Good morning church family,

Stu and Sidney couldn’t stand each other. Some of the disdain was really quite natural. Stu was the kind of guy who would look askance at a man who didn’t have a little dirt under his nails or who used words like “askance”. He drank beer, drove an old stoved-up pickup truck, and wore a cap everywhere except to bed. His schooling, formal and otherwise, had stopped with his graduation from high school, his career advancement had stalled with his promotion to forklift operator at the scrap yard, and the romantic in him began and ended with the purchase of a heart-shaped Whitman’s Sampler from CVS every February.

Aside from age (they were both in their late fifties), faith (they were both members of the same church), and location (they both resided on planet earth), Sidney had nearly nothing in common with Stu. Sidney was the kind of guy who had his hair cut every two weeks – at a salon. He drank herbal tea, drove a leased Passat, and wore khakis when mowing the lawn. His home had a library, his office had a Monet, and his wife kept a scrapbook of all the love poems he’d penned for her over the years. Nature, indeed, had not made Stu and Sidney a pair.

But the white-hot dislike the two had for one another had little to do with their polar-opposite personalities. Much of the hatred stemmed instead from a dispute the two men had at a church funeral; of all places. It was a silly thing really. Five years earlier, Sidney’s mother-in-law had passed away and a funeral was to be held at the church. The funeral received the full Calvary Baptist treatment. A formal sanctuary service was prepared with both pastors on hand, a pianist and organist provided for accompaniment, audio-visual workers scheduled to handle sound and projection, and ushers dressed in formal attire had volunteered to hand out the laser-printed programs produced in the church office. A full platoon of church ladies had fanned out across the fellowship hall to ready the tables for the kitchen-full of food that had been prepared for the reception that was to follow the burial. The trustees had ensured that the grass was cut, the walkways edged, and all the hedges trimmed. The building looked a picture and Sidney couldn’t have been more pleased to find it so when he and his wife arrived early on the morning of the funeral. But his pleasure in the proceedings, along with his calm and composure, would begin to erode when, after checking on things inside the building, he ran back out to the car to fetch a framed picture they’d forgotten to bring in.

When he’d driven up to the church earlier that morning, Sidney had noticed the hearse parked along the street with a flag car in front of it. One of the workers from the funeral home, who stood in the lot attending to folks arriving, had recognized Sidney as a member of the bereaved family and kindly motioned for him to park behind the hearse in preparation for the processional to the cemetery. Sidney and his wife had nodded solemnly to the black-suited undertaker and he’d whispered his condolences with a bow as they made their way toward the church.

But now, as Sidney went out to get the framed picture, an awful sight unsettled him. Parked behind his newly washed and polished Passat was Stu’s beat-up, old pickup truck with its rusted rocker panels, its collapsed suspension on the driver’s-side rear end, its Bondo-ed and house-painted front end, and its bagful of empties laying in the back of the bed. Sidney stopped cold in his tracks and stared at the sight. He knew whose truck it was. He’d seen Stu come into the fellowship hall, carrying some kind of covered dish that Stu’s wife, Cindy, must have prepared. Sidney had hoped that Stu was just dropping off the dish and wouldn’t be staying; seeing as how he was dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and work boots – and wearing a hat, no less. But that evidently wasn’t the case. Stu wasn’t only staying for the funeral but was going to be driving over to take in the graveside service as well. Sidney stood there trying to imagine the scene when, at the conclusion of the funeral, a host of well-dressed mourners would come filing out the sanctuary doors behind white-gloved pallbearers in three-piece suits carrying the gilded coffin containing the precious remains of his wife’s beloved mother. This solemn and decorous procession would then pass astride the redneck spectacle that was Stu Beauchamp’s old dumprunner. This simply wouldn’t do – the truck would need to be moved. Sidney grabbed the framed picture and headed back into the building to find Stu.

