Called to Preach

Grandson Tristan with his Grammy on Christmas afternoon

It was last Monday morning. I was working away on the last bits of my Christmas Eve messages and just preparing to start work on my Sunday message when I received a most unexpected email from our 18 year old grandson, Tristan.

"Dear Grandad, our family is considering visiting a new church for Christmas Eve service this year but I really don't want to go somewhere we've never been.  Could you give me some help with writing a sermon so I could lead our family in our own service right here at home?"  Wow.  Could I!

An hour or so, dozens of site links and about 5 pages of email later I sent him my 'help'.

On Christmas day he was more than kind as he thanked me for the assistance. However what I heard from him and the family about the service was that it was created with input from all of them and was led by the Holy Spirit.  You can't get a better worship service, in my opinion, than that.

The five of them, Jenn, Chris, Kaream and Khalif with Tristan leading had prayers, readings, songs, the sermon, and communion (Yes, communion. Amazing that you can have a real communion service without an apostolic descendant initiating the sacrament, isn't it?). Tristan even went his grandad one better and wore a robe and stole!  His Hempfield High School graduation robe and a stole his last pastor gave him when he joined that church. I wear neither.

When Tristan was a baby, and later a toddler, his Great Grandpa Snyder told us and him that he was destined to be a pastor.  Some years ago he actually explored the idea a bit and spent time with me and the pastor whose stole he would eventually be given.  To my knowledge this Christmas Eve was the first time he led worship and preached.

Only God, and Tristan, knows.  I thought I was being called into ministry when I was 18.  Then I learned you had to take 7 years of college and seminary before donning the robe and stole.  Later our good friend Laverne Buckwalter told me that he knew I was going to be a pastor. And that was while I was in the midst of denying the reality of Jesus Christ as God. Then, well, you know the rest of this story.

God has a way of reaching into our lives and calling us forward when His time is right.  Then the Holy Spirit just grabs our hearts and we ride that wonderful wave of light called Shekinah into the future.

Hangin' ten with Jesus, and the surf is UP!

-Ken

In one week- Christmas will be over

In seven days this may be the scene at your house.  Or maybe a couple of days later.  Either way, Christmas will be over.

Or will it?

It all depends on what Christmas means to you.

The Christmas meaning TEST:

-When December One arrives do you begin to hyper-ventilate over all the gifts you have to buy or get all giggly inside over being able to give anything, especially your own made gifts, to people you love?
-When December 15 arrives do you fall into bed exhausted from parties you HAD to go to and decorating, meals, stuff you HAD to do or do you fall into bed feeling ready to sleep well so you can rise tomorrow to more blessings from God?
-When you realize you'll never have enough money to buy what you want to give do you max out the card or get creative making personal cards, poems, pictures, ornaments?
-When Christmas Eve arrives are you happy to be going to church, visiting family and friends, or focusing on what cousin whoever will do this year that will offend you?
-When Christmas Day is over will you thank God that it's over or thank God that today is another opportunity to celebrate Christmas all over again?

Yes Virginia, Christmas really is all about attitude.  Yours. Your attitude to the season and your belief in not just the meaning of the holiday, but the Jesus who made it possible.

Matthew 11: 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

-Ken

Blue Christmas

This afternoon several of our local churches came together at St. Paul's UCC in Birdsboro to offer our community a Blue Christmas Service.  It was a quiet, somber, liturgical time for all who gathered who were grieving, hurting, or in any way feeling the weight of Christmas instead of the joy. I pray all who came left uplifted.

We offered a few Blue Christmas Services at Hope Church over the years. I had heard of them back at Wesley Seminary in my summer Course Of Study days and always said that if the Lord blessed us with a church building of our own this would be one of the 'new' services I would like to start.

