Serve by Design

After getting home from another graveside service yesterday, one of our grown children exclaimed, “Dad you seem to have had a lot of funerals lately!” And it is true that I have had a funeral and committal service three out of the last four weeks. Sadly, this has happened many times over the past fifty years in my pastoral ministry! This is just another season in our church life! Image: adobestock.com As we continued to discuss the frequency of these recent deaths in our church, even the funeral director remarked, “As care pastor, I’m sure you keep quite busy officiating funerals in such a large congregation!” And I agreed, while noting that our two full-time pastors are also ministering to several families dealing with loss and grief. Not all of these have been with older adults either. Our community has also dealt with the loss of some precious children. But it was one of our middle-aged sons who thoughtfully remarked with this probing question from his experience in large city chu...

After all these years, I am still filled with joy and feel a childlike giddiness when I see one of God’s colorful “bows” arcing across the sky. I can’t count how many times I have invited family and friends to come to the window or step outside to see the unfolding drama in God’s message of hope in a rainbow arcing across the sky! God's Handiwork! Our son recently sent me a picture that perfectly captures God’s creative handwork in a beautiful rainbow. As is typical, a thunderstorm and downpour drenched his neighborhood. He and his daughter had stepped out the front door to survey for any wind damage. Looking up, they beheld the stunning perfection of dazingly colors in layers of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Many of us have heard about the science of rainbows. Simply stated, they develop as light from the sun is refracted through the water droplets after a rain. Mathematicians add that rainbows are all about geometry. They occur when the sun is low in the...

Our granddaughter, Eloise, has a beautiful and fun-loving sister, Charlotte, whom she adores! Charlotte is eight years old and prefers to go by the shortened version of her name, Char. She is the youngest child of her family and has lots of energy and cuteness! We have seen her in action at gymnastics demonstrations. I can personally attest to Char’s athleticism. She can sprint about “faster than a jackrabbit” in sandals and then kick them off and upward with unusual ease and force! 😊 "A child shall lead them" Char is a cheerleader for the happiness of others. At the end of the school year and the beginning of June, she went to work on her chalkboard easel. She creatively sketched a message with images that embrace the summer season. Then she carried the message board out to the sidewalk to encourage all those passing by her house. Sometimes, you’ll see a lemonade stand in front of a house, but this time, it was just a simple and positive message: “Happy June! Happy Summer! ...

We recently celebrated what would have been the ninth birthday of our beloved granddaughter, Kayley Janelle. She was only given to her family for a fleeting time of about sixty days before a severe heart defect and catastrophic stroke prematurely shut down her precious little life. Every time we visit the cemetery we are painfully reminded of how we would have loved on and delighted in her! Kayley's Ninth Birthday! On this occasion, we brought a special dessert drink with whipped topping from the local coffee shop. It was our way of commemorating in a tangible way just how much we miss those everyday opportunities to spoil Kayley! There would have been special “date times” to eat at her favorite soup and sandwich shops and chat about her school and social activities. At this season, we would have loved to hear her screams of delight when she opened her gifts, large and small, along with the entire family! Life has a way of changing things! Our hopes and longings can be dashed to pi...

I am sure that my eyes used to “glaze over” a little when older adults in our church began talking about their illnesses, doctor appointments and exploratory procedures. Now that I am one of those Medicare card-carrying seniors, I have joined the ranks of my peers who delight in droning on with numerous war stories! We had another procedure this week that required general anesthesia. By now we know the regimen because of experiences with past colonoscopies! The drill at the clinic surgery center has become all too familiar! Image credit: depositphotos.com This time it was an endoscopy. The first for either one of us. Monique has had a persistent cough for months now and our endocrinologist decided to clinically scope her “food pipe” as he referred to it. Technology has advanced to the point that the scope is equipped to take a biopsy, stretch or dilate any narrowed areas, and it is also fitted with a camera to document everything discovered with numerous pictures. All of this is quite ...

There have been several high visibility layoffs in the job market recently. I just saw a list of some sixteen companies that have cut back on their work force since the new year (source: mondo.com). Some of these have been large tech companies, but other layoffs have impacted the media, financial, sales, home décor, and hospitality sectors of the economy. The percentages of layoffs range from the lows of 1 to 1.5% all the way up to a staggering 20% of the company work force. This is an unsettling time for global economies. There are growing concerns over inflation and the possibility of recession in 2023. Groot says, "I'm dog-tired!" Families and individuals are facing many struggles these days. Some are unemployed while others are underemployed which forces them to take multiple part-time jobs just to pay the bills. Not only are these people feeling stressed about financial matters and time management, but they yearn for respect, significance, and a renewed purpose for t...

