Pastor's Comments

It seems so early, but this month we enter into the solemn season of Lent.  Long a mournful season of reflection and repentance, it always feels like a journey through a landscape we’d probably prefer not to explore.  Faced with and reminded with our mortality at the beginning, we journey through seven weeks toward another death, the death of our beloved savior and master.  No wonder we shiver as it draws near!

I wonder if we might be surprised by Lent this time around.  It’s sort of a strange ironic season anyway – denial and seriousness when the days are getting longer and buds are starting to appear.  The readings this season are bursting with images of food – which seems odd for a season of fasting.  There is something here more complex than we might expect – even the word “Lent” comes from an Old English word for spring.  It reminds us that the purpose of repentance is the renewal of our lives – not “feeling sad,” but turning around and starting anew.

This season, however else you are accustomed to remembering Lent, I would propose a community-wide discipline.  Let us together take on a discipline, not just giving something up.  Together, we can come to know God more fully, come to experience the Spirit more deeply, and at the end of this season, compare notes – what did it do to us?

So this season, as a whole congregation, let’s take on the discipline of adding more time in prayer.  Even just 5 minutes more a day will do.  If you already have a lively prayer life, extend it.  If you’re an occasional pray-er, make it daily, at least 5 minutes.  And if prayer is foreign to you, take it up in some way – even just deliberately praying at mealtime (in restaurants too!) will do.  Wherever you are on your journey with Jesus, this season, take it another step: add some more time with him in prayer.

As we come into Holy Week and Eastertide (isn’t that a great old word?  Eastertide, like the ebbing and flowing of the sea…), as we draw to the end of our journey into renewed life, we’ll take stock and compare notes.  If you would like resources for prayer, check out the devotionals on the information booth by the front doors at church, or talk to me or any of our Prayer Team (always available for you after every worship service).  But above all, be prepared – spending time with God is liable to fill you in unexpected ways.  When we spend time talking with God, he is liable to answer in ways we didn’t know to look for.  When we devote ourselves together to him – why, he’s liable to fill our cups to overflowing with his Spirit.

Welcome to this blessed season of renewal, reflection, and repentance.  Join me in prayer, won’t you?  The Lord is waiting.

Peace,

-Pastor Tim

It’s been my habit, almost a ritual really, of using the January newsletter to talk about New Year’s resolutions.  I like to draw the connection between

remaking ourselves, whether through diet or exercise or manners or whatever, and the gift of new life and repentance we receive in God’s grace.  And this year, I had some great statistics to help make my point: Stephen Shapiro, with the help of Opinion Corporation of Princeton, New Jersey, recently said on his blog (www.steveshapiro.com/blog/) that 45% of Americans usually set New Year’s Resolutions.  Of these, eight percent are always successful.  Eight percent.

Instead, though, I want to talk about Amy’s grand-father, John Mateja.  Gramps, as we affectionately call him, turned 98 in January, lives alone in the house he built 50 years ago, bowls three times a week, raises pigeons, and in general is amazing.  I’ve always enjoyed sitting with him at family gatherings and hearing his stories – even if they’re repeats, which they often are.  And, we often talk about the church and the world and all that’s going on around us.

Over Christmas, as we gathered at his house, he and I talked about his church, one of several Catholic churches in Whiting, IN, which are closing and

combining.  Gramps was talking about generational differences: “Eh, young people, they don’t go to

confession anymore.  Do you have confession?” I said that yes, we do have a rite of individual confession, and for us the corporate confession Sunday morning is particularly meaningful.  “Come to think of it,” he went on, “I haven’t been to confession myself in 20 years.”  When I exclaimed and tried to tease him, he said, “Ah, at my age, what sins can I commit?”

But then the real story is what’s next: “Young people these days, they’re just not interested in the same kind of church we were.”  And I’ve had to think about that for a while.  Is it really true?  Sometimes we think so – younger generations listen to different music, entertain themselves differently, and definitely communicate in different ways (think Twitter, texting, Facebook, etc.).

But I have become convinced that all of us, young or old, new to faith or raised in it, are really looking for the same thing in a church: a place where we can grow in faith.  A community that can help us learn about God.  Opportunities to serve that will grow our souls.  Teaching and preaching that will help us live our days, equip us with a rudder and sails and the wind to get us through the decisions of the week.  I don’t care what age you are, we are after the same thing: someplace to nurture the growth of our souls.