I had no personal reasons to feel the need of a Blue Service myself, but by the time we did have our own building (2003) I had led too many funerals and been part of too many breaking relationships not to know it would be needed.  At first, they were well received, with twenty or so coming out annually.  then fifteen, then ten, and finally, two.  And those two pretty much came because they wanted to support the four or so of us who were offering the service.  That was three years ago.  This was the first chance I had to participate in a Blue Christmas Service since then.  And I discovered something which I shared with all gathered as I introduced our communion together.

Just being there this afternoon, in a service that honestly was not my style (Taize music, written liturgies and prayers) I found myself drawn to God and to the memories of so many who I have known but can no longer see in this world.  Of course, those of my own family, but a pastor gets so intimately involved with the families of those she or he buries. And as I led our Eucharist I felt the presence of all those who have gone before.

This was not a heavy presence, but a restful one.  I felt the peace of those I was pretty sure knew the Lord when they had died,  I felt my peace for those I could not be more sure of, that I had indeed done all I could for them and their families to be sure they had a chance to really know the Lord before they died. 

We had a death in a close family of the church this week.  And a suicide attempt by one of our young twenty-somethings. The grief these events bring, especially in such a contrasting time that should be all joy, is heart-breaking.

But today I was glad to feel restfully at peace with God, for those families and all the others I know and have known. Thank you Jesus, for taking the burdens each of us choose to give up, and for the best rest of all  when we do.

-Ken

What can one person do?

Check out this news article from October 2013:

http://news.yahoo.com/sam-childers-machine-gun-preacher-receive-mother-teresa-130000231.html

Read about this church just miles from Shanksville and the Flight 93 Memorial:

http://www.machinegunpreacher.org/the-shekinah-fellowship-church/

Watch this movie about a man who is far from being a pacifist but has brought peace, out of his own war with himself, to more child victims of the civil wars of Sudan, and those in need from his own Central City Pa to around the world.

http://www.machinegunpreacher.org/movie/

This is no superman.  Sam is no wonder worker, though some of those Sudanese kids have grown up thinking so.  He is a man who believes what he is called to do he must do, because God is the one doing the calling.

---

When I watched the 2011 movie based on Sam Childer's life, I felt both anguish that God's work, in this case, seemed to require that violence be met with violence.  But violent or no Sam has made huge differences in the lives of thousands, even far beyond Sudan.

As I've reviewed his life online and elsewhere I've felt guilt that I, a person also called of God, have spent my life often caring for my own family, or even myself, when perhaps with more effort for others I could have done more, touched more, for Jesus Christ.  So I thank God that He is not through with me yet.

To some extent that is why Mona and I see God moving us now into both a life of personal and spiritual adventure on the road. We believe God has something more for us to do beyond retire to a beach.  But we trust He will direct us to a few beaches also.

Sam's story is not a model for how a Christian should answer God's call.  That call is always very personal and very different for each believer (think Moses versus Jonah). But his story, told in graphic and bloody truth in the movie and his own book, illustrate for me that each and every one of us have something very special to give to the world we live in which only comes from God.  Maybe we have a skill with machine guns to stop violent people doing awful things. Or maybe we are gifted with the ability to bring peace through simple prayer when the meeting, or the challenge, meets a wall.

Sam's story makes me think that words can make a difference, and actions make more.  Our road trip is an action beyond words. Where is God taking you in 2014?  What is the gift you have which God needs you to share?

-Ken

Finally... I prayed

Why?  Oh why do we so often go to the Lord with our needs FINALLY, instead of FIRST?  But, we do.

A family is wracked by the pain of divorce, a job is lost and Christmas is coming, your car breaks down for the umpteenth time, you have a week to go in the month and your budget runs out today.  In these and countless other examples of 'NEEDS', not wants, we all too often curse, shout, grumble, complain, Facebook and then, when all else fails, as of course it will, we pray.

There is a simple and trustworthy text in Scripture that I have locked into my memory to help me avoid this mistake.  And if I can memorize anything, I'm believing you can too.

