What's Your Story?

A few weeks ago I drove past the house on Colgate Avenue in Lancaster, PA where my grandparents raised my dad, Bill and my uncle, Bob. It was so much smaller than I remembered it being, and, sadly, it had not been kept up the way my grandparents had cared for it. The house played an important part in my dad's story. As he told his congregation at Paoli United Methodist Church in 1989, that little house on Colgate Avenue was the place where he first felt called to ministry:

In 1959, I was an insecure, pimply-faced high school junior.  I was somewhat shy, but I had a few friends, had been in a school play, worked on the school newspaper, and took care of my paper route. I came from a strongly church-oriented family ... people who had some sense that church was about personal faith and salvation.  In that year, 1959, nobody knew how deeply troubled I was, because teenagers don't talk about these things. I was all wrapped up with who God was, whether I could ever really be accepted by him, and what I was going to do with the rest of my life. As I look back on it, I was struggling mightily with those issues, sometimes without even knowing it.

One night I lay awake far into the night with my thoughts, as I often did. But this night was different. I heard no voice and felt no tingle, but suddenly I knew first of all that God wanted me to give my life to him in full-time service, and if that was true it meant that he loved me, accepted me just as I was, and claimed me as one of his children. I will never forget the relief I felt, the burden lifted, as I realized that my relationship with God had been settled.

It was winter; we heated with coal and one of those big pipeless furnaces in the basement with a large three-foot square cast iron grille in the floor between the living and dining rooms to heat the entire house.  It was a favorite meeting place to finish dressing in the morning and enjoy the warmth. It was there, the next morning before school, that I told my mother what had happened the night before, and I began my journey.

We don't all have stories about being called by God to professional ministry, but we do all have stories of experiences that moved us closer to God.  These are stories to be shared.  As my dad put it, "[When] we share what God is doing in our lives or how we see him moving in our world, [God's] Spirit grows all the more strong and real, and everyone is blessed." So, what's your story? Consider sharing it with others, and then watch what God does with it.

"We Love to Tell the Story"

Galatians 1:11 - 2:10 

Graduation Day

A couple days ago, my daughter graduated from high school. The ceremony touched all the traditional bases: the orchestra playing Pomp & Circumstance, the choir singing the alma mater, the valedictorian and class president giving speeches, administrators handing out of diplomas, newly minted graduates tossing their caps in celebration ...

The Grad & Her Brother

The whole thing got me wondering what my father had to say to high school graduates back in the day. I dug into the barrel and found a short message he delivered to the Class of 1986 at the baccalaureate service for the Great Valley High School in Malvern, PA.

Dad's message drew a contrast between two views of life: (1) a live-for-the-moment view where "the highest good is in the present moment being more thrilling than anything in the past," and (2) a view that life is a journey. Today, "those who view life as a journey are a precious few, a saving minority, upon whom our civilization is increasingly dependent for survival."

So, how can you tell that you are one of the chosen few who sees life as a journey?

• You care not only about where you are now, but also where you came from and where you are going.
• The words "agenda" and "goal" and "purpose" have meaning to you.
• You believe it is important to discover why you have been created and what is your ultimate reason for being.
• You are aware that you do not journey alone. There are many fellow travelers with you on the road. Sometimes you must sacrifice your own progress to help a wounded traveler [because] somehow you know that no one really arrives at the destination until all have arrived.

If these things are true of you, then you are living life as a journey, which ultimately is a religious view of life. On this journey, "it matters what we do now because the direction we go and each step we take determines [whether we are moving towards or away from] the One who gives us life. ... You will be hopelessly lost in your journey outward if, at the same time, you are not also journeying inward -- inward to get in touch with who you are, and who God is, and what [God] wants you to do with your life."

I can't wait to see where this journey -- outward and inward -- takes my daughter in the years to come after Graduation Day. Congratulations, Adrienne, on the latest step in your journey!

"The Journey" - Great Valley H.S. - 6/8/1986

Beginning at the End

My dad's sermon that I remember best was his last.  He preached it at Paoli United Methodist Church on May 14, 1989.  The scripture lesson has been underlined in my Bible ever since:  So he said to me, "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty." Zechariah 4:6 (NIV).

