On the eve of Christmas Eve

I'm in my study early this morning for a time of reflection and to make sure that everything is in order for the Kids Church program during our worship service. Mixing spiritual with practical. That's what Christmas is all about. God becoming flesh, bringing his spritiual reality to us in a human package, Jesus Christ.

We have been observing Advent with the lighting of the candles. We had to miss last Sunday because of bad weather, so today we light the third and fourth candles. I'm not sure I have them in the right order, but as I study about Advent traditions there doesn't seem to be any right way to do it anyhow. Today will the the candle of peace. How appropriate when we have war surrounding us on all fronts. And if not out and out war, there are hostilities all over the planet. Come quickly, Lord Jesus, and give us your peace!

Tomorrow night we have our Christmas Eve Candle Lighting service, and we will be doing something a little different this year. For the past few years one of our favorite Christmas songs has been "Mary, Did You Know?" We're going to sing that song and then give everyone a chance to say what they know about Jesus. What they know for themselves. What Jesus has done in their lives. It will be a time for sharing what the original Christmas did to change lives, because if Jesus were not born we would not be doing what we do as church. What do you know?

If I don't post anything before Christmas, may you have a wonderful Christmas. May Jesus find a place in your heart, and may he cause you to experience new life in him. Merry Christmas!

Snow and Ice

I'm originally from the South and I have come to find snow and ice to be very difficult obstacles to my life. When I was a kid snow was a big thing, a pleasant surprise. We got to go outside and build snowmen and run through the snow. I remember as a kid making snow cream - take some snow, put a little milk in it and a little vanilla -wow, that was great!

When I first moved to New York in 1978 it was to Rochester. I found he snow out there to be a fun challenge. I learned to drive in the snow. To accept snow as part of everyday life in Rochester. I have lived in Albany and in Stephentown and Old Chatham, all with huge snowfalls. Clintondale has its share of snow, but it's nowhere as much as Rochester or even Stephentown.

As I get older, however, I find snow and ice to be unpleasant surprises. I am tempted to want to move to a warmer climate. I can get crabby and depressed.

But you know what? It's life! As long as I am living here - and I believe that God brought me here and wants me to stay here a while longer - as long as I am living here, I need to accept the fact of snow. I don't have to like it, but I do have to accept it.

There are a whole lot of other things I don't have to like but I have to accept. In fact, that's the way life is. I was at a meeting tonight where we ended with the Serenity Prayer. That Prayer has become a way of life for me. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Acceptance is key to living a life filled with serenity.

So is change. When I see something that needs changing, and God calls me to make the change, then I will have the power given me by the Spirit to change according to God's will.

Acceptance and change. And the wisdom to know when to do which.

I pray for anyone reading this blog the grace to live by the Serenity Prayer. I pray for you the grace of God in your life.

Has it been that long?

I can't believe it has been this long since I last posted. When I think about the blog, and realize that I haven't written anything for a long time, I wonder why I even keep it up on the web. But it is a place that I can write, even if no one reads it, and writing helps me to get my thoughts and life together.

This morning we cancelled our worship service and Kids Church due to bad weather. I am staying at the church to answer the phone if people call to find out whether church is being held. this gives me some time by myself. I did a little work on the computer - put a page up on the web where people can check out urgent announcements, such as cancellations.

This year has been an amazing demonstration of God's grace. We have had new people coming to worship with us. There is great spiritual growth taking place. Some of the small groups from our Forty Days of Purpose/Forty Days of Community programs continue. The Busy Bees, our sewing group, is doing well. Kids Church is a delight to our congregation - the kids come in each Sunday morning and help us start off our worship service. I have been teaching a Foundations Class, developed by Saddleback Church - it's a great program. God has blessed us financially. The list just keeps going.

Over the year I have come to say, "Don't presume upon the grace of God. The Lord gives and the Lord can take away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." I truly stand in awe of the Lord. There is a healthy fear, not that I cower before the Lord, but in worship I bow before him. There is a vast difference between cowering and bowing. It's a difference that only a believer can know.

