Archive for the ‘Prayer’ category
November 16, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. November 16, 2015
In recent weeks I’ve come to realize a few things about being the adult. Sometimes the younger ones we’re raising up, teaching, discipling, are teaching and mentoring you…the adult, the teacher, the pastor…perhaps more than you’re impacting them.
About a month ago, when I was in Chicago, I had dinner with a young lady who was in the youth group I directed more than thirty-five years ago. I still refer to Cyndi as a young lady even though she is now in her mid-fifties! When we met for dinner we had not seen each other for about ten years, but it was like we had seen each other the day before. A three hour conversation ensued. It was delightful to talk about the past, the present, and the future; to hear what God has done in her life and the lives of her family, to hear of a special mission project that her ninth grade son has initiated that has taken off.
And in the midst of it I realized that Cyndi, and her friends Laura, Sue, George, Wave, and others had raised me up as a youth minister. They showed grace to me when I was trying to figure out how to communicate scriptural truth to adolescents. They gave me the freedom to laugh at myself for my moments of cluelessness. They stood beside me in times of lacking confidence, and showed me that there are different ways of looking at a relationship with Jesus besides the Baptist mindset, the only view I had ever experienced.
And perhaps most amazing, and deeply moving, was to hear that Cyndi had become a follower of Christ at a Young Life Camp in Colorado I took a van load of students to the summer I was on staff at her church. For some reason I hadn’t been aware of that. And now 37 years later I was blessed to discover the rest of her story.
The students we mentor often becomes the students who mentor us.
Last week another of my former youth groups students, Deb Simpson Aldridge, went home to be with the Lord. She battled cancer, and cancer finally won, but her victory was assured even in the midst of death because of her faith in Christ. Deb was part of the first youth group I directed at First Baptist Church in Marseilles, Illinois. I had just graduated from Judson College in Elgin, Illinois, was going to start seminary that next fall, and was hired by the church to be the summer youth director. I had never had a youth position before…operated out of the experience of cluelessness! Deb and her sister Connie were two high school students in the youth group who accepted me right away. At my less-than-stellar bible study gatherings they would voice their thoughts and help me to keep going. There is nothing quite as disconcerting than to lead a group of students who sit there and look at you like you are speaking a foreign language. Deb would share something, or, in a loving sisterly way, tell Connie that what she just said was ridiculous.
Deb had a dry wit and humor that made our gatherings or road trips in the van experiences of laughter-laced fellowship. Anything I planned or suggested she would support. Think of it! A young guy right our of college with no experience could have been trampled to a ministry death by a youth group that saw him as an outsider to be neglected, but this youth group raised me up to proceed forward for a forty years of ministry. They could have killed me, but inside they mentored me.
Deb’s passing made me realize the effect she had on my life and my ministry.
Cyndi, Deb, Connie, Steve Landon, Shirl Streukens, Jon Daniels, the Epps Twins, Phil Girard, Jon Girard, Amy Anderson, Keri Anderson, John Chora, Brad Johnson, Tiffany Chora,Tony Lamouria…the list of student mentors for my life is long and deep.
A big part of how I see ministry…especially youth ministry…has been chiseled into my person by their hands.
And I am very, very blessed!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: adolescence, church van., Deb Simpson, disciple, Marseilles Illinois, mentor, mentoring, Young Life, Young Life Camp, youth director, youth groups, youth minister, youth ministry
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November 10, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. November 9, 2015
I never knew my dad’s dad. He was killed in a mining accident when my dad was in his early teen years. When you don’t know someone you miss out on part of the family story. You forget that there was family history before you ever were!
A little more of the family past was revealed to me by my dad when I was visiting him back in Ohio about a month ago. I hadn’t really thought about why my dad had been named “Laurence Hubert Wolfe”. He just was…that’s all! I never knew him by any other name and didn’t question it. It’s like breathing…we don’t think about it just is. For all I knew,
But there is a wonderful story of redemption and grace behind my dad’s first and middle names. His father, Silas Dean Wolfe, had a tendency to drink too much. Alcohol was destroying his life one shot at a time. He was losing his grip on things. My dad never said that my grandfather was an alcoholic, but he had one foot stepping into that problem.