Entering the church, Sidney went directly to the sanctuary. The room, smelling of cut flowers, was cool and quiet. The only sound was the air-conditioned air blowing softly out of the duct work above and the quiet humming of the projectors that were already filling the screens with lovely images of the deceased. Scanning the long, elegant sanctuary, Sidney spied Stu sitting all alone in the back pew with his head down and his phone propped up on his belly.

“Good morning, Stu,” Sidney said; cutting into the pew just in front of where Stu was sitting. “Thank you for coming.”

“Oh, hey there Sid,” Stu said, looking up and putting his phone face-down on the pew beside him. “I’m awful sorry about Helen.”

“Thank you,” Sidney said; leaning back against the pew behind and crossing his arms.

Stu sat back in the pew and laid his crossed arms on top of his belly. “She’ll sure be missed.”

“Yes, for sure.” Sidney looked down at his wingtips and nodded silently. He was stalling; trying to think of a way to broach the subject of Stu’s truck. But with every passing half-second, the awkward silence was making the prospect of congeniality more and more remote.

“Hey, Stu,” Sidney finally lifted his head and straightened his shoulders by bracing his arms on the pew behind, “I wonder if you could do a favor for me?”

“Sure, Sid. What can I do?”

“I know it’s kind of a silly thing; but I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind moving your truck for me.”

“My truck?” Stu asked, crossing his arms a little tighter. “What? Am I blocking somebody?”

“No,” Sidney answered, stammering a bit. “It’s just – you’re not far behind the hearse and you’d kind of be a lead car…”

“So?” Stu interjected. “That funeral guy there – he told me to park there if I was going over to Rosemont.”

“No, I get that. It’s more of a… I don’t know – it’s just an aesthetic thing. You know?”

“Ass-what?”

“’Aesthetic’. Like how things look,” Sidney said; growing less sheepish and more indignant.

“Oh,” Stu said gruffly as he reached for his ballcap and put it on low on his brow, “I see. You don’t like the way my truck looks – is that it? You’re ashamed of it?”

“Come on, Stu,” Sidney said, showing a little frustration. “There’s no reason to get upset,” Sidney continued as Stu stood up; pulling his keys out of his pocket. “Try and understand maybe where I’m coming from. Think of my wife and family. That vehicle of yours could be a little distracting, don’t you think?”

“Listen, Sid,” Stu said, sidling out into the center aisle, “you and yours don’t have to worry about a thing. I’ll just get me and my sorry, third-rate truck out of here so you can have a nice, dignified funeral. I’m sorry for the disturbance.”

“Stu,” Sidney implored, still leaning back but now raising his arms with upturned palms. “That’s not what I mean. You know that! Don’t take it like that.” Sidney just watched as Stu ambled out the back doors. “Goodness gracious,” Sidney said while shaking his head.

As the back door swung closed following Stu’s exit from the building, Sidney stood alone in the quiet sanctuary. His heart was pounding and his blood pressure was up. In the courtroom of his mind, he instantly came to his own defense. It had to be done, he argued. If he lost his cordial acquaintance with Stu – it was no tragedy. The important thing was that the eyesore was going to be removed. Sidney heard the muffled sound of the truck’s rattling engine roaring to life outside. He smiled and tried his best to shake off the whole thing.

Over the months and years that followed, this cancerous interaction would metastasize into a hardness of heart that threatened the faith and spiritual wellbeing of both men. Stu allowed the incident to prey on his insecurities by reinforcing fears he’d long held in his heart that he didn’t belong. He grew even more uncouth and more public in his criticism of the highfalutin, hypocritical foppery he saw in the church. He went from quiet to gruff and from helpful to hands-in-pockets. He had refused to speak to Sidney or even acknowledge his existence despite the fact that Sidney had, a couple of times, made feeble attempts at making amends. Stu often made a point of walking right by Sidney just to ignore him and, whenever possible, he liked to park snug against the Passat in the church parking lot. And for his part, Sidney had assuaged his sense of guilt in the matter by making Stu out to be a monster. Sidney questioned Stu’s honesty, his motivations, and even his salvation. Sidney had litigated the incident at the funeral in his mind and had judged Stu’s actions and reactions to be emblematic of the rot and decay in the church and the country. His dislike for Stu ossified into a disdain for all that was wrong with Western thought and culture. Neither man did what was necessary to remove the pebble in his shoe and now the two were a pair in their limping faith and unhappy hearts.