Our son Dan still lives in Haiti at a children's home/orphanage called Pwoje Espwa. You can find this ministry at http://freethekids.org. Fr. Marc keeps a blog - and he does a much better job than I at keeping it updated! - and on his blog there are frequent postings of pictures and news. My wife and I and a member of our church plan on going down to Haiti next month. We will happily be there for the tenth anniversary of the founding of Pwoje Espwa.

We are coming into an active presidential election where a lot is at stake. I won't give any of my political leanings here - that's not my job. However, I will say that there is no candidate that can save this nation or any other nation. We need to turn to God, asking God to bring forward candidates that will lead with integrity, intelligence, and compassion. Only God through Jesus Christ will be able to turn this nation around. We need national revival. I won't say that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, but it was founded by Christians on Christian principles and those principles hold true today just as much as any time in our history.

This past year I have been impressed with the importance God places upon the church. Not the institutional church per se, but the local congregation of believers where Jesus presides and his people live faithfully as community. Somewhere along the line I heard that God's Plan A for humanity is the church, and he doesn't have a Plan B. Nearly two years ago I resigned my ordination with the group that held my credentials and asked Clintondale Friends Christian Church to recognize my ministry. I didn't do this because I had any falling out with my credentialing fellowship, but because I have come to see the importance of the local church. In the beginning of the church there were no denominations. There were local churches knit together by the apostles and by letters (which turned into Scriptures) being circulated from those apostles. Each church was autonomous, governed by elders who had been put in place by the apostles. That they were autonomous does not mean there was no common faith and practice, just that no super-body ruled over them. Jesus is the one who builds the church and he oversees it through his undershepherds, the elders.

We have five elders in our church and are in the process of appointing deacons. This indeed has been a process. As the Lord leads we hope to see ourselves established along New Testament lines, responsive and responsible to the Lord Jesus in all things.

We stand at the end of an old year and on the threshold of a new one. Even though time and calendars are tools for us to mark our lives, they do give us opportunities to take stock and look ahead in faith and hope for new discoveries in the Kingdom of God.

God bless you, reader.

Pastor Dan

It is October 8, we had our furnaces serviced today for the coming winter, and we used our air conditioning systems yesterday for worship and fellowship hour. October 8 and we haven't turned on the furnaces yet. Global warming? Who knows? The temptation is to lay the blame there for what seems like weather changes; major weather changes at that. But how can we really know the extent of the weather changes? I remember back in the 1970's when we talked about how we must be good stewards of the earth or we would pay dearly. Are the seeming major weather changes part of the payback for our misuse of the earth?

Psalm 24:1 reads "The earth is the LORD'S, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it. " It all belongs to God, and we are to be stewards over it. With stewardship comes responsibility, and responsibility means that there are consequences to actions.

"For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God." Romans 8:19 The creation for which we are appointed stewards is waiting for us to demonstrate that we are God's children. It is so important that we understand that, as children of God, we have a family responsibility to our Father - a responsibility as family members - to tend our home.

I'm from the South and love the heat. I don't care for the cold or for snow. But I do care that we not put our planet out of kilter and destroy the natural rhythms of the earth. I'll live with the snow and cold if we can be good stewards and treat earth as our Father desires. We are to do all for the glory of God. The earth belongs to God - everything in it. Can we realize that and be good stewards?

It has been so long since the last post. Things have been going hectic and I've just not paid attention to this blog. One of the things that is coming is a trip to Haiti in January. Cheryl and I and a man from the church are going in early January. We will be visiting our son Danny who works at Pwoje Espwa in Les Cayes, Haiti. You can look it up at http://freethekids.org. Fr. Marc, the head of the orphanage, keeps a wonderful blog on this web site and it is jam full of great pictures.

A couple of very neat things happened today. One was attending a farewell party for a pastor and his wife who are retiring after thirty-five years of service in an area church. What an encouragement the pastor has been to me and he will be greatly missed. The party was a God-thing, a God-event. People from all over came - his current parishoners, former parishoners, those he had impacted - his children. It was really a family reunion of believers from this area, believers from all churches who turned out to honor the couple - and to recognize our indebtedness to God for all the wonderful things he gives to us through his Son Jesus Christ.

