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My Obituary

March 16, 2025


“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)

I was substitute teaching seventh-graders this past week, a certain class that I often am residing in and know the kids by name. On Wednesday, they asked me if I was going to be there the next day. My response was that I would unless I died. That got their attention.

Soon, our conversation steered toward my funeral. Would they be invited? Could they sit in the front row? Would they be allowed to cheer? (Cheer???) We went back and forth on how they thought my funeral should go, proper conduct and inappropriate actions. We even talked about cremation and whether my ashes could be placed in the classroom. It was creative in a disturbing sort of way!

I suggested that someone should write my obituary since they seemed to be so enamored at my passing. They did! And signed it! It was even signed by one of the other teachers.

It was suggested that I had been born in 1254 and was 800 years old and that I was survived by family members: Alpha Wolfe, Sigma Wolfe, and Rizzler Wolfe. For one of the classes, I laid down on the floor as a student read the obituary over me.

Entertaining, yes it was. When I’m in the class again after our spring break, I’m sure a number of them will express their surprise that my ticker is still ticking.

And then I talked to my friend, Dave Hughes, who was my best man and high school classmate. Dave, who now lives in Florida, shared the news of several of our old church youth group friends who are in the midst of serious health situations. One of them is perhaps in his final days, another is wheelchair-bound, and another has had his life altered my an ongoing cancer problem.

Death seems to have come close to us. In fact, it seems that it has moved right next door. The friend who is in his final days wrote a letter to his grandchildren in which he penned life principles for them to consider and live by. His heart was displayed in the words of life experience, wise beyond his years. They included such things as building strong relationships, embracing hard work, and living a Christ-filled life. While I was back in Ohio a few years ago, I attended the funeral of his father-in-law (One of my Dad’s best friends) who displayed the same life values. In truth, my dad was rooted in the same principles, one reason he was Deacon Emeritus of the church he was a part of.

As a Christ-follower, who I am is because of the One I follow. When I’m called home to Glory, there will be no sting because of His stain. My students might write my obituary (with a bit of AI help, don’t you know!), but I am graced by the fact that he is holding my hand for the journey.

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The Outward Appearance

February 21, 2025

“You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.” (Matthew 5:36-37)

Coaching basketball at the high school level this year has been challenging at times. I enjoy the time spent improving the skills and game understanding of the freshman and sophomore girls. They’ve made significant strides during the course of the last three and a half months.

One observation that has caused me to shake my head is the team tee shirts that different teams wear that say things like “Never Quit,” “No One Works Harder,” and “Hustle Defines Us.” When the game begins or the practice proceeds, it has often been my experience that the words on the shirt are in contradiction to the play or effort on the court. When little Johnny doesn’t get his shots or the amount of playing time he wants, a more accurate shirt would say, “Selfishness Defines Me” or “It’s Have Attitude Problems.”

Sometimes, the outward appearance is in sharp contrast to the reality of the situation.

Sadly, I find this is also true for a large number of churches. Sometimes, the church marquee that says “All Are Welcome” could be an antonym for what the truth is inside the doors. Grace and peace are two hopes that are often shoved to the side. Social media is the new connection piece for congregations to get their name and look out there. It’s one of the two main ways that people find a church home, the other being as a result of someone who is a part of the church and invites them to join them on a Sunday morning or Saturday night.

The outward appearance is always shiny, populated by smiling faces young and old, and committed to quality products to promote that “All are welcome here” mindset. Once in a while a church lays the truth out there right from the beginning. Like a church I know of back in Ohio that has a long list on their marquee of what defines them: King James Bible, Gospel Preaching, Soul-winning, Fundamentalist, Independent. They tell the truth right up front, more like a barbed wire fence to keep out the riff-raff.

Biblically-speaking, that’s the refreshing point of 1 Corinthians. The Apostle Paul draws a picture for us of the church at Corinth. It would make for a good reality TV series. They’re not very welcoming and considerate. They’re taking each other to court, and their sexual conduct could be defined as “steamy” at best. They’ve been prone to following personalities and displaying a kind of spiritual superiority. It’s a great depiction of what the reality of church life is sometimes.

Not that churches today should put it right out there on their sign: “We sin a lot here and do things that make Jesus cry.” Maybe a nicer way of putting the truth out there is to say something like, “Under Construction and Completely Forgiven.”

Meanwhile, I leave the gym after a game thinking the team shirts are about as accurate as the players’ three-point shooting. I think the shirt should say, “Can’t Throw It in the Ocean!” or “My parents say that defense is optional, but the offense is necessary.” Maybe one boy will have a unique, personalized shirt that says, “The Coach Doesn’t Like Me! That’s why I’m at the end of this bench!”

