"Where Did All The Years Go?" by Pastor Welty

It was January of 1987.  I had just finished my studies at the Alliance Theological Seminary by managing to squeeze three years into nearly four.  Stephanie and I both had decent jobs, were happily involved in our church, had made some good friends and had a nice apartment.  The idea of staying in Rockland County, New York for a little while was appealing.

But one day my phone rang, and on the other end was the jolly voice of an old friend named Jerry Palmquist.  Jerry was the New England District Church Growth Director. He wanted to chat with me about an opportunity to start a church in Connecticut.  I had gotten the bug for church planting in seminary, so I was interested.  It was to be an Easter 100 church. 

In 1987 the Christian and Missionary Alliance was celebrating its 100th Anniversary, and someone in the National Office came up with the clever idea to start 100 churches on Easter Sunday of 1987.  A procedure was established, and each church was to receive $5,000.  I had heard about Easter 100 while at seminary but was not that interested because it sounded kind of gimmicky.  So when Jerry called, I was hesitant.  One of the seminary faculty members and long time friend suggested that if I was really interested in church planting, this would be a good opportunity since it was a priority for the C&MA. 

I ran the idea by Stephanie who responded by questioning my sanity.  How could I think that moving into a community where we didn't know a soul and trying to start a church was a good idea?  I didn't have a good answer except that I felt it was right, but I told her that I was willing to say no and to stay in Rockland until she was ready to move on.  That offer must have meant something to her because she ultimately agreed, and we moved to Woodbury, Connecticut - to a road with an entertaining name, "Weekeepeemee" - which even thirty years later is never not funny.

When Jerry Palmquist was recruiting me, he told me that the key to successful ministry in New England was longevity.  He had served nearly thirty years in the same church in Massachusetts, so he had first-hand experience.   We moved to Connecticut on April 11, 1987, and on April 19 after following the prescribed procedure, we started  "a long obedience in the same direction" called The Community Chapel. 

Through the years we as a church have had success and failure; we have tried new things and have found comfort in the familiar; we have made many new friends and had to say goodbye to others.  We have endured incredibly lean years - times when we didn't know if our church was going to survive, and we have also experienced God's rich blessings.

During those thirty years, I became "twitchy" a few times and thought about moving on, but Stephanie always kept me anchored.  Although times of discouragement have been a part of the journey, a sense of God's call sustained us.  Personally in those thirty years, Stephanie and I welcomed our daughters Abigail and Emma to our family and said goodbye to all four of our parents.  Finally, I had to say good bye to Stephanie. 

Thirty years later, I don't feel thirty years older, despite all of the notches on my belt.   I feel like Caleb who after having to wait forty-five years to claim the land that God had promised him said, So here I am today, eighty-five years old!  I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then.  Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. (Joshua 14:10-12)

So to answer the question of my title "Where did all the years go?"  They went into forming this church into the caring, Christ-centered community that I feel privileged to pastor.  They went into growing me as its pastor, and they went into giving us a vision for our future. 

The Other 54 Games by Pastor Welty

Our Thanksgiving dinner table had an unusual feature this year: an unused place setting with a red plate.  On the plate are the words, "You are special today".  This is the Welty family birthday plate, and it was out on the table for Thanksgiving because that day would have been Stephanie's fifty-eighth birthday.  I also put my favorite picture of Steph on the center of the plate.  My daughters wanted to pay tribute to their mom, and I agreed, knowing that it would lead to some tears.

A dear friend of ours sent a birthday card to Stephanie to honor her memory and to remind me that she was aware that the day might be hard for us.  It was so sweet, but it led me to wonder about birthdays in heaven.  Since time is a human invention, will birthdays really matter in heaven, or will they be celebrated with the hilarity pictured in Dr. Suess' birthday book?  I'll find out soon enough.

Since I lost Stephanie, I have been much more cognizant of my own mortality.  I ponder my life and longevity.  I ponder aging and how I want to face it and how I want to be remembered. 

A couple of days after Thanksgiving, I was reading in my devotions the words of an author named Ray Waddle.  These words captured well how I want to live my life.  He was speaking of how people age with grace and dignity saying: "Life enlarges their spirit, becomes fuel for the remaining journey, seasoned with humor, not bitterness.   They age with dignity.  Part of their dignity is keeping the inevitable heartbreak framed by larger perspectives and by going deeper into the grief, not denying it."   Maybe that's what we did on Thanksgiving day when we set a place for Stephanie and honored her memory on her birthday. 

Life can be like baseball.  The baseball season lasts for 162 games.  It's been said about baseball that each team will win 54 games and lose 54 games.  The key is what they do with the other 54 games.  As I look at my life I realize that probably two-thirds of it is in the book.  Now I have a choice of how I'm going to live the remaining third.  The key I think is not to waste the valuable lessons I have learned in life, to still be optimistic, faith filled and hopeful despite the disappointments of life. 

Psalm 92:12-15 also speaks to the idea of aging with grace and dignity. The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord,  they will flourish in the courts of our God.They will still bear fruit in old age they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, “The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”

I want to stay fresh and green and still bear fruit in the latter third of my life.  I want the last 54 games to be the best 54 games of my life. 

The Presence of the Lord by Pastor Welty

In Exodus 33 Moses "negotiating" with God about leading God's people through the wilderness.  In verse 14, God made this promise. “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”  What a great promise and what a great reality for Moses and for us.  The presence of God is with us just like it was with the people we read in the pages of the Bible.  The key challenge for all of us is being aware of that presence and being attentive to it.

