Come to the Little Church that Could through the Grace of Jesus Christ

I attend, in fact, sit on the board of this small church just outside Wilmington, Delaware. That is the board to the left and I am in the middle pounding a ketchup bottle above the heads of our Associate Pastor and his wife. Despite what may appear to be a silly bunch of fools, we take our job very seriously and if we be fools, we are fools for Christ.

We love each other and I suppose because we love God, some would call us religious fanatics…or religious nuts. But that's okay, because even if you don't believe in what we do, we love you too anyway.

I would say this is the most loving church I've ever been in and I've been in a lot, not always willingly and not always lovingly. I was forced to go to church as a child, even though no one else in the family went; at least, not until I was fifteen. Then everybody went, but I was secretly revolting underneath. I was a very active Methodist in my late teen years, but also subversive. Just because I was President of the Methodist Youth Fellowship didn't mean I was a Christian. When I got married I fled that church.

A decade later, after a eclectic mix of churches in our lives, my wife and I, I was a confirmed atheist; not just an Atheist, either, but an active, proselytizing one. I was beating people over the head with a Bible certainly, trying to knock God out of them.

Then one day during a decreasingly tattered and sinful life a funny thing happened. I met Jesus down on my knees.

Then there were a series a churches because I wanted to be there, but we moved about a lot. Somehow though I did end up without a pew to sit in and was suffering from some disillusionment and sorrow when this tiny little church appeared. It was started a year-and-a-half ago by six people, but oh the things it has done in that time from helping the victims of Sandy to reaching out to those sometimes shunned by others.

I write this to ask my friends to come visit us sometimes. If you can drive to Wilmington, Delaware come and get a hug, get a praise, get the spirit, feel the love. We welcome anyone as you are. We were you. We are a church of once broken people. We've been through the fire. We are here to understand, not to judge.

We will tell you our secret, though. The way to true change in your life is through Jesus Christ.

Here is my little montage of our little church over the past year and a half:

A Lost Year; A Year of Losses

When I was a child a Billy Wilder film won the Academy Award. It was "The Lost Weekend". I didn't see it during the first screenings. I was only four years old. I saw it years later, probably on TV and it became a favorite that I viewed several times over. I even read the novel it was based upon. The autobiographical novel was written by Charles R. Jackson.

For those not familiar with the story it concerns a young alcoholic writer's five-day drinking binge. During this period he descends lower and lower into the gutter, hocking his typewriter for booze money and ending up in the DT ward of Bellevue.

My lost year was nothing quite like that and certainly had nothing to do with alcohol. It mostly came about by events beyond my control.

'Twenty-twelve was bad from the get-go. I had become dissatisfied with the direction my church was going and left it a few months earlier and the job I had at the end of 2011 left me. Thus I began the year unemployed and somewhat adrift spiritually. I am a Christian, a true believer in the salvation of Jesus and the truth of the Bible, but when disconnected from a body of brothers and sisters in Christ tends to drift backward into my sins. I began the year already with a sense of lost...and with a feeling of nausea.

I was sick most of January. I hadn't been really ill in years, couldn't remember the last time. It must have been back in the days I worked at Wilmington Trust, back in the last millennium. But I began 2012 sick.  It went away after a week, took a little Carrabean cruise or something, then by late February returned to make me sick again twice over.

Not long into the first month of the year I also lost my ability to take the long walks that generally began my days. These are times of reflection as well as physical exercise. I can get away into the quite of our many parks and clear my mind. But one morning early on I awoke with a grapefruit in my left knee or what appeared to be some sort of bulbous melon.

It really hurt with one of those pains that doesn't go away no matter what you do. Lying down, standing up or sitting, the knee throbbed away. I could barely hobble about the house upon it and driving a car was pure agony. I couldn't ben tie my own shoes.  I certainly wasn't going to be hiking up any rocky trails in the Piedmont.

As we shuffled moaning into the drear days of February the grapefruit began to deflate. Healing came slowly, but came. My knees began to match each other, ugly twins indeed, but neither bloated or painful. But my ankle was.

As if he had been displaced by bursitis, angry man Author Itis returned taking vengeance upon my ankles. I still could not walk. I had to bear a few more weeks of agony, but by the Ides of March I too was marching forth with something of my normal gate. It seemed I was about to resume the life I had become use to living.

Then on the first Wednesday of April the phone rang at about 9:00 AM and my way of life simply disappeared. Caller ID id'd my parents number. They never called me this early in the day. My first thought was, "dad died". It was going to be the call I had anticipated for the last couple of years, but when I answered it was my dad's gravelly voice that answered back.

"Your mother's had a stroke. I want you ta come up here." (Pictured left, my dad and mom on one of the last days of their lives.)

Thus began a seven month period where I disappeared into handling my parent's affairs, seeking a nursing home that could care for them both, dealing with the slow moving government agencies and then with the deaths of first my mother and then my dad with a two week period.

