Archive for the ‘Grace’ category
March 25, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. March 25, 2017
There is a TV commercial airing these days from a high-tech mainstay that promotes one of their products that can help assess the shooting ability of a basketball prospect. Showing it several times during each March Madness college basketball game gets noticed by viewers. They add a small “megabyte” of humor to it, but the point is clear: Technology is a valuable tool in assessing talent and potential!
Moneyball was a book and movie about how the Oakland A’s baseball team used statistics and probabilities to figure out how to put a winning team on the field with a small payroll. I loved the movie! Once again, however, it brought the concept to the forefront of using technology and statistics as the determining factors in making decisions.
“Feeling it” seems to be getting pushed further and further back in the decision-making process. I can appreciate that. Hunches, intuition, and feelings are prone to being misread and misleading. If the Cubs had ended up losing the seventh game of the World Series against the Indians their manager, Joe Madden, would have been crucified for following his gut feeling and using relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman on short rest. He would have been rooming with Steve Bartram!
But, thank God, there is still some room for following what a person is led to do or say. Thank God Martin Luther King didn’t say “I have a statistical probability!”; or Obi-Wan Kenobi didn’t encourage Luke Skywalker with the line “May the analytical findings print-out be conclusive for you!”
It seems that churches have bought into the information and analysis age as well. One program that is being sold right now promises to be able to help churches fill their sanctuaries on Easter morning. Follow the program and have success.
My cynical side has always been a bit suspicious of a church whose worship leader guides the congregation into worship, complete with raised hands and tear-filled faces, but ends the gathering after an hour because there are two more worship services scheduled that morning. It’s like we trust the leading of the Spirit to a point…er, a time…and then the emergency brake gets engaged. It’s like leasing God instead of buying into him!
What happens when a church is “feeling it?” What happens when the Spirit is truly leading? Unfortunately, most times in recent history when the church has “felt it” has gotten communicated in grandiose projects such as new building campaigns and launching satellite campuses. “Feeling it” doesn’t seem to surface in the relational areas of being led to ask for forgiveness and the practicing of grace. It seems to be in gigantic Solomon temple-sized visions! Perhaps that has made the church, and its people, a bit hesitant about the whispers and leadings of the Spirit.
In my old age I still lace up my sneakers from time to time and play hoop. A couple of weeks ago I was playing with some young guys and every shot I took except one went in. In two pick-up games I made like… ten baskets (Not that I was keeping my “statistics” or anything!)!
“Feed the old guy!” was the increasing emphasis because the old guy was…”feeling it!” It went against success probability and 62 year old player analysis, but they kept giving me the ball and I kept burning the nets.
That “feeling” doesn’t happen very often now, although I still have a “shooter’s touch”, but when it does you’ve got to go with it. To carry it a bit further, there is nothing quite so frustrating as having someone “feeling it” and someone else reluctant to feed the fire.
That sort of summarizes the church, doesn’t it?. We are a people of faith, hatched by an unbelievable God-story… driven most of the time by statistical probabilities!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Holy Spirit, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Aroldis Chapman, assessing talent, Basketball, Cubs, feeling it, feelings, high-tech, I Have a Dream, Joe Madden, leadings, March Madness, Moneyball, Oakland A's, probabilities, Solomon's temple, Spirit led, statistical analysis, statistics, success probablity
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March 23, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. March 23, 2017
A few days ago I wrote a piece on the entitled church attender. I presented the idea that there are a lot of church attenders who mirror one of our cultural themes as they relate to the church. That is, there is a heightened sense of entitlement, and focus on what the church can do for “me”, as opposed to how I can join a community of believers in service and ministry for Christ.
An old friend of mine responded to that writing with another view that got me thinking. Having lost her husband in the last year she experienced a church that seemed to place its needs above her grieving. She had held a couple of positions within the congregation, and it seemed as if the church was more concerned with her continuing on in the work of those positions than it was in her journey of grief.
She was right on! The shoe is on the other foot this time! There are a number of churches who treat their servants like the Borax Mule Team. The focus is on getting things done, as opposed to being a community of believers who lean on others and are available to be leaned on.
We talked about it quite often in my years of pastoring: burn-out! The exhaustion of the saints and the pastor. It seemed that there was seldom good balance; that it was either the pastor burning the candle at both ends, or the twenty percent of the saints who were doing too much. Sometimes it was the pastor who drove “the mules”, and sometimes it was the church leaders who barked behind the pastor like an army drill sergeant!