Those things probably won’t happen because, as we know, “The truth hurts!”

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Limiting Faithfulness

January 23, 2025

I well remember them,
    and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.” (Lamentations 3:20-24)

A long-time famous hymn, “Great Is They Faithfulness,” was sung as part of the presidential inauguration festivities. For many years, I have found myself humming the tune of that hymn. It echoes in my mind. Thomas Chisholm wrote the words to it back in 1923, sent them to William Runyan, who was a musician at Moody Bible Institute and editor of the Hope Publishing Company, who put the words to music. The hymn quickly became a favorite of MBI.

The irony, and the history we seek to ignore, is that Thomas Chisholm’s life was filled with crises and valleys. He had health issues that forced him to resign his pastor position. He had financial difficulties as a result of that. Life situations that would have made most people bitter towards God made him more dependent on God. The scripture basis for the hymn was Lamentations 3:23, a pool of hope in the midst of a lake of despair.

As the great hymn was sung this past week, it made me ponder the disturbing and annoying question that pricks me like an itchy pair of winter long johns: Are we willing to sing the hymn when things go our way, or do we have an intimacy with God that believes He is closely with us no matter what the news headlines read? Is His faithfulness evident only when we declare a victory or is it ongoing in the times of plenty and the seasons of drought?

It took the possibilities and the problems of life for Thomas Chisholm to write the hymn, not just the exaltation of a triumph.

I found it interesting that on the day of the inauguration, the College Football Championship Bowl game was played in Atlanta. When Notre Dame marched down the field on their opening drive of the game, a dominant eighteen-play series that had their quarterback, Riley Leonard, diving into the endzone for the score, the camera focused on him. Instead of a touchdown dance routine, he handed the ball to the official and gave a triumphant gesture. However, what I noticed was a scripture reference written on the white athletic tape around his right wrist. The verse was Matthew 23:12.
“For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

It was a message of humility. I’m sure Riley Leonard was disappointed in Notre Dame’s loss that night. Still, I’m sure that he understood the bigger picture: God is faithful in the difficulty of the valleys as well as the exhilaration of the mountaintops.

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TikTok, MLK, and Jesus

January 20, 2025


“…that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth…” (Philippians 2:10)

There was the sound of gnashing teeth and loud moaning in my youth Sunday School class yesterday. It wasn’t because of the extremely frigid temperature outside or the news of the severe famine in Somalia. In fact, most of my students don’t know where Somalia is. Instead of the cold of the Colorado morning and the malnutrition of African children, the students were weeping over the end of TikTok, or rather the end of their access to TikTok. They had been greeted with a warning that rivaled the Surgeon General’s words now printed on every pack of cigarettes, except worse. Smokers still have a choice. Tik Tok’ers don’t.

I pondered the “tearing of their cloaks” through the rest of Sunday. On Martin Luther King Day this morning, millions of African Americans remember what injustice was in life-altering ways before the Civil Rights Act. They faced much more than being unable to access videos on their cell phones. They were excluded, separated, diminished, abused, ridiculed, and characterized, at best, as second-class citizens. They didn’t have a voice, and their cries fell on deaf. After the Civil Rights Act, they still had to face oppression, exclusion, and persecution. Government legislation rarely is able to erase the hatred that is harbored in the hearts of people.

Interestingly enough, on this date in 1918, during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, all the places of worship were closed, and all religious instruction was outlawed. In essence, Jesus was told to take a hike from the country. Hundreds of Russian Orthodox bishops and priests were executed. Protestant Christians were imprisoned or sent to mental hospitals. Churches became the property of the government. It was a campaign to eliminate religion from Russian society.

Life is populated with injustices and adjustments. The two are often mingled into one. Because of their inconvenience, life adjustments are often characterized as injustices. Whereas, some of them could very well be, in other situations we have come to see that we are entitled to have them. For example, the uproar from students at my middle school when cell phones were banned from being used during the school day as a result of how they were impacting classroom instruction.

Meantime, injustices are often accompanied by adjustments. In Russia, the underground church developed as a result of religious persecution. The Jesus Who was told to take a hike was still a resident in the hearts and minds of His followers.

African Americans adjusted to the injustices of racial oppression by expecting it and protesting in non-violent ways about it. The images of people being beaten and churches being bombed gained a hearing from those who were appalled by the inhumanity.