By that point my wife's own health was a concern, our financial situation was deteriorating and two of my favorite cats also died. I also lost my Blog domain names.

I lost the Blog domains because Wilmington Trust had been taken over by another bank, which issued all new cards. My old Wilmington Trust MasterCard became this bank's Visa. My domain names meanwhile came up for renewal in mid-summer and dealing as I was as my parents now, I forgot to revise my automatic payment info. The Domain licenser's payment request was denied against my old now invalid card.

I did not find this out until months later, of course, because I had stopped writing. I am hoping I have reached a point I can write again.

This has become a lost year in a way and a year of many losses. But in the midst of all this pain and turmoil I found prayers answered and assurance that God was always nearby. I found a new church and a new spirit. I learned that what we cling to so tightly in this world can very daily slip away. I saw how material possessions disappear in the wink of an eye as I had to dispose of my parents belonging to meet the requirements of Medicaid. When the died all that was left were a few boxes of clothing, which I donated to Goodwill.

I saw this lesson again this December as I joined the Disaster Relief Team at my new church and spent weekends doing mud-outs in homes flooded during Hurricane Sandy. All the possessions of the owners ruined and stacked haphazardly on the sidewalk for trash pickup. The houses empty shells.

You sometimes suffer in this world and you can easily slip into self-pity, then you step out into the places where others have suffered even more and you understand why we must lend a hand to our neighbor.

This was a lost year and a year of losses for many, but as for me, I know even more that God has my back and God can lift me up.



PSALM 116: VERSES 1-8 (KJV) 

I love the Lord, because He has heard
My voice and my supplications.

Because He has inclined His ear to me,
Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

The pains of death surrounded me,
And the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me;
I found trouble and sorrow.
 Then I called upon the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!”

 Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
Yes, our God is merciful.
 The Lord preserves the simple;
I was brought low, and He saved me.
 Return to your rest, O my soul,
For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

 For You have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
And my feet from falling.

                    

Iron Faith Fellowship and Hurricane Sandy Relief

A couple weeks back a call for volunteers was made at church. I considered saying I'd go, but then thought that was not a good idea. I feared I'd be more a detriment than a help. This body isn't what it once was, not that it was ever all together great. But back a few years Arthur Itis wasn't hanging around my joints. I can't even squat down anymore, and if I kneel or sit upon the floor it pains me and it is difficult to get back up.

I've lost a lot of strength as well. I was able to press at least a hundred and twenty pounds straight overhead, but these days I struggle to carry a 40-pound bag of kitty litter. So, no, I better not go.

I brought this subject up at the dinner table that evening. My eldest daughter, Laurel, said, "Oh, I'd like to do that. I'll go." Since she was going to go I decided I would as well, but not without trepidation.

I went. I found I was right about my loss of strength when I couldn't lift one end of a table to help move it, but I could pull nails and sweep and pick up debris. Age caught up with me in mid-afternoon when my hands began to cramp, freezing my thumbs solid against the last knuckle of my index finger, but at least I didn't collapse.
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The devastation is startling. We drove down street after street with the curbs on both sides lined with the ruined discards of these people's lives. This junk was their furniture, appliances, walls, floors, and personal belongings, and irreplaceable memorabilia of their lives. The houses often looked fine standing behind these heaps, but they were like movie sets, empty shells, stripped to the bone inside.

Where do you begin?

You begin with prayer and then you bend your back and you do as much as you can.

Some ask, "Why did this happen to these people? What did they do to deserve this?"

One day Jesus stepped outside after having his supper. Some who where around mentioned a recent atrocity that befell some Galileans at the hands of Pilate, the Roman Pocurator of Judea. Pilate had them killed and their blood mixed with that of the sacrifices. These people apparently though the Galileans had sinned in some way to have come to this end.

Jesus said: "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners that all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?  I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them - do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?  I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish." (Luke 13: 1-5)

We live in a cursed world since man fell. There are events that randomly overtake us, destroy our property and sometimes our lives, not because we are greater sinners that someone down the road, but just because murders and towers falling and hurricanes happen. These things happen to good people and bad, to the unrepentant and the saved.

Jesus was not warning these people that if they did not repent that a tower was going to fall on them or an earthquake would swallow them up. He was warning them they lived in a dangerous world and such things could befall them. And if such things did not happen to them, they would still die same day, but they could not know if that might be sooner than later. If they had not repented and found salvation with God they would not only die, but perish in Hell afterward.

We must not only help these people rebuild their property and lives, but also rebuild their faith or find a faith they may never have had. You don't just do this with a prayer and a God bless you. These people do not feel very blessed right now. You do it by putting deeds behind the words, by getting your hands dirty and standing beside them to do what little you can to make their recovery quicker.

And you realize how this could have been you and next time may be.


The video is what I pieced together from that Saturday.  All the photos are mine, except of the Church of Grace and Peace", which I called "Peace and Grace" in my narration.