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Blessing

Here is the link to the Presbyterian Monthly Newsletter. Stay informed about what's happening in our community. 

ATTENTION:


The tiny home dedication scheduled for today, June 18, has been moved from
1:00 PM to 11:00 AM.
The event will be held at the Presbyterian Home for Children.
All are welcome — and please wear your Cahaba Springs T-shirt!

Still us, God, so we might listen to You speaking to us, knowing us, seeing us, loving us. Fill us with your Living Water that will transform our spirits and souls into springs that burst forth with life and love for your people, for ourselves, and for our world. 



~  written by Rev. Karla ~ 
adapted by Pastor deNay Kirkpatrick

Quarterly Contribution Reports Update:


Starting this quarter, all contribution and giving reports will be sent via email through Realm. Reports will be distributed on the first Friday of the first month following the end of each quarter. For example, reports for April–June will be sent on the first Friday in July.

We sincerely appreciate your continued generosity and faithful giving. Thank you for your support and commitment to the work we are doing together.

If you prefer a printed copy, please stop by the church office. The administrator will be more than happy to print one out for you.

If you have any questions regarding your report, feel free to contact the church office.

Seed Library:

It’s that time of year again! Our Seed Library is up and running, a wonderful opportunity to share and grow together. Plant something in your garden, and when harvest time comes, return some of the seeds to the library. In exchange, feel free to take what you need for your next planting season. Let’s keep the cycle of sharing, growing, and blessing our community.

Don’t forget your seeds!

Sunday, June 22, 2025
Intergenerational Sunday School 9:30 AM
Pentecost Sunday Worship 11:00 AM
Congregational Meeting Directly After Worship Services.

Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Book Club 5:30 PM

Thursday, June 26, 2025
Thursdays Together 10 AM
Choir Rehearsal 6:30 PM

Friday, June 27, 2025
Chordmakers 5:30 PM

As we move through the week, let us carry the reassurance of God’s steadfast love and presence with us. Whether you're joining us for worship, gathering for Thursdays Together, or enjoying music at Chordmakers, we are thankful for you and this vibrant community of faith.

See you soon, and may God’s blessings sustain you throughout the week!

During a public ministry that lasted almost 60 years, Douglas Coe was one of the most influential spiritual leaders in Washington D.C.

Known as the “stealth Billy Graham,” he impacted others through gracious, under-the-radar partnerships with Republicans, Democrats, and everybody in between, not to mention religious groups and denominations of every stripe.  

Coe was instrumental in the conversion of Chuck Colson; contributed to the progress of the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt; helped establish the National Prayer Breakfast; and was a key player in the creation of a program to provide spiritual and relational care for children of servicemen and women around the world.

As pastor John Ortberg reports in his book If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat, he also helped a “nobody” named Bob make a difference in a faraway place.

Bob was an insurance salesman who had no formal connections with anyone in government circles. He became a Christian and began to meet with Doug to learn about his new faith.

One day, Bob came in excited about a statement in the Bible – the place where Jesus says, “Ask whatever you will in my name, and you shall receive it.”

“Is that really true?” Bob demanded. Doug explained, “Well, it’s not a blank check. You have to understand it in the context of the Bible’s whole teaching on prayer. But yes – it really is true. Jesus really does answer prayer.”

“Great!” Bob said. “Then I gotta start praying for something. I think I’ll pray for Africa.”
“That’s kind of a broad target,” Doug said. “Why don’t you narrow it down to one country?”
“All right. I’ll pray for Kenya.”
“Do you know anyone in Kenya?” Doug asked.
“No.”
“Ever been to Kenya?”
“No.” Bob simply had his heart set on Kenya.

So Doug made a crazy proposition. He challenged Bob to pray for Kenya every day for six months. If Bob would do that and nothing extraordinary happened, Doug would pay him $500. But if something remarkable did happen, Bob would pay Doug $500.

And if Bob did not pray every day, the whole deal was off. You have to admit, this is what one might call a non-traditional arrangement. But Doug Coe was a creative guy.

Bob began to pray, and for a long while nothing happened.

Then one night he attended a dinner in Washington. The people around the table explained what they did for a living. One woman said she helped run an orphanage in Kenya – the largest of its kind.

In Orterg’s memorable retelling, Bob could suddenly picture $500 sprouting wings and flying away. But he couldn’t keep quiet. He had not said much up to this point, and now he pounded her relentlessly with questions.

“You’re obviously very interested in my country,” the woman said to Bob, overwhelmed by his sudden surge of curiosity. “You’ve been to Kenya before?”
“No.”
“You know someone in Kenya?”
“No.”
“Then how do you happen to be so curious?”
“Well, someone is kind of paying me $500 to pray…”

She asked if he would like to come visit Kenya and tour the orphanage. Bob was so eager to go, he would have left that very night if he could.

When Bob arrived in Kenya, he was appalled by the poverty and the lack of basic health care. Upon returning to Washington, he couldn’t get Kenya out of his mind. He contacted large pharmaceutical companies, describing to them the vast needs he had seen. He reminded them that every year they would throw away significant stocks of unsold medical supplies. “Why not send them to this place in Kenya?” he asked.

And some of them did. The orphanage received more than a million dollars’ worth of surplus medicines and supplies.

The woman called Bob up and said, “Bob, this is amazing! We’ve had the most phenomenal gifts because of the letters you wrote. We would like to fly you back over and have a big party. Will you come?” So Bob flew back to Kenya.

Since this was the largest orphanage in his country, the president of Kenya attended the celebration. He offered to take Bob on a tour of Nairobi, the capital. In the course of the tour they drove past a penitentiary. Bob asked about those behind bars.
“They’re political prisoners,” he was told.
“That’s a bad idea,” Bob said brightly. “You should let them out.”

Bob finished the tour and flew back home. Sometime later, he received a phone call from the State Department of the United States government.
“Is this Bob?”
“Yes.”
“Were you recently in Kenya?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make any statements to the president about political prisoners?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him he should let them out.”

The State Department official explained that he and his colleagues had been working for years to get the release of these prisoners, to no avail. Normal diplomatic channels and political maneuverings had led to dead ends. But now the prisoners had been released, and the State Department was told it had been largely because of…Bob. So the government was calling to say thanks.

Several months later, the president of Kenya reached out to Bob by phone. He was going to rearrange his government and select a new cabinet. Would Bob be willing to fly over and pray for him for three days while he worked on this crucial task?

So Bob – an insurance salesman with no political connections, seemingly just a “small potatoes” guy in the kingdom of God – boarded a plane once more and flew to Kenya, where he prayed and asked God to provide wisdom for the leader of the nation.

Small steps plus prayer can lead to some very big things.

You may not make $500 because you choose to talk to God.

But you just might end up helping to change the world.


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Would you like to explore previous reflections, and learn more about this ministry?  Check out glennsreflections.com.

“Let me play devil’s advocate for a few minutes.”

Most of us have heard that before. Someone makes a point or proposes a plan. It definitely has merit, and listeners nod their heads in agreement. Then one person decides to push back--not necessarily because they disagree with what they’ve heard, or can think of anything better, but because testing the strength of a proposal is always a healthy thing to do. “You say we should do thus and so, but what if we can’t make that deadline? Or the weather turns ugly? Or the bank turns us down?” Or any number of other possibilities that might doom an otherwise brilliant plan.

The devil’s advocate is someone who intentionally looks on the dark side. Whether they end up validating the original idea or blowing it to smithereens, they’ve played an important role in a group’s process of discernment.

Interestingly, the Catholic Church used to employ such an individual, as depicted in the image above. Beginning in 1587, a lawyer was given the official title promotor fidei, or Promoter of the Faith. Unofficially he became known as advocatus diaboli--he Devil’s Advocate, or the one who tries to put into words Satan’s strongest case against a candidate for sainthood. After all, if a man or woman was being promoted for canonization, someone had to do some serious background checks.

Had significant character flaws been overlooked? Would the “miracles” attributed to this candidate turn out to be nothing more than hearsay? Had this individual’s ministry been misrepresented? It was the Devil’s Advocate’s job to play the skeptic, to sniff out fraud, and to make, if possible, a watertight case that this person was unqualified for sainthood. It was up to the Church not to ignore such negative feedback, but to take it into account. That’s never an easy thing to do.

Pope John Paul II reduced the role of the Devil’s Advocate in 1983. But the Vatican still has the freedom to do spiritual background checks on candidates for canonization. In 2003, for instance, when the Church was considering the late Mother Teresa’s case for sainthood, officials chose to interview one of her most outspoken critics--Christopher Hitchens, one of the so-called New Atheists. Did he have specific information or perspectives that would doom her candidacy?

It’s unlikely that any of us will ever have to play devil’s advocate with regard to the spiritual standing of another human being. But that doesn’t get us off the hook. All of us, in one fashion or another, have to decide if the case against God is so strong that we simply cannot entrust ourselves to him as Ruler of the cosmos. For many people, the Holocaust is a dealbreaker.

Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel recalled seeing a wagonload of dead children being thrown into a flaming ditch during his first night as a prisoner at Auschwitz. He writes, “Never shall I forget…the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed… Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”

How can we affirm that “God is great and God is good” in the face of God’s inexplicable silence at Auschwitz?  

Then there’s Agnes. Even as a young girl, her only desire was to please God--“to love Jesus as he has never been loved before.” She welcomed the call to become a missionary. She journeyed far from home. “My soul at present is in perfect peace and joy,” she wrote in her journal. She felt overwhelmed by the nearness of God’s presence. Then, seemingly out of the blue, that nearness vanished.

