During our greeting time at church last Sunday I shook hands with one of our grandfathers who had his daughter and two grandsons home from Columbus.

I think the older grandson is almost two years old. When his mom drove into our church parking lot he said “God’s House!” then raised his hands in the air and said “Yea!”

I know his life is relatively simple. His needs are few.  He will learn soon enough there’s a lot more to life than eating, playing, and sleeping.

Or is there?

The adult life is, in fact, so much more than eating, working, and sleeping but when we have the proper view (from our car seat?) of who’s really taking care of us and how secure we really are, wouldn’t we say what he said?

“God’s House – Yea!”

Blessings,

Pastor Mark

Last Sunday I preached from I Samuel 17 about David and Goliath.

One of the key verses and principles is found in v. 20 – “All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or speak that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lords, and He will give you all (the Philistine army) into our hands.”

There are situations in my life I try to fix. I’m a man and it’s my job to fix things.  But I often find there are things I can’t fix and my “fixing” only makes things worse.

I’m in a situation now where there’s not much I can do to make the situation better. I tried. I didn’t succeed.

Then it came to me. Maybe this is a battle that only God can win.  I just need to practice what I preach and trust Him to work things out in a way that brings glory to Him and benefit to the situation.

Doing this is much more difficult than I anticipated!

I now better understand why it’s sometimes hard for my flock to practice what I preach.

Blessings,

Pastor Mark

My wife and I have a system for buying groceries.

She has the list and shopping cart and I’m the “runner”. She gives me 2-3 items to find and off I go.  I bring those items to the cart and she gives me 2-3 more items to get and so on.

We were working our system at Meijer last Monday and everything went according to plan.

At the checkout I put two little containers of red raspberries in a bag and into the rack located at the back and bottom of the cart.

At Meijer there’s a pop dispenser located about halfway across the front of the store and (unfortunately) near the end of my checkout aisle. In front of the pop dispenser is a black mat with holes in it – holes about the size of a red raspberry.

You’re ahead of me, aren’t you?

One of the red raspberry containers fell out of the bag, hit the floor, and 20 or more berries rolled onto the mat and into the holes! I couldn’t have created a more interesting mosaic if I’d tried!

So I got down on the floor and picked the berries out of the holes and put them back in the container. I think it took an hour to get them all picked up – or least that’s what it seemed like with people looking at me!

Humility finds us in the most interesting ways!

Blessings,

Pastor Mark

Ever see a sign and wonder what they are advertising or trying to say?  So many times commercials spend 28 seconds on whatever and then 2 seconds on the actual product.  I drove past a sign today and many of the letters were missing.  So much so, that I couldn’t tell what they were trying to get across.

I wonder if our lives were a sign for God, would it be clear enough that others would know that we belong or follow God?  Am I portraying a good picture of what it is like to follow Christ?  Do my kids see it? Do my neighbors see it? 

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, how many words are being missed every day? 

Pastor Brent

It’s a fine line for bloggers. You know, the line between what’s funny or sad; tragedy or triumph; spiritual or secular; world events or living our lives (which can be very eventful!).

I prefer humor because it’s a feel good thing for me to blog about wife, family, grandchildren, church family, cars, cameras, trains, and the unexpected things of life.

But my reality is this: I go from handing my Captain D’s kid’s meal cookie to the parent of a little girl to knowing that 1 in 4 children in Ohio will experience food insecurity today and may not have a meal, much less a cookie.

The fine line is a place of recovery – where humor finds its way back to reality and sadness proves anything but final. The line is also an opportunity to leave the feeling of being overwhelmed and crossing over to having everything under control, even if it’s just for a little while.

BTW, did you know you can’t just walk up to Red Box and insert the DVD you are returning and expect it to be swallowed by the Red Box? After going to two locations yesterday and getting soaked to the skin both times I learned from someone much younger and somewhat wiser (at times) that I had to lift the flap and push the touchscreen button that says Return Video.

Who knew?

Blessings,

Pastor Mark

Dinah and I bought a king size bed but didn’t buy a headboard right away. So yesterday we began the hunt of finding one.

What follows isn’t about the differences of how men and women shop (or think, or think while they’re shopping), it’s about a loving relationship.

OK, it is a little about the differences. I thought we were on a mission but soon discovered we weren’t. Dinah spent almost 30 minutes in a shoe store and an extra 15 minutes in Hobby Lobby after I left the store. I had to do some serious self-talk to keep myself focused and some of it was out loud, alone, in the car.

I’ll skip to the important part.

We found the right headboard at the right price, I was patient, I affirmed her choice, and made it my mission to get it to the house before the store closed (which meant borrowing a truck, etc.), and set up. We ate lunch and had a wonderful afternoon – mostly because I made the (wise) choice to let the experience be about us and not about me.

I was especially proud of myself when, at the end of the day, I didn’t use the “you got a new headboard, so I get a new iPhone 6s Plus, right?” line.

Blessings,

Pastor Mark

I don’t like to fly commercially. I’m not afraid to fly and if I must I will.

It’s not the flying that bothers me; it’s the screaming, crashing, and burning I don’t think I’d like.

I do like flying in a small plane. I know the outcome could be the same, but at least I wouldn’t hear the screaming as long and it would just be me and a couple other people saying good-bye.