When Dad stood up in the pulpit to preach that Sunday, I could tell that the service had been taxing for him. Despite being weakened by cancer and his aggressive treatments, he had led the worship service, conducted a baptism, and confirmed a class of young people into church membership. Looking out over the congregation, he began with a couple questions:

"What yields true personal strength?  What enables us to triumph over the body slams that life deals us?"

My dad had a huge stake in those questions. The congregation knew that life had dealt him a tremendous body blow. I'm sure many expected my dad to answer those questions by examining his own struggles, but he didn't do that. He said, "I've been watching movies on TV a lot more ... for obvious reasons, and last week on back-to-back nights I saw two movies that help to unfold our text." 

The first movie was "Top Gun," in which Tom Cruise plays a fighter pilot who loses his wing man in a horrible plane crash but pulls himself up by his bootstraps and goes on to distinguish himself as a Navy pilot. This pilot succeeds by his own sheer power and might.

The second movie was "Witness," set in my father's native Lancaster County. Harrison Ford plays a Philadelphia police officer who tries to protect a young Amish boy who witnessed a murder -- only to find that the boy's strongest source of protection is found in the non-violence of the Amish community, not in fists or guns.

My dad went on: "But what is a belief in non-violence, or for that matter any other Christian belief -- service, sacrifice, for example? At the bottom of these beliefs [is] a basic premise that the way to real personal strength -- the kind that makes us winners even when to the world we look like losers -- is not to be in control and to marshal all our resources ... but rather to surrender ourselves to a Power outside, a Power who is trustworthy, a Power who is ultimate, a Power who asks us to act in ways that the world thinks are crazy."

That Sunday morning, my dad may have looked to the world like one of life's losers. After all, he lost his battle with cancer the very next day. But, in reality, he was a winner, and he taught us all how to be winners, too. Not by power nor by might, but by the Holy Spirit.

"The Power of the Holy Spirit" -- 5/14/1989

Discovering Bill's Barrel

Moving forces you to sort through your possessions -- to sort through your life, really.  You have to decide what's worth taking with you to your new home and what items to give away to someone who will appreciate them more than you.  The stuff that remains is mere clutter to be tossed in the trash bin.  The process is a little like an archaeological dig.

In a week, my family and I will be moving to a new home.  So, for the past month, we've been sifting through our years of accumulated stuff -- the layers of the Newcomer Family Tel.  I've found things I forgot I had ... little pieces of personal history that trigger all sorts of memories.  It can be a lot to take in.  At times, deciding what to keep and what to throw away feels momentous, as if I'm deciding what memories to preserve and what I would just as soon forget.

As l worked my way through the many things on the shelves in our garage, I came upon five banker's boxes that hadn't been touched since I put them there eight years earlier.  Written on the side of each box, in my mother's impossibly neat handwriting, were the words "Bill's Sermons."  It was my dad's "barrel."  Every preacher has a barrel -- a lifetime of sermon transcripts and notes.  When your pastor is struggling for inspiration for the next Sunday sermon, he or she reaches into the barrel, pulls out an old sermon preached at a past church, and re-works it for a new audience. (Occasionally, a lazy pastor will preach a sermon straight from the barrel that hasn't been revised for new listeners. If you hear a sermon filled with references to events from the Seventies, it's a safe bet you're being spiritually fed from the bottom of the barrel.)

"Wow, I forgot all about this stuff," I thought to myself.  I had preserved Dad's barrel, but I had done nothing more with it.  More than twenty years of ministry was stuffed into five boxes on a set of metal shelves in my garage. As I thumbed through the many file folders in those boxes, I realized that I had been given a gift, an opportunity.  Tucked away in these boxes was a chance to re-connect with my father, who had died twenty-five years ago.

Over the last twenty-five years, I've often wondered what advice Dad would have for me about being a good husband to my wife, Dorry or about raising our kids, Wesley and Adrienne.  I've tried to imagine the joy and pride my dad would have expressed when learning that Dorry had been called by God to follow his footsteps into ministry.  No question, I've missed having him in my life, and I'm not foolish enough to think that some boxes of old sermons are going to make up for his absence over the last twenty five years.  But it's good to hear Dad's voice again, and that's what I hear when I read his sermons.  It's a voice worth listening to.  These are sermons worth keeping and sharing.

Enjoy, as I share some sermon snippets with you ... straight from Bill's Barrel.