Dear Friends, The summer of my 8th grade year I went to a Christian camp in the mountains outside of Pittsburgh. It was billed as a typical Christian camp, but it operated more like a military camp - complete with strict rules and hard penalties. One of these penalties was a jar that sat on our counselor’s desk, and if we broke certain rules, we had to put money in the jar. I'm sad to admit that's where most of my spending money ended up. One evening after devotions, our counselor said that he knew three of us had broken camp rules that day, but in an act of unexpected grace, he said he didn’t want to embarrass us in front of everyone. Instead, after “lights out” that night, he wanted th

Dear Friends, My hair turned gray at an early age, so I'm used to folks thinking that I'm older than I am. But just in case I forget, there always seems to be someone around who is willing to remind me. Such was the case today, when I was waiting for an elevator and a young family came up to wait as well. When the elevator arrived and the doors opened, the mom motioned for me to go first, while instructing her children that, “It’s polite to let elderly people go before you.” I know that this young mother wasn’t trying to be unkind to me, but I have to admit that her comment left me feeling cranky. And that’s why I wasn’t all that excited to pull in to the church parking lot and see a wom

Dear Friends, As I pulled in to the church parking lot this morning there was an elderly man sitting on one of the benches we have in front of the church. I didn’t recognize him, but assumed he was from the neighborhood, because he was there without a car - which meant he had most likely walked to the church. My assumption was proven true, as I got out of the car and he pointed to the apartments across the street and said: “My neighbor told me to come up here to talk to the pastor, that you?” I replied that yes, I was indeed the pastor - and then asked how I could help him. He replied, “I need to go to church, what time do y’all meet?” I sat down on the bench next to him and gave him th