For no reason she could ever discern, Agnes lost her sense of God’s proximity, God’s love, even God’s existence. She didn’t quit serving and didn’t stop praying. But the sense that she had somehow “lost” God haunted her thoughts. “My God,” she wrote, “how painful is this unknown pain… I have no faith.” Except for one brief intermission, her inward experience of dryness and doubt lingered for the better part of 50 years.

As a Catholic nun and founder of the Missionaries of Charity, a religious community dedicated to serving “the poorest of the poor,” she reckoned it would be better if the world never found out about the struggles that filled the pages of her journals. She insisted they be destroyed upon her death. But wise people chose not to do so. That’s how the world became acquainted with the inner life of Agnes, better known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

When word of her decades-long spiritual struggles became known, atheists like Hitchens pounced. “She was no more exempt from the realization that religion is a human fabrication than any other person, and that her attempted cure was more and more professions of faith could only have deepened the pit that she had dug for herself.” It seemed as if the Devil’s Advocate had been handed a slam-dunk case.

But the strangest thing has happened since Mother Teresa left us almost 30 years ago. She has become not just one of the world’s great examples of compassionate service. She’s also revered today as a “missionary” to those who doubt. That’s because she never stopped believing, in her heart of hearts, that God is really God. She did not give her feelings, in other words, permission to cast the deciding vote on the nature of Reality.

Nor should our own feelings during these last few days of spring be granted the power to cast a spiritual veto--to determine, above every other line of evidence, whether there is in fact an infinite-personal Creator who is closer to us than our next breath.

A faithful devil’s advocate would no doubt insist on revisiting that important question: Are there good reasons for believing that God cannot be trusted in a world torn by suffering? Why does God so often seem so far away? How can we reconcile divine love with the Air India jet crash, senseless gun violence in Minnesota, deadly flash floods in Texas and West Virginia, and yet another war gearing up in the Middle East? And that’s just the past week.

We must be honest. We rarely receive final answers to such questions in this world. But there are a few things that we can know.

We can know that just because we ourselves cannot see any good emerging from a particular situation doesn’t mean an infinite God is limited by our imagination. If God is God, he is free to have reasons to permit tragedies, even though we cannot fathom, for now, what those reasons might be.

We also know that most people would acknowledge that the most important lessons they have ever learned--the very things that have most shaped their character--have come through disappointment, struggle, and loss. Sometimes it is God’s mercy not to rescue us from trouble.

Followers of Jesus know that they live in the hope that their suffering means something. “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts” (Romans 5:3-5).

So where is God when it hurts? According to everything we know from Scripture, God never leaves the side of the one who is hurting. He weeps with those who weep. And God never stops rallying us to be his hands and feet in a world that is more desperate than ever to experience his justice, mercy, and love.

The devil’s advocate may think he has a ripping good case. But “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One” (I John 2:1).

And he’s got a better record in God’s court than Perry Mason.


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Would you like to explore previous reflections, and learn more about this ministry?  Check out glennsreflections.com.

As recently as 1971, astronomers wondered if there really was such a thing as a “black hole.”

That was the colloquial name given to an ultra-dense mass predicted by Einstein’s general relativity equations.  

According to the reckonings of cosmologists, it might be possible for a massive star to burn through its enormous fuel supply of hydrogen in a few million years. Then, suddenly and dramatically, the stellar “shell” might collapse into an object so dense that even light would be unable to escape from its surface.

A spoonful of such material would outweigh our entire planet. Gravity would be so strong that a black hole would gobble up everything in its neighborhood, including myriad other stars.

Since these ideas sounded about as plausible as a middle school science fiction novel, most astronomers refrained from committing themselves to the black hole theory – until one actually turned up, that is.

Then it happened. Multiple researchers confirmed that Cygnus X-1, a powerful celestial source of X-rays, was the real deal – an object so dense that its surface can’t even be seen, appearing to be nothing more than a giant tear in the cosmic curtain.

Fifty-four years have now come and gone. Astronomers have found more black holes. A lot more. For instance, there’s an enormous one at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, which is thought to have ingested something like 4.3 million stars.

How many black holes are out there? In 2023, cosmologists, by combining everything we have learned from various strands of research, estimated that the cosmos contains at least 40 quintillion black holes. That’s the number 4 followed by 19 zeroes: 40,000,000,000,000,000,000 – a figure we hope never comes into play during Congressional discussions of America’s national debt.

Celestial black holes may be a recent discovery. But relational black holes have been known ever since people began spending time with other people.

We’re talking about individuals who have the unique ability to drain us of life-giving energy.

That’s the hallmark of the Very Draining Person, the fifth and final relational category described in Gordon MacDonald’s Anatomy of a Spiritual Leader.

According to MacDonald, different people can have dramatically different effects on our passion to make it through a given day.

Very Resourceful People are the mentors who inspire or rekindle our vision. Very Impactful People are the friends and colleagues who share our vision as they walk beside us. Very Trainable People look to us as inspiring sources of fresh vision. Those are the kinds of people who “pour into” our lives. Their effect on our energy is positive.

Very Nice People, however, are a different story. The net effect of their presence, when it comes to stirring our spirits, is zero.

Which brings us at last to the VDP. MacDonald assigns them an energy value of -1.

Very Draining People are energy vacuums. They are the black holes in the fabric of the relational cosmos. When a VDP has you on the phone, 10 minutes feels like two hours. When a VDP shows up unannounced at your front door and says, “I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d just drop by for a while” you realize that whatever plans you had for the day have now been shoved to the back burner.  

What’s remarkable, of course, is that the very same person who makes you want to hide behind the luggage in your bedroom closet and scream is somebody else’s hero.

None of us is genetically encoded to be a certain type all the time and in every relationship.

Part of the mystery of sharing life with other people are the surprising ways in which we find ourselves lifted up by some relationships and flattened by others.

VDP’s, predictably, take a beating on the internet.

“Don’t waste another minute dealing with a toxic, negative, energy-draining person!” says one guru. “Run for your life!” advises another.

It’s true that we cannot fix Very Draining People. But we cannot run away from them, either.  

“For God so loved the world…” we read in John 3:16. This world that God loves is filled with draining people. What we can know for sure is that all of us are in desperate need of God’s love and grace – and we can go to bed tonight knowing that each of us is undoubtedly regarded as a VDP by at least one other person.  

So, what is God’s call on our lives? We must grow in our ability to listen sympathetically and speak encouragingly, even to those who leave us exhausted.

And we must also seek relational balance.

Most of us fail to balance our relational commitments. Therefore our energy needs quickly become skewed.

MacDonald noticed that his own tendency in ministry was to focus on the two categories of people who had the least positive impact on his energy. He felt that motivating the nice people and “successfully ministering” to the draining people was a strategy that would please God.

As a consequence, he spent far less time with wise mentors, trusted friends, and eager apprentices – and only after years of frustration came to realize this was a formula for total depletion.

So where does that leave us at the end of this week?

We can reaffirm the old saying that the best things in life are not things. They are life-giving relationships.

And we can ask God to help us find balance in the way we relate to others day by day.

Perhaps this prayer can help us find our way:

Lord, please open my eyes today. Help me find the mentor who will renew my hope and enthusiasm. Show me how to be the kind of friend who breathes life into those who are discouraged. When others look to me for wisdom, help me generously share what I know. More than anything else, help me be a spring of fresh water and not a drain. May my heart overflow with your compassion toward every person I meet. In the name of your infinitely compassionate Son I pray, Amen.


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Would you like to explore previous reflections, and learn more about this ministry?  Check out glennsreflections.com.

Most of the people you will encounter today fall into the fourth of Gordon MacDonald’s five relational categories. Almost 40 years ago, MacDonald proposed that it’s worth noting how various kinds of people affect our personal energy on a daily basis.

Spending time with a VRP (Very Resourceful Person) is like pouring jet fuel into a lawn mower. MacDonald arbitrarily assigns an energy value of +3 to such mentors, because they have an extraordinary way of restoring both our perspective and our perseverance.

A VIP (Very Impactful Person--a good friend or trusted colleague) is someone who shares our vision for life, and offers us +2 energy units.

Then there’s the Very Trainable Person – someone who is eager to hang around us, and sees us as a mentor. While a VTP yearns to draw down some of our time and attention, MacDonald thinks such an apprentice relationship still nets us +1.    

Which brings us to VNPs. They would be the Very Nice People.Nice people are just so very…nice. And your world is absolutely teeming with them. Here we need to remember that someone who is a Very Nice Person to you may well be the light of someone else’s life, or their best friend, or a freaking relational nightmare.

But to you, a VNP may be the checkout person at the grocery; or the neighbor you barely know; or the colleague at work with whom you have lively chats about the thermostat and your pet cats, but little else.

MacDonald suggests that VNPs typically have little effect on our lives. Their energy impact is zero. Nothing. Nada. And that’s something that can occasionally create a crisis.

If you’re a team leader, or a teacher, or a pastor, or a community activist, or someone collecting donations for a vital social cause, and you can imagine nothing more wonderful than inspiring a crowd to dynamic new levels of commitment, you’re likely to be disillusioned.

The VNPs in your life will smile at you. They will listen politely. They will take notes on your heartfelt summons to be part of something awesome. Then they will say, “That’s really nice. So, how about those Pacers?”