Jacob struggled with that in Genesis 28.  He had an incredible dream that included a celestial staircase going to heaven with angels of God ascending and descending in an escalator type fashion.  The Lord stood above it and offered some incredible words of assurance to Jacob.  Jacob 's response was to say:  “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”  Now before I castigate Jacob, I must evaluate my own level of oblivion. 

Several years ago a particular car company was introducing their new mini-van that had sliding doors on both sides - a novel concept back then.  In order to make their point, they showed a family on vacation.  This family went to a pier near the ocean where, they were told, dolphins would jump out of water right in front of their eyes.  They drove onto the pier and everyone piled out of their mini-van leaving the doors opened.  They stood at the end of the pier waiting for the dolphins, but none came.  Meanwhile behind them the dolphins were diving through their mini-van.  They missed the whole thing.

It is easy to get so locked into our own lives with their busyness and challenging circumstances that we struggle to see how God is present with us.  We can easily be like Jacob or the folks in that mini-van commercial. 

Brennan Manning used to speak about "present risenness" or being aware of the presence of the risen Christ in our lives and in our world.  He said,  "If our faith is alive and luminous, we will be alert to moments, events and occasions when the power of the resurrection is brought to bear on our lives.  Self-absorbed andinattentive, we fail to notice the subtle ways in which Jesus is snagging our attention."     

May God help us to be aware of His presence in our lives,  attentive to how Jesus is "snagging our attention."

This Sunday (October 2) we'll be looking at the Tabernacle in the book of Exodus.  This was a tangible expression of God's presence with His people.  Please read Exodus 40 in preparation for Sunday's message.

The Transition of the Temple by Pastor Welty

Transitions are a normal part of life.   Some are subtle and others are more pronounced and obvious - perhaps even startling.  An example of this is that we who are parents probably can remember bringing our proverbial "bundles of joy" home from the hospital. We fed them, changed their diapers, bathed them and cared for  their every need.  Then one day they were getting on a school bus and headed off to kindergarten.  A couple weeks later, so it seemed, we loaded all their gear into the car and took them off to college.  Now that's a transition.

Our church will be transitioning hopefully in the next few years to a home of our own.  My hope is that we can move into our church building before 2027 because that would be 40 years since our church started, and I'm not inclined to try to match Moses' record for longevity in a temporary facility.  Don't worry, we will likely have moved into the building long before that, so Moses' record will stay intact. 

I have pondered what it will be like for our congregation to transition from a utilitarian cafeteria to an actual sanctuary.  There will be adjustments about how we view the space; how we use the space, and how we care for the space.  There will be adjustments, but they will be good adjustments.   It will be important for us to always keep in mind that the building will be God's and not ours, and that the goal and purpose of the building will be to provide space where people can have an encounter with God.

In God's word we read of a transition in how God's people experience God's presence.  It starts in the Garden of Eden and then moves to the Tabernacle and then the Temple.  In the New Testament God's people experience His presence through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  There is a transition throughout scripture that is interesting to consider.

Starting on September 18 we'll be looking at that transition in how we relate to God with a series of messages entitled "The Transition in the Temple."  Here is a little reveal in the form of a quote from an author named Lehman Strauss:  The most sacred spot is no towering cathedral with stained glass windows, but the believer’s heart where God has come to dwell. 

The Dialysis Chair by Pastor Welty

In 2014, Stephanie and I were presented with two treatment options to deal with her renal failure.  After we chose home hemo-dialysis,  there were some adjustments we had to make to our home to accommodate this new therapy.  We had to create space for the supplies, choose a venue for the treatment, adapt our plumbing, and purchase a new recliner because Stephanie’s treatment would last about 4 hours 5 times a week, so it was important for her to be comfortable.  We purchased an inexpensive “pleather” recliner from Walmart and had it delivered.  It had to have an impervious surface due to the nature of the treatment.   

After Stephanie passed away, the dialysis equipment and supplies were quickly removed, and I even retrofitted the plumbing in my bathroom, but  the recliner remained in my bedroom.  It became sort of a catch all in my room.  It held the superfluous pillows that once were carefully placed on our bed each day and the casually removed at night, so we could go to bed.  It also held the “throws” or smaller blankets that Steph liked to have cover her during treatment.  And it held the various items of clothing whose future I was trying to determine: laundry or one more wear.  (Hey, I’m a bachelor now – new laundry rules apply.) 

My daughters would come home and see that the recliner was still in my room and would gently challenge me about it.  Finally on Father’s Day weekend, they got a somewhat firmer with me, asking if I liked the recliner, was attached to it or saw a future for it in my house.  I had to answer “no” to all of their inquiries.  For them the recliner was associated with Stephanie’s illness, and its presence bothered them. 

Out of deference to them I took the chair outside and put it near the curb with a sign that read “FREE”.  Within a couple of hours that recliner found a new home, and my home was free of the last vestige of Stephanie's illness.  It was good to have that chair gone from my house, and I admitted to my daughters that they were right.  They have a greater sensitivity to space and objects than I do.  It surprised me how much better the room felt without that recliner.  It was as if I said my final goodbye to Stephanie’s illness.   

In Ephesians 4:22-24 we read:  You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;  to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.  

There was nothing intrinsically bad about the recliner.  It was a necessary part of my caring for Stephanie, but it represented a difficult chapter in my life, and in order for me to enter my new life, I needed to get rid of it.  In our spiritual lives, there are certain things that are detrimental to our growth, and it's important to eliminate them from our lives.  We can all identify what those things are, but as long as we hold on to them, we’ll never be able to move on.   

Hebrews 12:1 instructs us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles”, (so we can) “run with perseverance the race marked out for us”.   I threw off that old recliner, so I could move forward in my healing journey, and it helped.   What in your life do you need to throw off, so you can make progress in your spiritual journey?   It’s a good question to regularly ponder and act on.