Rarely were there situations where the rhythm of the saints and the clergy found a healthy balance.
And so my friend finds herself, after years and years of serving, now wondering about the church. Did it consider her to be like middle-management in a corporation? Did it really care for her, or simply care when it was convenient?
Honestly, that scenario has been played out too many times. Sometimes the church even uses the excuse of the Great Commission to minimize the importance of its messengers! “We’re all about Jesus, so put your pity party on the back burner!”
Entitled churches are simply gatherings of entitled church attenders who have control of the reins!
“Hahh, hahh!” says the guy with the whip riding behind the mules.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: 20 Mule team Borax, balance, Borax, church, Community of believers, community of faith, entitled, entitlement, faith journey, ministry, rhythm, servanthood, spiritual pilgrimage, the caring church, Working together
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March 20, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. March 20, 2017
I am a creature of habit in so many ways. Last night Carol started to make scalloped potatoes to serve with the hamburgers I was cooking on the grill. I stopped her! “We”, meaning my family growing up, always had either french fries or potato chips when we had hamburgers. So we had to make a trip to the store to get a bag of chips…and one other bag in reserve!
Habits! Habits are traditions that have become natural reactions.
I’m sitting on the last stool on the right at Starbucks that looks out at Pike’s Peak. Habit!
In the morning I shower, dress, comb my hair, brush my teeth, and shave…in that order…every morning…no variations!
I get the morning newspaper and flip through to the sports section first before I read anything else!
Whenever I’m doing work on my book manuscript I go to the public library and find a cubicle to create some words in the midst of.
Recently I’ve been dealing with another habit that I’ve tried to change. It’s simple and silly, and yet so hard to change. It involves my wallet and my left hip pocket.
You see…I’ve always carried my wallet in that pocket…always! But last week a hole started appearing in it, which clearly outlined the top part of my billfold. In the past when that has happened I’ve headed to Old Navy and simply bought a new pair, but this time someone made the simplistic suggestion of switching pockets…to move my wallet to my right hip pocket and my comb and handkerchief from right to left!
So I did that, and it is not going well! I’ve dropped my comb out of my pocket numerous times because it has suddenly gone from left to right at sometime during the morning, cozying up to my displaced wallet, and then falling to the ground when I reach for the billfold. I keep reaching for my hanky in my right pocket and finding my wallet there. I reach for my wallet in my left pocket and don’t feel it, which brings on a moment of panic about where it went. The answer…eight inches to the right…doesn’t occur to me until after the cold sweat surfaces.
Habits are hard to break! There’s a pocketful of lessons in there somewhere. We get entrenched in systems that lead to stagnation and frustration, but we can’t imagine things ever being done differently. Even when a hole gets worn in a pocket…or the carpet…we go on with our daily living habits as usual.
Lord knows that churches have hole-filled habits that need to change, but tend to cause the weeping and gnashing of teeth when they are changed. We always said that it took at least three Baptists to change a light bulb…one to change it and at least two others to stand there and comment on how nice the old one was!
Of course, there are habits that should never ever change…like the caring of the impoverished, seeking to be the hands and feet of Jesus, being light in the midst of darkness, sharing the good news of Christ and being a reflection of his grace, love, and peace. It seems , however, that those are often the habits that aren’t deeply ingrained. They haven’t left their imprint showing through to the outside of the pocket.
Habits!
I just felt a sneeze coming on and reached for my wallet! Darn it!
There is an increasingly good chance that I will be going to Old Navy sometime today!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Baptists, breaking habits, church habits, customs, daily habits, doing things a certain way, good habits, good traditions, habits, holes, holes in my pockets, natural reactions, new habits, Old Navy, traditions
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March 19, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. March 19, 2017
There is a lot of talk and conversation these days about entitlement…from government programs to children of helicopter parents to job wages and benefits to kids sports. Entitlement could be a defining term for our culture. We hate it and yet we expect it!
Entitlement has entered through the front doors of the church as well! This past week I was listening to the morning host of a Christian music station as he launched into a discussion about finding a new church. One of his co-hosts had invited him to visit her church. The discussion flowed around what he might tell her afterwards if he didn’t enjoy the experience?