But everything changed one night during the week of revival meetings that were being held at the church. Every year in September, the church would have a week’s worth of special meetings concluding with a big homecoming service and banquet on Sunday. This year, the church had welcomed a big-name, powerful preacher to serve all week as the evangelist. Every night, the church was packed and the Spirit was moving mightily.

On Thursday night, Sidney got to the church late. His wife was out of town all week and so he walked into the back of the church by himself. Sidney found the sanctuary almost full. The congregation was standing and singing the final stanza of a hymn as Sidney walked up the center aisle looking for an open spot. He was nearly to the front when he saw what might have been the only spot left in the whole room – and it happened to be right on the aisle. He made a beeline for the spot just as the last notes of the last measure were fading from the grand piano. Reaching the pew, Sidney stopped short. The open spot would have him sitting right beside Stu.

Sidney had wanted in the worst way to move on and look for another seat but there really wasn’t one and he knew he couldn’t have kept looking without drawing unwanted attention to himself. So, he stood next to Stu and bowed his head as a prayer was offered before the message. Neither man acknowledged the other.

The sermon that evening was on 1Corinthians 13. As the preacher spoke simply and compellingly on how the Christian was able to love others because of the way God had first loved them, both men began to sweat from the heat of the burning coals being poured over their heads. They squirmed little but were careful to keep their eyes fixed on the preacher for fear that one might betray any conviction to the other. Both Stu and Sidney were glad when the preacher concluded his message with a prayer for the altar service.

As the preacher interceded on behalf of the congregation, God answered the prayer. The Spirit moved and began to soften many a hardened heart; including Stu’s and Sidney’s.

After the preacher opened the altar by making an impassioned plea for folks to come forward for prayer, the song leader stepped to the pulpit and invited the congregation to turn to hymn number fifty-eight in the hymnal. The Love of God wasn’t a familiar hymn to either man but looking down, there was only one hymnal sitting in the wooden rack in front of them. In a moment of magnanimity, Sidney lifted out the hymnal and handed it to Stu. Stu took it and looked briefly over to Sidney. As the music started, Stu fanned the pages open to number fifty-eight. Beginning to sing, Stu held the book out so that Sidney might be able to see. Sidney angled slightly toward the open hymnal and, hardly knowing what he was doing, reached out and took the right side of the hymnal. Stu slid his hand over; keeping hold of the left side. As the two men sang, tears of joy moistened the corners of their red eyes.

“O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure – the saints and angels’ song.”

The Lord has planned a wonderful time for us all in His house tomorrow – I’m looking forward to sharing in it with you! May the countless intercessions for revival be answered in each of us that we might enter His gates with thanksgiving and respond to His word with conviction. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate

Good afternoon church family,

Why is small talk so much easier to make than big talk? I don’t know exactly but it’s probably for much the same reasons that we find sharing an elevator with someone to be easier than sharing an apartment or why giving money to the needy to be easier than giving them your cell phone number. One requires little to no sacrifice, has zero strings attached, and won’t burden your heart and mind. The other, however, may require large draws on your time, comfort, and treasure; expose you to any number of binding commitments and can cause much heartache and disquiet. I’m afraid we often make small talk for fear that big talk will make too much work for ourselves.

