style, as a personal triumph. And if I'm not careful, I sometimes start to believe it when people tell me, "Look at what you've done." As time passes, I may not recognize those statements for what they are: well-meaning, ego-appealing fibs.

In allowing myself to believe such lies, however briefly, I overlook what Jesus tells us: "I will build My Church." Jesus may use sinners like me to build His Church, but He's the One Who does the building nonetheless.

We should never forget that Jesus tells us, "Apart from Me, You can do nothing." And that elsewhere, He says, "With God all things are possible." (I note that He doesn't say, "With Mark all things are possible.")

The development and continued existence of Friendship is not a testament to my cleverness, ability, or personal charisma, but to the enormity of God's grace. God was willing to use a sinner like me to build this amazing church in the Amelia area. I forget that at my own eternal peril. "Pride goes before destruction" is more than a familiar, gauzy phrase from the Old Testament. It's an observable truth. Those who arrogantly think that they're "all that" are inevitably cruising toward the destructive consequences of their self-worship, which may come at the end of our earthly lives, when God allows those who walk away from God to live eternally with the consequences of their choice. Or, if we're fortunate, we'll fail, crash, and burn in this life, brought up short by the reality of our sin and our need of God and driven to God's grace and mercy for the new life He gives to all who follow Christ.

Self-worship is surely as much a violation of the First Commandment's proscription against having other gods as would happen if we bowed down to a carved image, a dollar bill, a tinhorn dictator, or a family member.

Being hung up on ourselves as the object of our affections also clearly violates Jesus' "Great Commandment," in which He calls us to love God and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. There's no real room for God or others in the kingdom of me.

The comfort that I feel as pastor of Friendship is a wonderful thing. In their acceptance of me, in spite of my imperfections, the people of Friendship exhibit the grace and the goodness of God.

But I've increasingly felt that the comfort I feel here could represent a long-term threat to my effectiveness as a pastor, my Christian witness, my life with God, and my spiritual vitality.

I'm convinced that Friendship's way of being church is valid and pleasing to God. I also believe that I now need to pastor in a congregation that doesn't so directly reflect my personality.

I'm excited about going to serve a church that was founded in 1852, that is strong in traditions, while being committed to adding new traditions designed to share the Good News of Jesus with others. Ann and I feel genuinely called by God to go to Saint Matthew.

But before I could be open to that call, I first had to sense God calling me away from the comfort of Friendship. It was apparently okay for me to experience that comfort for what turned out to be a long season of my life. But no longer. Now is the time for me to experience a different kind of comfort, the comfort of being part of a ministry which I can't delude myself into believing is of my making. As I go to Saint Matthew, I'm sure that Jesus will once more teach me that He will build His Church.

In July, in a sermon, I recounted something that writer William Hulme witnessed: A mother bird seemingly chastising and cheerleading her baby to fly away from its comfortable "perch" on the ground. I talked about how Hulme says that human parents must do the same thing with their kids. In recent months, I feel that that's exactly what God the Father has been doing with me. If I'd stayed much longer, Friendship might have become, for me, the kingdom of me. Neither God or, in my most lucid moments, I want that.

I will miss the comfortable-ness of being pastor of Friendship. I will miss the wonderful people of whose lives I've been privileged to be a part for much of the past seventeen years. But for God, for me, and for the people of Friendship, God has begun to show me, I dared not stay another moment.

1. While not everyone has agreed with my assessment, I believe that we've been able to do all of this through the years and still maintain our awe of God. A few years ago, a Roman Catholic priest of my acquaintance walked into our plain, multipurpose sanctuary and spent what seemed like five minutes taking it all in silently. I wondered what he was thinking. "What an inviting space!" he finally declared. "I can really feel the presence of God here." A deeply devoted Lutheran layperson has told me that when she worships at Friendship, "I can see Jesus!"