When it seemed that he was a lost cause two Baptist ministers came into his life and walked with him through the struggles. They stayed beside him in the midst of the temptations, and lifted him out of the depths. The names of the two Baptist ministers were “Laurence” and “Hubert.” The impact of their tough love and restorative grace was so profound that my father bears their names as his names.
For many of us, our names are passed down from one generation to the next. My two names comes from a great uncle and my Uncle Dean. Some of us are “Juniors” or “the third!” But my dad’s name…Oh, my! His name is a constant reminder that the depths of a person’s life can still be ascended from. His name reminds him of where his dad had fallen and how he had risen again. His name reminds him of people who come into our loves as messengers of redemption, stand beside the broken, and never leave us!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Grandchildren, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: alcoholics, Baptist ministers, Dad, family history, family story, grace, ministers, pastors, recovery, redemption, restoration, tough love
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October 30, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. October 29, 2015
Our money preaches our priorities. It clearly conveys what we feel is important and what is an add-on. It conveys our dedication to comfortableness and reluctance to commitment.
As I approach retirement from being a pastor…a paid pastor that is…I’ve been doing more and more thinking about money. Carol and I are looking at what we can expect, and not expect, once my position at our church ends.
But I’ve also been thinking about my responsibility to support the next generation of “God’s called.” I’ve been blessed to see several people I’ve known as their pastor or their coach enter into some form of full-time ministry. I believe I have a responsibility to affirm and encourage their calling through words of blessing, prayerful support, and financial backing. It’s the punctuation mark to their blessing, to be affirmed in these ways instead of comments like “Hope it works out for you!”
That conviction I have was affirmed today as Carol and I met a young man named Tony LaMouria, his charming wife Elisabeth, and their four boys…nine years old down to seven months.
Carol and I have known Tony since he appeared one cold, sleet/rain Sunday morning at our church in Mason, Michigan, riding a bicycle. That ride into our midst began a new chapter in his faith journey that was marked by disappointment, confusion, acceptance, and unconditional love.
There’s so much to “the Tony Story” that I won’t mention, but one thing that I will mention is how one family in the church, the Andersons , took Tony into their home, gradually brought him to the point where he became the new little brother to their two older daughters, and modeled for him a love that is blended with wisdom, firmness, and encouragement. The Andersons felt a deep responsibility to support this high school kid with a charming smile and a confusing past. They were entering the period in their lives called “the empty nest”, and now they believed God had called them to parent another who wasn’t even theirs.
That family that supported him was part of a new foundation in Tony’s life. The other was our church that took him in, came alongside his new family in the “congregational parenting” of him, and applauded him in his accomplishments.
Today as Carol and I talked with him and Elisabeth he told us of their calling to be a part of a mission organization that sends pastors to churches, mostly rural or small towns, who don’t have the financial resources to support a pastor. There are thousands of churches like that around our country. In our conversation Tony shared how important our church in Mason was to him at that time in is life when he was trying to figure out if he had purpose and value. As he said to us today, if he had gone to a large church he would have gotten lost in the crowd, but our church loved him and embraced him. Now, years later, he sees the value in small churches, and is looking to serve in one of them.
That means I have a responsibility to continue the blessing, to come alongside him, to help him to keep the pursuit.
What blessing! What a responsibility! What a privilege!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: blessing, called, called by God, convictions, encouraging, Mason, mentoring, Michigan, missions, responsibility, small churches, Village Missions
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October 18, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. October 18, 2015
This past week I was traveling from Chicago to my dad’s place located in the southern tip of Ohio. It’s a trip that I did many times when I was in seminary…36 years ago! In 36 years, however, roads change, new configurations of asphalt are created that seek to baffle the wisest.