A hail storm passed through Rochester on Monday. A bunch of low-lying, malevolent clouds, likely coming off a rager the night before, moved into the area and dumped out their ice chests over us. This, of course, gave us all something to talk about with each other in those awkward moments when silence is impolite or just too uncomfortable to endure. Like when the TV is turned off in the tiny waiting room at the oil change place and it’s just you and one other person sitting on sad pleather chairs, staring aimlessly at the filthy Keurig sitting on the end table beside the bathroom. Or during those times when your neighbor happens to be working in the yard or watering the garden at the same time you happen to be; or when you’re sitting up in the cab of the wrecker with the guy who’s driving you and your dead car to the garage; or when the hair stylist throws the cape over you at the salon and starts teasing out your do with a comb. I mean, we can only stare aimlessly at our shoelaces, the wall, or our little screens for so long. Eventually, we have to say something and what safer topic could we possibly find for conversation than a little hailstorm?

“Nothing like seeing a little white stuff in the summer, huh?”

“Yeah. Wild.”

“My sister lives up on Chesley Hill – says she lost half her tomatoes.”

“You don’t say. That’s a shame. I was lucky – my wife happened to take the new Silverado to work with her that day – can you imagine getting that thing all pitted?”

“No kidding. Where’s she work?”

“Over in Wells. She said it didn’t do anything over there.”

“Weird weather for sure this summer but it’s awful nice today.”

“Sure is. Sure is.”

Voila! Just like that, you’ve successfully navigated a New England interaction while fulfilling your base obligation to the societal contract we’ve all agreed to live by. You were winsome, neighborly, and confident – even building a little rapport to boot. Good for you! After the exchange, everyone feels more comfortable and a little better about himself. There was some more awkward silence before it was all over but the parting was friendly enough with an “Alright now – we’ll see you later” or a “You have a good one” accompanied by a nod and a wave. Cue Louis Armstrong and the strings – what a wonderful world, indeed!

But it’s not a wonderful world and every one of us who believes in Jesus Christ and His gospel knows it. Norman Rockwell isn’t getting anyone to Heaven. We are charged by our Savior Himself to step boldly into these awkward moments and make lots of uncomfortable big talk with the lost and dying of this world.

I don’t like it when people try and get somebody to commit to something by convincing him that it won’t cost him anything. “What do you think about running for Vice President of the Association?” someone might say. “It’s super easy – you hardly even have to show up most of the time.” Or how about, “We really need someone to work the polls down at the middle school this fall – what do you think? It’s a piece of cake.” Or, “We need one more chaperone for the senior class trip to Montreal this spring. You should tag along – it takes nothing. It’s like a free vacation!” Of course, any of us not born yesterday know that these sorts of appeals come booby-trapped with all sorts of sacrifices, frustrations, and hard work and that we accept any such invitation at our own risk. But the real reason I don’t like it when this type of offer is made to me is that it assumes that all I’m interested in are opportunities that honor or enrich me at little to no personal cost. But that’s not true. In fact, I think most of us are longing to give of ourselves in support of some significant project or important undertaking. Blood, sweat, and tears shed for a good cause is no sacrifice at all. As Isaiah said, “The noble man devises noble plans; and on noble plans he stands.” (32:8)

Now, what greater or more noble cause could we pledge our lives to than rescuing people from eternal damnation in the fires of Hell? None. And this rescue effort won’t require us to run into any burning buildings or parachute into enemy territory or dive into swollen rivers made raging by flood rains. No – this rescue will require us stepping courageously into conversation.

Starting conversations about sin and death with family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances is not an easy, low-hurdle affair. If you’re not immediately shut down and shown the quills, you’ll likely enter into a weighty and sometimes difficult discussion. In the context of a talk about God, people often bring up their life’s tragedies and unhealed hurts. The inexplicable agonies, inconsistencies, and complexities of life are dumped in our laps and left for us to piece together and make sense of. We’ll be asked impossible questions, told of awful abuses, and invited to wade into very muddy waters. Biblical consistency, compassion, and patience will be required of us and we will need to be willing to build relationships of sincerity and depth. For those of us who are saved; who have already been rescued and are now secure in our inheritance in Canaan, what better end could there possibly be for whatever breath we have left?

