For years I was a new church development pastor. I developed the habit of setting up a study in my home because these new congregations started out in temporary quarters. If there was any office space, it was limited and not secure. Also because a home study allows me to work with fewer interruptions.
I have a wonderful study in the basement of my home in Festus. It allows me to get started on sermons and bulletins and newsletters early in the morning, as well as finish up the work day at night. I keep most everything I value in my study because I have not had a good experience with churches.
At First Presbyterian Church, Galveston, I arrived one morning to find the outline of a body in yellow tape on the asphalt of the street in front of the sanctuary. A man had shot his estranged wife less than two hours before I drove up. To keep people from wandering in, some of them dangerous, FPC had to keep all doors to the building locked during the work week.
We had just moved into our new building at Cristo del Valle. It was our first Sunday. After the service was concluded, two men came in wanting to look at our facility, saying that they had watched it going up. The next morning our sound system was gone. After a spaghetti supper, someone took a pipe torch to our safe and stole the proceeds. My office was ransacked at times by persons looking for anything of value.
Shortly after we moved into the new building at Sandia, a late-nite visitor sat in a car outside the big sanctuary window and shot six rounds from a handgun into the sanctuary. I found slugs lying on pew chairs and several imbedded in the sanctuary door. Shortly after that, someone took a crowbar and beat down the glass entry doors. They left a note saying, “Churches shouldn’t be locked.”
As time passed someone stole the offering after the early service. Anything that wasn’t locked up or nailed down tended to disappear during the week. Cars were broken into in the parking lot on Sunday.
It is a shame that churches have to be locked up during the week. But no less than is the case with other institutions, valuables are stolen, rooms vandalized, and staff attacked, even murdered. I remember the first new church development conference I ever attended. A pastor in attendance told me that a few weeks earlier two armed men came in while the choir at his church was practicing. They robbed the choir at gunpoint. Now that I think about it, one night choir practice at Sandia was shattered by a gang of kids who were shooting out the back windows of vehicles with sling shots and ball bearings.
Jesus said, “Be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” -DJ
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Pastor's Column Jan. 23, 2011
Cheri and I finally made it to Italy to see our daughter Reah. It’s only been two years since she moved there. She works for a consulting firm writing speeches and translating documents into English. Their client is an international bank in Milan.
Reah served as our guide. Her Italian is sufficient. Since most all Italian names end in a vowel, wherever we went people thought of us as an Italian family – Dewey, Cheri, and Reah. My Italian improved to the point that whenever we went into a shop I could say, “Ciao now, brown cow!”
We spent most of our time in Milano. Reah’s apartment is a 25-minute walk to the bank, which is in a financial plaza just around the corner from La Scala Opera House, around another corner from the Galleria, and around yet another from the Duomo, the third largest cathedral in the world – 40,000 standing capacity. It’s a pretty exciting neighborhood!
Milan presently is the fashion capital of the world. Gucci, Prada, Armani, Versace, Fruit of the Loom, and Big Mac Overalls are headquartered there.
A group of monks certainly ate in style at one time in Milan. On the back wall of the refectory is Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” and on the front is Donato’s “Crucifixion.” Cheri and I spent a couple of hours walking through the Milan Cemetery, which is included in movies such as the recent I am Love. The family mausoleums there are like nothing I’ve ever seen.
The trains ran on time when we went to Florence and Venice. In Florence we saw another Duomo, went through the Uffizzi Museum, and walked along the bridges across the Arno. In Venice we saw St. Mark’s, the Doge’s Palace, and rode the water shuttle back to our hotel.
Mussolini was largely responsible for the train station in Milan. 500 trains shuttle 320,000 passengers daily. There is a tile mosaic of Italian heroes on one wall. After Mussolini’s death, the Milanese had the tiles with his head on them taken down, leaving a blank expression on his face.
Through it all we walked and ate. Cheri’s only complaint was that Italians don’t drink enough coffee – teeny cups of expresso. Reah has a dog, Tali’Zucha, which is “Come here, little girl,” in Arabic. (The last time we visited her abroad was in Bahrain.) When Reah isn’t walking to work, she’s walking her dog in either of two fantastic parks. On Epiphany Day, Jan. 6, we ate dinner at an Indian restaurant due to most Italian restaurants being closed. Reah’s ordering Indian food in Italian next to a table speaking German was proof that we weren’t in Kansas anymore. We flew home the next day. The Alps in the morning sunlight were beautiful! –DJ
Reah served as our guide. Her Italian is sufficient. Since most all Italian names end in a vowel, wherever we went people thought of us as an Italian family – Dewey, Cheri, and Reah. My Italian improved to the point that whenever we went into a shop I could say, “Ciao now, brown cow!”
