WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.   It does not insist on its own way …  (1 Corinthians 13:4-5)

This is my 43rd Lenten season at FPC.   Lent is an awesome time of the year for me.   Maundy Thursday … Good Friday … Easter Sunday …  WOW!   What a powerful few days.   Lent is truly awesome.

But this Lent is my absolute happiest.   You have made it my happiest.   Thank you.   This is indeed my best, most meaningful Lent.

I can almost hear some of you saying, “What did I do.   I don’t even know this guy.

Over 43 years, you have helped turn this church into the kind of church I have always wanted.   Everybody’s Church.  

When I started, FPC was pretty formal.  Children were not allowed in the sanctuary during our services.  All kinds of people were welcome.  As long as they were white, Anglo-Saxon Presbyterians.  Being anything but straight was incomprehensible.  If you were in a wheelchair, you could forget about being in the choir.  Unless one of the large basses carried you up piggy back and another one carried your chair.

You get the idea.   We were pretty formal.

Look at us now.  When I hear a child’s voice yell out in one our services, I hear the voice of God.

When I see someone of color, I know we were meant to worship together.   No.   Live together.   When I hug someone who isn’t “straight,” I thank God for creating all kinds of people.   When I take someone up or down on one of our elevators, I thank Jesus for showing us the way.   And when I see our new logo and hear John repeat our vision statement, I thank you over and over and over again.

With the help of the best minister I have ever known and one of the best staffs in the world, you have made FPC the church I have always wanted.

Thank you, dear Lord, for helping us see the kind of church you want us to be.  A church where all are loved.   Help us to know that as we go forward, we are creating on earth a piece of what your heaven must surely be.   Amen.

Hal Bay