One Saturday, long ago, while I was pastoring in Georgia, I drove across town to visit with Don Tunnell. Don was a tall, slender, ten-years-retired older gentleman in the church. He hailed from War, West Virginia but had lived most of his adult life there in Augusta. Even though he was in his seventies, he still had a full head of wavy, black hair and his big belt buckle sat flat on his trim waist. Don had a sweet, Jimmy Stewart-like manner and an earnest Henry Fonda-like constitution. He was the closest thing to a cowboy that I’d ever seen. If he’d ambled into some saloon I was in and announced that he was looking for some hands to help him drive ten-thousand head of cattle across the Red River to Missouri, I think I would have dropped whatever I was doing to join him. But anyway, while I was sitting with him in his living room that Saturday, looking around at a room that hadn’t been remodeled since the seventies; his wife Mary puttering in the kitchen, Don told me something I’ve never forgotten. Glancing over at his television set, he said, “You know, Pastor, it’s the funniest thing. When I was a young man, all I wanted to do after a long, hard week at work was to sit back on a Saturday and watch college football. But back then I hardly ever got to. Saturday would come and the yard would need mowing, some faucet would be leaking, or the kids had this thing or that for me to carry them to. There was always something and I’d be grumpy and resentful as all get out. And now, Saturday after Saturday comes and even though I’m free as a bird, I never even turn on the durn thing. I’d give anything to be back with a houseful and a million burdens on my back.”

What are all the things we keep ourselves in isolation for? What is all our small talk preserving for us? A little more time with our TV? Empty evenings inside our moated castles with the drawbridge up? Taking our meals alone with only YouTube keeping us company? That’s not the life God is calling us to. That’s not what we’re going to look back on with joy as the light of our setting sun fades to black. What will make our hearts full when we’re full of years, are those conversations that led someone to life without end.

We’re looking forward to gathering into the Lord’s house in the morning to worship our Creator, King, and Counselor and to enjoy communion with Him through the shed blood of Jesus our Savior. It’s a joy and blessing that no depth finder could ever get to the bottom of! Come prepared to give and receive of the good things the Lord has made available to us all. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate

Good morning church family,

It bothers me that NBC can do such a wonderful job telling the life story of an Olympic athlete but seems completely incapable of telling the story of someone running for president. And it’s not just NBC – nearly every media outlet that’s allowed behind closed doors and given access to the candidates, is failing the rest of us who have to stay on this side of the rope line. Americans are better informed about those who represented the country on fields of play in Paris than they are about those seeking to represent them in Washington. Whether that’s by design or not I suppose I won’t try and say but we, the electorate, are certainly underserved by those we’ve empowered to aid us in the important work we’re called to do.

In America, the people and their president operate under an unwritten contract. For the people’s part, they readily acknowledge that the president can’t possibly consult them on the hundreds of decisions he must make every day. There is simply no mechanism that would allow for a true democracy in a nation of millions. So, the people elect to the land’s highest office an autocrat who is pretty much free to do whatever he wants with his term. Of course, the people will boo and hiss; heartened by the safeguards of tricameral checks and balances and the regular chance to yank the chain at the ballot box.

And for the candidate’s part, he agrees to open his mind to the electorate during his candidacy; answering every question that’s asked and going on the record concerning every issue of the day. And the people won’t be satisfied with just a pamphlet drop; their heads being showered with bullet-pointed presentations of policy positions and platform stances. These are important, of course, but hardly provide the measure of a man. The people want to know what makes a candidate tick. They want the clock face to swing back on its hinges; offering a look at the guts and gears inside. The governed want to learn a leader’s life story. What tragedies and triumphs have formed his character? Who were his teachers and what books and studies formed his thinking? How did he fare when life punched him in the mouth? How did he respond to the honey-tongued seductions of the press, the machine politicians, and the super PACs? The answers to these questions help the people know if there’s any fight in the dog or spirit in the horse. After all, those hundreds of decisions that come his way every day – they won’t be made by computer algorithms but by a heart, mind, and gut.