2. Humorist Garrison Keillor says, "When you're Lutheran and from the Midwest, it's always Lent." There's just enough truth in that observation to make a Lutheran laugh...and wince. While we reject the theology of wallowing, the notion that Christ died to make us miserable, we do embrace the theology of the Cross, believing that as we daily follow Christ, we must submit to the crucifixion of our sinful selves so that we can rise to newness of life.





[The pictures to the right were taken by Friendship member Truman Clough during worship on a snowy and somewhat foreboding Sunday in March, 2006. In the top picture, you see Holy Communion being shared. The bottom two pictures show us as we shared God's peace.]

Hello, Goodbye: The Sofa Moves

My family came to southwest Ohio to start a new congregation, what became Friendship Lutheran Church, on August 22, 1990.

Thousands of door-to-door calls, some 740 Sunday sermons, and 52 Baptisms later, people ask me how I feel. How does it feel to be leaving?

They also ask why. Why have my wife Ann and I decided to pick up stakes to go to a very different church in a small town? And closely related to this question is another one: Was this a sudden decision?

My blogging colleague Mark Roberts, a Presbyterian pastor, recently left the congregation he served for sixteen years and has been eloquently blogging on his transtion to his new job at Laity Lodge in Texas. You can see some of Mark's reflections here. I told Ann the other day that I didn't think I'd be doing anything like that on my blog.

Yet, over the past few days, I've felt compelled to answer questions like the ones above. And I find myself reflecting on the past seventeen years.

Today, I'll deal with the questions of why and whether this is a sudden decision.

Our decision to pull up stakes and move to Logan, Ohio, where I will become pastor of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church on November 1, wasn't sudden.

Ann and I began discussing the possibility of my making myself available for "call" to another congregation in late-2005. I completed what my denomination refers to as "mobility papers"--I'm not making that term up, that's really what they call the eighteen page document all pastors considering a move fill out--in June, 2006.

We felt no sense of urgency about leaving Friendship. What gave rise to our initial discussions had nothing to do with disenchantment with Friendship at all. We loved and love Friendship. Even as we contemplated the possibility of leaving, I still had enthusiasm for the congregation and its ministry. I still had a sense for the direction in which I thought it should go. So, why leave?

In a nutshell, Ann and I came to believe that for Friendship to go to the next level as a congregation, it would require new pastoral leadership.

Friends tell me that it's inapt, but I compare myself to the sofa you bought years ago. You loved the thing. When you brought it home, the room, as the interior decorators say, "popped." Besides all that, it was functional. It provided good service for years.

But when you painted the living room walls a different color and changed your decorative motif, you moved the beloved sofa to the family room. Later still, it went to the basement for the kids to use when they played video games. You still valued the sofa and it had even, remarkably, maintained its color and firmness. It was still a great sofa. But it no longer made the room "pop" for you.

I'm that old sofa. When the church moved from a school gym after twelve-and-a-half years and into the building with which God blessed us, I moved with it. I was a comforting presence. But sometimes, a new room needs a new sofa. And by new room, I'm not referring to our new building per se, but simply to the changed and changing circumstances that come to any church, family, business, or community over time.

I was approached about interviewing with the "call committee" of one congregation in December, 2006. But Ann and I both were familiar with the church and were certain that it wouldn't have been a good fit for me or for us. We wouldn't go just anywhere. I turned the interview down.

When first approached about interviewing with the call committee at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, in early June, 2007, I had no reaction. I really knew nothing about the congregation or the community. But I decided to go for an initial conversation with the call committee and see where it led. (By this time, I should add, Friendship was in the midst of a great resurgence in attendance and in giving, something that almost never happens in churches during the summer season!)

(At the same time, I was approached about being on the staff of a new start non-denominational congregation that promises to be a megachurch in no time. I was even told that I could create my own job portfolio if I came onboard. It was flattering. But, while I believe that all who confess Jesus Christ are part of His Church, I will always be a Lutheran Christian. It's just who I am.)