The other thing that happened was listening to and singing a new song - at least it is new to me. It is "In Your Presence O God" by Lynn DeShazzo. This is a terrific song that acknowledges where our strength and hope are - in the Presence of God. "That's where I belong" the songs says. That's where we all belong, in the Presence of God. As I've said over and again, it is not about religion, but relationship. It is about our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And God's presence is so real, so compelling - so powerful!!

It is late night, September 4, and I am getting ready to go to bed. But not before I post a note on the blog. It has been too long since I've written anything here.

I am increasingly excited about what God is doing in my life and the life of the church - both the local church here in Clintondale and the church in the Mid-Hudson Valley. There is a fresh stirring of the Spirit. Praise God for his faithfulness to us, even though we so often let him down.

We are seeing God get people through some very difficult times. This year we have witnessed physical healings, emotional healings, spiritual victories, restored relatioinships... God has been at work in the lives of folks here in Clintondale.

I am being challenged as never before to pray for and witness to those who are lost. There are so many people who just don't have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and it is our calling to let them know of his grace and love for them. We are to be watchmen on the wall, warning our neighbors, friends, relatives - all who will listen - of God's great mercy in keeping us from the wrath that is to come. God help us all, for we are all so rebellious. Yet God, in his great mercy, has sent his Son Jesus to die for us, to take our sins on himself - to deliver us from God's judgment. God wants all to be saved - he wants all to come to him in repentance and receive his forgiveness.

It is all about a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It isn't about religion. Religion is the problem. We need to be released from religion and brought into a fresh relationship with God. To know God is the greatest thing in the world. He has made it so possible to know him that we are all without excuse. The good news is that God loves us and in Christ died for us that we may live.

This morning's Liturgy of the Hours readings are about St. Monica, who was St. Augustine's mother. In St. Augustine's Confessions he quoted his mother: "I did have one reason for wanting to live a little longer: to see you become a Catholic Christian before I died. God has lavished his gifts on me in that respect, for I know that you have even renounced earthly happiness to be his servant. So what am I doing here?"

Monica's purpose was to bring her son, through prayer, to the Lord. What better thing can a parent do than to pray a child into the Kingdom?

We talked with Danny yesterday and learned that everyone is OK. Fr. Marc reports on his blog that they lost a few banana trees, but that these kind of trees are fragile anyway. We thank God for his grace. Hurricane Dean took a turn south and spared Jamaica a direct hit. Prayer is a wonderful thing. We don't always get what we ask for - Dean could have wiped everything out. But it didn't, and for that we are grateful. However, we are to be thankful in everything, no matter the outcome of our prayers. In the end, it is God's will that must be done. You can check out Fr. Marc's comments on http://freethekids.org.

We are watching closely as Hurricane Dean moves toward Haiti, where our son Danny is working in an orphanage. We talked with him last night and have been looking at the orphanage's web site - http://freethekids.org - to see the latest updates. As I write this on Saturday afternoon the hurricane is getting close to Les Cayes.

May God protect the children and staff at the orphanage and all the folks in the area.

Today is the last day of Vacation Bible School, and it has been a great week! The kids have been great - Shelley Reynolds and her staff have done a bang-up job. We are planning an old-fashioned Southern dinner with fried chicken, slow-cooked green beans, corn, etc. Pies and other goodies for dessert. This summer has been flying by fast, a sign of a busy time. God is so good, and I am grateful for all that he is doing in our church and in the church in the Mid-Hudson Valley.

Time in as interesting thing, if it can actually be called a thing. When I was a child, the age of twelve was significant. Don't really know why. And thirteen - that is when I became a teenager. When I became sixteen I could drive! And then at eighteen I could buy beer. Little did I know how much of a problem alcohol would become for me. At twenty-one I am a bone fide adult (or so they say.) Back then no one trusted anybody over the age of thirty, so that was an age I wanted to avoid, except for the alternative to not seeing thirty! And on it goes. Now that I am sixty-two age looks quite a bit different.

