Good morning church family,

When I was a boy, my parents decided to supplement the family income by picking up a paper route. My mom and dad had learned that the carrier responsible for delivering the Washington Post to our neighborhood was giving up his route. Dad made an inquiry and – just like that – stacks of steaming-hot newspapers began being dropped off by the curb in front of our house in the early hours before sunrise. There were hundreds and hundreds of papers; all needing to be stuffed, banded or bagged, and then tossed on porches up and down Somerset, Sheridan, Cox, and Rittenhouse.

The route was more than my dad could handle by himself and so my older brother and I were drafted to help out. Every morning, for years, my dad would come into our bedroom and shake us awake; whispering encouragement to us as we stumbled into our clothes and tumbled down the stairs to get to work. Every lamp in our little living room was on and shining a bright light on the mountains of newsprint. The room felt stuffy and close; an inky, chemical smell choking the air. My brother and I began helping Dad assemble the papers – stuffing the different sections into the folds; pausing now and again to read a Calvin and Hobbes strip or scan through the Orioles box score. With the papers all set to be delivered, Dad would make the call on banding or bagging. If the weather was fair, we could fill our sacks with stacks of the Post and fold and rubber-band them as we walked our route. If there was any chance of rain, however, we would quickly bag all the papers before heading out the door. It was a well-oiled operation and we prided ourselves in putting every copy on every customer’s porch, snug to the house and directly under the knob of the front door. If all went well, we’d be all done before the sun was over the housetops and before the droning din of the highway had drowned out the singing of the crickets. The task done, the whole family would gather around the breakfast table for English muffins and raisin bran and then we kids would scramble off to school. I really didn’t mind being a paper boy – except for Saturdays.

Saturdays saw two deliveries from the distributer. We’d get the stacks of the Saturday papers in the early morning, of course; but then there’d be another, very large delivery around lunchtime. The Sunday edition of the Post ended up being a very heavy, thick, log of a newspaper. It would include a number of special sections featuring pieces on the arts and entertainment, there was an expanded in-color comics section, a TV guide, mailers, coupons, classifieds, Parade magazine, and more. Fully assembled, it was so fat that it could be difficult sometimes to even get a rubber band around it all. Well, the distributer would deliver all of these extra sections and special inserts during the midday on Saturday and we, the carriers were given the option of either delivering the early material on Saturday afternoon or including it with the thin Sunday edition that would be delivered the next morning. My dad always wanted us to deliver the inserts on Saturday in order to make sure that we had plenty of time to get ready for church the next morning. We tended to grumble a bit about the Saturday delivery as it always interrupted our playtime, TV time, and cut-up time. It seemed there was always a fat, inky paper elbowing in on our weekend.

There was, however, one good thing about the Saturday afternoon delivery. It being done during the middle of the day meant that the whole family was able to get involved. My mom, two little brothers, and little sister would all get in on the act as well. And best of all, the delivery wouldn’t be on foot but by station wagon!

Our family had a sky-blue Ford Gran Torino station wagon with wavy wood paneling down the side that was perfect for the work. The rear bench seats would get folded down and all the papers stacked and piled in the back. My mom would get behind the wheel, the three oldest boys would sit on the tailgate on the back, the two youngest kids would jump in on top of the pile of papers – steadily pushing the product to the tailgate, and my poor dad would walk behind; directing traffic and maintaining quality control. It was kind of fun to ride through the neighborhood, jumping off and on the moving wagon; our legs swinging from the tailgate. Of course, our parents would be arrested for doing something like this today – but it all seemed as normal and practical as could be back then.

It was on one of these Saturday deliveries that something happened that God has reminded me of many times throughout the course of my life and ministry. It was a hot and sultry summer day in the city; a hundred degrees outside, a hundred percent humidity, and a heat index that left the whole city groaning and dragging. And inside our little band box of a house, it wasn’t much cooler. Everyone in the family was a little irritable and, even though we all wanted to stay home and sit in front of a fan, the Saturday inserts had to be delivered. Metropolitan Washington, D.C. could be one of the hottest, most miserable places on the globe. The air could be so thick there that you felt like you were wearing it. Sweating through your clothes, you’d swallow hard hoping the ringing in the air and the singing of the cicadas would leave you alone and give you some peace. All the parked cars and blacktop radiated heat from the baking sun, making it feel like you were walking in a frying pan. As we prepared to head out on the route, my dad decided we should bag all the papers as there was a chance of thunderstorms throughout the afternoon. I remember the back of my thighs burning as we sat down on the tailgate of the Gran Torino; black exhaust belching up between our legs. The papers we held in our laps clung to our sweaty arms. It was brutal.

