No such thing as a coincidence?

Today our organist at Christ the King and I were meeting to plan worship for the next several months. In a few weeks the assigned Epistle lesson for the lectionary series we're using will be from Ephesians 5, "wives, submit yourselves to your husbands . . . husbands, love your wives."  As we looked at hymn possibilities to go with this text, I called up a worship resource from the Lutheran Church of Australia that I consult frequently because they have good suggestions and ideas.  For some of the Sundays in July and August, though, their lectionary is a week off from ours, so the week we're reading Ephesians 5 they're reading Ephesians 6 ("put on the whole armor of God").


Of course, the good old Lutheran hymn that was suggested first on their list was "Fight the Good Fight with All Thy Might."  Think we'll sing that with Ephesians 5, too.

A letter to my friends

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,


This past weekend I was at the convention of our SELC District of The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod along with other pastors, lay delegates, and friends.  We all appreciated the opportunity to connect with other folks in our part of the Body of Christ in fellowship and love, and to work on the mission of the church together – and to have fun together!


For the past 15 years I have been privileged to serve as the Second Vice-President of our District.  In that office I’ve been to board meetings, conventions and conferences.  I’ve made some presentations and written a few papers.  I’ve met with pastors and congregations in a variety of circumstances.  In these experiences I hope I have grown personally and professionally.


However, this year I decided not to allow my name to stand for nomination for any of the offices of our District.  It’s a decision that has been several years in the making, but it is the right one.  Over the last several years I find my heart drawn more and more to the needs of pastors in our District, and my growing desire to minister to them more directly than I could as an officer of the District.  For example, two pastors very near to us lost their mothers in this past year, and both these single men were sole caregivers for them – one of these pastors was an only child besides.  While they have some support systems around them, they also need the friendship of other pastors.  That’s the kind of ministry I’m talking about.


So although I will not be serving our District in any official capacity at this time, I plan to work more closely and intently with our pastors.  I am already doing so with some other folks through the ministry of the Institute for Formational Prayer at Ashland Seminary, and this step will make this ministry to the pastors of our District more intentional.


In the Name of Jesus and in His service,


Chris Cahill

Holy Spirit

As we get close to Pentecost this coming Sunday, here's a little story of how the Holy Spirit works in my life - gently, and over a long period of time!


A week ago I signed up for Wycliffe Bible Translators' Bibleless People's Prayer Project, in which I agreed to pray for a specific people group that does not yet have God's Word in their own language.  Wycliffe will send email updates, etc., to let me know how the translation work is going, and I will pray for the people, translators, and everyone involved.  Pretty cool!  


Part of the deal was that WBT would assign a particular people group to me, without any choice or preference on my part.  That's OK with me - I'm willing to pray for whomever the Holy Spirit guides them to assign to me.  Today I received notice that I have been asked to be praying for the Gusan people of Papua New Guinea (PNG), a people group in the mountains of central New Guinea, and I am delighted to do that.



Now for the Holy Spirit.  When I was a seminary student almost 35 years ago my wife and I went through a season of exploring whether or not we should head for parish ministry or for a mission field.  We had some conversations with some missionaries and the Missions Department at the headquarters of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, but ultimately decided that because of our children we would stay here in the US.  That was OK, and we have had no regrets or second-guesses about that decision, BUT - for whatever reason (the Holy Spirit?), when asked about the mission field we might like to enter my heart and mind were drawn toward Papua New Guinea!  Though we've never gone there, there's always been a bit of a tug in my heart and spirit for the people of PNG and the Gospel in that land.


Now I see that the Holy Spirit has been in this for all these years, and has not entirely let me go.  I still don't know whether I'll ever get to PNG in person, but that I can pray for a remote people and language group there - that can only be His work!


Thanks be to God!

And then there are Heroes . . .

Time for me to weigh in on The Avengers, I guess.  


In case you didn't know, the evil threatening the world this time comes in the person of Loki, brother of Thor of Asgard, who wants to rule everything (sound familiar?).  So a secret government agency assembles a team of heroes with no particular superpowers (except for one) to stop Loki and save the world (with me so far?).  The team is Captain America, a guy with enhanced physical capabilities and dressed in red, white and blue; Iron Man, just another guy but also a technological genius who has invented a suit in which he can fly around and shoot things; Hawkeye, another guy with exceptional eyesight and a high-tech bow and arrow; the Black Widow, a ramped-up female James Bond; the above-mentioned Thor (who does have some "super powers"); and, oh yes, the Hulk.  And a guy with an eyepatch who brings them all together to fight the evil Loki.  And guess what?  after lots of flying about and smashing things (including each other), our heroes actually defeat the evil Loki while leaving the door open for the next Avengers movie.


So who's my favorite character in this hero-ridden adventure?  None of the above.  I nominate the following:  Agent Phil Coulson, just a guy with no particular powers or exceptional abilities at all, except that he believes that fighting evil to save the world is worth giving everything for, even his life; and the nameless old German man in the town square who refuses to kneel at the command of the evil Loki because he remembers what happened when the German people knelt to a previous evil.  Another guy with no particular powers, exceptional abilities, exciting fight scenes; a guy who isn't killed on the spot because the Avengers save him in the nick of time; a guy who's kind of old and not very attractive and doesn't even have a name.  But this is a guy who knows that freedom means NOT bending the knee to evil, even in the face of death.  That guy is my favorite character of this movie, and a real hero as far as I'm concerned.

Paul's thorn in the Flesh Revealed!!

With a great many more thanks to John Byron and Jonathan Robinson!  (See John Byron's blog on my blog list, to the right)

Holy Spirit (again)

 Last year (see "Highlight", March 24, 2011) I posted a note about a chickadee that came right up to me while I was filling the birdfeeder and just watched me with interest and curiosity for a while.  At that time I commented on the possibility that somehow the Holy Spirit was present in that moment, and I still associate chickadees with Him.

This spring we've had a number of chickadees around the feeders, of course, but one in particular is a frequent visitor.  He tends to flutter around our big patio door, tapping on it with his beak and beating on it with his wings.  He sure wants to get into our house, but there's no way I'm going to let him in because that would definitely not be good for either him or for us.

But that's the chickadee I'm talking about.  This little drama, repeated again and again for weeks, is causing me to think about my own relationship with the Holy Spirit.  Is there a place in my life where He's knocking to get in, and I'm not opening to let Him in?  Is it because I think it wouldn't be good for either of us if He got into that place in my life?  I hope that I'm at the point where I know that it would really be great if I opened all the windows of my life and let the Holy Spirit come into any one He wants, at any time He wants, and do what He wants when He comes in; but I also realize that there are probably places I haven't yet opened up to Him, places where He's still knocking and I've been ignoring Him or worse, watching Him from the inside without doing anything.

Holy Spirit, show me where you are knocking, and give me the courage to open the windows and let you in!

I'm not sure what to make of this, . . .

. . . so I'll leave it up to you.  Thanks to oldest son Nate for passing this one along!