daily java

Daily Java:

So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you. But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.” We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. (2 Corinthians 4:12-14)

I am at the end of my first Sunday as a pastor again. It was a good day, although it was kind of a short experience. Bible Class began at 9:00 and church at 10:00. I led praise and worship and gave the communion devotional, in addition to the sermon. I spoke on “I Believe in the Church.” I didn’t get finished so I will continue next week. There was a potluck afterwards with more food than you could imagine.

It was a good experience. And it was one I thought I would never have again. I figured that I would become an interim pastor maybe for dying churches. But I really didn’t think God would find a place to use me again as a pastor.

The people in Longton are excited to have me. they seem so pleased that I have agreed to come here. I think they have despaired of finding someone that went with their mindset. They are a blend of Christian Church and Assembly of God, so they are a bit different. As am I.

This is not the place I ever dreamed of being, a town of 350. But two things led me here as confirmations. One was the fact that I had to get new tires and the odd size my van takes was available for what I could spend. The other is that the church, for the first time in its history, voted unanimously for me to come.

With those two things I knew God wanted me here. And I feel called here. I am not sure Ella does yet, but she is called to be with me, so she goes with me wherever I go. So she is here too.

I do not have the slightest idea what I will do, but for the present I am listening. I listen to people and hear what they think, what they want.

It does seem that I will become the town pastor. The Methodists do not have enough to have a full time pastor and no one seems to know the Baptist pastor. His church is also tiny. There is also a small group of Christadelphians here, a group about which I know little. That pretty much leaves me.

There is no outreach to the teens. Any outreach in the past was made by this church, so it will up to me to engineer one.

I look forward to what the Lord has in mind for me here. I will do whatever is needed to fulfill my ministry. I want to stay here the rest of my life. I want to know these people and love them. I want them to love me. I want to show them the grace of God that is in my life. I want to glorify God in my life to them.

May the Lord bless my ministry and keep us safe.

daily java

Daily Java:

Written on our last Sunday with Firm Foundation Church in Boonville, MO.

Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet each other with Christian love. (2 Corinthians 13:11-13)

Today is my last Sunday with you.  We are moving to Longton, Kansas, tomorrow, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise. I have taken a church there that is part of the denomination I used to be in. It is an interesting church, with an interesting blend of members. It fits my talents and gifts and who I am almost perfectly. It is a work that I will be able to stay in until I die.

It is also different for us in that it is a tiny little town, 350 people in all. 1.1 square miles total town footage. They are thinking of carpeting it next year.

We have rarely lived in little towns, usually in suburbs or in cities. It is a pleasant town with a grocery store, a café, a bar that serves food, a pizza place, a drive-in that sells hamburgers and such and a mini-mart that sells gas. It also has a little library. A wood-working shop rounds out the businesses, with a few mechanics and such. It also has its own school district of about 160 kids.

It is a church of about 50 and seems to be a well-balanced church, with all ages. I look forward to it. Their parsonage is an old farm house on five acres outside of town. Of course, in a town of 350 that means it is only five or six blocks from downtown. Two horses live over the fence in the front yard.

We will be moving tomorrow morning, so if you can come help, do so. If nothing else, you can stand around and point. That’s what Ella does nowadays.

I have enjoyed being with you here at Firm Foundation. Pastor Mel and I respect each other and he found a place for me to minister here. I have been involved in the jail chaplaincy program and have written almost 400,000 words in bulletins, articles, jail circulars and in my blog mentioned above. I have been church editor, taught Sunday night, played in the praise band, sang occasional specials, videoed the services and special events and had many of the church over for supper at one time or another. I have even managed to be friends with Tom Pulliam, no mean feat in itself.

I am a different guy. Pastor Mel and I have strong disagreements on a lot of things yet we maintain Christian fellowship. I have tried to teach my class on Sunday nights that it is okay to question and to look outside the traditional window.

I love you and always will. I will continue to contribute articles to the bulletin. But they will come from 300 miles away in southeastern Kansas. Looking at a map, it is 30 miles west of Independence, Kansas. A tiny little town with a great big, oversized preacher playing a 12 string guitar and worshiping God and preaching freedom.

I surely look forward to it. But I will also surely miss you. God bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

Providence of God

You know when I sit down or stand up.
    You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
You see me when I travel and when I rest at home.
    You know everything I do.
You know what I am going to say
    even before I say it, Lord. (Psalm 139:2-4)

I have been going back and forth to Longton, Kansas, for the past few weeks to speak at a church. It is 300 miles almost exactly.