But I have my iPhone friend, Siri, to lead me and guide me! She shares mileage numbers, how many miles until I come to the next road I’m suppose to turn on to. I even asked her to tell me where the next Cracker Barrel restaurant is.
I put a lot of trust in Siri!
When I arrived on the outskirts of Cincinnati, which must have every road under construction, she navigated me through the maze of I-74 to 275 to 71 to somewhere else. She took me over the river and through the woods to the business district of Cold Spring, Kentucky. I began to doubt as I passed the First Baptist Church of Cold Spring; doubted even more as the speed limit decreased to 35 as the road wound itself past a Waffle House. She took me to Highway AA, which I’ve never heard of. Roads have always been numerically marked in my experience, and now I’m following two capital letters into the dark.
She gave me an arrival time in Proctorville, Ohio, and, by golly, she was right! I followed here directions through hill and dale, past surging coal trucks and lounging late-night drivers.
Siri could have led me into the Ohio River, not over it, if she wanted to. She could have not been current in her understanding and sent me to Virginia instead of briefly passing through West Virginia. She could have been quiet or garbled in her directions, or given an instruction and a few minutes later added a “My mistake!”
I trusted her, even though I’ve only heard her voice.
It occurs to me that my trust in the Lord often doesn’t run as deep as my trust in Siri. I pray for his guidance, I ask for his direction, and yet I’m prone to not follow it. I sing the song “Where He Leads I Will Follow”, but am content to take personal detours that lead me into periods of wilderness wanderings.
Scripture gives me story after story of people who followed the Lord, or heard his voice and didn’t heed his warnings. Scripture tells me of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It tells me of the hope of the gospel, the perseverance of the saints, the journey of the people of God. I’m reminded again and again that God is faithful, that he will never fail me.
But I exhibit limited trust in the absolutes of the Almighty! If I could figure out why that is I could bottle it and make billions, or travel the country giving over-priced seminars to a multitude of others who have issues following the leadings of the Lord.
But I have a hard time figuring out myself. I’ve got a streak of idiocy within me mixed together with a hint of common sense.
And so…I am continually amazed by grace. Grace is essential for the faith traveler whose strength is getting lost! Grace excuses where there is no excuse.
Grace stays with me even when my trust has exited the highway.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Faith, Grace, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Cold Spring, Cracker Barrel, directions, following, Highway AA, highways, iPhone, journey, Kentucky, Ohio, Proctorville, Siri
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October 16, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. October 16, 2015
On December 31 I will retire from full-time ministry. Yesterday I was at a retirement seminar put on by our denomination’s pension plan. So many questions…what if’s…and shall be’s!
I’m getting a lot of questions like “Retiring already?” and “What are you going to do?” I also gets comments and insinuations that pastors have a lifetime calling and, therefore, I can’t retire.
I agree with the lifetime calling aspect. I’m simply retiring as the pastor of a church where I have been for the past sixteen plus years. I’m still a pastor, I just won’t get paid!
Wednesday night I met with a young lady…who is suddenly fifty-five, who was in the youth group I led back in the late seventies. We talked for three hours and I was blessed to hear about her continuing spiritual journey. In many ways…in those three hours…I was her youth pastor again. In some ways I have been her pastor/encourager/mentor for about four decades.
Through social media I’m still a pastor in undefined ways for numerous people who have been a part of my life in some way over the past forty years. I offer encouragement to a woman who was a part of the first youth group I led back in Marseilles, Illinois. She is waging a courageous battle against cancer.
This past summer I invited young ladies I had coached in basketball at Liberty High School over a five year span to come over a Sunday night cook-out. The igniting fuse for that event was the death of a couple of months before that of a young lady I had coached, and who was their teammate. Even though I am “Coach Wolfe” to these young ladies I was a little bit their pastor that night…as we grieved…as we laughed…as we celebrated friendships and shared experiences.
I could go on and on, but my point is that retiring as the pastor of a church doesn’t mean that I am retiring from being a pastor. There is a huge difference. It means that I won’t be on a schedule to “to receive a word from the Lord” each week for the next Sunday’s sermon, but it doesn’t mean that I won’t receive a word from the Lord.
It means that I no longer will be pushed to get over to see one of the seniors who is in poor health, but it does mean that I will go see a senior friend who is in poor health because I love him dearly.
It means I won’t feel the urgency to spend time in the Word, but it does mean that I will spend time in the Word because I have a desire to be enriched and spiritual nourished.
It means that I won’t have to write a sermon each week, but I’ll not stop writing. Perhaps…cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye…perhaps I’ll be able to have a greater impact through written words more than spoken words. The power of a “shared word” can have a ripple effect.
So I’m moving out of a role that has certain job description responsibilities and into a similar role that will become clearer as I travel on the road. I’m like my old softball glove that I’ve had since 1979. Carol gave it to me as a birthday present that year…even before we were married! I used that glove again this past summer as a part of our church softball team. It still catches, but has a couple of broken strings and is looking…”weathered!” It still catches, if the softball hits in certain spots, but just needs a little reconditioning to be used in more effective ways.
That’s me! I’m like an ole’ softball glove with a couple of broken strings just in need of some reconditioning!
Categories: Christianity, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: impacting, life transitions, old baseball glove, pastor, reconditioned, relating, Relationships, retired minister, retired pastor, retiring
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September 23, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. September 23, 2015
There is a young man on my middle school football team that jokes around with me everyday…and I mean everyday…at practice. We jab one another with teases and witty words. He really is a nice young man, and his main focus of kidding with me is my age. He comes at me from a “can you hear me” angle, from a “can you still run” poke, and, in recent days, my hair.
He’s right! In recent times my hair is getting more and more populated by gray. My scalp is starting to resemble a lawn trying to fight off the dandelions and crabgrass! The mirror that I stand in front of early in the morning has a deceptive light to it. I can’t really see the gray! Someone should market a mirror like that. It could be sold right next to the wrinkle cream!
Just as autumn is beginning to change the colors, the gray is coming to my highest personal point.
“How do I feel about that?” you ask.
I’m okay with it. It makes me realize that I haven’t taken a roadside rest from the journey of life. A friend of mine recently got his driver’s license renewed and they changed his hair color from brown to gray on the license. I’ve still got four years before that happens…since I just renewed about six months ago when the brown was still the dominant citizen of my head. (Although my license picture looks like I’m being booked for the county jail!)
Gray is okay! And I’m not going to try to avoid it. I’ve been fortunate. A few times I’ve had to show my license (Yes, the one where I look dazed and confused!) in order to get the senior citizen rate for a meal! It’s the other end of being “carded”, the one where you smile as you flip out the ID!
The more important question for me is how do I feel internally? How old do I feel in my spirit? How am I caring for my soul? What troubles me in the world, and in the church, is the amount of attention that gets paid to the outer shell and minimal reflection on my inner journey. When my spirit experiences the gray then I must step back and evaluate.
I’m recognizing periods of crankiness in my life. I’m usually not that way…ask my wife! When that “grump” appears it causes me to ponder what is going on. It’s a sign that I’m unsettled and usually means I need to get alone with God and have a little “Come to Jesus” session with him!
Scripture tells us that outer gray is a positive. Proverbs 16:31 says “Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness.”
So…although I am cognizant of when I’m having spiritually gray periods, I’ll take some comfort in the fact that I’m weaving a crown on my head. My wife, Carol, might spoil the moment and say that I’ve already got a crown…it’s that bare spot on top of my scalp that I can’t see in the mirror!
The cruelty of truth!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Death, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Aging, aging process, Gray, gray hair, mature looking, Old age, Proverbs 16:31, self-care, the inner self, wrinkle cream
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September 20, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. September 19, 2015
When I walk into my office at the church I pastor I need to step around the rocking chair, and then side step the rocking horse. It’s an obstacle course to get to my desk. Avoid the squeaky rabbit and the weathered doll baby. Toddler toys are huddled together in a corner whispering about life…right behind the changing table.
Not a typical situation, but one that I’m adjusting to. Our roof leak over part of the usual nursery childcare area has caused multiple examples of improvising. For a couple of weeks the babies and toddlers are surrounded by Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, and Tozer. Perhaps the theology and examples of sacrifice will sink in!
Our nursery workers are scheming. I’ve heard them talking about switching my desk chair with the low-riding rocking horse. Nursery pranksters!
Adjusting. An essential part of being a community of faith is “adjusting.” Demanding preferences that are not rooted in God creates division and tension. Adjusting to the flow of the community enhances mission and ministry.
There are numerous opportunities for the fellowship of followers to practice a new spiritual discipline that I’ll call “yielding.” In the past it has been referred to in different ways…serving, fellowship, even worship. But kind of like the World History textbook we used to have in high school where you never quite got to the end of the book before summer vacation, “yielding” is that spiritual practice we never quite get to because of all the other things that we’re focusing on.
How do you yield? Put a rocking horse in your normal daily pathway and you’ll either kick it or take a side-step. We all need a few “rocking horses” in our lives, but especially in the tugging and pulling of a congregation.
Tomorrow morning when I open my office door and “Trigger” is hunched there ready to gallop it will make me think, and remember once again, that it’s not all about me!
When the roof leak situation has been remedied and the changing table goes back to the nursery down the hallway I may keep the horse for a while. It helps me keep perspective!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: adjusting, Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, Nursery, Tozer, walking together, yield, yielding
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September 6, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. September 6, 2015
There are certain events in life that leave us gasping for breath. Not “take your breath away”, but rather struggling to take the next breath.
In recent weeks I’ve had several people that I’ve known for years experience loss or sorrow that is so overwhelming that it is beyond words, and numbing to emotions.
When loss comes close to us we walk the valley of the shadow of death that seems to have no end. There is darkness ahead and memories behind.
Three of my former classmates at Judson College experienced this yesterday. One of them was my first roommate at the college; his first wife a good friend of mine; and her second husband my cross-country teammate and guy that I would “hang out with.” Their daughter and step-daughter was killed in a head-on car collision this weekend. What can you say to someone that experiences the tentacles of loss wrapped so tightly around their lives that their souls gasp in agony? There is nothing you can say to tell them it will be okay…because it won’t be okay!
When loss comes close it is a pain that keeps stabbing. Each Christmas it pricks the memories of the mind, the remembering of days gone by, the tragedy of a future forfeited.
Followers of Jesus are the worst at walking with someone who is grieving…and also the best. We sometimes convey trite spiritually-sounding words like “She’s in a better place!” and “All things work for good!” But we also are prone to “be with’ the grieving…just to be…to mourn with the mourners and walk silently with those who are hearing the loud aches of loss.
When loss comes close we come to know in a very intimate personal way the reality of David’s words “I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. When i was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted. I remembered you, O God, and I groaned; i mused, and my spirit grew faint.” (Psalm 77:1-3, NIV)
Interestingly enough, yesterday we had a call from Colorado Springs Police Department. My wife carol could not get to the phone before the call ended, and the CSPD did not leave a message. She immediately called me and I called the police department to see what the call was about. As soon as Carol ended her call to me she went to her knees in prayer. Her thoughts were about one of our children and grandchildren. Had something happened? As I called the police department my hands were shaking. When I finally got someone on the line she told me it was concerning an elderly person who had gone missing from an eldercare place close to us.
But our thoughts were of the closeness of loss!
My friends are experiencing the closeness of loss that will change their lives forever…and I weep with them!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Death, Faith, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: dying, grief, grieving, heartache, loss, mourning, Psalm 77, sorrow, tragedy
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August 23, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. August 23, 2015
Ten years ago I was running the Pike’s Peak Ascent, a 13.2 mile race for insane people. My wife called to it as “The Death Race.” She wasn’t too far off! The only people more loco than Ascent-ers were the ones who ran the Pike’s Peak Marathon the next day, a 26.2 mile race to the top of the mountain and back down again.