Jesus seems to have prepared his disciples for such disappointment. His Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1-20) is a frank admission that no matter what we say or do, only a fraction of our most earnest and prayerful spiritual efforts will yield a harvest in other people’s lives.

In Bible times, farmers would “broadcast” their seed--that is, throw handfuls of seed in broad arcs over their gardens and fields. Every seed, if allowed to grow and reproduce, was possessed of sufficient biological power to yield an entire field of wheat. But it all depended on where it landed. Some surfaces doomed the seed from the start. Other surfaces, because of the condition of the soil, guaranteed lavish fruitfulness.

In the same way, Jesus says, the “seed” of the new life contained in his teaching has the potential to turn somebody’s life inside-out and upside-down. Or it can land with a disappointing thud. It all depends on the condition of our hearts.

What’s the difference between a heart where God’s life never takes root and a heart where we continue to come alive? It’s character. It’s staying power. It’s our willingness to open ourselves to God’s Spirit even when we don’t feel like it.

Character is the ability to follow through on a worthy decision long after the emotion of that decision has passed. Very Nice People may seem to lack such character. Most of us can expect to have little transforming impact on the majority of the VNPs around us. Which is why they seem to have such little impact on our lives. But there is hope.

The thrust of the Parable of the Sower is simple and profound: Keep sowing seeds. You may not be the person whom God will use to enliven someone else’s heart. But you can make sure the seeds are there when it’s time for that happen.  

So, always be gracious with others. Always express appreciation. Always gently call others to greatness – to leave their comfort zones for God’s sake. For we never know when such seeds will germinate.

And suddenly, someone who always seemed to be just a Very Nice Person is standing before us as one of God’s champions.


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Would you like to explore previous reflections, and learn more about this ministry?  Check out glennsreflections.com.

While so much of the road ahead is uncertain, the path constantly changing, we know some things that are as solid and sure as the ground beneath our feet, and the sky above our heads. We know God is love. We know Christ’s light endures. We know the Holy Spirit is there, found in the space between all things, closer to us than our next breath, binding us to each other, until we meet again.

~ Written by Rev. Nora Vedress, ~
adapted by Pastor deNay Kirkpatrick

Seed Library:

It’s that time of year again! Our Seed Library is up and running, a wonderful opportunity to share and grow together. Plant something in your garden, and when harvest time comes, return some of the seeds to the library. In exchange, feel free to take what you need for your next planting season. Let’s keep the cycle of sharing, growing, and blessing our community.

Don’t forget your seeds!

Sunday, June 15, 2025
Intergenerational Sunday School 9:30 AM
Pentecost Sunday Worship 11:00 AM
Congregational Meeting 12:15 PM

Tuesday, June 17, 2025
XYZ 11:30 AM (Indoor Picnic)

Wednesday, June 18, 2025
PHFC 8:30 AM
Wednesday Night Super 6:00 PM

Thursday, June 19, 2025
Office Closed
Thursdays Together 10 AM
Choir Rehearsal 6:30 PM

Friday, June 20, 2025
Chordmakers 5:30 PM

Saturday, June 21, 2025
Presbyterian Home for Children Alumni Day
10:00 AM - 2:00 PM

As we move through the week, let us carry the reassurance of God’s steadfast love and presence with us. Whether you're joining us for worship, gathering for Thursdays Together, or enjoying music at Chordmakers, we are thankful for you and this vibrant community of faith.

See you soon, and may God’s blessings sustain you throughout the week!

As summer heat gives way to crisp autumn days, Midwesterners typically throw open their doors and windows. Then as nighttime temperatures become downright chilly, most homeowners will notice some visitors at their front door.

We’re talking about houseflies. Having luxuriated for weeks in the warmth of August, flies who survive until September increasingly have one abiding mission: I’ve got to find a place to hang out during the winter. And your family room definitely looks like a great bed and breakfast. Every time you approach your screen door, there they are. And they’re just dying to get in.

There’s a certain kind of person whom we might describe as a Screen Door Hanger. They belong to the third category of Gordon MacDonald’s five domains of individuals who make an impact on our energy for living.

We’re talking about VTPs, or Very Trainable People. If a Very Resourceful Person (a mentor) raises our energy by +3, and a Very Impactful Person (a friend or ally) stokes the fires of our perseverance by +2, a VTP, according to MacDonald, lifts our energy by +1. That’s not a huge boost, but it’s definitely a positive.

A Very Trainable Person is a potential apprentice-–someone who looks up to you, who wants to learn from you, and who basically wants to be like you when they grow up. That of course would include our children, nieces, nephews and the like. In the eyes of the next generation of your own family, you unquestionably fit the mold of a VRP.

But don’t stop there. It’s highly likely there are other people in your world who admire you. When you talk, they listen. When you lead, they follow. When you teach, they learn. Sometimes these folks are hard to see. That’s because most of us rarely look for them.

But every time you turn around, there they are. It’s as if you shut your front door and they’re hanging on the screen. They’re dying to get in because, when it comes right down to it, they just really want to spend time with you.

We can scratch our heads and wonder why in the world those VTPs keep bugging us. Or we can embrace them as gifts from God. They are, after all, very trainable people, and they’re hoping we will be the ones who will pour into their lives something of our insight, our passion, and our coaching. That sounds like hard work. Often it is.

But Gordon MacDonald wisely assigns a positive energy value to the time we spend with VTPs. That’s because their eagerness and willingness to know us as mentors can feel like a jolt of raw energy when our own spirits are lagging.

According to what we know of Paul, from his letters and the book of Acts, Christianity’s earliest missionary was rigorously committed to training spiritual apprentices--especially a young man named Timothy. The presence of someone like Timothy--someone who is receiving from us the gifts and insights that we have received from God --is the surest evidence that we actually believe Jesus’ “famous last words” about raising up disciples in every nation.

Paul tenderly describes him as “my true child in the faith” (I Timothy 1:2) and “my son” (I Timothy 1:18), and even says to the Philippians, “I have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare” (1:20).

Paul confirms he wasn’t the first discipling presence in Timothy’s life: “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you” (2 Timothy 1:5). There were already three generations of faith under Timothy’s roof. The VTPs in our lives, in other words, might already be sitting at our dinner table every evening.

In 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul tells Timothy he needs to entrust what he has learned to other people. In Greek the word “entrust” means making a secure run to the bank to deposit a treasure. Here we need to be careful to remember that discipling another person is not doing a “data dump” into a particularly teachable brain. Paul knew Timothy. He loved him. Disciples are not widgets. Every human being is a uniquely crafted bearer of God’s image, and the ways we teach, model, pray, and share life with that person will always include elements of sheer mystery.

The decisive phrase in 2 Timothy 2:2 is the last one: who will be able to teach others also. Effective disciplemaking thus involves four generations. In this verse we see Paul, who’s pouring into Timothy, who’s doing the same thing with a few others--with the key proviso that Timothy must find a way to carry out this mission so that the chain will not be broken--to ensure that the third generation will raise up a fourth.

Our call, in the end, is not to be spiritual cul-de-sacs, or end users of the grace of God. So who is your Timothy? To whom are you entrusting what God has entrusted to you? Why, after all, has God enriched our lives through the love, encouragement, and wisdom of others? His blessings and gifts have come to us because they’re on their way to someone else.


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Would you like to explore previous reflections, and learn more about this ministry?  Check out glennsreflections.com.

Almost every film adaptation of Stephen King’s novels has been a disappointment. At least for the author. The exception is Stand By Me, a coming-of-age drama that was based, in part, on King’s own childhood.

When director Rob Reiner privately screened the film for the novelist before its theatrical release in 1986, King had to leave the room for about 15 minutes after its conclusion just to gather himself emotionally. He was deeply moved.

Stand By Me is not a horror film, even though that is Stephen King’s bread and butter. It’s a story about friendship.

Today we arrive at the second of Gordon MacDonald’s five key relationships that routinely affect our personal energy. Yesterday we considered the VRP, or Very Resourceful Person. VRPs are mentors, those special human beings who “pour into” our lives and faithfully impart fresh vision. MacDonald arbitrarily assigns an energy value of +3 to VRPs.

The next category is the VIP, the Very Important or Very Impactful Person.  MacDonald suggests they boost our energy to the tune of +2. If a VRP kindles my vision, a VIP shares my vision. If a VRP is “above” me, a Very Impactful Person walks beside me. A VIP, in other words, is a friend. And the more we are privileged to be surrounded by friends, the more we realize what treasures they are.

Mentors may be the ultimate bestowers of energy to help us face the rigors of daily life, but friends and colleagues who share our vision aren’t far behind.

In Stand By Me, four boys who live in the small town of Castle Rock, Oregon, in 1959 go on a three-day hike on Labor Day weekend. Their quest is to locate the dead body of a missing boy. Gordie is a thoughtful, budding author. Chris is a tough guy whose family members are drunks and felons. Teddy, who is emotionally and physically scarred, is a bit unhinged. Vern is pudgy and fearful.

The film includes what can only be described as the most memorable pie-eating contest in cinematic history.

As they walk together, like all middle school-age boys, the four friends talk about everything. What kind of cartoon animal is Goofy? What if you could eat only one kind of food the rest of your life? “That’s easy. Pez. Cherry Pez. No doubt about it.” What is the meaning of life? What does the future hold?

Gordie: Do you think I’m weird?
Chris: Definitely.
Gordie: No man, seriously. Am I weird?
Chris: Yeah, but so what? Everybody’s weird.

