What a catchy title! Wouldn’t you say? Over the last eleven years of pastoral ministry, there have been times where I discovered that I’m human. I hate it when that happens, too. But I have to give credit to pastors because until you wear the shoes and drink the punch, you can’t know the depth of exasperation that comes in the phrase, “I’m killing myself for these people…” That’s a very human moment. It means we see the reality that we have one life to live and that life is passing — many times faster than we had hoped. Pastors are real people too (start playing nice music here).
I remember thinking about five years ago how fast “ministry” would come at me and saying, “Don’t answer the phone, I haven’t had time to nurse my wounds from the last battle.” Often, this struggle has been magnified and multiplied by the speed of the information age. In other words, somebody fires-off an “offended email” at you and if you don’t respond within the day, they’re offended all over again because you’re ignoring them and their problem. This usually isn’t the case, it’s that you need a couple days to just think through how to honor the Lord in the situation and respond to them in a good way. But, if you do that, you start receiving calls from other people who they’ve called or Skyped all over the world about their issue. Technology and speed are great - sometimes.
Please understand that this is just one illustration of the many pressures that we face that come with the Calling. And, please know that I know that everybody has stress and pressure wherever they work and live — because that’s life. Ok, with that concession, I’m referencing life from the special role that I’ve been able to play in it. The point is that in this line of life-work, there can be a great build-up of continuous pressure to accomplish, complete, and please both projects and people. As one author put it, we get the incredible feeling of “hyper-responsibility”. And for some time, I lived under that immense load…
Until I discovered the gift of the Sabbath. Don’t miss the p
oint here — I knew the command of the Sabbath was in the Bible. But sadly, I had been taught or the Sabbath had been portrayed in a “secondary/non-important” light. “It was for the Jews, you know, pre-Jesus.” Oh, how much life-joy was missing in the years that it was “ok” to ignore the Sabbath. What many Christians don’t see today is that the Sabbath was a Creation thing of time. It was placed into the Creation-order. This means it was given to mankind to know his Creator. Man was created Friday. On Saturday, he rested — very first thing to do opportunity to know.
As our family has weekly received the gift of the Sabbath from the Father for some time now, it’s been on my heart to write about different nuggets and treasures that we’ve gathered from its joy and study. So, I think I’ll start the series, “I Refuse to Kill Myself” as a Shabat-joy series to share what I’ve learned about my Creator. Thank Goodness that Italy is a “slow” country where that slow-ness actually helps us in this journey of discovery. I feel bad for those of you in the States who will have to work stop extra hard.
Today is our day-off or Sabbath and I wanted to take just a few minutes to catch you up on some of our family happenings. I’ll work backwards from yesterday for a couple weeks.
Yesterday, Reilly rode his bike without training wheels for the first time. Dad was so proud and relieved to not have to run beside him any more while trying to wheeze encouragement. Some dads reading this are smiling right now at the thought.
On Resurrection Sunday, our Church celebrated the Living King with praise, Word, and beauty. A number of fellows (our assistants — I actually have a ministry staff now which has been a great treat) worked for a couple of weeks prior to prepare for this wonderful day. The grounds at our Church property were fantastic. The guys helped contractors put in a whole new fence to secure the property (moving tons of dirt, trees, and roots in the process), manicured the lawn and grounds, setup tents and tables for a fantastic outdoor family picnic, and painted the nursery. They did a great job. We had a number of visitors from all different nationalities, and we shared a ton of food together. It really turned-out well. My favorite part was the opportunity to teach on the doctrine of the Resurrection. In other words, I reveled in the opportunity to lay-out the Gospel and its power to change lives forever. The Resurrection brings meaning and significance to the Cross. They are fully dependent on each other. Without the Resurrection, the Cross becomes a hollow hate-crime of history and without the Cross, the Resurrection becomes completely selfish — only accomplishing life over death for one. Praise God He knows how to fulfill His promises — all of them.
Last week, we flew to Germany on Tuesday and returned on Saturday evening just before Resurrection Sunday. You can imagine the preparation that went in to making that happen smoothly. We went to Germany for a few reasons. First, we went to see our great friends, Paul and Jana Shankle. These guys were our support-network for the week ahead and we are very grateful for their help and care.
We also went to partake in a memorial service dedicated to our good friend and Church member, Troy Gilbert (see my “Tribute to Troy” post about his life and death in combat over Iraq). That happened at the high school in Bitburg, Germany where Troy graduated. We prepared for the official ceremony on Wednesday and then conducted it on Thursday. It was an outdoor ceremony and the weather was beautiful with a light breeze and cotton-ball clouds seemingly bouncing off of the rolling green hills in front of us. Our close friends Allan and Lenora Woodcock participated in the memorial and also asked me to make a speech. My Church members were in awe when they heard my speech was only 4 minutes, but I won’t waste more space about that here. 
The real blessing was that I was able to share the Truth of Jesus Christ evident in Troy’s life throughout my whole speech. If you’re interested in reading a copy of it — send me an email and I’ll drop it in your inbox. It should take you about 4 minutes to read.
Lenora gave a wonderful speech just before mine and Allan (call-sign = Woody) led the formation of F-16’s in the missing-man formation above us at the final note of Taps. Woody, Lenora, and Troy were all active members of our Church. In fact, Woody and Lenora were the leaders of the small group that Troy & Ginger were a part of while here. Another special point is that the missing-man fly-by was part of Woody’s fini-flight which was his last operational flight as commander of the 23rd Flying Hawks fighter-squadron. The Lord has kept Woody safe through two wars and many deployments in his 20 years of flying for the Air Force.
The next day (Friday), we attended and celebrated Woody’s change-of-command ceremony and then went to lunch together overlooking a beautiful valley on the Rhine river. These are special memories for us. I’ll try to upload some pictures of these events and friends in the gallery soon.
In the weeks prior, we’ve been very active in the teaching and administration of the ministries in the Church. Also, construction on our Church property began in March which gave us yet another hat to wear - general contractor. In high school, my pastor often said, “The mission field is where the adventure is…”