Recently, a friend in our church took me for a plane ride from the Allen Co. airport to Ft. Wayne (and back, no saying good-bye this trip!). We flew to New Haven, Indiana so I could take pictures of the Norfolk Southern rail yard and I had a BIG GOOD TIME!   My friend is an experienced pilot and I wasn’t the least bit nervous. The flight was smooth as silk and it was super cool to fly over the wind turbines near Van Wert.

When we allow God to be the pilot of our lives He takes us to HIS perspectives and vantage points. Our church has been praying for the agricultural families of our region because of the rain last spring where crops either didn’t get planted or were badly damaged. Seeing the damage from the air helped me better understand their loss and stress.

The next time someone needs your understanding and compassion you might put on their shoes and walk a mile, or just think from above what it must look and feel like to them.

Altitude really does influence attitude.

Blessings,

Pastor Mark

I had an interesting conversation with my dad over lunch last Sunday.

He asked why Mr. and Mrs. _________ left our church. I told him that if there were negative reasons, I wasn’t aware them. I told him the majority of people who leave churches to attend somewhere else don’t say goodbye in person, by phone, or by email. I generally follow up to see what’s up (especially when I know they are attending somewhere else – pastors are a close knit bunch!). In my experience, people simply moved on and I know for a fact there was no crisis situation that was a catalyst for their attending somewhere else.

Sometimes I don’t follow up because the reason they left wasn’t something I could fix for them. If they didn’t like the music, preaching, temperature, seating, not friendly enough, etc. – I simply encourage them to find a place they can be happy.

Union Chapel is a very healthy place, but since the church of Jesus Christ is made up of imperfect people and the pastor is, at times, one of the most imperfect – things occasionally get sticky. Some people say “God is leading me to another place”, but most of the time it’s what I call “conflict evasion.” Conflict is both natural and essential in the church. Relationships that work through conflict often have deeper roots than those who cut and run. And hear this – there IS a time to cut and run, there’s just too much of it happening. Give your pastor a common courtesy – if you want to leave, need to leave, find something better somewhere else, tell him. I’ve had people tell me that my preaching style didn’t work for them. I deeply appreciated the truth. Yes, it hurt a little – but not everyone likes their steak medium-rare.

Let me add one other thought in light of the many changes taking place in our culture. If your church stops preaching, teaching, and living the Bible and the historical orthodoxy it reveals – THAT’S a good reason to leave, AFTER you’ve tried to help it steer the right course.

Blessings,

Pastor Mark

Dinah and I celebrated our 42^nd wedding anniversary recently and what follows are a few thoughts about marriage. I understand a little about marriage, but I won’t go so far as to say I understand women.

I am amazed that we have traded places on some things. She used to be more of a spender and me the saver – now I’m the spender and she’s the saver. I’m guessing that’s called self-preservation if something happens to me!

I’m amazed on how our thermostats have synchronized over the last 10 years. Just about the time I’m going to say I’m too warm she turns the thermostat down or if she’s too cold and I get up to turn it up.

I’m also amazed at how different we still are. I need people. She’s more introverted. I like cars. She’s a “cars are for getting from point A to point B” type of person. I’m an otter/golden retriever. Dinah is a lion/beaver. On paper it shouldn’t work – but it does!

I know some couples who can finish each other’s sentences. We don’t do that much, but we do sometimes have trouble finishing our sentences and when that happens we look at each other and laugh. I think it may be early onset of old age.

Perhaps most importantly, we’ve both found – through the great and not-so-great times – that our love is deeper and more meaningful as each year goes by!

And as Dinah says: “It’s taken me 42 years to train you and I don’t have enough time left to even think about trying to train someone else.”

Now I know why she wants me to exercise and eat right!

Blessings,

Pastor Mark

I was sitting in a local business’s waiting room recently.  The business is owned by a Christian, but not just for Christians.  As I was waiting, a gentleman entered and started handing out Christian tracks.  He politely asked if individuals would like to talk about God or Heaven.  A young man so ‘no thanks’, but politely took the track.  Then he went to a woman who seemed annoyed and rejected the track.  Her husband said ‘no’ as well.  The witness said the track used the King James Bible.  Well that led to a little ‘debate’ (somewhat heated) because they didn’t think the KJV was the authoritative Word of God, but written with errors & their Bible (I think American Standard) was THE Word of God.  To make the story shorter, the man left and ‘agreed to disagree’; but he left and said that he believed the 1st church (the ones the disciples began) was a Baptist church.

I share this story with you because 2 things about Evangelism stood out to me that day.

1) Don’t argue with your teammates.  He was trying to share the Good News.  Even though they disagreed on the ‘best’ translation of the Bible, everyone in the waiting room heard the argument and probably didn’t realize they were on the same team.  We are all sharing a testimony about God, our church, our beliefs. What are you portraying?

2) As this man came in and started witnessing, my first thought was ‘how productive is this type of evangelism?’  I was like, “why are you wasting your time”.  Then, God smacked me upside the head. He reminded me that AT LEAST THIS GUY WAS TRYING.  What was I doing?  I was busy working on some things for camp – a good thing, but not sharing about God’s Love.

Pastor Brent