A friend is someone who can acknowledge our weirdness, yet still love us--and we’re grateful for both. As we’ve noted in the past, sociologists speak of two kinds of friendships. There are Friends of the Road--those who walk with us for a season of life. That might mean a friend from grade school; a pal at summer camp; a college roommate; a neighbor from your first apartment; or a colleague from your first job. Friends of the Road come into our lives for a time. Then we go our separate ways.

Friends of the Heart, on the other hand, never really leave. Even if we’re separated by many miles and many years, Friends of the Heart can seemingly pick up right where our last conversations left off.

So which kind of friend is better? That’s easy: neither. Sociologists agree that Friends of the Road and Friends of the Heart may be different, but both are priceless.  

There’s considerable conversation these days about the so-called “friendship crisis” in America. The May 2021 American Perspectives Survey revealed that US citizens are enjoying fewer close friendships than they once did, are talking to their friends less often, and are relying less on their friends for personal support. In the same survey, 12% of adults reported having no close friends at all, up from 3% in 1990. That certainly seems like a crisis in the making.

What is the first thing in the Bible that God declares to be not good? Speaking of Adam, God says, “It is not good for people to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). None of us is wired to go through life flying solo. To win all by ourselves is to lose.

Be a Very Impactful Person. Stand by someone else today.


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All of us are called to be stewards, or caretakers, of the gifts and resources we have been given. That includes our talents and abilities, our bank accounts, our calendars, and our physical wellbeing. What’s often overlooked, however, is our need to be stewards of our personal energy.

Almost 40 years ago, in an article called Anatomy of a Spiritual Leader, pastor Gordon MacDonald pointed out that there are five kinds of people who affect our level of energy on a daily basis. Some people build us up. They fill us with joy and restore our passion to keep going. Other people (as Dana Carvey’s character, Garth Algar, so memorably puts it in Wayne’s World), have an unusual capacity to suck our very will to live.

Many of us drive ourselves into energy deficits because we fail to take into account how draining certain relationships can be, even as we fail to take advantage of the kinds of relationships that faithfully restore our commitment to keep pressing on.

The good news is that personal energy is a renewable resource. MacDonald classifies the five different kinds of people with three-letter acronyms, and arbitrarily assigns energy values to them as a way of describing our need to sustain balance. They are VRPs (+3), VIPs (+2), VTPs (+1), VNPs (0), and VDPs (-1).

Each day this week we will spotlight one of those five kinds of energy-affecting relationships. Before we get started, however, we should note that no human being is objectively “stuck” in a particular category. No one has been assigned a T-shirt that says, “I am a relational black hole that consumes all the energy in every room: Run for your life!”

In fact, somebody who loves to talk, talk, talk may fill you with inspiration, even while that same person leaves others in the same conversation feeling exhausted.

So what is a VRP? MacDonald identifies that individual as a Very Resourceful Person. A VRP is someone who raises my level of energy every time we are in the same zip code. He or she rekindles my vision, restores my perspective, and (often without even trying) reassures me that life is worth living.

A Very Resourceful Person, in other words, is a mentor – one of the most precious of all human beings. A mentor might be a living person who is close at hand – a parent, grandparent, teacher, boss, or friend.

But a mentor might just as easily be an author you have never met; a public speaker whose messages you have only heard as recordings; a wise person who has been gone for centuries; or a family member whose voice still rallies you whenever you feel depressed, even from the balcony of heaven.

VRPs are life’s ultimate deep wells of courage and inspiration.

In his book The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard points out that all of us learn how to live – for better or worse – from those who teach us. Each of us is somebody’s disciple. “There are no exceptions to this rule, for human beings are just the kind of creatures that have to learn and keep learning from others how to live.”

How does this learning take place? In order to effect healthy spiritual growth, God sends special teachers into our lives – men and women who by one means or another are called to demonstrate, proclaim, interpret, and model the various essentials of the Christ-following life. To climb a few feet higher on the spiritual slope, we need to receive the encouragement and the extended hands of those who are at least a few feet ahead of us.

“Solo flight” is not a value celebrated in the Bible. Spirituality is imparted and received through relationships. Joshua’s leadership lessons arrive via his association with Moses. Ruth looks to her mother-in-law Naomi. Elisha becomes the protégé of Elijah. Mary receives “problem pregnancy” encouragement and partnership in the company of her older relative Elizabeth. Many of the second generation of Christian missionaries, including Titus, Epaphras, and Tychicus, look to Paul. Apollos receives mentoring from a married couple named Priscilla and Aquila.

It’s widely known that “mentor” entered our vocabulary through Homer’s mythological epic Odyssey. Before his embarkation to the Trojan War, Ulysses places his son Telemachus in the care of a wise old man, Mentor by name. Homer reveals that Telemachus’ education goes far beyond book learning.  Mentor gives the lad a healthy dose of street smarts, so that years later the son will be ready to stand beside the father in the epic final battle for their family’s survival.

Then there’s Barnabas, that remarkable VRP in the life of the apostle Paul. Even though the former persecutor Saul / Paul is mistrusted by virtually all of the earliest Christians, Barnabas displays a unique capacity to see his spiritual potential. Under this mentor’s influence, Paul is gradually able to move from the perimeter of the young church to the center. And we see no evidence that Barnabas is ever unhappy that he slowly disappears from public view because of Paul’s giant shadow. What mattered most, in the end, was that the whole world could be blessed by Paul.

Gordon MacDonald reminds us that we often make a serious personal-energy miscalculation. We take our mentors for granted, or we’re too shy to ask for their time, or we devote the lion’s share of our efforts trying to “fix” the other people in our life – the ones who tend to draw down our energy.

Take a moment today to reflect on the people who feed your soul. Ask yourself: Who is my Barnabas? Thank God for their presence in your life, and give yourself the gift of receiving their encouragement.

No matter what you’re facing this week, remember this first building block of sustaining sufficient energy to live a mission-centered life:

Mentors matter.


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Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called it "as much an experience we live through as a film we watch on screen." He was referring to Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg's 1998 epic re-creation of the D-Day invasion of the Normandy coast and the costly days that followed.

Spielberg was determined to create a World War II film that depicted the actual horrors of combat.  

After a brief opening scene, the film plunges the viewer into 20-plus minutes of the chaos, slaughter, and heroism of the U.S. Army Rangers' landing on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, 81 years ago today.  The cinematic landing was actually staged on a stretch of Irish seacoast, where $12 million was invested in crafting a visual representation of what the Rangers encountered in Normandy.    

A number of World War II veterans stated that Saving Private Ryan is the most realistic depiction of combat they have ever seen.

Tom Hanks, who starred in the film, as well as the actors who played the soldiers under his command, were compelled to endure 10 days of "boot camp" under the direction of a Marine Corps veteran. Spielberg made it clear that the rigorous experience wasn't to train the actors in proper military techniques, but rather "because I wanted them to respect what it was like to be a soldier."

The director employed about two dozen real-life amputees to depict soldiers who lost limbs on the beach. The D-Day sequence alone required forty barrels of fake blood.

During the filming, Spielberg remembers an aging veteran who approached him with a set of maps. He had been tasked with aiming the big naval guns that would "soften up" the German defenses before the Rangers hit the beach. Many of those shots fell short. Instead of knocking out the Germans, they had created "murder holes" just under the surface of the water, where scores of American soldiers and mechanized vehicles disappeared. The veteran told Spielberg that not a day had gone by during the previous half century in which he had not felt anguish over his role in the invasion. He then rolled his maps back up and walked away.

Such conversations reminded the cast and crew that they were retelling a story that had actually happened.  

Tom Allen, who pastors a church in Seattle, is a former Army Ranger. He was deeply moved by the film, especially because it depicts the willingness of soldiers to lay down their lives so that one young man might be able to go back home.  

Allen wasn't happy, however, with the film's climactic scene, where Tom Hanks' character, as he dies, whispers to Private Ryan, "Earn this."   The movie then fast-forwards to Ryan, now at the end of his days, wondering if he had lived the kind of life worthy of the sacrifices of his colleagues.  
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Allen writes, “No Ranger would ever say, ‘Earn this.’” Why? Because that’s not the Rangers’ motto. The Ranger motto for the past two hundred years has been Sua sponte: “Of [my] own accord,” or essentially, “I am choosing this.” I volunteered for this. You don’t pay anything. I freely give up my life for you.

Whenever we look toward the cross, we will never hear Jesus say, “Earn this. Go out and do the best you can for me, because I did my best for you. Of course, you’ll probably spend the rest of your life feeling overwhelmed with a sense of guilt and obligation, because there’s no way you can ever pay off what I have done for you.” Jesus, in fact, said just the opposite: “No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18).  

Sua sponte.

Believers are routinely warned not to be taken in by false religions. We tend to picture fleeing from pagan rituals, hideous idols, or “those deluded people” at the other end of the theological spectrum who preach warped ideas concerning certain Greek verbs in the New Testament. But those aren’t the “fake gospels” that are most likely to trip us up.

We’re in far greater danger of believing a Pay-As-You-Go version of the Jesus-following life--perhaps something like, “The Son of God suffered incredibly for you. So, if you have half a heart, you should feel crushed under a lifelong burden of unworthiness and religious obligation that will make repaying student loans seem like a snap.” In that context, will you ever be able to achieve assurance of salvation? Not a chance.

But deep spiritual assurance -–a joyful awareness of God’s unconditional love and favor--is not an achievement. It is a gift--the gift of the One who said on the cross, “It is finished--paid in full” (John 19:30).

