From the Pastor's Pen

Friends,

Will you look at this family of Geese!  I count mom and dad and fifteen goslings!  That’s a lot of children to coral.  I personally can’t imagine having 15 kids, but it looks like these goose parents have everything in order.  This geese family reminds me of the old movie, “Yours, Mine and Ours” based on the true story about Frank and Helen Beardsley who were both widowed with young children to raise.  When they fell in love and married they had 18 children between them and then had two more on their own.  Yikes!  I thought Mike and I had a lot to manage with our three sons.

In the movie, “Yours, Mine and Ours” there were two factors that were crucial to making everything work.  First the family had to work together – to cooperate.  They had to be organized from the time the alarm went off in the morning until everyone was fed supper, homework completed and checked and everyone was safely asleep in bed.  The older ones pitched in to help the younger ones, but everyone had responsibilities down to the littlest child.  The more important factor, of course was love.  Love was the fuel that motivated everyone to pitch in and share the responsibilities of caring for everyone else in the household.  Love was the salve when tempers flared.  Love was the power that held everyone together in tough times.  My personal experience with large families is that family cooperation and love are the critical factors that make or break the family. 

I often think of a church as a very large extended family.  My sons grew up mostly in two churches and had multiple grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles, and brothers and sisters.  When they hit the teenage years, Mike and I didn’t hesitate to send them to speak to one of their church grandparents when they had a difficult decision to make.  That extended church family was a blessing.

Our church family is like many I have experienced over the years.  We have people of all ages in different stages of life.  We are friends, but sometimes more than friends.  We are family.  I admire the way you all care for one another, check up on one another, ask about each other’s children and look after the current children and youth of the church.  I admire the way you pitch in, take responsibility, pray for and love one another.  In tough times like these, the love of God that flows through us to one another is a great strength!

Warmly,

Pr. Sally