Not twenty deliveries in and we were all flagging miserably. Morale was at an all-time low. But then, all of a sudden, on the wind we smelled the faint aroma of steam; a telltale sign it was raining somewhere. Soon, dark clouds bloated with rain rose up in the sky; taking the shape of mountains. The ringing gave way to a whistling wind and the temperature dropped twenty degrees in an instant. And then it began to rain. Big, fat drops were all there were at first; plopping here and there like bombs out of B-42s. But they soon gave way to a driving, slanting rain that came in on us. My mom stopped the car and tossed ponchos to us from the front seat. We donned the musty, bright yellow shrouds and went back to work, trying hard to not get too wet. Soon, thunder cracked above us and lightning sizzled around us; a prelude to the sky opening up and emptying itself of all its rain. We tried our best to avoid the fast-forming puddles and to keep our shoes and shorts dry but it was proving impossible. My mom shouted at us to hurry and my dad did his best to encourage us and keep us on task, but an already difficult job had now become that much worse. I was so frustrated, I could cry.

But then my little brother changed everything. The deluge had turned the gutter beside the curbing into a veritable river and as I ran, head down and papers tucked under my arm to my next delivery, I spied my brother Josh lying flat on his back in the gutter; nearly submerged in the torrent. And he was laughing his head off. Soon, we were all standing still and staring at the sight. My older brother Joel was the first to join Josh in the river followed by my two younger siblings who jumped out of the wagon to frolic in the water. I took the plunge next and then – to everyone’s surprise – my dad tossed his paper bag in the car and flopped down in the gutter with us. Only my mom kept to the ship. We splashed and laughed for several minutes; playing and swimming on the side of the street. It was magical.

When my dad finally marshalled us back on mission, we could not have been any wetter. We tore off our ponchos and delighted in the rain as it continued to fall. We ran through every puddle, slid down every hill, and giggled our way up and down the route. Embracing the trial, its difficulties became our joy.

Dorothy Parker once wrote: “They sicken of the calm who know the storm.” None of us are particularly fond of alarms and surprises. We like dashboards that never light up, inboxes without issues, and red skies at night. But that’s just not how life is here on our broken planet. Many times, when my day goes sideways and my slim margins are crowded with trouble, I’m reminded of my little brother in the gutter. I smile and remember that it’s best to not always try and dodge the raindrops but to sometimes plunge headlong into the storm. I’m certain that, when you do, you’ll enjoy God’s fellowship in your place at the prow of the ship and you’ll be delighted to know that, from there, things can only get better. We’ll have plenty of sunny days over the river – let’s do our best to enjoy the storms today.

We’re looking forward to gathering together tomorrow morning to do our own singing in the rain. We’ll be blessed to fellowship with one another, enjoy communion with the Lord, worship, pray, listen, and learn. It’s going to be a wonderful time together! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate

Good morning church family,

Driving west through Worcester, Massachusetts on Interstate 290, the roadway seems a conveyor belt; rolling steadily along above the downtown just below. Looking out either side of the car, you see signs of industry: warehouses, smokestacks, depot yards, and shipping containers stacked two and three high. There are grander constructions as well: golden-domed government buildings, libraries with pillared front porches, and the stately headquarters of old-money industries. There are also plenty of those twenty-first century edifices that reflect the modern utilitarian indifference to beauty: unimaginative office boxes of glass and steel, soulless structures for the public to register their vehicles in, and community colleges that inspire neither community nor collegiality. And, of course, your eye is easily drawn to all the commercial properties with their loud colors and splashy logos: the fast-food restaurants, strip mall shops, and box store bonanzas. But there’s yet another thing you’ll be sure to see out the windows – steeples. Lots and lots of steeples.