On this day in which we remember the ultimate sacrifices that were freely given on our behalf, we can once again take to heart God’s genuine Good News: It is impossible to earn what God gives for free.
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Holy One, For all of the ways you speak to us – in rushing wind, in dancing flames, in words we understand, and in all that transcends language, we give thanks. Give us courage to
speak your love, everywhere we go, to everyone we meet.
Amen.

~ written by Joanna Harader ~

Seed Library:

It’s that time of year again! Our Seed Library is up and running, a wonderful opportunity to share and grow together. Plant something in your garden, and when harvest time comes, return some of the seeds to the library. In exchange, feel free to take what you need for your next planting season. Let’s keep the cycle of sharing, growing, and blessing our community.

Don’t forget your seeds!

Sunday, June 8, 2025
Intergenerational Sunday School 9:30 AM
Pentecost Sunday Worship 11:00 AM
PW 12:15 PM

Thursday, June 12, 2025
Thursdays Together 10 AM
Choir Rehearsal 6:30 PM

Friday, June 13, 2025
Chordmakers 5:30 PM

Saturday, June 14, 2025
Knit Wits 10:00 AM

As we move through the week, let us carry the reassurance of God’s steadfast love and presence with us. Whether you're joining us for worship, gathering for Thursdays Together, or enjoying music at Chordmakers, we are thankful for you and this vibrant community of faith.

See you soon, and may God’s blessings sustain you throughout the week!

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When the boogeyman goes to sleep at night, he checks under his bed for Chuck Norris.

That’s one of hundreds of so-called Chuck Norris “facts” that for the past 20 years have fed a logic-defying cultural phenomenon and Internet craze. In 2005, talk show host Conan O’Brien began to tell jokes about the martial arts fighter and actor whose credentials include the TV series “Walker, Texas Ranger,” and a host of B movies in which Norris basically defeats entire armies by himself.

Somehow the jokes took off. The satirical “facts” about Norris’ toughness and masculinity propelled him to global superstardom. Here’s a sampling:

• There’s no such thing as global warming. Chuck Norris was cold, so he turned up the sun.
• When Chuck Norris crosses the street, the cars look both ways.
• When an episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” aired in France, the French surrendered to Chuck Norris, just to be on the safe side.
• On Valentine’s Day, Chuck Norris gives his wife a still-beating heart of one of his enemies.
• The flu has to get Chuck Norris shots every year.
• Chuck Norris is why Waldo is hiding.
• When Chuck Norris plays Monopoly, it affects the world economy.
• Chuck Norris sleeps with a pillow under his gun.
• According to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Chuck Norris can actually roundhouse kick you yesterday.

The actor himself, who is enthusiastic about his faith, has maintained a sense of humor about his online cult hero status. He even penned The Official Chuck Norris Fact Book, which features 101 of his favorite quips. Which one does he like the most? People wanted to add Chuck Norris to Mount Rushmore, but the granite wasn’t tough enough for his beard.

The book includes a number of real-life stories, including the time he was asked by a friend to appear in court as an expert witness. Norris’ friend was a lawyer who was defending a man who was pleading self-defense because he had shot someone. The victim was a black belt in karate, and the accused considered the second man a “deadly weapon.” Chuck, at that time, was a world champion in competitive martial arts. Would he be willing help validate the defendant’s claim?

After answering his friend’s cordial questions from the witness stand, Norris was cross-examined by the assistant district attorney. The DA strode up and asked, “Do you expect the court to believe that a black belt in karate would have a chance against a man with a gun?” “It’s possible,” said Norris, “depending on the distance.” “How about 10 feet?” said the DA. Chuck replied, “If the gun wasn’t already cocked and aimed, I believe it is possible.”

That was exactly what the DA hoped to hear. Now he would humiliate Norris and scuttle the defendant’s case. He ordered Norris to leave the witness box and stand near the jury. Then he asked the bailiff to remove the cartridges from his gun and hand him the empty weapon. The DA made a show of pacing off 10 feet, then said to Chuck, “I want you to stop me before I can cock and fire this gun.” Norris thought to himself, “What have I gotten myself into?”

The DA held the gun at his side. He instructed the bailiff to give a verbal command. “Go!” shouted the bailiff. Norris recounts, “Before the DA could cock the gun, I had my foot planted on his chest. I didn’t follow through with my kick because I didn’t want to hurt him.”

The assistant district attorney was stunned, and not a little angry. “My thumb slipped!” he announced. He insisted on a second attempt. The outcome was identical--a foot on his chest before he could cock the gun.

That night Norris shared dinner with his lawyer friend, who couldn’t stop laughing. His friend also made this telling observation: “The DA made a big mistake by asking a question to which he didn’t know the answer.”

It’s a good thing none of us have ever done that. And it’s a good thing none of us have ever attended a church that tried to provide answers to every conceivable question and solutions to every imaginable conundrum, even though we often have no idea what we’re talking about. It may come as a surprise to those of us on the inside, but no one really wants to join the Church That Thinks It’s Right About Everything.

A little too frequently, Christians come across as people who can be relied upon to tell you what to think, how to vote, and whom to fear--that is, “if you really want to please God.” Such defiant certainties can end up becoming unfortunate public controversies. And that’s a shame, for the simple reason that the Bible’s expectations for what it means to follow Jesus aren’t really controversial at all.

At the end of his monumental, 889-page scholarly introduction to the New Testament, N.T. Wright suggests that what we have inherited is “a new way of relating to one another, a way of kindness, a way that accepts the fact of anger but refuses to allow it to dictate the terms of engagement.” Since Jesus’ death accomplished our forgiveness, we must pass that on to each other. “We must become, must be known as, the people who don’t hold grudges, who don’t sulk. We must be the people who know how to say ‘Sorry,’ and who know what to do when other people say it to us.”

Can you imagine what it would be like if the first thing people associated with Christians was, “Oh, those are the people who don’t sulk and whine?" We are called to be the people who always show hospitality. Who serve the poor. Who give away money cheerfully. Who remember that in a God-supervised world, there are no grounds for feeling anxious.

God’s directive is that we should be gracious with each other concerning issues that don’t really matter. We must stand up for those who have been unjustly treated. But never take private vengeance. And always show compassion to those who are hurting.

It’s actually rather straightforward to understand the kind of life to which we are called. Powered by the indwelling gift of God’s Spirit, we are to be the joyful, non-anxious, generous, patient, outward-focused, kind-hearted people in our families and communities.

We will stand out, in other words, not because we are so miserably Right About Everything. But simply because we love each other. Including those who don’t love us back. There’s a world of difference between trying to be right and choosing to be faithful.

On what grounds can we enter into such a life? Well, it’s not this: “On the seventh day God rested, and Chuck Norris took over.”

We can all be glad that Chuck – just like the rest of us – is in sales, not management.
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A few years ago, two first class passengers on a US Airways flight from Philadelphia to Seattle made arrangements to travel with a pet. Their “therapeutic companion animal” turned out to be a full-grown pig.

Others passengers described the 300-pound hog as “enormous, brown, angry, and honking.”

At first he was seated across three seats toward the front of the plane, but attendants had difficulty strapping him in. After takeoff, the pig began to saunter through the cabin. He rubbed his nose on people’s legs, begged for food, and tried to coax other passengers into stroking him.

When the plane landed things quickly went from bad to worse. The pig raced up and down the aisle, shrieking and squealing. People stood on their seats. The pig got loose on the concourse and was ultimately trapped in another part of the Seattle airport.

When asked to comment, US Airways spokesman David Castelveter made two statements: “We can confirm that the pig traveled. And we can confirm that it will never happen again.”

When you think about it, that’s a pretty good starting point for dealing with something that has gone seriously wrong. It happened, and it will never happen again.

Traditionally this would be called confession and repentance. “I did it. And I promise that my future will be such that we will never have to have this conversation again.” Or at least, by God’s grace, this will happen in my life less and less often.

According to the Bible, there’s a third element that needs to come into play. I should ask for forgiveness. “I’m genuinely sorry this happened.”

Now the drama shifts to the injured or offended party – in this case, those whose attempts to watch the in-flight movie (was it Babe, perhaps?) were periodically interrupted by a pig snout seeking honey roasted peanuts.

But isn’t forgiving somebody the coward’s way out? Isn’t that just an option for the weak? Who are we kidding?  Only the strong are able to forgive. Only those who are spiritually tough-minded can embrace an authentic vision for healing and have sufficient inner resources to give up the right to be indignant or angry.

Forgiveness is not an absence of accountability. It’s a courageous decision to refuse to let past mistakes destroy present relationships. Since those who walk with God are the most forgiven people in the world, shouldn’t we also be the most forgiving people in the world?

You may find yourself thinking, “I’ll forgive the monster who wrecked my life when pigs fly.”

Consider it done.  


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Many of life’s most memorable spiritual moments seem to come out of nowhere.

They aren’t planned. They aren’t expected. They catch us off guard.

It’s as if a curtain is suddenly pulled back, and we catch a glimpse, for just a fleeting moment, of the reality of the invisible world. And we realize there’s a lot more going on than we had suspected.

One such moment happened in my life during a Sunday morning worship service at the church I served for 28 years. An older pastor from Romania was visiting us, and we had asked him to take five or ten minutes to describe his ministry in a rural community.

Iosef Pop is a remarkable man. He has mentored a number of young pastors and released them for service across Romania’s heartland.