I sympathize with the loss of TikTok, at least temporarily, for those who have come to use it on a daily basis. Like our expectations that the flight we booked a few months in advance will be on time and then we’re told at the airport that it has been cancelled, the inconvenience and frustration we experience makes one want to bang his head against the wall.

Head-banging and having your head banged are two different plot lines. In a way, one is self-inflicted, and the other is inflicted on us. There’s a difference. Just read what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 11. Now, there was some serious injustice and persecution!

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Deep Thinking

January 5, 2025

 “Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.  After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone.” (Matthew 14:22-23)

I’m not a philosopher. I wouldn’t even be so bold as to label myself a theologian. When I was in seminary, I’d sometimes have to resort to reading the theology of Pannenberg or Moltmann audibly in order to not go off the side of the road in mid-paragraph. Simple minds struggle with page-long paragraphs. But I struggled through it.

Ask me a history question, and there’s a much better possibility that I know the answer, even the nitty-gritty details of the occurrence. How I grow spiritually happens more in the quiet moments of contemplation rather than grabbing a theological work of Hans Kung off my bookshelf. I do better at reading a chunk of scripture and letting it roll through my mind rather than trying to read through the Bible in a year. I get lost around the time I hit Lamentations, which accurately expresses my demeanor at that time as well.

I went to the local Christian bookstore to find a yearly devotional and was amazed at the wall of possibilities but lukewarm about the product. I settled on a Tim Keller devotional, The Songs of Jesus, a devotional that focuses on the Psalms. Short readings each day that help me ponder and consider. If I can mine the riches in the Psalms this year, I’ll be blessed in more than a hundred and fifty ways. (Keller’s book, The Prodigal God, is still one of my favorites.)

The seminary professor who had the greatest impact on my life in the three years I was a student at Northern Baptist Seminary was Dr. Tom Finger, a professor of theology, who had an incredible way of making me think through why I believed what I believed. Analogy-wise, he caused me not just to dig the hole but to consider why I dug the hole in the first place.

Deep thinking requires slowing the pace, putting my cell phone in another room, maybe shutting the door, and not hurrying God to give me a pearl of wisdom. I’d be more of a swine than a follower if I did that. Deep thinking considers the grace of God from different angles, moves it around like a Rubric’s Cube that never quite gets completed.

Deep thinking looks at forgiveness and ponders how we pretend its existence and hold back on its potential. Deep thinking unmasks the tint of self-centeredness it can include while identifying the depths it can go to. It feels the ache and rejoices in the softness of its calling.

Honestly, we reside in a culture that too often is focus-deficient and swayed by how the moment feels. Our view of intimacy with God is prone to being dependent on the smoke-and-glitter of the last praise song. That sounds cynical because it is. I just wonder (There I go again!) if the Almighty would sometimes like to speak to us in the deepness of silence.

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Lock-In Looney

December 31, 2024

“Every day, they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:46-47)

My wife, Carol, reminded me that I’m not any spring chicken and that BYF (Baptist Youth Fellowship) is a few decades in my rearview mirror. The initials that more accurately apply to me these days are AARP. Nevertheless, I planned the youth lock-in at church for Saturday evening through Sunday morning, an 18-hour marathon fueled by two pots of coffee.

Why, you might ask just as Carol did, would I not only agree to but plan and encourage a lock-in for young people whose objective is to run the whole race of insomnia? After all, the last youth lock-in I headed up was in 1983 at the First Baptist Church of Lansing, Michigan. I can still remember the names of the excited kids: Steve Landon, Laurie Landon, Shirl Kentner, Jon Daniels, Jimmy Michels, Greg Nash, Michele Nash, Brian Baker, Becky Epps, Suzy Epps, Sara Epps, Becky Landon, Jenny Landon, Rachel Knox, John Girard, Phil Girard, and on and on. Perhaps the fond memories made me jump off the cliff for another go-around at lunacy.

Or maybe I remember how spending several hours together ended up being a bonding experience for the adolescents who came. It wasn’t like coming to church on Sunday with their families and being amongst a congregation of mostly older people. During that lock-in, they were the church, the Body of Christ, freed up to participate in the silliness of teenagers, talk about the topics of their world, and be who they were without feeling like someone was looking over their shoulder all the time. They could even run in the building and laugh long and loud.

