Thoughts on Freedom

The 4th of July is a little over a week away, and I wanted to write my thoughts on it today.  You will know why as you read further.

I know you have heard the term “as American as apple pie!”  Tomorrow at 11:00 a.m., I will share in a funeral service for a very unique man who passed away at 92, a retired Army Colonel who was, you guessed it, “as American as apple pie!”

His obituary says something of this, “Colonel Stanley Turk is resting in the arms of the Lord, after a long, fully-lived life in service to his country, community and family.”

Stan, or Colonel Turk, was born at the end of WW I, grew up in Itasca, Texas, where he picked cotton.  He entered the army in 1935 as a private and became a Battalion Commander of the 26th Field Artillery Battalion by the end of the Korean War.  He served all the way through WWII, from Normandy into France through the Battle of the Bulge at Bastogne, until he was wounded in action on March 16, 1945 and evacuated to England. Much of this was in support of General Patton’s Armored Division.  As soon as he could, he returned to his unit, becoming known by his men as “Full-service Turk.”  He continued to lead his men all the way to the end of the war earning the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.  He would win many more citations and medals before the three wars he would be a part of ended.

He entered the Korean War almost on its first day where he became a Battalion Commander.  Now remember, he started out picking cotton and as a private in the Army.  He also suffered serious wounds in this war and again returned to his unit.  He led this battalion until the Korean War ended.  At this point, he had spent a great deal of his life fighting for his country.

As career Army, he was once again called on at the later stages of his military duty to enter the war in Vietnam.  Here his years of experience were put into use as he evaluated the needs and requirements of this new time and a new way of war, bringing back information that might be used by the Army at this difficult time in the history of America.  Stan was born during war and fought for America in three major wars.

After his Army retirement, he met Barbara and was married at the age of 61.  They celebrated 23 years of married life, spending much of it in this area where he began a new business and enjoyed golf as well as his church.  As he found his way to hospice, one of our lay chaplains, John, dropped by and asked if he could read Psalm 23 from the Bible.  Stan said, “We don’t need the Bible to do that,” and began to quote it from memory, “The Lord is my shepherd . . .”  I kind of imagine he had prayed that same prayer many times on the battlefield.

This year as we celebrate Independence Day, your freedom and mine, think of Colonel Stan Turk.

As they say, freedom is not free; men like Stan fought for it for us.

Thoughts on Mission

Vacation Bible Camp is preparing to begin on Monday (we still have openings for children . . . sign up online).  There will be some 1,200 children and adults on campus growing in all kinds of ways.  I enjoyed putting together a video as “Cowboy Parson Mike” to help kick it off!  It is one of the highest and most important seasons of our year as we seek to bless our kids in the good news of Christ, a God who loves them and a church that surrounds them with grace.

In this same season, we are kicking off a new phase in our ZOE Ministry (African) mission, a mission primarily aimed at the needs of orphans and children.  For a number of years we have supported missions with ZOE – feeding orphans, building a school, working to help with Malaria and AIDS issues.  Now we are ready to step up by making a commitment for the next three years:

A commitment of $250,000 over three years to ZOE Ministry’s Giving Hope Empowerment Project.

A contribution of this amount will move 1,000 children in Africa from lives of helplessness and dependency to lives of success and self-sufficiency.  First Methodist will be the first church to sponsor at this “community” level (transforming an entire community in Africa).  We hope God will use us to create Christian leaders who will then be used by God in transformational ways.  May God help us.

• Our first step will our Carry the Light concert at Bass Performance Hall on September 26.  We hope to raise $100,000 at this event.  The head of ZOE Ministry will be with us along with many other churches for this amazing event.  Put the date on your calendar!
• We will dedicate Christmas Eve offerings the next three years to this cause.
• Other events such as Son Run, golf tournaments, etc. will be aimed at this goal.

Individual donors will continue to make contributions as God leads us.  And, I and other members of our church family are going on a trip to Rwanda this July to begin this mission, and we will have three years to celebrate the ongoing results.

I have learned that First Methodist Church can do things at a level that is astonishing here in our community, day-by-day, as we serve one another in multiple ways as we continue to grow in God-blessed ways.  And now with this exciting phase, we enter as a church in national leadership in mission with ZOE, a work that we have grown with these last few years.  I look forward to sharing with you the videos, pictures and stories I will share from and on my trip with ZOE to Rwanda this July.

See you this weekend, Why People Leave Church . . . and Why They Are Coming Back!

Thoughts on Church

Some years ago I had an interesting conversation with a fellow — good man, father and husband.  He told me why he didn’t go to church anymore.  He said, “When I was a kid, my parents made me go to church every time the doors were opened.” He went on to say, “I promised that I would never do that to my kids, that I was going to let them choose for themselves when they were grown!”

I got to know him fairly well and discovered that he was a good guy, had a pretty deep faith, solid values and his belief in God was also important.  He also had a decent education and good teeth.  It seems his parents had supported him in faithful school attendance and getting his homework done, and beginning when the first tooth popped out, first brushed that tooth and then later made him brush his own.

He was a Christian man, had a successful life funded by his education, and his teeth worked well when it came time to chew his food.  You already know where I am going.  It is because his values and faith were formed by the church, his teeth were strengthened by Crest toothpaste that his parents purchased and made him use, and his brain had decent formation and was full of information that helped him get a good job and care for his family.

Why would he deny his children what made him the good Christian adult man he was?  Sometimes we make decisions from how we feel rather than from our faith.  Feelings are like building a house on sand, that when the wind and waves come, the house is washed away.  Faith is like building our house on a rock, that when that very same storm comes, the house remains standing because it was built on a rock (a rough paraphrase of the words of Jesus).