It's the text I'll be sharing this week at Hope Church where the Finance Team has asked me to speak in a mission moment to the congregation about our most current financial challenge.  It's a text I'll use when Mona and I are living on the road and the diesel conks out on the motor coach.  It's the text David, the king of the nation of Israel, wrote down for every generation of kings and paupers that follow to remember and believe when he was in the midst of his own grief and loss.

It's...
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

IF we believe this is true...
IF we live as though we believe it...
Then...

God will care for our churches, and my, finances.
God will care for my mechanical breakdowns.
God will care for my family, and me, even if I can't.

Why?

Because God IS my shepherd, and I am a sheep of His pasture.  And in Him, I shall not want.

Amen.

-Ken

NO Christmas decorations at DeWalts??

For the first time since 1950...

...there are NO Christmas decorations in Ken DeWalt's home. None.

WHAT!?

No Christmas decor in the home of a guy who spent the 25 years before going into ministry managing, purchasing, importing and laying out retail Christmas merchandise? No Christmas tree, lights or packages for the kid who spent his first 22 years loving the Christmas season as his HAP-HAP-HAPPIEST TIME of the year?  That's right. None.

Why!?

Well, I'll tell ya'. And it has nothing to do with my theology, buying habits or decorative taste. It's all about FOCUS.  You see, as Mona and I approached this Christmas season, with all of our own preparations for selling Mona's store, my retirement in June 2014, selling the house, selling off or giving away 99% of all we own, buying a smaller car and a much smaller home (on wheels), Whew!!, Decorating for the HOLY-DAYS just went farther and farther down on our to-do list.  And now... it's fallen right off the page.

It's not that we don't like decorations anymore.  We LOVE to see our neighbors lights, the churches garlands and poinsettias, and I still have to walk through any store's Christmas display just to see what's new. But with no one planning to spend Christmas at our home this year we are sorta-kinda enjoying our own focus on the changes happening in our lives and the fact that we won't have to take down all the decs before we leave to pick up the motor coach in Mobile, Alabama come New Year's Eve. Life has gotten a tad less complicated even though a bit less colorful at the DeWalt home.  And then there's Jesus.

Now please understand, no one with my pre-ministry background could ever think decorating to celebrate Jesus' birthday was a bad idea. But I have to say, not decorating has put a whole new perspective on the season into me. Not decorating means I'm spending some additional time in the Word this year.  No lights to put up means I'm thinking a little more about what Christmas really means to me. No Rudolph or Moravian Star in the front yard means I'm not looking over my decs and comparing them to other's in some semi-unconscious competition to feel superior without letting on (yes- I have done that in past years- semi-consciously).  But mostly I'm finding joy in this, my last Christmas season at Hope Church, in some simpler things.  

The carol we sang this morning in worship seemed holier.  The 'Nativity Story' movie we watched together Saturday evening was more meaningful. My conversations in front of Mona's fireplace without the tree seem closer and more personal: not about the tree, but about us.

In short, I feel personally closer to Mona, Jesus Christ, and Christmas this year than, perhaps, I have ever been.

Hmmm.  Maybe the Grinch didn't do the Who's any favors by bringing back Whoville's lights, trees and presents.  After all, they seemed to be celebrating Christmas quite well well that Christmas morning with no Christmas pantookas and woozles before he showed up!

Just sayin'!  :)

-Ken

Facts or theories?

More years ago than I like to consider I learned that dinosaurs were cold blooded lizards with scaly skin and rock hard bones.  Today Mona and I visited the Philadelphia Natural Science Museum just off Logan Circle to see the butterfly house and the audio-animatronic (to steal Walt Disney's word for it) animated Dinosaur display.  What I learned set me back a pace or two.

