A humbling moment, thanks to all

Last Wednesday was one of the highest moments in my professional life, it was an unexpected honor I received from the Dept. of Human Services of Venango County.  They held an annual awards dinner and chose me to receive the Outstanding Service to Others award from the Office of Economic Opportunity and Children and Youth Services.  Having lived here in Venango County for only a year and a half, I was certainly surprised to have been noticed beyond others who have toiled in this field far longer.  There would be no opportunity for this award if my church and my board didn't support me 100% in outreach efforts beyond our congregation, nor would I be able to do so without the support of my loving wife, Nicole, or the rest of my family, especially my father Walt and my mother Kathy.  In addition, I'm supported here in this ministry effort very capably by my office manager, Cheryl Rila. 
From the day I arrived here in Franklin I knew that something was different.  The years I spent hoping and praying for an opportunity to minister more while living back in Michigan were no more; instead, people were looking to me for leadership on several ecumenical outreach efforts.  It was during the third meeting of the Chilren's Roundtable that I had attended since moving here that one of its principal supporters, CYS solicitor Bill Cisek, asked me to "take over" the discussion about what the churches might be able to do to help partner with the Human Services dept.  Thus my involvement in Mustard Seed Missions, as it came to be know, was born.  Not by some grand plan of my own, but by a simple opportunity that presented itself to do what God would want any of his ministers to do; help those in need.  God bless everyone involved in the effort here in Venango County to make our churches known for what our faith causes us to DO.

The picture is of me receiving the award from Judge Lobaugh, another of the instrumental local government officials who have shown such amazing trust of our local churches.  Four incredible things have happened here:
1. The government agencies trust churches to help
2. The churches trust the government enough to be willing to help.
3. The communities of this county are working together for the common good.
4. The churches of this county are working together for the common good.

Providential "coincidence"

I received a call in my office today from the local pregnancy outreach group, ABC (a group that does amazing work helping pregnant women and young mothers) about a need for a ride right now for someone from a hospital in Pittsburgh back to Oil City.  If someone from here were to leave not, it would take a little over an hour to get there.  I talked to the person in need, not thinking that any answer could be found on such short notice, until my brain remembered something I had heard earlier today.  My neighbor, and good friend of Nicole and I, Pastor Jeff Little (1st UMC), was in Pittsburgh today for a denominational meeting; could it be that he hadn't started to drive back yet??
I quickly called Jeff and found out that he had just stopped at a gas station prior to leaving to come back; yikes!  Talk about a God thing, I know that sometimes things don't work out no matter how hard we try, and yet there are times like this that a solution just seems to fall into our laps.  Of course, it required someone like Jeff to be willing to be the hands/feet of Christ.  How many times are we left stymied because nobody answers the call?  I guess it's a good thing I called Jeff this morning to see if he would join Nicole and I for a movie tonight; God is good.