There was much laughter and humorous remarks related to the subject. How the host approached the subject left me a bit chilled. His opening was something like this: “Recently my family and I have been looking for a new church and been trying out some different places…”
His tone gave me the impression that changing churches was kind of like deciding on what restaurant we’re going to have lunch at today? How will the service be? Will we feel comfortable? Will we have our needs met? Does the time suit us? Will we like the music? How will we be made to feel special? Will it be easy to get into and out of?
He seemed to indicate that changing churches is no big deal, as difficult as deciding whether or not to get cheese on that burger I’m ordering!
But, of course, it goes with our culture. All those questions place “me” as the focus! After all these years we’re firmly traveling through a period of time where people don’t understand the purpose and mission of the church. The church simply reflects our culture, as opposed to being counter-cultural.
Perhaps the radio host had a good reason for leaving his old church. Maybe there was some doctrinal issue. Perhaps his church had lost its understanding of being the hands and feet of Jesus. Maybe the way it treated women and minorities was out of line with the gospel. Maybe the worship service had become an hour of entertainment.
The way he began the topic, however, made his previous place of fellowship sound like an old sock with a hole in the heel…tossed to the side!
Counter-cultural would have the host say something like this: “My family and I recently began a search for a new church to journey with. It wasn’t that the congregation we had been journeying with was bad or anything, but they didn’t expect anything of us. They didn’t expect us to be willing to sacrifice anything for the sake of the gospel, and didn’t expect us to understand and incorporate the idea of servanthood into our lives. So we’re in search of a fellowship that will challenge us to live out of faith in word and deed.”
Wouldn’t that be a twist in our thinking? It would go completely against our culture’s question of “what can I get out of it without putting anything into it?” Of course, we read that idea into some of our hymns and praise songs. “Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed me white as snow.”
We sing the song, say “Thanks Jesus!”, and then stroll out to the church parking lot saying “Where shall we go for lunch?”
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: body of believers, changing churches, Christian music, churches, congregational life, counter-cultural, entitled, entitlement, Expectations, fellowship, fellowship of Christians, It's all about me!, sacrifice, the hands and feet of Jesus
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March 8, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. March 8, 2017
In sports there is a saying that rings true. If a team needs a basket, a first down, or a final out they have a “go to” player or play that they are confident will give them the needed result. It is not a coincidence that the Cavaliers get the ball to LeBron James in crunch time, and that the Golden State Warriors get the ball to Kevin Durant…er, Steph Curry…er, Klay Thompson. Okay, okay! The Warriors are not a good example for me to use!
Back to the point I was trying to make!
Churches have a “go to” also. Once in a while it’s a person, but usually it’s the bottom line of their congregational culture. Whereas with professional sports teams the “go to player” is a positive most of the time, in churches the “go to” is more often than not a negative.
Churches, in general, resist change. At best change is tolerated as long as it doesn’t threaten what people are comfortable with. When changes threaten the congregational culture there is almost certainly going to be a shaking that happens. Picture a tree in autumn. If a strong wind happens most of the leaves on the tree get blown or shaken off. What remains, however, is the tree trunk and branches. A church’s “go to” is the tree trunk. New ideas and thoughts might be present, but a wind of unrest will scatter them, leaving the church’s trunk in place.
Spiritually sounding churches will say that their “trunk” is Jesus, but reality says something else. Sometimes the “go to” is whatever the power family in the church says is going to happen. Pastors may come and go, but the power family dictates what will be and what will not be.
Sometimes the “go to” is more aligned with Old Testament judgment rather than New Testament grace. Church discipline becomes punitive and harsh rather than restorative and healing.
Church budgets are often indicators of what a congregation’s “go to” is. For instance, how much of the budget is focused on building maintenance and property compared to missions and community outreach? Going back to the power family, what do they support? Is their influence apparent in the breakdown of the budget?
The Cavaliers go to LeBron because they want to win. Churches yield to their “to go” because they fear losing. Losing, however, is defined as a family getting upset and leaving over a change they don’t care for; or it is defined as the loss of the church’s comfort zone; or “too many new leaves on an old tree!”
