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We Rejoice With You

Lanelle and I rejoice with you in the calling and coming of a new pastor. We heard what a good weekend it was, capped with a unanimous call from a packed Sanctuary. We trust that the days ahead will be the most victorious, Christ-loving days of EHBC’s history.

Someone asked if I was not sad about leaving. Well, no, I came to leave. My purpose was to be a gap-chap, leading you through this transitional time. That time has concluded. I am thankful for the opportunity of being with you during this time. I am thankful for the kindness you have shown to Lanelle and me. We will always carry EHBC in our hearts.

I told the Wednesday night Prayer Meeting Group that it might be wise to hold any kind remarks made to me until I actually leave. I expect to be here a few more weeks. By the time I leave you may change your mind about me.

Church Is Family

Josh and his family are joining a great church family. Calling a pastor is somewhere between hiring an employee and marrying a spouse. It is not hiring an employee. We don’t call it “hiring.” We use the term “calling,” indicating that it is an expression of doing God’s will for the pastor and the church. So it’s not hiring and it’s not marrying a spouse, but if I had to position it between hiring an employee and marrying a spouse, it would be closer to marrying a spouse than to hiring an employee.

You are inviting Josh and his family into your family. As church family you have just become larger and better by the infusion of the Wootton Family.

Lanelle once gave me an email her sister sent her and it said, “When you marry, you get the spouse you think you are getting, the spouse you are actually getting and the spouse he/she will become by marrying you.”

I think that is somewhat similar to calling a pastor. As the years go by, you will be improved by his leadership and he will be improved by you. EHBC has had some great pastors. You can make Josh the best you’ve ever had. Pray for him. Encourage him. Support him. Follow him.

I think churches often get it wrong. They think a pastor makes a church great. I think it’s the other way around: a church makes a pastor great. No pastor can ever be more effective than the church enables him to be. Again, make Josh Wootton the greatest pastor this church has ever had. If it is to be, it’s up to thee.

He Who Laffs Last

Unanswered Prayers

The preacher’s 5-year-old daughter noticed that her father always paused and lowered his head for a moment before starting his sermon. One day she asked him why.

“Well honey,” he began, proud that his daughter was so observant, “I’m asking the Lord to help me preach a good sermon.”

“How come He doesn’t answer it?” she asked.

Good Samaritan

A Sunday School teacher was telling her class the story of the Good Samaritan. She asked the class, “If you saw a person lying on the roadside all wounded and bloody, what would you do?”

A thoughtful little girl broke the silence, “I think I’d throw up.”

Continue to be prayerful, faithful, and patient.

Blessings, Dale!

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FOCUSED

One of the casualties of aging to which I find myself a victim is the dimming of the eyes.  Ecclesiastes 12 counsels the young person to remember God, their Creator, in their youth before the aging process takes over and various faculties, as listed in verses 1-7, are diminished.

Clear eyesight when we are young may be something we take for granted. However, as we age the realization that our vision is not as sharp as it once was takes hold. “Readers” become standard fare for all intricate tasks. Our once keen laser sharp focus is now blurry and in need of help to restore its youthfulness. That restoration is found through glasses or some sort of rejuvenating surgery. Especially in the early stages of this degenerative eye problem we may be able to fake it and get by, but eventually we must relent and do something to correct the problem.

There is a parallel between physical and spiritual vision. “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” was written in the early 20th century. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, was strongly influenced by the artist and later little-known missionary, Lilias Trotter. Miss Trotter started off as an aspiring artist but early on felt a call from God to reach the lost. She began her ministry by rescuing prostitutes from the streets of London. Later she went to Africa, without missionary funding, and served for over forty years. While there she penned a poem that would greatly influence the writing of the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”  The poem was entitled “Focused: A Story and Song.” 

The poem centers around focusing one’s attentions fully and completely upon God. She writes that Satan knows that if a person uses all their powers of concentration on being led by God’s Spirit, they will have a great intensity and impact upon those to whom they are called to minister. Lilias Trotter, writing in a more formal use of the English language than we are accustomed, shares some timeless insights which could very easily have been written today but with a different accent. She writes: “Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’ even more effectually than it could be hidden downright frivolity with its smothered heartache at its own emptiness.”

The “good” hiding the “best” leads us to emptiness.  Could this be true of us today especially as American Christians? Have we sought the “good” while missing the “best”? The chorus of the hymn, which we will be singing in worship this Sunday, says it best.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,                                                                                                                                        And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Keith Pate

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