"Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen, such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth."
(John Wesley letter to Alex Mather, August 6, 1777)

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Gardening

Wow! It has been a while since I last posted a message. It has been a busy summer so far. My secular office has been blessed with plenty of work and my service at the church really has kept me jumping. I have been invited to attend Tuesday staff meetings and have extended my office hours at the church to most of the day on Thursday. I have been blessed to serve on Sunday mornings and assist in worship. Generally, the pastors are seeing to my development and growth in ministry. We now have our new church plant minister on board and she has been meeting and planning with us. We are headed to “boot camp” next month to learn the details of planting a new church. You can imagine how excited we are. Certified Lay Ministry has been all that I thought it might be, and so much more.

This summer seems different than others. Perhaps it is because the heat is not as bad. The fields are still green and the earth is not thirsting as it did last year. Our little garden at home was successful and we are still eating some of the vegetables we grew. When my wife reads this, she will ask “We?” Yes, she did most of the work. But as we prepared and planted this spring, I was listening to my Ipod as I did my part, and I still had Christmas music in the mix. I asked my Facebook friends if the liturgical police were going to come and get me. It just seemed so right to listen to the music of the birth story as we tilled and planted. I was assured that Christmas music is pretty good much of the year, and we planted our watermelons to the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas album.

The garden had the usual share of insects and things that needed some spraying or dusting, but not too much. Henrietta took up residence nearby and had her nest of baby cottontail rabbits. Any creature that hangs out long enough around here will get a name. They did not eat much. As the weeks went by, tomatoes, beans, peppers, squash, watermelons and her little herb garden produced and kept our table nicely filled. Already, Janice is thinking about the fall garden. I have found that when you garden, there is always something to plan and do and for the most part, it is very pleasant work.

Lay ministry is much the same. It is such a pleasant way to serve God. There is always some work that needs to be done, and most of the work is very agreeable. Sometimes, the unexpected will show up, like our little brood of rabbits did around the garden, and we just enjoy the fun. Vacation Bible School was like that. The theme was “Galactic Blast” and our choirmaster wore a NASA spacesuit. Janice and I took up an outpost in the orbital observatory and led 90+ kids in experiments and Scripture for a while each evening. Of course, we had many, many folks in the church helping out with VBS. We were all really tired each evening, but we praised God as the kids (big and little) grew in understanding and faith. Just like Janice is planning our little fall garden, the church staff is busy planning our fall “back to school” and “back to church” activities, our stewardship campaign, some new classes and all sorts of way to be in mission locally and beyond.

I hope that your ministries are also bearing fruit this summer. And I surely hope that all of you are having some fun. Some time with family, friends and the kids; some time at church, in mission and in the Scriptures. We help grow the Kingdom one smile at a time.

Joy!

Bill