What is your church’s “go to?” How does it tend to react to problems and/or changes? More often than not, going to LeBron produces a victory. For churches, the tendency is to yield to the “go to” because they can’t afford to lose!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, love, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: church budgets, church culture, church decisions, church life, church priorities, comfortable, decision-making, go to, go to player, Kevin Durant, Lebron James, power people in the church, Steph Curry, the fear of losing, the threat of change, Threats
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March 7, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. March 6, 2017
I got my hair cut on Saturday. Not an earth shattering event, I know, but one that I enjoy because of the person who cuts it for me.
Her name is Darla. I’ve known her for eighteen years and she always makes me laugh. I was her pastor for years and years, and there are just some people who you will always be close to even when your positional relationship with them changes.
Darla has a heart of gold. A couple of weeks ago a man that we both knew passed away. His daughter called Darla and asked if she could fix her mom’s hair. Darla, who works a ton of hours, made time to take that “worry” off of the grieving widow…hair that was showing the effects of sudden loss!
When I enter her shop, Locals Barbers, she greets me with a hug and asks me how I’m doing? Sometime in the first thirty seconds laughter erupts from each one of us! She plops me down in her chair and makes some comment about my hair or eye glasses, or the level of my tiredness. Her shop serves a free beer to its customers, but Darla knows that I hate beer so she offers to have one of her assistants go next door to Smashburger and get me a Coke.
Commence the chatter and conversation. With Darla there is no shortage of conversation. She flows one story into the next, always with a background of scissor snipping. She is my “Floyd!”, accomplishing her task while telling current day Mayberry stories.
I marvel at the importance that Darla places on fairness. She is the advocate for the mistreated, the balancer of the uneven. Her sense of fairness has cost her over the years. People who have looked to win or be right regardless of who gets hurt have turned their backs on her. They despise her emphasis on fairness. A previous employer was taking advantage of his employees so she stood in the gap for them. It cost her, but she can now look back at that situation knowing that she did the right thing.
So now I sit in her chair, laugh, listen, and talk as she sculptures my hair look. It is a time of pampering and levity that I am blessed to be the focus for.
We meet Jesus in different people. Darla has her limitations and challenges, but I see the reflection of Jesus coming through her. “Darla time” is always a time for being blessed.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: a heart of gold, barber, being fair, conversation, cutting hair, fairness, Floyd the barber, hair stylist, hairdresser, Locals Barbers, playing fair
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February 26, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. February 26, 2017
A tragic event happened this past week that traumatized a local high school. A student took his life. Teen suicide has happened way to often in recent times. For the high school effected it was their sixth student suicide in the past year or so.
Half of the suicide victims at this high school had been involved in some way with the Young Life club of their campus. The local newspaper had a headline article featuring that point. A couple of the people that were interviewed more than hinted that there might be a connection between students killing themselves and what they were experiencing at Young Life.
When suicides happen, especially amongst adolescents, people search for answers…they long for understanding. Like common threads in a TV police detective episode, they look for connections between the victims. Young Life was a common thread half of the time. That led to comments by those being interviewed that perhaps the theology…the belief system of Young Life had been a contributing factor in the deaths.
A tragic situation followed by tragic assumptions. Religions, not just Christianity, are viewed with more and more suspicion these days. There are radical Muslims, radical Jews, and radical Christians…and a growing number of people can not differentiate between the radicals and those of us who see our spiritual faith as a motivator for positive results. And, quite frankly, there are a number of religious folk who look with suspicion on anything that they are uncomfortable with! That’s been true for centuries. Remember? Rock music was of the devil, tattoos are of the devil, movies are of the devil, Harry Potter was of the devil…the list was, and still is, long!
A number of conspiracy theorists have taken up residence in the Church!
There’s a growing number of suspicionists who WERE a part of the church. They were burned in some way, mistreated by the people of grace, and exited congregations never to return. A burned Baptist is like a parent whose daughter just got stood up by her prom date. Hell knows no greater fury. Anger has been planted deep inside.
So perhaps the suspicions about Young Life are understandable, although untrue. Perhaps we should expect doubts about our faith to become more prominent, and more reservations about our calling and purpose to rise to the surface.
If I remember right the first followers of Jesus had the same challenge. Their language was misinterpreted, as they took the bread and cup and referred to them as the body and blood of Christ! Their citizenship was questioned, as they talked about following Christ the King. Their theology was concerning, as they experienced the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and expressed belief in someone who had been crucified and then was said to be raised form the dead.
