Pictured here is my nephew, Ian sneaking up on me after a wedding I performed at Deer Creek State Park in Southern OH. 

As I have traveled through the many twists and turns of my life, I have been constantly amazed by how God has managed to sneak up on me and put me right where I needed to be at just the right time.

My family moved to Findlay from Columbus, Ohio in 1961 when I was in the second grade.  We immediately joined First Lutheran.  (My father always said that he was Presbyterian until he got saved; the truth was that he had little choice as to denomination because my mother attended Lutheran schools until high school and then graduated from Capital University in Columbus!)  I took confirmation at First from Pastor Bary and Pastor Mitchell and graduated from Findlay High School in 1971.

My father gave me two choices as to which college I would attend: I could either go to Ohio State or pay for my own education!  Not wanting to test his resolve on this, I dutifully became a Buckeye.  I graduated in 1975 with a BS in Social Studies Education.  When it was difficult to get a job teaching social studies without also having a degree in athletics, I added a minor in English at the University of Toledo and liked English so well that I went on to procure a master’s degree at UT.  I then moved down to Athens, Ohio to begin work on my PhD at Ohio University when I realized that my real gifts seemed to lie in teaching college students.  I thought I’d found my vocation.

The funny thing about vocations is that they are determined by God, and God had other plans for me.  Teaching English on the college level was my Tarshish, and God wanted me in Nineveh (see the story of Jonah), which in my case, was the ministry.   My first call was to a small parish in Fruitport, Michigan (where there was no fruit and no port, but there was a congregation that needed an interim pastor after their founding pastor had died on a Sunday morning after 20 some years of ministry).  From here, it seemed natural for me to go back to campus ministry (I’d also served at the campus ministry at Ohio State during seminary) and have spent the last seven years at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

But there remained one more turn in order for me to come full circle, and that was to return to Findlay, to my original church home, to my family in Ohio, to my beloved Buckeyes.

All of you who are married know that I have left a most important detail out of this brief biography: my two cats!  No, I’ve left out the person who has been my most ardent supporter during the last ten years: my wife, Pam.  Before I married, I thought I was funny, but Pam is funnier.  I thought I was smart, but Pam is smarter.  I thought I was kind and loving, but Pam is kinder and more loving.  I thought I knew how to dress….

Seriously, I was blessed to have 43 years to explore who I am and where I fit in this world, and they were good years (in this age of “family values,” we need to also recognize the value of those who have chosen to stay single or who, through circumstances, have become single again).  However, with Pam’s help, I have learned more about myself and my place in the world in the last ten years than in all my years alone. Mostly, we have journeyed together and helped each other find ourselves and God. 

Sermon Notes:

March 23
March 30
April 13
April 27
May 4