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          Tomorrow my spouse, Phyllis, returns from visiting our son and his family in Belgium and a mission trip in Poland.  She will only be home a few days and then she takes off with me to lead a canoe trip to the water between Canada and Minnesota.  Phyllis enjoys being busy but this will be a real test of her endurance.  In my mind she is one ‘tough’ cookie.  In her latest email to me she has assured me that I had better get ready to hear her stories as we canoe together.  Phyllis and I have had some tough times in our married life and today as I write these words I thank God (and it is God) who has allowed us to share stories and more importantly life together.  God is indeed good.  I am looking forward to going to the airport and see the woman who I love very much and who loves me.  Tomorrow promises to be a time of joy.

          I have been reading a book that is the product of a research project to see why some mainline churches are growing.  Guess what was the number one factor in their growth?  It is so basic and yet so easy to overlook.  Prayer is the key that unlock many of the mysteries of church growth.  This should not be surprising but in another way it is a wake up call to the entire church community.  One of the stories in this study was about a church that really did not know what to do so a couple of leaders spend six month praying.  No programs or flashy happening.  Just praying and asking God to work in their lives and the lives of their church.  They reported that amazing happenings started.  Attitudes changed and God began leading the church in many ways.  Most interesting was that prayer was not their first thought but they tried many ideas and programs before prayer.  Prayer is easy to overlook and yet vital to growth as individuals and as a faith community.   If you are reading this I ask for your prayers for me and the life of First United Methodist Church.

My spouse, Phyllis, is now in Poland on a mission trip.  She has been gone a week and will be gone another week.  Finding myself alone has been a good experience for me.  I am learning that there is a lot of work that my wife does that I really don’t notice.  Dishes have to be done and clothes have to be cleaned.  On and on I could go listing the many activities that Phyllis does that are become more apparent to me.  I will be happy to see her again and to tell her that she was missed.  I guess the old saying is true that we don’t know what we have until it is taken from us.  My mom thinks it is not right for a spouse to go traveling without their spouse.  In my case I am learning many lessons by Phyllis being gone.  That does not mean I want her to be gone more but it does mean distance does indeed make the heart grow fonder.

My wife Phyllis was scheduled to leave the St. Louis airport at 12:50 this past Saturday.  The plan was for her to fly into Washington DC and then on to Brussels where she would spend some time with our son and his family and then she would go on to Poland to be with other members of our church who are on a mission trip.  I got a phone call around midnight Saturday night and it was Phyllis informing me that there were some problems with the plan.  Because of weather she missed her flight to Brussels and was going to have to wait a day or even two to catch another flight.  So, she prepared to sleep in the airport and wait.  As she waited I made some phone calls to the airline to see if I could help but I found listening ears who were trying to help but it was beyond them.  Fortunately, Phyllis was able to get on a plane Sunday night and on with her trip.  There are lesson in everything that comes our way.  I know I need to be more patient and understanding with people and situations.  I also need to realize again that indeed God takes care of us all.

Taking a class on leadership has allowed me to be in contact with some younger ministers.  By younger I am talking about those in their twenties.  As I talk with them I realize I need to be around them more.  It is so easy for me to think I understand ministry and yet in talking to them I can see I need to reflect more and be more in tune with those who live in the same world as I but who perceive it differently.  Today I am thankful for those who are challenging me to new ways of ministry and news ways of looking at the world.  I am also greatly encouraged that in our denomination God is raising up young competent leaders.

This past week I attended the Illinois Great River Conference’s Annual Conference.  Once a year all the United Methodist Church south of interstate 80 gather together to conduct their business.  At this Conference ordination of ministers takes place.  It is a time to honor those minister who are retiring and of course, a time to set the yearly budget which includes various mission outreaches that touch lives all over the world.  The Conference is a time for celebrating all that God has done in our various churches and a time to seek God’s will for the future.  As I participated in this activity I realized again that I need times of reflections in my own life.  I constantly need to ask myself the question, ‘am I allowing God to run my life?’.  The answer to that question will determine if I am living with a purpose or not.

This past Sunday we began our new 8:33am service.  I was surprised that we had as many people as we did.  We had 45 and what is most surprising is the way God moved in that service.  God has a plan for our Church and it will not be stopped.  God truly is awesome.  However, on a very personal level, I love to meet and greet all those who worship in our Church and yet I find that this is impossible with the way God is leading.  Maybe God is teaching me that it is His Church and not mine or maybe even more importantly God is telling me to take a back seat and let Him drive.  I am always surprised at God’s ways.