Sunday Afternoon Thoughts

Allow me to ramble...

Today's worship was a blessing. I did a special class (part one of two) on women in ministry and worship and survived without needing Kevlar or 2nd Marine backup. At the end of my sermon in the third AM service, named Mosaic, I called up a man who has been attending for months now, Kenn Urban, and introduced him to the assembly. He told me last week that he wanted to be baptized today. Several family members came to witness the baptism. We brought them up to the stage so that they could be within feet of him. The whole assembly stood and applauded enthusiastically as Kenn entered the Kingdom. Outstanding.

This last week has seen me in Brownwood, Texas and then at the Round Lake encampment in Ohio. I've always loved Texas even though I've only spoken at two events there. The family seminar went well and the people were wonderful. I was most impressed with two things: on a chilly (for Texas) Tuesday morning, 7AM, fifty or so young men came out to eat breakfast and hear a message from me before they went to work. That's a good crowd! The other most impressive thing? The love they have for the prisoners they serve in the local jail. They hold several classes for them weekly and stay in touch after they are released. The minister told me that in the drug dealing part of town everyone shouts out a greeting to him when they see him. That's cool. That's ministry.

At Round Lake, I wasn't sure what to expect. The church in Marion, Ohio runs the event and they are a wonderful group of Christians. Their minister, Russell Howard, has a booming voice and a personality to match. He is a gracious and kind servant of the Lord. Of course, anytime you try to do something good there will be those who attack so he had to endure barbs and bans after inviting me and a couple of other speakers for the weekend. I volunteered to withdraw but he wouldn't hear of it. The event was uplifting, situated in the great outdoors, full of fellowship, singing and some very solid teaching. Thanks, Russ and the Marion church.

As cool weather enters Michigan, I find myself growing wistful, missing those who have gone on before. I usually deal with these morbid, melancholy thoughts by turning to humor and one of my favorite forms of humor is what I call "granddad stories." They aren't true, mostly, but I like them. You might have heard one or two of these before.

I loved my grandfather. I played with him every week. Technically, he was dead, but my parents had him cremated and put his ashes in my Etch-A-Sketch.

Okay, okay... he IS dead and we DID cremate him. In fact, we think that might have been what did it.

Grandad was a tough man. He told us that he got that way by putting a teaspoonful of gunpowder on his porridge (oatmeal to you colonists) every morning. It must have worked. When he died he left four kids, twelve grandkids, fifteen great-grandkids and a twenty foot hole in the wall of the crematorium.

My other grandfather died in a tragic accident. He worked in a distillery and drowned in a vat of whiskey. We took some solace in the brave way he fought off the rescue squad for the entire day. Unfortunately, when we tried to collect insurance, the company wouldn't pay since he'd had the good grace to get out twice to go to the bathroom. When we cremated him it took a week to put out the flames.

I remember the last time I visited my grandmother (I had to go up to the attic anyway). Shortly afterward she collapsed. The doctor told us that her heart was still beating but her brain was dead. I started crying because it was the first time we'd had a Democrat in the family.

True story: my grandfather -- who would have voted for Hitler if he'd run as a Democrat -- told me that a Democrat had stolen some tools from his barn. I asked him how he knew the thief was a Democrat and he said, "If it'd been a Republican he would have taken the whole barn."

I can remember the joy of the first snow of the year. I would run to the door and bang on it, saying, "You remember the deal, you have to let me in now!"

Christmas was always a bummer. Dad said Santa Claus couldn't come to our house because we lived in a Crips neighborhood and Santa wore red. Just kidding. He'd really just go into the front yard on Christmas Eve and let off a shotgun, then come in the house and tell us Santa committed suicide so there'd be no presents this year. One year he gave my sister a box of broken glass and me a box of bandages and said, "Now you kids share."

My grandfather held a traditional Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago. He invited all his neighbors over, fed them a big meal, then killed them and took their land. Ah, memories.

Gotta quit, now. I have to go out to the garage and fix the lock on my car. I had two tickets to the Detroit Lions in there. Someone broke in and left three more tickets. Sigh....