All across America and throughout New England in particular, the cityscapes are punctuated by the spires of church steeples; each attracting the attention of the populace in order to point, day and night, to Heaven above. When you pause to consider them, steeples are really an odd kind of construction; serving little to no practical purpose. They don’t offer additional storage, house important plumbing or wiring, or create additional meeting space. But they do fill a prophetic role; calling poor souls caught up in the hustle and bustle of the world to pause for a moment and consider what lies above. Steeples also, without the help of a Google search, direct those weary souls to the houses of worship that sit beneath them, that they might apply within for fellowship, instruction, and spiritual nourishment. In this way, I love steeples. Like God allowing Jeremiah to be made a spectacle as he was paraded around in stocks or John the Baptist called to wear camel’s hair in the wilderness, churches attach these large steeples to the ridgelines of their sanctuaries. Church buildings should stand out amongst all the other constructions in our cities and towns that they might be both an outpost of the Above and a conscience for everyone treading the ground below. They’re a civic blessing.

But as you drive around New England and pass by the old churches standing tall on Main Street or towering over the town green, you may look up and notice that many of these steeples are in a sad state of disrepair. The paint is chipping, the roofing tiles are weathered and lifting in the wind, the slanted slats in front of the belfry are broken and missing, and the spire is rusted red. The builders designed the steeple to catch the eye and draw it upward and therefore the dilapidation cannot be hidden.

One such sad steeple stood above a prominent church building in the town my parents live in. The Brandon Congregational Church sits in the center of town and is featured prominently in the life of the village. The town’s parades go directly in front of the big brick building, the weekly farmer’s market is across the street, and the Fourth of July fireworks that explode in the night sky, illuminate the sacred landmark. It’s a beautiful building but I couldn’t help but notice how shabby its wooden steeple had become and it always made me blue whenever I saw it.

Well, upon our visit to my parent’s house this summer, I was delighted to drive into town and see scaffolding set up all around the church’s steeple and men busily working to restore it. As I paused to look at the progress, I noticed several work trucks parked along the street in front of the building. On the side of the trucks, I saw the name of the company: Robert Morgan Steeple & Building Restoration located out of Errol, New Hampshire. “Wow,” I said to Lisa and the kids. “Who knew there was a company devoted to maintaining and refurbishing steeples – and from good ol’ New Hampshire too!”

Come to find out there’s a name for such an occupation. Someone “whose work is building smokestacks, towers, or steeples or climbing up the outside of such structures to paint and make repairs” is called a “steeplejack”. A band of steeplejacks from Errol, New Hampshire had traveled to Brandon, Vermont to restore the steeple of the Congregational Church to a sterling and pristine condition that it might better fulfill its vocation in the village. I was thrilled! I’m looking forward to running into Brandon the next time I’m visiting my folks and see the finished work – I’m sure it’s beautiful.

I’ve often thought that every believer is a lot like a steeple. Our actions, manner, language, countenance, and lifestyle are intended to point people not just to Heaven above but to the Christ who dwells there; seated at the right hand of God. But I’m afraid it won’t require very close inspection to find that many of our personal steeples are, like those of the churches of our land, in a pretty rickety, ramshackle way. Our witness is not what it should be. We need to call upon the Lord to once again raise up the mighty men and build pulpits for powerful prophets who will once again call God’s people to pursue lives of holiness and righteousness. We need to implore the Lord to raise up some steeplejacks to restore the testimony of His saints. And just like with the Robert Morgan company – why not have the Lord start right here in good ol’ New Hampshire; calling you and me!

We’re looking forward to gathering together tomorrow morning to enjoy all that the Lord has prepared for those seeking Him. Because we have a Good Shepherd, our time will surely be spent in green pastures beside quiet waters. It’s going to be wonderful. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate

Good morning church family,

When you begin reading a book, do you feel compelled to read its preface and introduction? For the first twenty-two years of my life, almost all my reading, cover to cover, was done as a matter of compulsion and so I must confess to having been annoyed by preliminaries that, in my mind, only served to lengthen my sentence.