He is courageous. When some strangers walked into his village, hoping to lure young women into a “glamorous life” in the West – but almost certainly into sexual slavery instead – Iosef publicly took a stand. Armed only with moral authority and confidence in the Holy Spirit, he declared, “You will not be taking any girls from this community.” He prevailed.

The one thing Iosef has not been able to master is speaking English.

Therefore we hired an interpreter for his Sunday morning visit – a young woman, born in Romania, who happened to be enrolled at a nearby Hoosier university. She did not know Iosef, and as far as we knew, she was not a person of faith.

The sanctuary was packed that day. Just before Iosef spoke, about 60 children from our Sunday School paraded in to sing a pair of praise songs. There were smiles all around.

When Iosef walked to the pulpit, with the interpreter standing alongside, he was beaming.

He expressed his joy at hearing the children sing. He went on to describe the plight of so many of Romania’s children. Nikolae Ceausescu, the Soviet-backed dictator who had been toppled not more than a decade earlier, had demanded that Romanians produce large families. The regime would need multitudes of children to become warriors and factory workers.

But when Ceausescu’s reign imploded, life became precarious for many of those children. Some of their parents, economically crippled, simply turned them loose. Kids between the ages of six and sixteen struggled to survive on the streets.  

Iosef began to describe his vision of a future in which Romanian children would enjoy safety, security, opportunity, and the chance to go to bed at night knowing they were loved by a God who would never let them go.

That’s when the interpreter suddenly lost her composure.

“Forgive me,” she said to us, tears filling her eyes. “But what this man is saying is so moving to me. He’s talking about blessing the children of my homeland. This means so much.”

Tears filled many of our eyes, too. Iosef paused, not knowing what she had just said to us – but suspecting that something significant was happening.  

A curtain was being pulled back.

It was one of those “thin places” acknowledged by Celtic spirituality – momentary intersections between this world and the invisible realm. For just a moment, we all caught a glimpse of the entanglement of history, tragedy, hope, and grace. We watched as it dawned on a young woman that (in the words of Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings), “There’s good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”

In the book of Genesis, Jacob has such a memorable moment.

The young man whose descendants will one day be known as the people of Israel is running for his life. He has conspired with his mother to deceive his father, stealing the much-coveted patriarchal blessing from his older brother Esau.

Now he’s in the middle of nowhere, all by himself, heading for who knows where. He lays his head on a rock and falls into a fitful sleep.

But it’s a sleep in which he is visited by the very God he’s not sure he really believes in. God promises to bless him and watch over him. Jacob awakens and marvels, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it” (Genesis 28:16). He calls that place Bethel, which means “house of God.”

Every place we go turns out to be Bethel.

Every now and then the curtain is pulled back – in the middle of your kids’ playtime, or in the thick of a traffic jam, or halfway through a phone call, or while you’re stirring spaghetti sauce, or walking on a rain-covered sidewalk, or even (amazingly enough) during a Sunday morning worship service – and we suddenly realize that the Lord is in this place and doing something extraordinary.

And we were not aware of it.

One definition of spiritual growth is learning to trust that God is at work in every circumstance, even when the curtain isn’t pulled back, even when we’re not granted those fleeting glimpses.

May the Lord bless you as you go from one Bethel to another – every hour of this seemingly ordinary day.


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Generally the passing of a retired chemical engineer wouldn’t make a dent in the national news cycle. But Harrison Ruffin Tyler, who died May 25, was no ordinary citizen. He was the last surviving grandson of John Tyler.

Yes, that John Tyler--the man who became America’s 10th president 184 years ago. Tyler was born in 1790, during the first term of George Washington. And he died in 1862, during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Neither of those details is particularly noteworthy.  Historians, in fact, have never considered Tyler (who served from 1841 to 1845) one of the brighter lights in America's presidential chandelier. But what no one saw coming is that two of John Tyler’s grandsons would still be alive when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

At first blush, that seems impossible. How can a man who was born in the 18th century and who died in the middle of the 19th century have living grandchildren two decades into the 21st century?  As you might guess, the dominoes of Tyler's life had to fall in just the right way. And they did.

A couple of cultural factors helped make it happen. It wasn't uncommon in the 1800's for men (especially widowers) to marry women many decades their junior. And it wasn't unusual for couples to produce a lot of kids. Tyler fathered 15 children, a presidential record unlikely ever to be broken (especially since Elon Musk, father of at least 14 kids, is a native South African and therefore ineligible for America’s highest office). Tyler had eight children with his first wife Letitia and seven more with his second wife Julia, whom he married two years after Letitia's death. At the time of their marriage, Julia was 30 years younger than Tyler. Those circumstances alone would be enough to propel the president's progeny into the 20th century. But then one of Tyler's sons repeated his dad's pattern.

Lyon Gardiner Tyler (1853-1935), the president's 13th child, had three children with his first wife Anne. Not long after her death, the nearly 70-year-old Lyon married a 35-year-old woman named Sue, with whom he had three more kids. The first of that trio died in infancy. But the second two - Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. (born 1924) and Harrison Ruffin Tyler (born 1928) – just kept adding candles to their birthday cakes. Lyon left us in 2020 at the age of 95, while Harrison died a week ago yesterday at 96.

Everything had to happen exactly right to produce those extraordinary happenings. 

When you think about it, some pretty incredible things also had to happen for you to be reading this reflection today. Your great-grandparents had to make it out of childhood alive, something hardly guaranteed even 100 years ago. Your grandparents on both sides had to meet. They had to have a second date that was promising enough to allow them to fall in love. Those who came before you had to survive the Flu Pandemic of 1918, the scourge of polio, the Great Depression, and the possibility of becoming a casualty in one of America's wars.  

Against all odds, you had to win the most important competitive event of your life, the one in which half your genetic material outraced at least 10 million other sperm. Your mother had to decide to bring you into the world. Your birth parents or adoptive parents had to embrace the challenge of feeding you, loving you, and carrying you at 3 am while you were sick, even though you had little to offer at such moments except the hope and expectation that one day you would become an adult who could offer love and care to others, too.

All those things had to happen. And they did. Which is why you are here.

The Hebrew psalmists were pretty sure there was more to the story. "In your book [O Lord] were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them yet existed" (Psalm 139:16). God, in other words, is the ultimate author of our stories. He is the superintendent of the details of our lives - moments both big and small - and the turning points no one else can see coming. "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord" (Jeremiah 29:11).  

Those plans may not include grandchildren who will be carrying on our legacies two centuries from now. But they are remarkable enough to give every one of us grounds to say, every morning, "Thank you, Father, for the privilege of waking up one more time in your good creation."
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New York City has always been a harrowing place to live.

During the 1850s – a long time before the arrival of subways and skyscrapers – the city was deeply unsettled. As depicted in Martin Scorsese’s 2002 feature film Gangs of New York, the streets roiled with conflicts between rich and poor, Blacks and Whites, and European immigrants and “real Americans” who claimed Manhattan as their birthright. In that unstable environment, children were especially vulnerable. Demographers estimate that in 1854 there were as many as 34,000 homeless boys and girls.

Some children had been abandoned because their parents couldn’t feed them. Others were orphaned when their mothers and fathers perished in epidemics of typhoid or influenza. Immigrant families often found themselves bereft of support because no extended family lived nearby, and effective social agencies were still years away. A number of children ended up in orphanages. Such institutions typically housed as many as 2,000 kids. Individualized care was unrealistic.

Life on the streets was worse. Boys trapped and ate rats. They formed gangs to protect themselves from violence. Girls sometimes aligned themselves with prostitutes, becoming “panel thieves.” While a customer was otherwise occupied in an adjoining room, a girl with small hands could slide a panel in the wall and reach into the pockets of his discarded pants. Bar owners built stairsteps to their counters so kids could order alcohol.

It was a social catastrophe on an epic scale. The stories of most of these young lives were going to end badly. What could be done?

Local churches kept a safe distance. Street urchins might have been welcomed if they routinely took baths and changed clothes, but that wasn’t going to happen.

A 26-year-old Presbyterian minister named Charles Loring Brace embraced a different approach. He took his ministry to the streets and befriended the kids. He founded the Children’s Aid Society, a cohort of like-minded individuals who weren’t afraid to think outside the box for God’s sake. What if some of New York City’s abandoned children could start life over again somewhere else – with new families, new surroundings, new opportunities?

For the better part of a year, the Society relocated boys and girls to farms in nearby Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Then, in September 1854, they took a crazy risk. They rented a train. A group of 46 children (ages 7 to 15) were invited to jump aboard and head “way out west,” all the way to Dowagiac, Michigan. By the end of one week, all 46 kids had been welcomed into the homes of local residents. The Orphan Train, as it was later called, was considered such a successful gamble that another train full of kids went to another town. Then came another. And another.

Between 1854 and 1929, orphan trains transported almost a quarter million children from crowded Eastern cities to various Midwestern communities. Brace’s novel idea became the foundation of the modern foster care system.

Now, almost a century later, the internet teems with first person accounts of what it was like to leave life on the streets and journey to a new home. Grainy photos abound. The world is finally beginning to grasp the enormity of this mission of mercy.

Not every story had a happy ending, of course. Critics are quick to point out that some of the children were exploited as indentured servants by Midwestern farmers. Researchers, however, have concluded that approximately 80% of the children experienced positive outcomes. We know that three of them grew up to become state governors. Others became teachers, doctors, pastors, missionaries, lawyers, judges, and mayors--not to mention mothers, fathers, friends, and neighbors.

The stories of those children changed. They were given the gift of a better tomorrow. All because a 26-year-old didn’t stand on the sidelines wringing his hands.