In essence, this lock-in forty-one years later mirrored the one in 1983. Bonding and hilarious hysteria abounded. They enjoyed themselves and even settled down to focus on what they hope the Lord will do in their lives in the coming year. We shared communion together around midnight before doing something you can only do at a youth lock-in…watch “The Princess Bride” on the big screen in the sanctuary while munching on popcorn and drinking Coca-Cola (with caffeine!). At 4:30, we played the fast-paced group game that Jim Berlage taught us back in the 80s, “Mr. Boodle.” We went for a solid hour, and my voice began to give out at 5:30. They begrudgingly agreed to stop, and for almost an hour and a half, a silence settled over those who had been fighting the sleepies. I even grabbed forty minutes lying on a thin pew cushion with chiropractor implications.

The senior pastor, Dan Schumacher, and I have both discussed what we realize, and that is that only a clueless clergyperson would think that a thirty-minute sermon on a Sunday morning would be able to take care of the spiritual nourishment of a teenager. In fact, not just teens but anybody connected to a congregation. Okay, put another thirty minutes of prayer, singing, and sharing communion there. Even an hour of the community in worship doesn’t do it.

Young people need time together to bond. It is not a weekly lock-in, mind you! I can only do two pots of coffee every once in a while. Rather, occasional gatherings that create a fabric of caring, laughing, and being comfortable in the presence of their peers. It’s the youth equivalent of the early church.

And now, I’m working on building up my immune system for a weekend winter retreat. A good forty-two hours in a remote location where I pray there are shower facilities for the boys. A retreat with scented candles is one thing, but aromatic boys could be the death of me.

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Unrestful Peace

December 24, 2024


“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:14)

There have been times in my life when peace is about as far away as the South Pole. Unrest and uncertainty cloud my mind.

I almost flunked out of college and wondered what my life would look like if I couldn’t pursue my calling. Would I be waiting on customers at the Borden Burger fast food place in town or selling shoes in Unger’s Shoe Store?

A few years later, I was a newlywed, out of seminary, and employed as the Minister of Youth and Christian Education at a church in Michigan. It was tumultuous as I ran into resistance to some new ideas I had about youth ministry. I had come with experience working with youth in Young Life, a small town church, and a large suburban church. Experience was no match for the wall of opposition I encountered. Carol had to walk with me in that first year of ministry. My stress and unease could be felt by her. The bliss of being newly married felt bloodied and beaten by a few church people.

And then there was our move to Colorado to pastor a church. I was naive about the tension in the congregation that revolved around an excitement that many had to move forward compared with those on the other side who wanted the church to stay the way it was. The place of peace had been vacated on Sunday mornings.

When I read the Christmas story, I feel the unease that settled upon its main characters. Unexpected pregnancies have a way of unnerving people, especially when one of the pregnancies is of the young woman, probably in her mid-teens, who is engaged but unmarried. The Message paraphrase of Luke 2:29 describes Mary as being “…thoroughly shaken, wondering what was behind a greeting (the angel’s) like that.”

The shepherds in the fields are characterized “as terrified”, Zachariah is “paralyzed with fear”, and Joseph is described as “chagrined.” Peace had taken a hike.

It is vital to the nativity narrative and for our stories today that peace rains down upon what was and what is now. God knows our hearts that are unrested. He knows the travails of our journeys and the troubling thoughts that rob us of sleep.

However, the same man who wrote in Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” wrote in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” When our world seems to be crashing in on us, God is close at hand and faithful.

Peace is as close as His extended hand toward us.

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New Jesuses

December 20, 2024

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)

I read recently in the Wall Street Journal that there is a growing demand for white males in Utah with long blonde hair and beards to pose in family pictures as “white Jesuses.” Who knew that surfer dudes could step in for the Messiah.

Of course, Jesus has been the go-to name in several situations. Not family names, mind you, but rather ascribed nicknames for extraordinary people. At a recent high school basketball game, a player was going-off with long-range jump shots and spectacular moves. A few of the high school students sitting in the bleachers started calling him “Basketball Jesus.” A minute later, Basketball Jesus was fouled on a three-point attempt and then promptly missed all three free throws. Jesus had come back to earth, so to speak.

Jesus gets affixed to people in business, finance, service organizations, sports, and even entertainment. He’s black, white, red, brown, green, lavender, and polka-dotted. Interestingly, our culture, which is becoming less Christ-based, brings the Son of Man into the descriptions of outstanding performances. We have “Lightning Jesus” for track, “Chef Jesus”, and “Genius Jesus. Notre Dame has ha “Touchdown Jesus” for decades. There’s probably even a “Preacher Jesus.”