Some years ago I'd heard that dinosaurs were possibly the ancestors of our birds. However newer evidence of feathers (quill indentations in newly discovered fossilized skin fragments) on infant and even some full grown beasts indicated that feathers, like the ones depicted on the Allosaur shown above were useful in regulating temperature for their bodies. Even stranger to me was the information that many dinosaur bones are actually hollow, even as bird bones are, as a way to lower the tremendous mass of their body weight, and to balance them for faster movement and super-quick turns. As the movie 'Jurassic Park' showed, trying to outrun a T-Rex can be fatal. Oh, and their blood, as known today, was more warm than cold.  They aren't even correctly classed as lizards anymore, though the full name of Tyrannosaurus Rex means 'King of the Thunder Lizards'.

So why spend two paragraphs in a spiritual blog discussing paleontology? Because in today's learning I also gained fresh education in the wonder of God's universe!  Not just because if dinosaurs exist at all they do so only because God created them, whenever He chose to do so.  No,  because I once more saw evidence of scientific 'fact' which I had been tested on in class at D A Marshall Elementary School which was now, due to new information gleaned through hard research and sweaty field study, proved WRONG.

My grandfather, the Reverend J. Fred Andreas, itinerated up and down the Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania for over forty years. He preached, along with eternal salvation in only Jesus Christ, against the 'absolute facts' of Darwin's various theories of evolution, many of which have been found false or at least in need of serious reconsideration by new scientists in the last one hundred years.

I grew up hearing of the failure of recovery by drug and alcohol addicts except through 'modern, scientific methods' only to learn in my last thirty years of the best and most successful anti-addiction process on the planet: Teen Challenge. Now with addiction recovery centers in dozens of country's, and several within a day's drive of my home this solidly Christ based teaching regimen combined with a ten Commandments based lifestyle beats hollow all recidivism rates of every other known secular, scientific program in existence.

And today I, as a pastor soon to retire in this the early 21st century see kids growing up in my own neighborhood who have no connection to any place of Christian Biblical learning because their parents say 'science has replaced religion'. Then a couple of years later those same parents often wonder why their kids have not done well even though they gave them every prescribed medicine and sports club advantage but no moral compass to live into adulthood by.

I found myself chuckling in wonder today in the museum, the oldest natural history museum in the United States, as I saw once again that what science says is absolute is never without change at least one generation to the next.  What I saw was that all the energy we Christians expend arguing with secularists over the truth of Scripture is wasted air and should be devoted to simply teaching the love of Christ in our own word and deed for the scientists, secularists, and atheists will, of their own accord, (indeed they are by argumentative nature forced into it), be damning many of the discoveries of their father's day to oblivion as they learn new 'facts' of science tomorrow.

Dinosaurs had feathers, not scales. Jesus the Christ was a historical man not an imaginary magician. And I can trust God's Word to get me through the next day better than I can any scientific tome.

PS:  I learned something else today which interested me personally.  There never was a Brontosaurus. The lovable huge beastie I first came nose to toe with at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC in 1957 (see the pic below) was an amalgam of several skeletons found a bit close together and a head that came from a completely different animal!

I sleep well knowing that God has the world and all creation in His hands, and we humans haven't been able to wrench it from him at all.

-Ken

Freedom

How freeing is the verse above about freedom.  No matter where we are, no matter what we are doing, there the Spirit of the Lord is, and a choice open to us in every situation to CHOOSE freedom.  freedom from sins we might be about to commit. Freedom from saintly acts we might be about to ignore.  Freedom everywhere if we choose it.

In the same paragraph that Paul is speaking of this access to freedom he is also speaking about his own kindred race; the Hebrew leaders of his time and their own patriarch of all time, Moses. Moses, he says, knew no freedom in the Lord.  He only knew the law.  He covered his face so the radiance God gave him as a sign of this freedom would not frighten those who saw him each time he came out from God's presence.

We who come after the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ know better.  We are to let our light shine! As a beacon to others of our freedom.  As a sign to all that the glow on our face is not frightening, but attracting.

May your glow shine forth as a light to your neighbors: at home and at work, in the store and even at church.  'Shine, Jesus, Shine!'...  FREELY through us!

-Ken