Are you watching an unfolding crisis and find yourself wondering who is going to step up and do something? You might gather a team of like-minded allies who share your concerns. Pray. Think about taking some crazy risks. And pray some more.

Keep asking: Who, with God’s grace and power, is going to do whatever it takes to change someone else’s story? Then consider the very real possibility that you are the answer to your own question.

Tom Toro draws cartoons for The New Yorker magazine, long considered the ultimate cartoonists’ showcase. His work springs from his humorous observations concerning the challenges of everyday life, as evidenced by the panel above. But it took a while before he hit the big time. The New Yorker accepted his 610th cartoon. Before that, Toro had received 609 rejection letters.

This is not unusual in the world of cartoonists. The typical rejection rate for major publications is 97%. That means even for the funniest people doing their best work, only three out of 100 submissions get the thumbs up. One artist sent more than 2,000 panels to The New Yorker before his first hit. Ironically, he went on to become the magazine’s beloved cartoon editor.

All of this raises a compelling question: What kind of people can possibly endure a 97% rate of rejection? According to psychologist and author Angela Duckworth, the answer is people who embody “grit.”

In Grit: The Power and Passion of Perseverance, Duckworth describes why some of the world’s most talented men and women fall short of significant achievement, while others who seem to just plug along become the real agents of change. Her conclusion? “Talent is overrated.” Our culture is transfixed with talented athletes, talented artists, and talented leaders. But what it really takes to succeed is sustained effort over a long time. “Grit” is the ability to keep going, even in the face of failure.

Duckworth’s studies led her to concoct a two-part formula. Everyone affirms the first equation: Talent + Effort = Skill. Talented people really do have an edge getting out of the gate. But the second equation is the ultimate key to success: Skill + Effort = Achievement.

As Duckworth points out, “Effort counts twice.” It’s the one thing that appears on the left side of both equations. What a previous generation called sticktoitiveness is the ability to summon the will to stick with something, even when you want, for all the world, to grab a bag of Doritos, curl up on the couch, and binge watch reruns of Cheers.

Angela is a living embodiment of her own formula. Her father used to sigh and say to her, “You know, you’re no genius.” Duckworth grew up believing that – and she still does. The irony is that in 2013, because of her ground-breaking research into the field of human achievement, she became a MacArthur Fellow. That’s the so-called Genius Award. Angela’s father is intensely proud of her great success, which both of them know has primarily come about through sheer grit.

There are no verses in the Old or New Testaments that speak directly of “spiritual grittiness.” But these rousing words of the apostle Paul come pretty close: “Not that I… have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).

More simply: Once you’ve caught a glimpse of God’s call on your life, decide that you will pursue it and never quit. Or as Tom Toro recently put it: “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try and try and try and try and try again.”
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Winston Churchill loved dinner parties. The World War II-era British Prime Minister savored hearty entrees, tasty desserts, endless rounds of brandy and champagne, and imported Cuban cigars. What Churchill most enjoyed, however, was the chance to sit for extended periods with friends and foes alike.

In her book Dinner with Churchill, historian Cita Stelzer reveals that at mealtimes Sir Winston was doing a lot more than just sampling soufflés. It was his lifelong habit to listen carefully, float ideas, entertain gossip, and build bridges amongst his guests. In other words, the dinner table was Churchill’s secret weapon in conducting the business of politics, both foreign and domestic. He knew, intuitively, that something special happens when people eat together. Minds and hearts become more open and vulnerable. Walls comes down. People quietly digest more than just the food on their plates.

Churchill said that if he could have eaten dinner with Josef Stalin once a week, the anxieties of the Cold War might have been far less intense.

It’s not a coincidence that world religions routinely invite their adherents to a central feast. Consider Islam’s Eid al-Fitr (the culmination of the month of Ramadan), Judaism’s Passover (the festive meal that commemorates Israel’s escape from slavery in Egypt), and Christianity’s Lord’s Supper (the mass or eucharist or service of communion that echoes Jesus’ final meal with his disciples the night before he died). How do we make peace with God and with each other? We sit side by side at the same table. The New Testament even portrays heaven as the Great Banquet where God is the gracious host.

At the end of every year, America’s holidays (our culture’s “holy days”) present seemingly never-ending opportunities to eat. Thanksgiving is followed by five weeks of Christmas parties, cookie exchanges, New Year’s Eve bashes, family feasts, celebratory dinners, and joyful calls to hoist mugs of hot chocolate, wassail, and eggnog. It’s enough to keep Weight Watchers in business for a very long time.

The summer feasting season may be smaller in scale, but it won’t be long before grills are firing up, neighbors are coming together to share barbecue and potato salad, and relatives are gathering around picnic tables for annual reunions.

There’s a sacredness in sitting down with others, whether they be friends, family members, or even those fellow students or co-workers with the most prickly personalities. David writes concerning the Lord, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (Psalm 23:5). Every time we sit down to a meal, it’s the Lord’s table. And that table just might be the place where hurts can be healed and enemies can become allies.

At all your summer gatherings, therefore, listen carefully. Speak fewer words than you did last year. Look for Spirit-provided opportunities to build bridges. It’s time to enjoy the kinds of meals that can make this time of year nothing less than a season of redemption.


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Would you like to explore previous reflections, and learn more about this ministry?  Check out glennsreflections.com.

Some people just have a way with words.

That includes Muhammad Ali, whose wit, wisdom, and sheer audacity place him near the top of any list of the most “quotable people” in the English language.

There wasn’t much in his childhood to presage such fame. Ali, who was born Cassius Clay, was the son of a billboard painter and domestic helper in Louisville, Kentucky. He struggled to read and write because of dyslexia.

At the age of 12, he became furious when someone stole his bike. He vowed to “whup” whoever was responsible. Providentially, the police officer who processed the theft was Joe E. Martin, who also happened to be a boxing coach. If Clay intended to start a fight, Martin suggested he ought to learn how to box.

What followed was history’s most spectacular pugilistic career.

Ali was far more than a champion in the ring. He became an ardent social activist and global icon. In the year 2000, Sports Illustrated named him Sportsman of the Century.

Along the way he helped pioneer the kind of “spoken word poetry” that gave birth to hip hop.

Some of his declarations sprang from trash-talking his boxing opponents. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, you can’t hit what your eyes don’t see.” Then there’s, “If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize.”

It may be apocryphal, but I’ve always loved Ali’s conversation with a flight attendant who insisted that he fasten his seat belt. “Superman don’t need no seat belt,” he announced, loudly enough for others to hear. “Superman don’t need no airplane,” retorted the flight attendant. As the story is usually told, the champ fastened his belt.

With regard to perseverance, he noted, “It isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you down. It’s the pebble in your shoe.”

He added, “Impossible is just a word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

Ali was certain that all of us are called to outward-focused lives: “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”

And he had an unyielding opinion about the priority of personal growth: “A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”

Finally, “I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was.”

Before we dismiss that last line as a childish boast, we should note how close it comes to an important strain of teaching in the New Testament.

All of us are tempted to believe certain fictions about our own lives. The late Catholic devotional writer Henri Nouwen famously presented what he called The Five Lies of Identity:

I am what I have.  

If that's true, what happens if you fail to wrap your hands around the best things in life?  And what happens when all of your stuff inevitably begins to slip through your fingers?  

I am what I do.

This is one of those unyielding lies at the heart of our show-me-your-resume culture. If we buy into it, then losing a job or experiencing the end of a career can feel devastating. Who am I now?  

I am what other people say or think of me.

Believing the verdicts of co-workers, neighbors, social media followers - and even those who have pledged their love to us - is to risk surrendering our identity to people who cannot possibly know the depths of who we really are.

I am nothing more than my worst moment.

If so, then you will be tortured all your life by your biggest blunder. You may have made a grievous mistake. But that doesn't mean that you, at the center of your being, are a grievous mistake.  

I am nothing less than my best moment.

At the other end of the spectrum, you are not the highlight reel of your life that you post on social media.

If we routinely misunderstand our own identity and value, how can we ever know what it is?  St. Francis of Assisi declared, "I am who I am in the sight of God. Nothing more, nothing less."  

How do we know who we are in the sight of God?

If you have trusted your life to Christ, Romans 8 says that you are forgiven, and free from condemnation (vs. 1,2); that all things in your life are working together for good (v. 28); and that you cannot be separated from God’s love (vs.37-39). God says in Philippians that he is going to finish what he has started in your life (1:6).  You are not worthless, inadequate, helpless, or hopeless, since Scripture makes it clear that you are God’s temple (I Corinthians 3:16); that you are God’s co-worker in the kingdom (2 Corinthians 5:17-21); and that you may approach God with absolute freedom and confidence (Ephesians 3:12).

All of this has nothing to do with how you feel right now. It has everything to do with what God says about you right now.

Spiritual growth is the process of gradually replacing the broken ideas we’ve always assumed to be true with the Real Story about God, the world, and our own lives.

It doesn’t happen all at once. Sometimes we go two steps forward and three steps back.

But Muhammad Ali was definitely on to something when he said, “I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was.” If we take God at his word, we can declare, “I am God’s dearly loved child” – and start living as if that’s true – even before we “know,” in the depths of our souls, the fullness of what that even means.

The odds are pretty good you’ll never become a world champion at anything, let alone a global icon.

But you can get this one thing right:

You don’t have to waste 30 years of your life believing the same old lies about who you really are.