Humility never seems to be an ingredient and one of these spontaneously named Jesuses. In fact, in many cases performances by the present-day messiahs are punctuated with endzone dances and the flexing of muscles after a massive dunk. Jesus never sought the spotlight, but nowadays, “Jesuses” like to have their performance pulpits elevated by actions and words. “Blessed are the meek” is old-school and too St. Franciscan!

This may reveal my bias and disdain, but I wonder, in the next few months, how many “Jesuses” will enter the pearly gates of the transfer portal?

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Back Row Baptist Peace

December 12, 2024


“Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:3)

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

On Sunday mornings, when I’m not filling the pulpit at First Baptist Church in Simla, Colorado, I’ll be in attendance at the morning worship service of Colorado Springs First Baptist. First, I teach the youth class of energetic middle and high schoolers, and then I go to the back row on the right side of the sanctuary for the 10:30 worship service.

I like the back row and, even more than that, the outside corner of the back row. It’s my place of peace. Sometimes, peace is a rare commodity in church. It’s like water in the midst of the Sahara. You value its existence whenever you’re able to find it.

Interestingly, churches are frequently places of chaos, tension, and conflict. People with life issues and unhappiness have a way of trying to overpopulate the boat with others who, after being dragged onto the Titanic, will proceed to sink the ship.

My back row spot is my place of contemplation, my calm amid the week’s tempests. A 95-year-old man sits in the pew in front of me. A young married couple relocated from Tennessee sits beside him. They did not know each other before the couple started attending, but they felt a bond of peace as they worshipped alongside one another.

In my four decades of pastoring, there was more than one Sunday when I could feel the tension in the sanctuary as I led worship. Some of those inner unrest moments were self-inflicted, and others resulted from people’s pet peeves or pettiness surfacing in a rash of anger on sour faces. Nowadays when I hear of church conflict and the unjustified things people do toward others, I shake my head.

My back-row seat is my sanctuary. I enjoy Pastor Dan’s messages, which are meaningful, thought-provoking, and absent of homiletical fluff. The music is superb without trying to turn the worship service into a concert, and the congregational care is evident.

From my refuge, my soul is stilled. Some churches pass the peace when there is no peace. I’m at peace in a place of peace with folk who are peace makers.

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Hearing God With Faulty Ears

December 9, 2024


“Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17)

Hitting seventy has seen me hit a few other things as well: my first cortisone shot in my knee, kidney stones, frequent trips to Walgreen’s to pick up prescription refills, earlier bedtimes, and doubts of being able to rise back up everytime I kneel down.

But one thing that I’m stubborn enough to not admit is my suspect hearing. I continue to tell myself that it’s not my hearing that’s the problem but rather people mumbling like toddlers who haven’t learned to enunciate their words. The result of my ignored deafness is my frequent misunderstanding of what someone has said to me.

For example, at basketball practice last week our team captain said a couple of things to me that didn’t make sense…to my hearing. Why was she asking me of my opinion about snow? When I replied that I don’t mind it, that there’s something kind of nice about getting a blizzard with a foot of snow she looked at me with confusion written all over her face.

“Coach, what are you talking about? What’s that got to do with asking you how my free throw form looks?”

“Oh. I thought you asked me what my opinion is of snow.”

Faulty hearing. I should say that faulty hearing results from my unwillingness to admit my increasing tendency to misunderstand and misinterpret. I can blame it on the loud rock-and-roll music I listened to back in the 70s, or the earbuds I’m wearing right now as I write these words, or the constant chattering of middle school students, but the truth is my ears are my originals that I can’t trade in for a newer model.

Transfer this “hearing dilemma” to the leadings of God. In a culture that could most accurately be characterized as self-serving and self-centered, there is an epidemic of misinterpreting the leadings of God. Sometimes, we hear what we want to hear and ignore what we prefer to avoid. If it feels good, it must be of God. If it hints of pain and discomfort, it’s not from the Holy.

Our suspect spiritual hearing leads us to places and positions that God not have in mind for us. When we only listen to God when the time is right or our schedule permits, it’s comparable to a math student trying to understand calculus right after he has learned the multiplication tables. The missing steps of his math journey will lead him to a disaster of gigantic mathmatical proportions. At best, he will look like a fool. Most likely, people will look at him with apprehension and distance themselves from his cluelessness.

Church congregations have faulty hearers. We can’t believe that we can hear the whisperings of the Holy Spirit when we only look to encounter him for an hour on some Sunday mornings. God does not slur His words, but we have a habit of slurring their meaning.

How can I know what God is saying to me? Get closer to Him. He won’t cringe or move away from me.

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