West Cocoa Chat

O.K. blones, my turn to tell you about my wonderful Sunday. First, let me take you back to Saturday. My wife and I went down to the building to deliver some supplies for our “Fall Family Roundup” that we held yesterday. We ran into our preacher (Don) who was feeling down. He had just found out that the sister who cleans our building was contemplating divorcing her husband. It was disappointing from the standpoint of where this couple (apparently) was spiritually just a few short months ago. They came back from the Mid-Ohio Valley Workcamp seemingly on fire for the Lord. Soon after that their attendance fell off and they stopped answering phone calls from Jeff and me. So needless to say, Don, Barb, and I were in the dumps heading into Sunday.

Then Sunday came and our spirits took off as on a “holy roller-coaster!” First the sister I wrote about came to Sunday School. I was reminded of Heb.10:25 and the encouragement we get when we assemble together. This sister was an encouragement to me. She chose to be with us and God in her hour of discouragement.

When services started I was running the computer once again. During Don’s sermon I stepped into (don’t tell Don) the foyer to check on something in the bulletin. I ran into a good friend of mine who a few weeks ago came to us (elders – Jeff and I) to ask for prayers for his marriage. To say that we were shocked at his request would be an understatement. Intellectually I know that all couples are subject to marital problems. Nevertheless you still have those in your church that you consider safe / steady folks. In the meeting he said he was worried his wife would not be willing to acknowledge their problems or work on them. Praise God, he told me yesterday that he and his wife were working towards being “O.K.” again. I couldn’t help but pump my fists in the air and hug the stuffing out of this brother. It was a sign of things to come. Oh, I did remember to go back to my post.

Don’s lesson (I know Greg is going to bust my chops on this one but I was only outside for a few minutes) was on commitment and service. Don did a masterful job of admonishing folks to be called to more than their baptism! We’re called by Jesus to be the “Light of the World.” That means going beyond being “saved” to a life of service in the name of Jesus.

When Don extended the invitation the flood gates opened up. First “Steve” came forward. Steve has been attending with his wife for some time. His wife is very involved but Steve is one of those discerning folks. He wanted to know what we and the Lord was all about. When he came forward he gave Don a simple confession. He said, “I got it.” The Lord had been working on his heart for months and the message finally got through.

Then there was Louis, a former elder of our church. Louis has been “distant” for quite some time. He asked to speak to our church family. He told the church that he had been a hypocrite and a knucklehead. He said his actions as of late hadn’t matched up with what he believed. God bless Louis.

Then came “Christmas” for me. Lynn and Irvin came forward. They had been away from us for the past few months. They had decided the best option for their disagreement with the direction our church is going in was to fall away from the Lord. Lynn and Irvin are special people to me. With both my father and mother having passed away, I’m naturally attracted to the wisdom of folks older than myself. But recently the roles had been reversed through phone calls as I tried to encourage both of them that their decision was wrong. Irvin got up and spoke to the church asking for our forgiveness. I almost knocked a few folks down as I made my way to Lynn and Irvin. They both looked at me with tears in their eyes and asked for my forgiveness. I told both of them that not only did I forgive them but the Creator of this Universe forgave them as well. As I hugged both of them I told them “merry Christmas” because as far as I was concerned, this was better than any material gift I had ever been given.

You know, there can be many things wrong with your church but when folks feel that they can come forward (and as one visitor told me) and be real with the church, that says a lot about how people feel about their church family.

Then my wife took over the day. She planned our Fall Family Roundup and it was a rousing success. We had close to a hundred kids in our parking lot and the weather was perfect. We finished the evening with our annual “Trunk or Treat” in the parking lot. We bought one of those fog machines from Wal-Mart to put underneath my Expedition. It was cute to see the kids filling up their bags with fog.

So there you have it blones, we all had a good day of worship yesterday. Take care.