It's a small world after all

We had visiting missionaries here to talk about there work this past week at First Baptist: Dave and Joyce Briley who since 1975 have been working through Wycliffe Bible Translators with the Bauzi people of Papua, Indonesia to translate the Bible into their native tongue.  When Dave and Joyce arrived to work with the Bauzi,(who live in a dozen or so villages spread out over a large section of jungle, perhaps 2,000 people in all) they had no way of even asking the question, "what's the name of this?".  They had to learn the language from scratch, one word at a time, eventually figuring out enough of it to begin the laborious process of translating the Bible.  There was just one catch, the Bauzi language was unwritten.  So, Dave and Joyce first had to create a phonetic alphabet for the Bauzi, 6 vowels and 9 consonants, as it turned out, and then teach some of the native Bauzi to read and write.  After that came the process of trying to understand this language well enough to translate directly from the original Greek and Hebrew of the Bible while making the finished product sound authentic in the ears of the people.  Is it any wonder that it took them over 30 years to translate the New Testament?  If it were not for their single-minded dedication, the Bauzi people would not be in possession this day of God's Word.
This scene has been, and is being, repeated all over the corners of the world where there are still peoples without access to the Bible in their own native tongue (their "heart" language to those working in translations).  Thankfully, the day is coming soon when the task will be completed and each and every language spoken on Earth will have access to the story of God's redemptive love through Christ Jesus.
While my wife and I were eating dinner with the Briley's after church, I asked if they had by any chance run across one of my favorite authors, Jared Diamond, who I knew had spent considerable time in Papua and New Guinea looking for rare birds.  As it happens, Jared had come to them in the past looking for locals to help him find some birds (I asked them to get his autograph should he stop by again).  Jared Diamond is the author of, "Guns, Germs, and Steel", a fascinating book on why Western Europeans came to dominate the globe and not peoples of some other land.  The answer given by Diamond, one of resources and inherent advantages in the geography, animals, and foodstuffs, instead of the implied or outright racism of past analysis of the subject, was a refreshing contribution to anthropology and history.  Needless to say, as a history geek, I'm a fan.  To top it off, I was taking a walk with a local man named Abe today, (he stops by from time to time to chew the fat) and the subject of Native Americans came up (he has Indian ancestry), so of course I recommended he read Jared Diamond's book.  It is a small world after all.

Sermon Video: "defending and confirming the gospel" Philippians 1:7

As the opening to Paul's letter to the church in Philippi continues, he tells the church that his feelings of joy regarding their success is the proper response.  Paul feels not only the pride of seeing a church he founded doing well, but also the sense of partnership that comes from knowing that he and they share in the same grace of God.  All those who participate in the body of Christ through faith share in the same brotherhood, whether they be part of a local church body or missionaries on a foreign field like Paul.  It is this equal partnership that provides the support and vitality that both churches and mission efforts require to survive long-term.  For Paul it didn't matter if his message was received with the joy of the people of Philippi, or the violence that he found on many occasions, the mission was paramount, people needed to hear the message of the Gospel.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video

Paradise is Lost and it isn't coming back on its own

My wife and I spent the afternoon hiking in Oil Creek State Park, enjoying God's wondrous creation and spending some quality time alone.  It was just the sort of thing I need to recharge my batteries and begin another week of ministry.  As we drove home from the park I switched on ESPN radio only to hear the President talking about some bombing.  Moments later the news of the Boston Marathon bombing confirmed once again that evil has no bounds, nor does it understand pity or mercy.  Once again Mankind's inhumanity was on display, the peaceful woods and babbling streams were forgotten, replaced by an act of terror.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of this senseless violence and to their families.
As my wife and I talked about today's act of terrorism, I commented that this sort of thing is never going to go away.  Even if 99.99% of the world is convinced that such acts are cowardly and evil it only takes the 0.01% to kill.  There's no going back to the days we thought of as innocent.  But were they really; was the Cold War more civil than the chaos we see on display now, has humanity ever set aside war to choose peace?
Last night I was watching the Vikings on The History Channel.  For the people of Medieval England, the terror lay across the sea, with the unknown barbarian peoples.  No villager, ignorant of what lay more than a day's walk from where he grew up could feel confident that a marauding horde was not on its way.  In a sense, terror lay outside of the known, it was the unknown that caused fear.
In our world today there are no longer any barbarian peoples, the edges of the maps have all been filled in.  We can no longer blame the inhumanity on display each day on "them".  Terrorism isn't simply international, it is also domestic.  The words of William Golding continue to ring true from The Lord of the Flies, "the beast is us".
And so I begin another week of striving to mend what others have broken, a week of helping the weak and powerless, a week of bringing hope through forgiveness.  If I did not have confidence that Christ would one day rectify this world's evils, that a final judgment will indeed come, how could I continue trying to do my small part against the "reckless hate" (to steal a line from Theoden in Two Towers) that no longer hides beyond the edges of the map?  But we do have hope, we do have faith, this world is not all there is, God will bring judgment upon those who do such evil, in this world or the next.