Where You're Going To

    Last week I reviewed a bit of my “origin” story. St. Louis Christian College, Oil Belt Christian Service Camp, and Lincoln Christian Seminary were character-forming institutions for me. Yet, education and background are designed to prepare you for something. What is the foreground for which background gives context? What knowledge, skills, or habits are inculcated in education? Or to quote Diana Ross “…Do you know, where you’re going to, do you like the things that life is showing you?” Our formative years and formal education should be directed at the rest of our lives. If I know where I am from, if I have prepared myself diligently and appropriately then I should be able to articulate where I intend to go, what I intend to do, how I intend to act, and who I hope to become. 

    In short, all of that is for this. Perhaps I should not have left y’all with a cliff-hanger last week. Let’s continue that discussion of the past and focus on the future. Education and life choices are the beginning and underpinning for a fully lived life dedicated to the purposes for which God has called you. Our subject this month is not nostalgia but mission. A significant part of our mission is determined by who raised us and who educated us. Family, Church, and College help us to construct our life as if it were an abacus. As we make our way from late adolescence to adulthood, we begin to move the beads on the abacus, aggregating all those experiences into a fully formed, mission-driven, Jesus-following life of discipleship. While it is nice to reflect on the past, it is not a good place to remain. One of the challenges for us as we continue to “ripen” in our service is the capacity to not only describe where we are going but to in some way manage the journey, if not the destination. 

    Life is a process of aggregation. We are compiling experiences. We are acquiring, sorting, systematizing, and deploying knowledge. We enter a variety of relationships—not knowing, from marriage to parenting—what the outcome will be. In ministry, we serve in various capacities, roles, offices, and environments. We engage in all these processes and after 25 or 30 years we wake up one morning and we realize that the journey has yielded untold and unexpected fruit. You shower and shave, prepare for the next thing and move another bead on the great abacus of life. 

    During this journey there are appropriate times to take stock in a more detailed and focused fashion, to remember, recalibrate, and refocus. One example: anniversaries. I just passed 6 years here in Grayville, 41 years preaching, 42 years out of high school, and 38 years out of college. More sermons, lessons, classes, workshops, presentations, and sessions than I should really count. Every single Sunday, all of that and more walk into the pulpit with me—not to even mention my wife, 4 kids, 18 Grandkids, 1 great-grandchild, 7 cats/kittens. 4 siblings, etc. 

    Do you know…where…you’re going to? Well, I’m headed to the pulpit. In fact, I’m pretty much always headed to the pulpit. This week that journey takes me through the book of Revelation, through our High School Baccalaureate, and our monthly board meeting. This week my journey to the pulpit took me from hasty phone calls about pastoral issues to friendly visits with Church folk bringing flowers to my wife. This week also included increasing concern, on my part, about a bunch of work that I need to attack over the next month (camp sermons and lessons, materials for family camp in Oregon, my next two sermon series.) Much of what needs to be done over the next couple of weeks will be built on the foundation of the commitment made at Oil Belt, the education from St. Louis and Lincoln, and more than forty years of doing the work. Yeah. I know where I came from, but I am even more certain of where I am going to, and what I will do with every breath God gives me until I hand the abacus back to Him and stop aggregating the experiences of my life. Continue with the mission, my friends.