Suppose my mom had me read a biography of Golda Meir, for instance, or my dad brought home Heart of Darkness by Conrad or one of my professors assigned a soteriological textbook written by some long-dead theologian – the first thing I would do was flip to the back of the book and find the final page of the final chapter and look at the number. One book’s page tally might come in at 374, another at 212, and perhaps another still might knell out the ghastly figure of 758. Then I, with a sigh of resignation and standing like Sisyphus before his boulder, would lower my shoulder and begin the arduous push up the mountain. To start, I would flip back to the front of the book. Breezing past the title page, copyright page, dedication page, and table of contents, a momentary giddiness would momentarily lighten my mood. But then would come a sudden and steep change in pitch as I turned still another page and found the presence of forwards, prologues, prefaces, and words of introduction. I would instantly become conflicted. “Must I read these?” I’d wonder. “Are these a part of the assignment?” Then I’d glance down to the bottom of the page and see that, instead of Arabic numerals marking the way, there were italicized Roman numerals in their place. “Wait a minute,” I’d bark indignantly, “this introductory stuff doesn’t even count towards my page total?”

More often than not, I wouldn’t consult my mom, dad, teacher, or professor and would just make the executive decision to skip all the prolegomena. I don’t think I read a single preface until I was in my late twenties.

Now, why bore you all with a such a trifling and personal tidbit as this? Well, because I want you to know that major changes of heart often lead to minor changes of manner and behavior. In the first decade of my professional ministry, the Lord performed a miracle in my life; radically transforming my outlook and disposition in regard to scholarship. Where I had once regarded learning as an exercise in winning high marks from instructors, I slowly began to see it as an opportunity for the exchange of knowledge, insight, and ideas – one thinker dialoguing with another. Where I once saw study as an occupational hazard, I instead began to see it as a marvelous perk of the job. And where I had once believed that the Bible could be effectively preached without the use of a reference library, I all of a sudden came under the strong conviction that it most definitely could not. A wonderful and holy fear had seized me. My years-long chafing at having to read books and the idiosyncratic handicaps it created in my approach to learning had greatly hampered my ability to be a good witness for the Lord and an able presenter of the gospel. I had been eager to think and to engage in intellectual conversation but had not been quick to ensure that these conversations were informed by any knowledge, wisdom, or understanding. And thus, my theology and apologetic had been more art than science.

Fast forward to today and my interest in a book’s preface and introduction is so great that I will often read and reread these preliminary texts a number of times throughout my weeks-long study of a particular book. The author’s intent and his hope for the book’s impact on his reader are now things I’m keenly interested in knowing. Think of Christ’s teaching, for example. He almost always included a preface with His parables. Now, without this brief word of introduction, these parables are just interesting little stories; yielding very little benefit to one’s life or soul. But by taking to heart the preface Jesus gives – that in His parable one will find a comparison to Christ’s Kingdom – suddenly a little story can become a key that unlocks the door, a lantern that lights the way through the darkness, or an invitation that leads to salvation itself. There’s so much more to any reading when you’re able to think of it as a conversation and not a chore.

This old hang-up of mine once extended to my reading of the Bible as well. I used to measure out my daily chapters of Scripture reading the same way I might measure out Robitussin, oat bran, or miles on the treadmill. Bible-reading was all “a must” and “an ought-to” and hardly ever a delight. But then I finally read the preface; so to speak. The Lord revealed to me why He’d gone to the trouble of inspiring such a text and why He’d preserved it all these years and arranged for it to be translated into my own language. He’d done all this that I might always be able to dialogue with Him in my reading of it. He was assuring that I might be able to acquire His heart, mind, and perspective. He was telling me that I could be like Him. Well, that didn’t sound like duty, obligation, and religion to me. That sounded a lot more like life and joy!

I now read the Bible like I sit down at the table with family – open and chatty. I now study the Bible like I approach a midsummer blueberry bush – empty mason jar in hand with a heart to harvest. And I now share the Bible like I point out a beautiful sunset on the horizon – eager for others to see what I see.

We’re looking forward to gathering together tomorrow morning and joining with many millions of other believers in hearing what the Spirit has to say to His church. Could we be in every worship service being held in every town, village, city, and hamlet across the globe – I believe we’d find there to be a wonderful symmetry in the word being preached, in the songs being sung, and in the commitments being made; such is the excellence of the Spirit’s administration. It’s going to be so good to be a part of it in the morning! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate