Archive for the ‘Youth’ category
August 24, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 24, 2017
This week marks the beginning of my second full year of substitute teaching. I have settled into enjoying my role as a mostly middle school substitute teacher, although I do have two days of kindergarten physical education coming up soon! When I mention to some people about subbing for middle school they look at me like I have a flu virus or a tattoo on my face…diseased and disturbed!
Last week I stood in the middle school entry way waiting for football practice to begin and in the few minutes I was there I was asked by three different teachers to be their subs for a total of 14 days in the coming two months. One teacher called me in July to schedule me for late August (today and tomorrow) and September.
Call me a “strange-o!”
One of the ways I connect with middle school kids is by gradually giving them nicknames that sometimes make sense, but often don’t! The nicknames, however, stick to them like flies on honey! This morning one young lady reminded me that I had nicknamed her “Georgia” last year, because her name is Savannah. One of her classmates then asked me to call her “California” for no apparent reason.
Last year Bryson became “Bison”. Another young man whose initials are “A.B.” became “Arby’s.” A young lady who requested that I give her a nickname became “The Professor”.
Nicknames make kids feel special in a funny kind of way. My nickname in high school was a takeoff on my name…Bill Wolfe. We were studying Beowulf in English and someone picked up on the similarity in pronunciations. To this day I can go back to Ironton, Ohio, see an old classmate from forty-five years ago, and be called Beowulf, or “Beo” for short!
To be honest, a lot of first names these days are hard for me to pronounce. I look at the class roster and don’t see many students named Bob, Jane, Susan, or John. Instead I look down the class list of young boys and girls who have more syllables than Mississippi. Pronouncing the names are like running obstacle pronunciation courses, each syllable ready to trip my tongue up.
Last year some seventh graders that I subbed for quite a bit even gave me a nickname. Instead of “Wolfe”…one syllable, they named me “Wolfe-a”, like I’m French. The “a” is sounded like it’s flying into the ozone! It made me feel good, that a bunch of seventh graders felt me worthy enough for a nickname. I remember a few nicknames we had for some of my teachers back in school and they were not French, but definitely not very flattering!
Categories: children, Humor, Parenting, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Beowulf, long names, names, nicknames, pronouncing names, pronunciation, school nicknames, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching, teaching middle school
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August 22, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 22, 2017
Carol and I joined a group of American Baptist pastors and spouses at a Colorado Rockies baseball game last Friday night. They were playing the Milwaukee Brewers, and brew was a prominent part of the evening.
Not for the Baptists, but rather for the group of young guys who were sitting in front of Carol and me. Since we didn’t get there until the second inning we were on the fringe of our group, so we were between the Brews and the Baptists.
It was interesting, and somewhat amusing, to see the different ways the two groups enjoyed watching the game. The Baptists would exit and come back with nachos, fresh-squeezed lemonade, and hot dogs. The Brews would exit and come back with…brew! No food, just brew! Or they would summon the beer guy walking up and down the steps and buy it from him. “Give me three!”
The Baptists were polite in their cheering, like religious high society folk. The Brews were raucous and amusing. One of their group wore his Brewers shirt, which meant any Rockies success (They won 8-4!) resulted in the rest of his group mocking him, while they gave high fives to one another. A Milwaukee home run resulted in the Brewers fan finding another Brewers fan ten seats and four rows away and giving him a high five. Success was followed by celebrated fandom, while failure was accompanied by “F” bombs.
The Baptist pastors talked about church work, the approaching Sunday sermon, how summer church camp and VBS had gone. The Brews talked about where the baseball was going to end up at the end of the inning…because they made bets about its placement. Someone would take the location of the pitcher’s mound, someone else that a player would carry it into the dugout, someone else that it would be tossed by a player to a fan in the crowd, and someone else that it would be given to one of the umpires. Dollar bets were made each time, followed by discovery and disappointment. There were also bets on whether a home run would be hit by the Rockies in an inning, and any other unusual way that bets could be made. Would a pitcher take off his cap and wipe his head? Would a batter spit on the ground? Would there be a double play? Would someone with a last name that starts with a letter between A and M hit a single? Would there be more batters with beards than batters who had shaved, or more batters with beards than batters who had shaved heads? Anything that prompted a bet, but also bleacher victory dances was fair game!
I enjoyed both groups! It was Friday night fun, or, for the Baptists, fellowship! Both groups were accepting. Carol asked one of the Brews to explain their betting games, and he went into great detail with her even though she was drinking Sprite. I talked to Mary Beth about their new pastor and the exciting things happening in her church. We enjoyed our conversation, although the cheering around us made it difficult to hear from time to time.
In essence, Carol and I were part of the Baptists touching the Brew Crew. There’s something in there for followers of Jesus to learn! We follow Jesus and we converse with the world. Some church folk believe in Jesus and turn their back on the world, but the more I think about it I believe if Jesus happened to show up for the baseball game that night he would have been sitting in, or close to, our seats. If he changed water into wine he may have even turned lemonade into beer!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: American Baptist, American Baptist Churches, Baptists, Baseball, baseball game, beer, Brew, Colorado Rockies baseball, faith journey, fellowship, Milwaukee Brewers, water into wine
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August 19, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 19, 2017
I began my thirteenth year of coaching middle school football this past Monday. Over the years the school where I coach has had a few good sized boys…and many, many other boys who could be blown away by the wind. As coaches we don’t know if it’s the water or what, but we are surrounded by lightweights.
In our equipment shed we have different container bins that are filled with practice pants and girdles that contain the football pads in them. Some bins contain adult sizes and other bins contain youth sizes. After handing out equipment the first day the youth-sized bins are depleted…and the adult-sized bins are now just barely below the top of the bin!
Boy after boy with high-pitched voices checked out their equipment with me. Not once did I need to say, “Your voice is too low. Can you speak up so I can hear you better?”
As player after player tried on equipment I was reminded of the biblical story of David trying on Saul’s armor! I tried to envision a slingshot in each of their hands, but as three of them put their practice jersey on backwards my hope in pint-sized conquerors was waning!
Our participation numbers took a dip this year, as concerns about the long-term and immediate effects of concussions have intensified. BUT the dip was not in sixty pounders, but rather in those double that weight. One of the biggest boys in the school, who can also chew gum and walk at the same time, decided not to play because he was worried about getting hurt. The “Little Freddie’s”, who can barely reach the urinal in the restroom, are out in mass though!
Hey! I was one of those Freddie’s back in the day! I needed “Youth Extra Small” as my size when I was in middle school. There was not another student smaller than me in my class no matter what gender you’re talking about! I know what it feels like to be the smallest. Our team however is like landing in Munchkinland in The Wizard of Oz! Our school nickname is the Timberwolves, but we’re thinking of renaming ourselves the “Tiny-Wolves!”
BUT…yes, there is a BUT…most of these sixty pound packages play with heart. Just like when David stepped forward and volunteered to go one-on-one against a giant, while the men twice his size were trying to become small, these mini-mites have heart, hustle and fearlessness. In football, which is a sport that is uncomfortable to play, those attributes make up for a lot of pounds. Over the years I’ve had massive boys who didn’t want their pants to get dirty; boys who were huge, but had no heart, hustle, and even ran from their own shadow.
So maybe our team story this year, our motivation, will be the David and Goliath story of a shepherd boy taking a nine foot giant to the ground!
That reminds me! I need to order a few more pairs of “Youth Small” practice pants!
Categories: Bible, children, coaching, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: coaching football, concussion concerns, concussions, David and Goliath, fearlessness, Football, football equipment, football pants, football practice, high-pitched voice, lightweights, middle school boys, middle school football, middle schoolers, seventh grade boys, seventh grade football, seventh graders, short boys, small boys, Youth Extra Small, youth football, youth sizes
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August 17, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 17, 2017
Bill Hale, my co-conspirator….err, partner in ministry, bought me lunch yesterday and then told me about his previous Sunday’s experience at First Baptist Church in Simla, Colorado. Bill, another great guy named Ed Stucky, and I have been filling the pulpit at the Simla church for the past year and a half.
Now, a couple of things about Bill! He is a retired school teacher who happens to be nine days younger than me, loves country music, and has a keen wit. He and his wife Sylvia have directed our regional denomination’s camp week at Quaker Ridge (Even though we’re American Baptists!) Camp for the past several years. The past two summers I’ve come alongside them, kind of like Larry came alongside Moe and Curly! On the last night of camp this past July Bill dressed up as the Tooth Fairy. I have pictures!
Simla First Baptist is a small congregation of 25…maybe! That’s if everyone, plus their pets, come to church! They have done the best they can, not having the financial resources to pay a pastor or make many improvements. One of the things they haven’t had is an organist, pianist, or even guitar player. So they make do with what we simply call “a music machine.” The music machine plays the background organ music for whatever hymn the congregation is struggling to sing. More times than not it plays the wrong music, or plays the music too slow or softly. Every hymn we sing is a potential Saturday Night Live skit. When you don’t have what you’ve never had you don’t know any difference!
Rev. Hale (as of his ordination service this past May 7) is a bit bolder than me. (We have coffee at Starbucks, but he brings his McDonald’s Diet Coke cup! Radical!) Last Sunday he brought a projector, a laptop, and a screen to Simla. The last projector Simla First Baptist had was the type that you connect a reel of film to and thread it through to connect to the back reel. He set up the screen and the projector and his laptop and, using DVD’s, had the congregation sing praise songs with music and words. For the Sunday message he used a power point to illustrate his sermon, plus a video clip! It was like a tsunami washed over the congregation…and they loved it!
This Sunday I’ll be joining Bill and Sylvia in Simla. They’ve got me doing the children’s story! He’s bringing the projector and screen again and we’ll see if they can bear two Sundays in a row of “the new stuff.”
The Simla church is like many small town churches (SImla’s population has shrunk down to around 500). The possibility of closure is greater than the hope of continuing. They remember in days and decades gone by when the sanctuary was close to capacity. Those days have long since disappeared, and yet in recent months this small congregation has done some amazing things. They paid for and sent four kids to the Quaker Ridge camp week, and gave a gift of almost $2,000 to help a young couple raise the needed financial support they needed to begin their new venture as missionaries in Chiapas, Mexico. the church also committed to supporting the young family of four with a monthly financial gift. Those have all been great things, but…the music machine needed to have a “come to Jesus moment!” In other words, go on to the sweet by and by!
Bill Hale said something at lunch yesterday that resonated with me. He said, “They deserve better!” Churches like Simla have often been content to settle for less. They’ve settled for less for so long they may not even realize they deserve better.
Don’t get me wrong! Bringing a projector, a laptop, and a screen are not going to transform this little church. I think they’re already in the midst of transformation, ever so slowly, but still they are changing.
I’ve told them several times that they have allowed me to fall in love with the church again…even though on most Sundays we wouldn’t need a whole pot of chili to feed the entire congregation. But you don’t need a huge number of people to love the church. You simply need a group of people who are committed to one another for the journey. The Saints of Simla, as I call them, are great people…who deserve more!
Now it’s getting them to believe it! All things are possible with God! He can even use a 63 year old man who likes to dress up as the Tooth Fairy!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Chiapas Mexico, church closures, church renewal, contemporary worship, Juan and Denise Aragon, projectors, Quaker Ridge, revitalizing the church, Simla, Simla Colorado, Simla First Baptist Church, small town church, Sunday sermon, Tooth Fairy
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August 13, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 13, 2017
While visiting my dad in Ohio recently I drove him one morning to a doctor’s appointment across the river in Huntington, West Virginia. The waiting room for the physician was “intimate”, meaning that there were about eight chairs positioned in a way so that you could see everyone else, whether you liked it or not!
Two men unfortunately became part of this setting soon after we arrived. They were loud! Now, my six year old granddaughter is also loud, but she’s six! We remind her to use her inside voice! These two men, however, were loud and…stupid! They trumpeted their stupidity to let everyone know that they were “life stupid!”
I know, I know…you’re thinking that I’m being very judgmental here. I guess I am. Yesterday morning when I sat down to eat some scrambled eggs that had been sitting on the counter for a few minutes I made the judgment on the first bite that they were cold. Sometimes judging a situation is easier than deciding on a score at an Olympic diving competition. In this situation the two waiting room individuals made it known to everyone in the same zip code that one of them was about to enter into his eighth marriage, while the other hadn’t followed simple pre-visit instructions that were going to result in his sharing his life wisdom for the others around him for the next four hours. A woman who was evidently related to them kept referring to them as “Dumb and Dumber.” They seemed to take it as a compliment. These two did nothing to change the stereotypes that people have about West Virginians!
The problem in our society is that some forms of stupidity are disguised as how things should be. People don’t see their prejudices and bad behavior as ignorance. They think that’s how the world should be.
And so racism gets portrayed as natural, and white supremacists LOUDLY proclaim that their warped view of the world is normal. Last week someone or someones who were committed to being stupid in life defaced the outside of a Jewish synagogue in Colorado Springs. Stupidity doesn’t just happen east of the Mississippi or in a Huntington physician’s waiting room, or at a Charlottesville, Virginia rally. People do stupid all over the place loudly!
We could go to the bottom line of the Christian faith that says that all people have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but, quite frankly, that often gets used as an excuse for deep-seeded evil and deliberate cruelty.
Stupidity finds a comfortable home in a number of people, snuggles into their decision making, and reveals itself with a blow horn! There is nothing rational or reasonable about it, and yet multitudes seem to follow it’s enchanting call.
In the midst of our culture’s shouts of lunacy I keep repeating to myself the words of the prophet Amos, “…but let justice roll on like a river, righteous like a never-failing stream.” (Amos 5:24, NIV) In reading those words I envision the thundering sound of a rushing river drowning out the loudness of ignorance!
That is my prayer more and more these days!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Nation, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Charlottesville Virginia, Colorado Springs synagogue, Dumb and Dumber, dumb decisions, loud, loudness, prejudice, prejudiced, racism, speaking loudly, stupid decisions, stupidity, the loudness of fools, white supremacist
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August 7, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 7, 2017
I was having dinner with my dad Sunday night at Wyngate, his senior apartment complex. We sat across the table from his across-the-hall neighbor, Bonnie! Conversation was constant and the topics varied from vegetable likes and dislikes, to a former resident who now lived in a different state and was dealing with dementia, to the heat and humidity of Alabama.
Alabama took us to this story that Bonnie offered. Her four year old “great niece” lives in Alabama. When Bonnie was visiting her sister who also lives there a few months ago her great niece came up to her one day and told her that she had learned the “F Word” at her pre-school the previous week. She put her hand over her mouth to accentuate the shock of the new education.
“But I can’t tell you what it is!” she continued. Bonnie told her she understood and shook her head to communicate the unbelievable nature of this new discovery.
“But I can whisper it to you!” She approached her great aunt’s left ear, cupped her hand to the side of her mouth, and whispered the forbidden newly-discovered four letter word.
“Fart!”
Bonnie tried to express the dismay of such learned language, but as soon as her great niece turned away and headed out of the room she broke into a belly laugh that even made her arthritic knees jiggle and giggle!
Fart! That was the new F word! Bonnie thought “Oh, I wish that it were so!” Whereas another “F” word spoken can seem crass and demeaning, describing a moment of flatulence simply passes in a moment and is no more!
Categories: children, Grandchildren, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: bad language, F word, fart, farting, farts, flatulence, language, passing gas
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August 4, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 4, 2017
My family, growing up and current, has always been a part of Baptist congregations. The church I was first carried into as an infant was Central Baptist Church in Winchester, Kentucky. It was called Central Baptist because…it was centrally located in Winchester, just a couple of blocks off the main street that ran though the downtown area.
We moved from Winchester to Williamstown, West Virginia and began our association with a series of First Baptists. Our home churches in Williamstown, Zanesville, Ohio, and Ironton, Ohio were all named First Baptist because they were the first Baptist churches established in those communities. In Ironton the First’s were all situated within about three blocks of one another…First Presbyterian and First United Methodist. The Catholics turned up their noses at being “First” and moved right on to one of the saints, Saint Lawrence. Not to be outdone the Lutherans went for St. Paul even though they were first across the street from First Presbyterian.
Church names became connected to either “First” or “Second”, indicating their timing in the community; or a saint to indicate their…saintliness!
There was usually reason to the naming of a church. The last church I pastored, Highland Park Baptist Church, was situated in an area of Colorado Springs known as Highland Park. Interestingly, as the city has grown and mushroomed very few people know that area is known as Highland Park, but, originally, location determined the name.
My cynicism is now going to splat all over the rest of these words. It seems that a new wave of churches are looking for a “catchy name!” It’s like the intriguing name of a new development of homes that is underway. Across the highway from our subdivision there is a development called “Wolf Ranch.” I’m somewhat drawn to the name. We could be the Wolfe’s of Wolf Ranch. To the north of Wolf Ranch there is Cordera. In their publicity they make it shown exotic and sexy as they say the name, like Gloria from Modern Family saying it. Houses are being built at a crazy pace there…for a couple hundred thousand dollars MORE than what homes in our subdivision are valued at.
It seems that the new wave of churches is looking for that name, that name that sounds like a destination, a vacation spot, or at least a weekend service spot. People aren’t drawn to the new church in town that decided on the name…First Baptist! It needs to have essence, depth, be sweet-sounding and peaceful, relevant but sophisticated! I was traveling along an Ohio Highway yesterday and passed a church that is called “The Point.” The Point is probably a happenin’ place to be, and when people say they are going to “The Point” it doesn’t even sound preachy! It sounds hip and cool and whatever other words that are being used today to indicate relevant.
It seems that there are more of The Points that are getting the point. A church doesn’t need to name itself the First Holy Apostolic Freewill United Church of Temporary Insanity. According Thom Ranier new churches are keeping it simple and short, like a church outside of Greeley, Colorado I’m familiar with called “Grace River Church.” I kind of like that. Another one in Colorado Springs is called Hope Chapel. Short and easy to remember.
A couple of new churches that have begun recently are focused on verbs. One close to us is called “Thrive Church.” Sounds energetic! There’s another one named “Venture Fellowship!” Sounds like an entrepreneurial deal!
Here’s the thing! No matter how sophisticated or mission-focused, doctrinally-connected, or hip-sounding the church is named people won’t land there unless what happens in and through the congregation speaks to the spiritual yearning of the visitor. Sometimes the true environment of a church gives it a different name than the outside sign reads. There’s been a couple of Grace Churches that could better be named “Judgmental Fellowship.” A couple of places with peace in their name that get known more as the Church of Sunday Morning Fights. First Baptist might better be described as Bitter Baptist and First Presbyterian could be renamed “Peeved Presbyterian.”
Names are nice! They are even nicer if they are also the reality!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Baptists, church community, church names, church reputations, congregation, fellowships, First Baptist Church, First Churches, marketing a church, publicizing a church
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August 2, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 2, 2017
When I was a young boy growing up in the Bluegrass State our family had a Sunday night routine of going to the Sunday evening service at Central Baptist Church in Winchester, coming home and having mom or dad pop some popcorn, and then sitting in front of the Philco and watching The Ed Sullivan Show. I was always hoping for certain guests on the program like Jackie Vernon or Topo Gigio. Sometime during the evening I’d do my Ed Sullivan impersonation and say “Tonight we’ve got a really big “shhooowww”!”, and I would say “show” like the host was known for pronouncing the word. My Ed Sullivan impersonation was my best act during those days. Once in a while I’d pretend to be Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy, or John Wayne, complete with his familiar strut, but Mr. Sullivan was my go-to.
In later years I impersonated my aunts and uncles, grandparents, and even my mom, but Ed Sullivan was the trailblazer for me. My parents would express their amazement, real or pretend, at how close to the real thing I sounded. I practiced saying “Topo Gigio” frequently, perfecting my modulation and inflection.
BUT I could never quite be Ed Sullivan! Of course, in the later years when he was still doing his show he looked like death warmed over, but it wasn’t his appearance that I was after. It was his voice. I thought it was cool to sound like him.
We seem to do that with the voice of God, also! There’s a tendency to want to make something sound like it’s of God and from God. People are often impressed by prophetic voices with the right rhythm to them. They get carried away by the utterances rather than the truth!
Unlike Ed Sullivan, it seems much easier for people to be fooled by the impersonation of the Holy than some other celebrity. Perhaps it’s because we’ve become so distant from Him that we are easily suckered into a scheme that goes amiss!
Or maybe it’s because we’re so starved for a word from the Lord that we’ll believe anything! And so churches are led down a promising pathway…and hope-depraved people are given a word of potential, egotistic pastors continually hear God’s leadings that no one else can hear, and shallow believers are helpless to discern what is of God and what isn’t!
The impersonation of the things of God and the action verbs of God leave us with a church that becomes cynical towards God.
“Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!” We’ve been fooled by the impersonations of God too many times, and a number of people have decided they will never be fooled again…even by the real voice!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: cynical, cynicism, cynics, Ed Sullivan, hearing the voice of God, impersonating someone, impersonations, Jackie Vernon, John Wayne, Laurel and Hardy, pretending, pretending to be someone, Sunday nights, The Ed Sullivan Show, the voice of God, Topo Gigio, Winchester Kentucky
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August 1, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 1, 2017
God graces our lives with various saintly people who may simply say a kind word, give us a nudge in the right direction, or travel with us for a while in our journey of life. Those of us fortunate enough have some of these saints watch us grow up and become like “angels with skin on” who ponder our maturing and pray that our life has continued purpose and depth.
I’ve been blessed numerous times by the cloud of witnesses who have followed my wanderings. One of them passed on to Glory yesterday. He was one of my dad’s best friends…kind of like the last men standing, as Dad is now 89 and his friend, Bill Ball, was in his early nineties!
To me, Mr. Bill Ball was Mr. Encouragement! Our families attended the same church, even sat on the same side of the aisle, although Bill and Sue Ball sat a few rows closer to the back door and my parents were a few rows closer to the choir. As I progressed through high school my parent’s leash got longer and I was allowed to sit with my friends in another pew, but just about every Sunday Bill Ball would head towards me after the morning worship service and ask me how I was doing?
He became interested in my high school running progress. I can still remember him giving me a couple of pieces of coaching advice. Specifically, he told me to work on lengthening my stride just a bit. It was when I was heading into my senior year, and his encouragement to work on that one aspect of my race helped me break the school mile record that had stood for over a decade. But it wasn’t just advice he gave me! It was “encouraging advice!” Bill Ball showed me the difference. Encouraging advice gives the listener the confident belief that what is being told to him can become the soon to be reality! I can remember several times, when after a Sunday morning conversation with Mr. Ball, I wanted to go out for a run that afternoon. There are people who make you feel like the world is against you so why even get out of bed, and then there are people like Bill Ball who make you believe no mountain is too high for you to climb!
“Mr. Optimistic” had bought himself a new car about six months before his passing at the age of 92! He lived a life of possibilities. Each day was a new opportunity, a new adventure. Each time I’d come from Colorado for a visit Dad and I would try to get together with Mr. Ball for lunch at Rax Roast Beef or Frisch’s Big Boy. For some reason I still remember that he ordered a Brawny Lad the last time we had lunch together. Each shared lunch was another occasion of laughter, sharing old stories, and…encouragement!
I’m feel very fortunate to be back in Ohio visiting Dad this week. It means I’ll be able to be the encourager to his three awesome daughters, perhaps being able to share with them just a hint of how their dad motivated me to run faster and encouraged me to be who I wasn’t sure I could be!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, coaching, Community, Death, Faith, Humor, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: advice, Brawny Lad, Cloud of witnesses, coaching advice, confidence builder, encourage one another, Encouragement, encourager, encouraging, Frisch's Big Boy, Ironton Ohio, obituary, optimism, optimistic, running faster, saintly people, Saints, school record
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July 30, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. July 30, 2017
A couple of weeks ago I was at church camp as…well, I’m not sure what my title position was! I think I was the “Whatever Person.” When someone said “whatever” it was my responsibility, unless it was a high school girl being flippant and obnoxious when she said the word!
So…as the Whatever Supervisor I was able to float from session to session. At our camp week we have elementary, middle school, and high school camps going on at the same time, so I roamed around making sure things were going okay.
The surprise of the week was reconnecting with an old seminary classmate of mine named Richie Bibelheimer. When I heard that name as the pastor for the middle school camp I knew it was my old seminary classmate. I mean…how many Richie Bibelheimer’s can there be, right? It took me a year of seminary just to learn how to pronounce it, and now 38 years later our paths were crossing again!
Here’s the thing about seeing someone 38 years after the last time you saw him! Your picture of him is still the one from 1979! You still remember him from the era of leisure suits, thinner waistlines, and Chuck Taylor high-tops.
He walked right past me at dinner Sunday night in the camp dining hall. After he passed he called my name clothed in question form. “Bill? Bill Wolfe?” I turned and looked at the white-haired senior citizen who had just passed me by. “Richie, is that you?”
“Yes!”
“Good Lord! Richie Bibelheimer!” There’s one thing about seeing someone almost four decades removed! You don’t want to come right out and say it, but you’re thinking it! “Man, do you look old!”
And the thing is, he’s thinking the same thing about you! The last time you saw each other you were in your mid-twenties. You could still jump and run like a gazelle, you had all your hair, and you didn’t have to travel with a pharmacy everywhere. Now your knees hurt, your face sports a couple of age spots, and the only thing progressive about you are the lens in your glasses.
Time keeps going even when we slowly journey through each day, and all of a sudden you meet an old friend and you realize just how far you’ve journeyed since your last conversation.
The other side of that is our reluctance to think that people change, that they will always be who they were back in the day…some obnoxious, some attractive, some hard to figure out, and some who seem to have it all together. People change, however, despite our tendency to firmly implant them in a distant past understanding. The physical changes are easy to see, despite the attempts to hide them or pretend they don’t exist. It’s the inner changes, the emotional upheaval, and the chaos of life that get blanketed from our view. The double chin is easier to see than the broken marriage. The wrinkled face is much more evident than the loss of a child a decade earlier.
Richie and I looked at one another, came to grips with the march of Father Time upon our lives, and enjoyed the blessing of renewed friendship…38 years later as a Whatever Supervisor and a Middle School Camp Pastor.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: age spots, Aging, camp, Chuck Taylors, Father Time, friendship, middle school camp, Northern Baptist Seminary, pastoring, seminary
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Words from WW Blog 