Suspicion is not new to followers of Christ. We sometimes forget that we were gifted with “good news”, and that good news contains hope, love, peace, and grace that needs to trumpeted in a refresher course for Christ-followers.
One last hopeful point that the newspaper article made was that in the midst of the school tragedy the leaders of Young Life were coming alongside students and helping them cope with the loss, praying with the grieving, and listening to the confused. I guess you would call that the ministry of presence.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: adolescent suicide, blood of Christ, conspiracy theorists, death, doubts, high school, of the devil, religious radicals, suicide, suspicion, teen suicide, Young Life
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February 23, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. February 23, 2017
Churches are weird places! I know, I know…that’s a hard thing for a person who pastored for 37 years to say, but I’m owning up to it. Weird…strange…loving, but disapproving…like the free offer you get in the mail, but then find out there’s strings attached.
And the thing is, churches don’t intend to be that way, they just kind of warp into that!
One of those weird things about churches is a document that is called “the church covenant.” Depending on the congregation, the church covenant can be very affirming and loving, or it can be more like Ivy League entrance requirements.
I remember the covenant of a church I was on staff for that included restrictions on partaking of alcohol and participating in gambling. Everyone knew that there were a number of church members who included those two activities in their lives, but didn’t talk about it at church.
No church covenant has “abstaining from gluttony” as a part of their membership requirements!
Church covenants get glued on to the last page in the hymnal, like they were an afterthought, but they get trumpeted at hastily called church business meetings to support someone who has an axe to grind!
They are documents that create a “who’s in and who’s out” atmosphere.
The interesting aspect of church covenants to me is that they come out of communities of believers who are saved by grace, and yet operate out of rules and restrictions. Very rarely does a church covenant include procedures on how to restore someone who has screwed up, and yet grace is often referred to like it’s the holy grail of beliefs.
Churches rarely read their covenants. They are like the fine print that Apple puts on their products that read on for infinity. Click the “I agree” button and head to lunch! That’s why the covenants are in the back of the hymnal instead of the front, like the shed in the backyard that you rarely enter because you hate spider webs.
There is the covenantal language of the Bible…and there is church covenantal language. Church covenants say things like “It shall be the duty of members to familiarize themselves with the church covenant…to endeavor with all earnestness to practice the same (Huh?)…to attend habitually the services of this church.”
My suspicion is that most church covenants were “sacredly stolen” from some other congregation. Why reinvent the wheel? So most covenants are like on-line wills that someone has done all the work for already.
Should we have church covenants? Yes, but make them simple! Create them out of mindsets of grace to help people in their walk, not afflict them in their struggles.
I wonder…yes, I wonder how the covenants of new church plants shape up compared with the documents of long established congregations? What is the language like? Or, better yet, do newer congregations even have church covenants? Do they come to a point…like ten years into their journey…when they decide in their warping…they need one?
Or do they simply covenant to journey together, normal people and weird ones, in their pursuit of being the people of God?
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized
Tags: Church covenant, covenant, covenant language, documents, grace, grace-filled, hymnals, legalism, rules and restirctions, saved by grace, statements of belief, statements of faith, weird people
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January 28, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. January 28, 2017
All of our neighbors are familiar with a tree that has been in our front yard since before we moved there in 1999. Just to the side of the basketball hoop, it resembled a pine tree that had been on a Slim-Fast diet…for years! Each year it kept growing towards the sky, but not getting any broader at the base. Our former neighbor would always look at it and say “Um, um, um…pitiful!” We never had to worry about rabbits hiding under it, or trash accumulating around its base.
For the past several years Carol and I have looked at it and discussed whether we should chop it down and raise the property value of our house…but it became a symbolic sight for us. We named it “The Grace Tree”, for it was only by the grace of God that it had not met the blade of an axe.
Several times when I preached about grace I’d use the Grace Tree for a sermon illustration. I’d show a couple of pictures of it to the congregation and hear the sighs and facial expressions of pity.
But grace came to an end a couple of weeks ago!
High winds hit our area and we woke up one morning to discover that the Grace Tree had taken a tumble. Think of it as the end of its stay in “Arbor Hospice!” Just kind of keeled over and done with!
We’ve received no condolence notes from our neighbors, no flowers, or other things that grow out of the ground!