Okay…there is one group even more loco! Those who run the Ascent on Saturday and then the Marathon on Sunday. Crazy and whacked!
The hardest parts of the Ascent race for me were Mile Two and Mile Nine. Mile Two because the adrenalin of the start had worn off and I was suddenly doing some “serious uphill running.” Mile Nine because I was beginning to be physically depleted but I knew I had four miles yet to go…uphill!
The urge to stop and recognize the reasonableness of my actions increased as the race went on. My goal was not to win. My goal was to finish! As the elevation got higher I considered revising my goal to simply surviving.
Sometimes it is hard to stay the course…not just in a race for insane people, but also some of the insane times of life we have to run through.
The church I pastor seems to be having an increasing number of building challenges. A roof leak into our nursery area, despite a new roof being put on two years ago, and now the frustration of trying to get the roofer to come and fix it! A drywall problem as a ripple effect of that. Other things that are wearing out, like carpet and light fixtures.
It seems that each week is filled with new challenges that give reason to step to the side, to surrender to the mountain!
Hebrews 12:2-3 has taken on new meaning for me, and a new thankfulness for Jesus. It reads “Let is fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
That keeps me going!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: challenges, Hebrews 12:2, Hebrews 12:3, insane actions, keeping on, marathon, perseverance, Pike's Peak Ascent, staying the course
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August 3, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. August 3, 2015
One of my seminary professors was Dr. David Augsburger, a great teacher and a Mennonite in the midst of our American Baptist seminary. That was 36 years ago and was my first brush with Mennonites. Dr. Augsburger dressed like us and was rumored to even drink wine, a reality that I was beginning to see was normal. In my growing up years I had only encountered wine on neon signs that said either “Wine and Liquor Store” or “Fine Dining and Wine.” My family didn’t go out to restaurants much, but when we did it was Big Boy and, without a doubt, there was no fine wine in the premises.
Over the years I’ve come to know a number of other people who are Mennonites and the men put their pants on the same way I do. I’ve even preached in the Mennonite church here in town three times when we do our pulpit exchange Sunday.
In recent times I’ve noticed hints of Mennonite beliefs in my belief system. The main one that seems to be getting stronger is pacifism. I’m not so pacifistic that I want our military downsized, but this week has made me think a lot about violence. In the newspaper today there were articles on a policeman killed in Memphis, a physician in Pennsylvania accused of killing another lion in Africa, a man charged with the beheading of his wife and pet dogs, an update on the Minnesota dentist who had killed a lion and the people who want him killed. There was also an article and action shot of two professional baseball teams in a brawl, and a listing of the various policies that the Ferguson, Missouri violence has caused.
In other words, how thin would my newspaper be if the articles on violence weren’t there?
I’m not putting a peace sign on my Civic, but it seems that the human condition and tendency is to push the violent key pretty quickly. Here in Colorado Springs a fourteen year old boy was gunned down by the 31 year old uncle whose nephew had accused the fourteen year old of taking his cell phone. Gunned down!
In Denver the James Holmes trial is winding down, the young man who killed twelve and wounded seventy at an Aurora, Colorado movie theater. Yesterday bombs exploded within thirty minutes of one another outside two separate Las Cruces, New Mexico churches. Las Cruces!
About six weeks ago nine people were killed in a Charleston, South Carolina church in the midst of a prayer service.
There just seems to be an unhealthy trend going on here! So I’m leaning towards the Mennonites. American Baptists have a strong history of non-violence also, but we’re not quite as committed across the denomination like our Mennonite friends.
Bottom line! There needs to be an immediate increase in the production of “chill pills.”
Peace out!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Death, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Nation, Pastor, Prayer, Story
Tags: American Baptist, bench-clearing brawl, Charleston Church shooting, chill pill, Desmond Smith, James Holmes, Las Cruces church bombings, Memphis police killed, Mennonite beliefs, Mennonites, Minnesota dentist, shootings, violence
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Words from WW Blog 