Wednesday I took Ella to the ladies meeting at the Purvises and thought, I’ll check my tires. When I did, I found both of the front tires were not only just about bald, there was cord showing. That meant I was riding in a death trap at 70 mph. It scared me. I was almost afraid to drive home and then to Fame Tire Co the next day.

My van takes stupid little tires. 14 inchers. Nobody uses 14 inch tires these days. The trend is to big tires. Some of the cars today almost look like one of the old Conestoga wagons with those huge wheels.

Thursday morning, I went into Fame and asked for that size in a good used tire. They didn’t have what I had on the van, but they had the next size down for a good price. I bought them, had them put on and now I am ready to go again this week to Kansas.

The point is that my tires were bad and I didn’t know it. But nothing happened. When I went to replace them, they were there for me to buy. It all worked out like I needed. In fact, the lady there (Mrs. Fame?) told me that someone had called for them yesterday but didn’t reserve them, so they were there for me to take.

I was going somewhere to do the will of the Lord and he protected me. As the Psalm above says: You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. God protected Ella and me from a wreck. He saw I needed the tires and he made them available and he made sure I had the money.

I do not believe God goes ahead of us and gives us everything we want or even necessarily need. There were too many godly people in the Bible that had severe needs that God left unaddressed. But then again, sometimes he does. In the gospel accounts, there were lots of sick people, but Jesus only healed some of them.

But the way it went Thursday. God saw that I needed those tires and that he had sent me to that church in Longton and he blessed me with both the tires and the available money to buy them.

He also protected us from a wreck. At 70 mph, if one tire had gone, the other probably would have too and I may well have flipped the van. Ella would have been hurt. So he put in me the need to check the tires and he gave me the tires and money to buy them.

That isn’t a miracle. Those are different. But it is divine intervention in my life. It was God taking care of me so that I could do what I needed to do.

And I praise him for it. Thank you, Lord.

daily java

Daily Java:

Lead me in the right path, O LORD, or my enemies will conquer me. Make your way plain for me to follow. (Psalm 5:8)

We just got back from Longton, Kansas. We were looking at the work there. And we saw it.

Longton is a small town of 350 people with an abbreviated downtown like so many small towns have. There are some businesses, chief among them, a small grocery store, a café and a bar that the church says serves a great steak. There is a post office and a pizza place, along with a couple of other things that may or not be open. It was hard to tell on a Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

The church had about 40 in attendance but has had a lot of problems in the past couple of years. Their pastor left after some unpleasantness kind of took his heart away. He had also gotten married and had a couple of children so he needed more money than they were able to pay him. They had two or three men that they considered seriously that came for three or four Sundays each but turned out not to be what they claimed to be.

So they are afraid.

They responded overwhelmingly positively to us. In fact, they loved us. it was almost unanimous among those I talked to that we come back.

The only problem is do we want to? It is a town of 350 that is dead as a hammer. It does have a small school that is a united school district of several small towns in the county. It also has a couple of businesses that seem to be doing alright. It has no industries, but does have a gas station (although 20 cents higher than thirty miles away) and a drive in. It has three churches but from what I hear, two of them are dead.

Is it a work that I truly want. On the one hand, I want to go somewhere to be their pastor. On the other, they are in a dead little town.

On the practical side, they have a parsonage that is provided, but it is an older house. But it and the church are paid for. They have some money in the bank and are not hurting at all. And they appear to want this so much.

They have begun to reach out to technology a bit in that they bought a projector and lap top computer and project songs on the wall. They used YouTube videos of praise songs complete with winging and music. That means they are open to new stuff. It would not be hard to begin a praise band using kids from the town. I would bet money that guitar players and drummers and such would come out of the woodwork when they found out there was a place to play. It has happened before.

But the town is dead and 30 miles from the nearest town of any kind of life (and WalMart). It is 30 and 100 miles from the nearest hospitals of any kind. But as I pointed out to Ella, do I really want to spend my life trying to close to a hospital or grocery store. There in Longton, I would have trouble getting cheap food. I would have to go to Independence thirty miles away. The nearest city of any real size is Topeka, 100 miles away, or Tulsa, about the same.

I have got to decide what I want to do. They will probably ask me to come back next week. If we go back, we will spend Thursday through Monday there.

I have got to decide how badly I want my own church. Do I want it enough to go to Longton, a town that is dead.

Ella is not excited about it but will go wherever I drag her since she is trapped in my world.

On the other hand., I loved them. On the other other hand, I am a church fool and love the church anyway.

I have to decide.

Lord, give me strength and power to decide what your will is. Make your will plain so that I do not have to worry. Hear me, O Lord. Amen.