We spent most of our time in Milano. Reah’s apartment is a 25-minute walk to the bank, which is in a financial plaza just around the corner from La Scala Opera House, around another corner from the Galleria, and around yet another from the Duomo, the third largest cathedral in the world – 40,000 standing capacity. It’s a pretty exciting neighborhood!
Milan presently is the fashion capital of the world. Gucci, Prada, Armani, Versace, Fruit of the Loom, and Big Mac Overalls are headquartered there.
A group of monks certainly ate in style at one time in Milan. On the back wall of the refectory is Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” and on the front is Donato’s “Crucifixion.” Cheri and I spent a couple of hours walking through the Milan Cemetery, which is included in movies such as the recent I am Love. The family mausoleums there are like nothing I’ve ever seen.
The trains ran on time when we went to Florence and Venice. In Florence we saw another Duomo, went through the Uffizzi Museum, and walked along the bridges across the Arno. In Venice we saw St. Mark’s, the Doge’s Palace, and rode the water shuttle back to our hotel.
Mussolini was largely responsible for the train station in Milan. 500 trains shuttle 320,000 passengers daily. There is a tile mosaic of Italian heroes on one wall. After Mussolini’s death, the Milanese had the tiles with his head on them taken down, leaving a blank expression on his face.
Through it all we walked and ate. Cheri’s only complaint was that Italians don’t drink enough coffee – teeny cups of expresso. Reah has a dog, Tali’Zucha, which is “Come here, little girl,” in Arabic. (The last time we visited her abroad was in Bahrain.) When Reah isn’t walking to work, she’s walking her dog in either of two fantastic parks. On Epiphany Day, Jan. 6, we ate dinner at an Indian restaurant due to most Italian restaurants being closed. Reah’s ordering Indian food in Italian next to a table speaking German was proof that we weren’t in Kansas anymore. We flew home the next day. The Alps in the morning sunlight were beautiful! –DJ
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Pastor’s Column Jan 13, 2011
PHOENIX, Ariz. — The parents of Jared Loughner, the 22-year-old suspect in the fatal shooting of six people and attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, are "devastated" and "hurting real bad," a neighbor told The Wall Street Journal.
Neighbor, Wayne Smith told the Journal that on Saturday the Loughners had returned home from shopping in their white Chevy truck to find sheriffs' cars at the house and deputies stringing crime scene tape around the area. Smith had seen the news on television and went across to tell them that their son, Jared, was the suspect.
"She almost passed out right there," Smith told the Journal. "He sat in the road with the tape up and cried."
"They're hurting real bad.
They are devastated," he added.
Smith, 70, who was asked by Randy Loughner to bring in their mail Monday, told the Journal that Amy Loughner was having a "nervous breakdown." – MSN Webpage
There is no shortage of suffering is there? Not only the victims of the shooting, but the parents of the shooter. They are devastated to find out that their son has done such a thing. Time after time, from Columbine to Virginia Tech to Arizona, this is the case. It is also the case with suicide. Those who commit suicide may end their pain, but it only begins for their loved ones. - DJ
Neighbor, Wayne Smith told the Journal that on Saturday the Loughners had returned home from shopping in their white Chevy truck to find sheriffs' cars at the house and deputies stringing crime scene tape around the area. Smith had seen the news on television and went across to tell them that their son, Jared, was the suspect.
"She almost passed out right there," Smith told the Journal. "He sat in the road with the tape up and cried."
"They're hurting real bad.
They are devastated," he added.
Smith, 70, who was asked by Randy Loughner to bring in their mail Monday, told the Journal that Amy Loughner was having a "nervous breakdown." – MSN Webpage
There is no shortage of suffering is there? Not only the victims of the shooting, but the parents of the shooter. They are devastated to find out that their son has done such a thing. Time after time, from Columbine to Virginia Tech to Arizona, this is the case. It is also the case with suicide. Those who commit suicide may end their pain, but it only begins for their loved ones. - DJ
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