That first interview at Saint Matthew happened on July 10. The committee members were personable, obviously committed to their church, proud of its traditions, and anxious to try new things to reach out to their community.

To my surprise, I found myself being pulled with increasing urgency in Saint Matthew's direction. We had loved small town, rural life in northwestern Ohio, which we'd enjoyed in my first call from 1984 to 1990, and though southeastern Ohio is a different place, the "feel" of Saint Matthew and of Logan appealed to me. Increasingly, I felt that this was the place I was supposed to be.

But I didn't want to make a decision based on a wave of personal enthusiasm. Ann hadn't yet met the folks from the Saint Matthew call committee. I prayed, "Lord, I don't even know if the call committee and congregation at Logan want me to be their pastor yet. But you know I'm feeling tugged in that direction. I'll know what You want when Ann tells me that she wants to make this move."

On August 11, Ann and I traveled to Logan for a follow-up discussion with the call committee at Saint Matthew. There were, we thought, insumrountable issues which would prevent the call committee from being able to recommend that the congregation call me to become Saint Matthew's pastor. On the way over though, Ann said, "If the congregation does call you, Mark, we should definitely go." Based on my earlier prayers, that seemed like a green light from God. I was interested in seeing what happened in our meeting.

When we arrived for what we thought would be a one-hour get-together and ended up spending three-and-a-half hours with the committee, I could see that Ann, as had happened with me already, was falling in love with these people. Just like Ann, they were real, no phoniness about them at all.

By the end of our meeting, we clearly sensed that this committee wanted us to be at Saint Matthew. In spite of the pain of saying goodbye to Friendship and to the community we've called home since 1990, we wanted to be at Saint Matthew. And, through Ann's words on our drive to Logan, God appeared to want us to be at Saint Matthew, too.

Because we kept our lips zipped publicly until September 2 and before that, had only told a few friends and Friendship's lay leadership about the strong possibility that we would be leaving for Saint Matthew, it may have seemed like a sudden, impulsive decision to some. But God had been preparing us for this move for at least two years. We had prayerfully considered this specific call for three months by the time we went public with it.

But how does it feel to be leaving here after seventeen years? I hope to address that tomorrow.

Another Post of Pictures from Our Canandaigua Mission Trip

In the last photo, another adult crew leader, a member of a Lutheran congregation in New England, and I are showing off some of the fried dough the nursing home residents would work on. The nursing home is part of a holistic health facility in Clifton Springs. It was founded nearly 150 years ago and is a fantastic place! Several of the events which happened while we were there also involved children from a day care center, also on the campus.

[Click on the pictures to see them get bigger!]

And Still More Canandaigua Mission Trip Pics

Mikey, a member of the work crew with which I worked, appears a bit skeptical about standing around me in the second picture above.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge them...if you dare.]

Still More Fab Pics from the Canandaigua Mission Trip

See the explanation several posts below. [Click on the links to enlarge them.]

More Pictures from the 2007 Mission Trip

[Click a pic to see it bigger.]

More Pics from Canandaigua Mission Trip

[Click images to enlarge.]

Pictures from Our Mission Trip in Canandaigua, New York

On the days of June 17 to 22, a group of thirteen people from our congregation, Friendship Lutheran Church of Amelia, Ohio, participated in the Group Work Camps Foundation's Week of Hope in Canandaigua, New York. Along with seventy-seven other young people and adult crew chiefs from churches in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Delaware, and Maine, we went out for six hours each day in groups of six to spruce up the homes of widows, plant and clean at the city's enormous Veterans' Administration Hospital, helped a local food bank, spent time with and transported the residents of area nursing homes, and other acts of service in Christ's Name. We also worshiped, learned, had fun, and sometimes, got bored, together. It was awesome! In this and the next several posts, I'll be presenting pics of our group and the crews with which we worked.

[You can click on the images to enlarge them.]