Before I came to Clintondale I never stayed in one place more than four years - except for my growing up days, and then it was short stays - maybe six and eight years in Greensboro and High Point, respectively. Tomorrow marks twenty-one years. I have friends who have lived all their lives (to this point!) in one place, college excluded. Having been in Clintondale for twenty-one years I feel grounded, like I have a home, a place to be.

In May, 2001 my wife and I bought a little house in Oak Hill, NY, up in Greene County. In fact, that is where I am making this entry today. We look out our front windows and see the northern edge of the Catskill Mountains. Oak Hill, like Clintondale, is a small unincorporated hamlet. It boasted quite a little population back in the nineteenth century - not large, but having a barber, doctor, some stores, an ice cream parlor, a malleable iron factory, some farms. Then toward the end of the nineteenth century on up to the recent past, it went downhill. Many of the buildings in the hamlet became run down. Recently people like us have been buying and moving in. Oak Hill seems to be on the upswing.

Time takes its toll, but only if we let it. Time also builds up, but only if we let it. God has given us places and people to love and nurture and see grow. Clintondale and Oak Hill are both places where God has allowed me and my wife to have community and peace and joy. We've been married for twenty-six years, time well-spent indeed.

We just finished a busy month of Tres Dias activities, including a gathering at our church on Saturday, July 28 with about 150 attendees. It was a wonderful time of worship, fellowship and pigging-out!! Yesterday was the annual Tres Dias picnic. I managed to get in the pool for two dives.
Yesterday I brought the introductory lesson for the Saddleback Church's foundations study. This is the basis for the purpose driven church movement. If there are enough folks to sign up for the program, I'll be giving it in September. Probably on Thursday evenings. I am so impressed with Saddleback Church and Rick Warren's ministry.

Last night Cheryl and I were driving down the Thruway on our way back to Clintondale when we heard a couple of renditions of "Get Happy," which, to my surprise, is a wonderful gospel song. I don't know if it was originally written for that purpose, but the words are definitely about the Lord and about getting happy in him. I have to admit that I never listened to the words before. Tomorrow I am singing for a group in Kingston and plan to use this song as one of the ones we sing together. I'm gonna get happy!

There are a lot of things happening this weekend - two Tres Dias activities and our church congregational meeting. Lots of eating and sharing together and enjoying one another and the Lord.

What a joy it is to be part of such a good Christian community as our church and the Tres Dias movement!

Cheryl and I just finished attending the 35th Anniversary of Tres Dias and the Assembly of the International Tres Dias organization. Tres Dias is an offshoot of the Catholic Cursillo movement, and is a wonderful renewal movement within the church. We did our original Tres Dias weekend in 1987, Men's Tres Dias #63 and Women's Tres Dias #63. Since then we have been on Tres Dias teams a number of times. It was wonderful to see people from the Tres Dias communities around the world, especially the couple from Moscow, Russia. The reported over two thousand people from over two hundred churches in Moscow that have made a Tres Dias weekend. For more information about Tres Dias you can go to www.tresdias.org. Our local community is the Mid-Hudson Tres Dias found at www.mhtd.org.

Wedding Anniversary

Today is our 26th wedding anniversary. What a trip it has been and what a wonderful woman to be married to. Thanks, Cheryl, for making these 26 years so special. Love, Dan

My first attempt at blogging was a complete failure. I forgot to save it. So, here goes another one.

I hope to use this space to update myself, and others as they take the time to read, on my thoughts as a pastor of a small church in the Mid-Hudson Valley of New York State. I've been here for nearly twenty-one years and have had the time of my life. My congregation is the best there is - not perfect, but the best.

Eleven years ago I joined the local volunteer Fire Department and have found such great satisfaction in serving the community this way.

I am married with one son. My wife is a professor of social work in a local college and our son is serving in an orphanage in Haiti.

I'll do more posting as the days come and go. For now, I'll sign off and get to bed.