A Double Portion

This a rare thing. I'm writing minutes before I leave for worship at LSCC but when you have an idea, with my mind, I have to get it down or I'll forget it. I've just been through one of the most difficult weeks as a pastor. Last weekend, I performed a wedding ceremony for a wonderful new couple. They are high school sweet hearts, faithful followers of Jesus and are in Hawaii at this moment enjoying a honeymoon. What an honor to join them in marriage! Then we had Sunday service which was another blessing. The scriptures focused us in on prayer so we spent a good 30 minutes at the end praying together as a body. THEN, things got tough as we went from church to Brian Remmel's calling. His funeral service was on Monday. He is with the Lord and has no worries at all but his loss here is felt hard by his wife and two kids.

If it seemed like God's grace was in short supply last week, you can blame me. I know I had a double portion of it, as God guided me through this last week. A long weekend of high's and low's. A long week of trying to find the emotional energy to share what I'm about to share in a few minutes. Thank you for praying for me, I know God poured out His grace to me and even is about to do it again. The reality of it, there is an ocean of His grace that we can swim around in but sometimes we don't have the strength to dive in, so we rely on others to pray us into the ocean. There's more than enough to go around, even when I take double my dose in a week. Pray for the Remmel's to experience that grace today. Their week, feeling Brian's absence, was exponentially more difficult than mine. Go swimming yourself, there's plenty of water in the ocean. We can't do a thing that matters without getting wet! Blessings, Pastor Greg

Difficult Days

Sometimes it feels like you have to swim upstream to get through a day. Life is feeling like that right now. Aside from some nagging things like car problems, wet carpet at church, and sick kids, the sorrow of saying good bye to a friend is drawing near. Brian Remmel is a 44 yr old husband and father to two sons. He is at home under the care of his wife and family, waiting to go home to be with the Lord. He has battled valiantly an enemy called non-hotchkins lymphoma. Our prayer since this enemy returned to his body last December have been for healing and strength. God is about to answer those prayers, just differently than we had hoped. Brian will get to be in the presence of Jesus soon and we'll miss him terribly. He is really teaching all of us how to live while he lays at homes and dies. He has had courageous conversations with his family, opened his home to friends to say good bye and kept his eye on the Lord and His strength and comfort in these waning moments of life. God has used Brian to teach me how to love the dying, how to give assurances to them when they struggle to believe what they believe and how to reach out to a hurting family.

It is such a difficult time right now as we watch Brian's life slip away. But Ps 116:15 says "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." This verse tells me, He's paying careful attention to what's happening with Brian. He's waiting for just the right time to call him home and not one tear being shed will be wasted from this suffering. Grace, Lord, we need your grace! Blessings, Greg

Here I Am Again

It always amazes me how time flies! Is it too late to make a new years resolution? We are still in the first 1/2 of 2010! I resolve to update my blog more often....not specific enough....every week! OK, so it's out there now and I feel better. Not sure anybody reads these things but I feel God's tug to give more of my reflections about this incredible journey of pastoring a new church in McCordsville, IN and about my life. Although, my life reflections might not show up every week due to the boring nature of it.

The Stream is still flowing and God is still showing me, this is His church, it was His idea and I just need to keep asking Him for the next step. Easter was a surprise, 165 attenders and 3 services! That's 50 more people than we had a year ago. Our attendance this year has averaged above 100 folks, we held a baptism service in March for 4 Streamers and in April 4 new people stepped across the line of faith and into God's Kingdom. My God has blessed me with a wonderful job, an incredibly wonderful wife and family and a good dog too. Thank you for your prayers! I know I am indebted to God's grace and I know He has poured it out on me (us) in such abundance becasue there are so many who pray for me, my family and this new church.

Talk to you next week! Blessings, Greg