Last week, Monique and I made a trip to Omaha, Nebraska to celebrate with a close friend his retirement from active ministry. It was the second time I had been in this city on the Missouri River in five months. The first occasion was to bring a funeral message for a close friend and former staff associate who had a sudden and untimely passing in April. This time, the reason was celebrative and affirming. Dr. Tim Johnson and I served together in Southwest Houston for five years until he was called to his first pastorate in North Texas. The Johnson's and Keppler's at Tim's Retirement Party, Omaha, NE I had been the lead pastor and Tim was one of our associates. His specific assignment was youth and music, but he served in all areas of pastoral ministry as needed. Tim immediately became an invaluable partner in ministry during our years of service together. He made me a better pastor! I never questioned his loyalty, work ethic, or competency in service. He gave 100% effort to ...

Sometimes when I am reading or watching television, one phrase will stick in my mind. This is what happened Christmas Day as I watched the launching of the James Webb Space Telescope and then followed the event by reading around it in the news. The Webb Space Telescope was named after the second administrator of NASA, James Webb, who was appointed to his position by President John F. Kennedy. Webb guided the agency during the Apollo era. James Webb Space Telescope Image credit: iStock.com The launch of the J.W. Telescope is sure to eclipse the innovation and importance of its enduring predecessor, Hubble, back in April of 1990. This innovative and costly ten-billion-dollar space observatory has a unique purpose as it orbits our sun. The goal of its mission is to study infrared light in deep space. It is expected to be able to “look” 13.7 billion years back in time! Scientists hope that this telescope will give insights into the origins and beginnings of the universe. This Christmas sea...

On July 1, 2018, I retired from active pastoral ministry. For 48 years, I was privileged to serve as a pastor or staff associate in eight different congregations in both Illinois and Texas. In these last years, I continue on occasion to officiate weddings and funerals for family and friends. I think part of the reason I am still called upon to serve in these ways is that I have considerable "history" under my "ministerial belt!" That is to say, I know the personal stories of family and friends. This enables me to bring a more intimate and familiar dimension to these kinds of services. Image credit: depositphotos.com During the last few months, I have conducted three funerals. Each of these services have had similar elements in them that enable family and friends to honor their loved one, process their grief and loss, and bring a witness to others of the realities of God's comfort and His promise of an afterlife.  After all these years, I have had many experience...

Last week, we received a curious incentive from a not-for-profit that we have given a donation to on occasion. Monique immediately brought this shirt pocket-sized tool to me to see if I could determine what it was and in what way it could be useful. I held the item in my hand and studied it without any success. I had never seen anything like it! Handy Dandy Pocket Tools! Since it came with a modest plastic sheath around it, I opened the protective covering to see if there was a clue inside. I found a very thin white card with a list of eleven items typed in red ink under the heading, “Multipurpose Pocket Survival Tool.”   Some of the uses for this singular tool included: can opener, knife edge, screwdriver, butterfly wrench, saw blade and a “Direction Ancillary Indicator!” I had to go to YouTube in order to decipher this feature. Because this “credit card-like tool” is magnetized, it can also function as a water compass! Why do we use such big words for something this simple?! As...

 "Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end!" These are the sentiments of many who watched as people in the United Kingdom were being given the first shots to end the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time, I was watching the global news broadcast "France 24" through our Roku and delighted to see the first and second persons vaccinated. The first British person to receive the Pfizer-released vaccine was a ninety-year-old grandmother. The second individual to receive it was an eighty-one-year-old man who had the unique name of William Shakespeare (like the famed English playwright!). I laughed when Francois Picard, the news desk reporter said, while holding back his laughter, "We can't make this up! My colleagues in the newsroom are calling this moment, 'The Taming of the Flu!'" (an obvious and playful reference to Shakespeare's Shrew!). A Vaccine of Hope! Image Credit: iStock.com A little levity is appropriate in order to release the pressure val...

After years of ongoing substituting at her favorite neighborhood school, Mimi will be sitting out this school year awaiting a much needed vaccine. T he "Number One Substitute Teacher" of our family has been sidelined due to precautions over pre-existing conditions and being in a higher risk age-group. Yet, we still have three active teachers in our family fully engaged in their academic trenches. These educators are leading their classes by remote. Remote Learning Fox Valley School District School definitely has a different look during this Covid-19 Pandemic! It has a different language describing it, too! The other evening, I opened up the note's application on my phone in order to record some of the words our teacher daughter was using as she shared about her day with her mother. I couldn't believe how strange it sounded to hear her speaking the "language of Covid."  Within a couple of minutes of conversation, these tech-specific words and phrases swiftly ...