For the most part, this contract has worked well for the country. Whether they had any affection for their presidents or not, Americans have historically seen the occupants of the Oval Office as real flesh and blood folk whose warts-and-all-lives were generally known by all. This created an inexplicable bond and connection. Because citizens weren’t governed by shadowy ciphers whisked out from behind the curtain every now and again but instead by individuals they understood to be more or less like themselves, they couldn’t help but develop a rooting attachment for them. And that’s a good thing.

Over the last few cycles, however, it seems as though this contract has been broken. Candidates seem to make their entrance onto the national stage by catapult now; flung at us out of nowhere. And the press, instead of working to fill the gaping holes in their biographies, create cults of personality instead.

An electorate that votes a complete stranger into office shares the same fate as a woman who agrees to marry a man based entirely on the information provided on his online dating service profile. Of course, it’s possible for such a relationship to work out for her but if it does, she’d only have dumb luck to thank. It would have been far wiser for her to do some old-fashioned digging; gotten to know his friends a little, watched him interact with his mother, observed him captain his ship through some choppy waters, and logged enough time with him to get an accurate baseline for understanding his character.

I find it interesting that in the qualifications the Apostle Paul lists for the position of elder, most require some level of intimate acquaintance. “If anyone aspires to the office of overseer,” Paul writes to Timothy, “he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone doesn’t know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” Reading back through that list of qualifications, it’s clear that one could never really qualify for church leadership who wasn’t known – truly known – by the people. At a surface level, you would know if someone had a side-wife, of course, and you could probably tell if someone was mastered by his money. But how could anyone really know if a man was hospitable based on his public speaking performance or learn if he was sober-minded by watching him smile and shake hands at the gate? To know if someone was respectable, self-controlled, or able to manage his household well you’d have to be given a glimpse behind the curtain.

Now, I certainly understand that precious few people in any land could ever be as intimately acquainted with their governor, king, or president as they could be with someone who might be their pastor. But as long as the people of this great land are given the sobering responsibility of choosing their ruler, they really ought to be afforded the chance to know more than the little they can learn by seeing them in airbrushed stage appearances or from the propaganda splashed about on 6” by 8” mailers.

Obviously, we would all love to have a wise president leading our country. But wisdom, which is different from knowledge or expertise, isn’t something that can be attained through study, hard work, or years of winning the street. Wisdom begins through a fear or reverence of God. The greater a person’s God-consciousness, the more likely he or she is to benefit from the accountability that comes from serving under His watchful eye. The more a person respects God, the more open he or she will be to the counsel of His word.

I hope we all vote in the presidential election this November and I’m well aware that we’ll all base our votes on different sets of values and priorities. I’m quite sure we wouldn’t be able as a church to cast a single ballot. And that’s a wonderful thing as long as we all vote our conscience. But before the campaigns ramp up this fall and perhaps while the cement is yet a little wet, I want to encourage all of us to try and do the work the press won’t do for us. As the designated driver for our drunk country, the church must do the best it can to elect the candidate who will best employ a biblical worldview in all the decisions made on our behalf. Dig a little deeper than Wikipedia’s summary biographies. Listen not just to the positions the candidates take but for any clues they might give as to the reason for their stands – the “why” always being more important than the “what”. Finally, pray and ask for discernment. Voting need not be a secular activity but should be an act of worship – not of the candidate of course – but of the Sovereign we must trust to rule over it all.

It’s going to be so good to gather together in the morning for fellowship, prayer, worship, and encouragement. Thank the Lord for the gift of His church! Come prepared to both give and receive of the good things God has given throughout the week. See you in the morning:) May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

-Pastor Tate