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Would you like to explore previous reflections, and learn more about this ministry?  Check out glennsreflections.com.

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It’s hard to overstate the eagerness of many underage men to join America's armed forces in World War II. Calvin Graham was one of them. In August 1942 he walked into a recruiting station in Fort Worth, Texas. The recruiting officer had a pretty good idea Calvin was too young to go to war. The dentist who examined his teeth was certain that he wasn't yet 18 years old. But Graham was determined to serve his country.

While the dentist wasn't looking, he quietly slipped his file from the stack of "rejected" recruits to the "approved" pile. Within a few days he was in boot camp in San Diego. That fall he shipped out to the Pacific theater, where he became a gunner on the battleship South Dakota. During the Battle of Santa Cruz and the subsequent nighttime Battle of Guadalcanal, he loaded shells into a 40-mm anti-aircraft gun.  

The South Dakota took 47 hits at Guadalcanal. One explosion blew Graham down a stairwell and raked his jaw with shrapnel. Despite serious wounds, he stayed on his feet all night long, fighting fires and pulling some of his crewmates to safety. Calvin was awarded a Bronze Star for heroism and a Purple Heart for his combat wounds.  

In a later unguarded moment, however, he admitted to his gunnery officer (Sargent Shriver, who would one day lead the Peace Corps and run for president in 1976) that he had lied on his enlistment papers. He hadn't told the truth about his age. Calvin Graham was just 12 years old.

Shriver felt he had no option but to report what he had just learned. Graham wound up back in the States. Then he was jailed. He was stripped of his medals and dishonorably discharged. Ultimately his sister threatened to embarrass the Navy by taking his story to the press. The Navy relented and allowed Graham to go home.

Two days after his 13th birthday the next April, he rejoined his Fort Worth classmates in the seventh grade. If his teacher had assigned the class a writing project entitled "What I Did During Spring Break," it's likely his would have been a bit more dramatic than anyone else's.

Historians believe Calvin Graham was the youngest American serviceman to see combat during World War II. The Navy, however, was reluctant to acknowledge his contributions, since doing so would spotlight the gaps in their recruitment protocols.

Graham never stopped fighting to have his military service recognized. Two American presidents eventually got involved. In 1977, Jimmy Carter authorized his honorable discharge and returned his Bronze Medal. In 1988, Ronald Reagan paved the way for Graham to receive the medical benefits he had long been denied. In 1994, his Purple Heart was finally reinstated. But Calvin had died two years earlier of heart failure at age 62.

In all 50 states one has to reach a minimum age in order to drive a car or vote in an election. At theme parks you have to be a certain height in order to ride the biggest roller coasters. How old do you have to be to be a hero?

Jesus shocked his listeners when he seemed to throw out the minimum age requirements for discipleship. "Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, 'I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me'" (Matthew 18:2-5, "The Message").

Training and experience matter. But readiness and willingness to serve matter even more. Calvin Graham was in the company of the willing.

Are you prepared to say yes to the call of God in your life, no matter how someone else might assess your worthiness? On this Memorial Day, let’s give thanks for the myriad men and women whose selflessness and sacrifices have granted us the freedom to contemplate that very question.  

Let the light of God’s eternal love flood into your hearts this day. Feel the healing presence of God in your lives. Accept God’s love and hope for you. This is the gift freely given for you by Jesus Christ, God’s risen Son our Lord.
 AMEN
~ written by Nancy Townley ~

Seed Library:

It’s that time of year again! Our Seed Library is up and running, a wonderful opportunity to share and grow together. Plant something in your garden, and when harvest time comes, return some of the seeds to the library. In exchange, feel free to take what you need for your next planting season. Let’s keep the cycle of sharing, growing, and blessing our community.

Don’t forget your seeds!

As we move through the week, let us carry the reassurance of God’s steadfast love and presence with us. Whether you're joining us for worship, gathering for Thursdays Together, or enjoying music at Chordmakers, we are thankful for you and this vibrant community of faith.

See you soon, and may God’s blessings sustain you throughout the week!

Who could have imagined that followers of Jesus would owe a debt of gratitude to Friederick Nietzsche?
 
That particular German philosopher, after all, has long been regarded as one of history’s arch-atheists.
 
Nietzsche (1844-1900) was the intellectual who popularized the phrase “God is dead” – and then challenged his fellow nonbelievers to think and live as if that were actually true. The problem, as Nietzsche saw it, is that the majority of secularists and nihilists cheat. They borrow some of their most cherished values from the realm of religion, then pretend that such values are actually meaningful in a cosmos without God.
 
What values did he have in mind?
 
The secular European intelligentsia of the 19th century believed in human rights. They applauded Thomas Jefferson’s ringing phrase in the Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal.” They proclaimed the inherent dignity of the poor and weak, and insisted that powerful people trampling powerless people is a great evil.
 
A majority of Enlightenment thinkers believed in moral absolutes. Certain things are right and certain other things are wrong. Period. Love, compassion, and service are among the noblest human virtues.
 
Science and reason would soon usher in humanity’s Golden Age. Courageous leaders must sweep away the crumbling and irrelevant old order, represented in particular by the Church. In the words of the French Enlightenment philosophe Denis Diderot, “Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
 
Some of the brightest minds in the West went so far as to say that ideals like social compassion, scientific precision, and human rights were recent inventions. They sprang from the minds of people who had at last been freed from religious bigotry and superstition.
 
And what was Nietzsche’s response to those thinkers?
 
He mocked them.
 
Didn’t these arrogant “freethinkers” grasp that the majority of their cherished values were unique to the religion associated with Jesus? And that if you erase God from the big picture, you can’t pick and choose a handful of Christian virtues just because you happen to like them?
 
A century and a half ago, Nietzsche was railing at his fellow atheists that they couldn’t have their cake and eat it, too. We can thank him for calling out his peers for their inconsistency.
 
If the Darwinist view of reality is objectively true, as most secularists insist, “love” and “human rights” are meaningless. We are here by accident. There are no moral absolutes. Life is about dominating others, not forgiving your enemies. Human beings are most certainly not created equal.
 
Secular philosophers thus find themselves in an uncomfortable position. If free will, human rights, and the dignity of the poor make sense only if there is a God who cares about such things, how can we hang on to such ideals in a universe where God is dead? The default answer has been to insist that these cherished values (surprise!) are in fact the gifts bestowed upon the world by secularism.
 
No so fast, says British historian Tom Holland.
 
Holland is not a Christian – not yet, at least. With every new book and interview he seems to be inching closer to affirming that the Jesus Story might be the one account that makes good sense of reality.
 
In his 2019 book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, Holland is merciless in his criticism of the Church. People who claim to represent Jesus have said and done some of the dumbest things imaginable. Yet Christianity – and not some recent “discoveries” by secularists – is unquestionably the source of the values and ideals we associate most closely with the West.
 
Holland notes that the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome found Christianity to be absurd. Who would want to follow a failed revolutionary who died a slave’s death on a cross?
 
Likewise, the shame-and-honor cultures of old, pagan Europe – the Franks, Huns, Anglo-Saxons and others – thought that forgiving enemies and honoring the poor could not possibly work in their rough-and-tumble world.
 
In other words, such ideas would never have occurred to such groups on their own. Author Tim Keller asserts they only began to make sense when aligned with the conviction that there exists a single, infinite-personal God – someone who, incredibly, became a human being and died in sacrificial love.
 
The early Christians cared for the sick, adopted orphans, fed the hungry, and rescued abandoned infants. No other group had ever done such things. This depth of charity was unique to Christian faith.
 
But wasn’t science, at least, the invention of the Enlightenment?
 
Holland notes that so-called “modern” science, with its dependance on reason and experimentation, is founded on the biblical assertion that the world is actually there, and is not an illusion – the starting point of most Eastern faiths.
 
Most of the pioneers of modern science sustained an active Christian faith – and there is no reason to doubt that science and faith can co-exist as mutually reinforcing quests for truth.
 
Above all, the idea of hope – that history is actually going somewhere, and is leading us toward greater truth, justice, and peace – was not dreamed up by Voltaire, Rousseau, Jefferson or Franklin. It is hands-down a Christian invention.
 
Nietzsche died in an asylum at the age of 56, driven mad by syphilis and his failure to convince his peers that they needed to be “all-in” when it came to their atheism.
 
Christianity, he thought, was for losers. Society would inevitably become as weak as that weak-minded Galilean – unless “supermen” chose to rise up and renounce Christian virtues.
 
The flow of history, however, seems to be going in the opposite direction. Christianity’s gifts to the world – the inherent dignity of each individual, irrevocable human rights, the priority of helping the weak, and a living hope that our actions truly matter – are considered so important that even secularism claims them as its own.
 
One crucial question remains. It looms over every page of Holland’s book. He puts it like this:
 
“If secular humanism derives not from reason or from science, but from the distinctive course of Christianity’s evolution – a course that, in the opinion of growing numbers in Europe and America, has left God dead – then how are its values anything more than the shadow of a corpse?”
 
In other words, if the things we value most depend on an informed trust that God is really there, what will happen when that trust dies?
 
Holland doesn’t directly answer that question. But book critic and atheist George Scialabba offers his own take:
 
“Perseverance in virtue will sometimes require self-sacrifice. And self-sacrifice seems to require some transcendental justification or motivation, of which the most common, and perhaps the most logical, is belief in the existence of God. Can we be good for long without God?”
 
Can we – our families, our communities, our nation – be good in the long run without God?
 
That is the question.

Pastor Glenn McDonald