Grace came to an untimely end on January 9! We’ll never know now, but perhaps if it had put some firmness and width into its base over the last 20 years or so the January 9th tumbled demise would not have happened. But you know something? Trees quite often have minds of their own. It’s hard to reason with them and make them see the long-term consequences of tree anorexia! As my mom used to say, “You can talk until you’re blue in the face”, but it doesn’t make any difference.
To be honest the Grace Tree received more grace than it deserved, but it was an ongoing message to us: That the tendency in our culture, and, sadly enough, in the church, is to be the executioners of the imperfect instead of the conduits of grace. Many New Testament followers of Jesus still live by Old Testament justice!
Whereas, many of our neighbors are a bit delighted over the passing of our Grace Tree, I’m a bit grieved. Don’t get me wrong! Carol and I aren’t going to put a grace…I mean, grave marker there! It’s just that the reminder won’t be there every day as I back the car out of the garage, or every time I’m shooting baskets in the driveway. (It did act as a ball stop once in a while!) There are a few things in life that we just need reminders about. What will remind me of grace?
I do still have a “selfie pic” of the Grace Tree in the background behind me! Maybe, just maybe, I’ll make that my new screen saver! Wouldn’t that be ironic, the Grace Tree being my screen saver!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: compassion, consequences, grace, graceful, hospice, lacking grace, legalism, legalistic, mercy, saved by grace
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December 14, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. December 14, 2016
The fourth grade class I had been assigned to be the tutor for was walking back to the classroom from recess. One of the students walked beside me and said, “Your last name is Wolfe. Mine is Woods! I wish they didn’t go in alphabetical order so much of the time. I guess we’re mostly last, aren’t we?”
“Yes, I suppose we are,” I replied. I could tell that she saw me as an end-of-the-alphabet kindred spirit.
“I wish they would go by first names, because mine starts with a “C”… Colleen!”
“And I’m a “B”…Bill! There aren’t too many first names before me, just “A’s” like Adam or Angela and then some of the “B’s” like Bob and Bonnie.”
“Bob and Bonnie would actually come after Bill.”
“Oh, you’re right! My bad!” She gave me some grace, probably figuring that, with my age, I sometimes got confused when it came to vowels and such.
She was ready to continue about her last name woes. “It just seems that when anything gets handed out I’m always the last one to receive mine. We have no X, Y, or Z’s in our class. Last week in music class the teacher was handing out instruments to people…alphabetically! Guess who got stuck with two sticks to hit together? Lame!”
“And when I order lunch that gets delivered to our classroom I’m always the last one to receive it.”
“There’s got to be something good about being at the end of the alphabet. Like if someone brings cookies to class and they get handed out, but there are extras when it comes to the end of the alphabet!”
“Well, first of all, we’re a healthy snack school so you can forget about the cookies! And second, it’s more likely that there wouldn’t be ENOUGH of whatever snack it is instead of too many! Thus…another slap in the face to a W!”
“Jesus said the last shall be first and the first shall be last.”
“He wasn’t thinking about fourth graders when he said it, though!”
“Think about all the people through the years whose last name started with a W!” Woodrow Wilson, Oprah Winfrey, Daniel Webster, George Washington…”
“John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Abraham, Alexander the Great!”
She had me stumped and speechless, plus I was somewhat taken back by the fact that she knew who Alexander the Great was.
“Think of it this way. A “W” is a strong letter, a good letter. When the Chicago Cubs win a game they fly a flag with a big “W” on it. “W” is a letter of celebration. It indicates a winner, and you, Colleen, are a winner!”
She looked up at me as we were just about to enter the classroom. “I guess you’re right, Mr. Wolfe. I mean I know it’s your job to make me feel good about myself and all that, but I think you might be right. “W” could stand for a lot of good things, like “Wow” and “Willy Wonka.”
“And you know, Colleen, when there is some kind of processional march it is always the most important people who march in last!”
She stopped for a moment to let another student pass her, and also in order to be the last one to enter back into class. “Thanks, Mr. Wolfe! I think you are another “W”…wise!”
Categories: Bible, children, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: alphabet, end of the alphabet, fourth grade, in alphabetical order, school, School recess, school tutor, the first shall be last and the last shall be first, the letter W, W, Wolfe
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Words from WW Blog 