So if we as a faith community were to make a New Year’s Resolution – wouldn’t that be an amazing one?  Each of us, child or retired, could resolve to practice our faith this year just a little more.  Each of us, whether new to the community or a life-long member, could resolve to encourage each other, ask the interesting questions (“How are you with God this week?”), watch for what God is up to in our life and have the courage to jump in.  How amazing would that be?

And I’m convinced – I know for a fact – that with God as a part of this kind of resolution, our faith will grow beyond imagining.

-Pastor Tim

“Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come.”

Throughout this season of waiting, this season of preparing, this season of expectation and anticipation, that is our prayer.  Every Sunday our Prayer of the Day will begin with a plea: “Stir up, O Lord.”  Stir up our wills.  Stir up our hearts.  Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come.

It’s such a strange season, Advent, if you think about it.  It’s the season of preparation, when we prepare to remember and celebrate again the long-ago giving of the gift of priceless worth, God’s own Son, given as God-With-Us.  We prepare to remember the past and celebrate again what is so well-known, and happened so long ago.

What makes this season strange – and hard to hold on to – is that it’s also our season of preparing for what is yet to come.  We will hear Jesus, near the end of his ministry – which is odd in itself, as we anticipate hearing again the story of his birth – as, at the end of his ministry, he taught his friends and followers about what is still yet to come.  Throughout Advent we will hear predictions, not of a quiet night in Bethlehem, but of a grand Day that will be filled with trumpets and marching angel armies and Jesus, showing himself – finally! – in power, to sit on the throne that has been his since before time.

That’s such odd imagery for us, isn’t it?  Most of us have no, none, zip, zilch experience living under a monarch.  We have no experience with the imagery of coronation, ruling, triumph.  And for people who, for the most part, are pretty comfortable, and for whom, for the most part, change is uncomfortable, calling for things to be “stirred up” seems an unusual, even un-understandable, even unpleasant and undesirable, thing to do.

And yet, every Advent, that is our prayer.  “Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come.”  Not to Bethlehem, that has happened once for all time.  Not to the cross, which was, as the book of Hebrews has reminded us throughout November, salvation that does not need to be repeated.  We do not pray for another baby, another Silent Night, shepherds, magi, a star.  No, we pray for what is yet to come – that there will come a day when God will win.  When all the forces that are arrayed against him, and against us becoming what he intends for us, will be destroyed.  Not defeated, mind you, but destroyed.  And when faith will become so obvious, obedience become so natural, that it will be as if God’s will and God’s law and God’s plan is written, carved, tattooed, right on our hearts.

Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come.  Give us such a vision of your promise that we long for it, not for what we know.  Let us fall so in love with you, and with your plan for all Creation, that we can’t help but invite others to share Life as you’ve given us.  Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come.  This is our season of preparing.  May it be one of preparing our very hearts and minds and souls for Christ, who is to come.

-Pastor Tim

It was just as I was sitting down to write this article that I came across a headline on the news: “The 5 secrets of happy families”.[†] Of course, being a parent, I immediately was intrigued and wanted to know the secret.  And do you know, not one of them had to do with the amount of toys in the toyroom, much to my boys’ chagrin.

The article was based on recent research into the science of happiness (who knew there was such a thing?), and talked about what families – and individuals – can learn from this science of happiness, amidst a life that swirls with chaos and uncertainty, an economy that experts say is showing glimmers of life but none of us are seeing, and far too much bad news on the television.  And based on these findings, it gives some basic habits that inoculate ourselves against setbacks large and small.

What I found most striking was the #1 tip.  Let me quote the article directly:

Give thanks – no matter what: Research consistently finds that regularly expressing gratitude is good for our overall well-being: People who do so are healthier, more successful at reaching their goals, more optimistic, and more inclined to help others.

And I immediately of November 8^th, and the celebration we’re going to share.

Every year, we take this time to pray intensively over our worship of God with our offerings, and to reflect not on what we’re giving away, but how much the Lord has given in the first place.  It’s one of the most important ways we have of loosening the grip that our possessions have over us – giving away is the only way of proving to ourselves that we really do have enough and don’t need more.  But more than that, it’s also the only way of showing God through action and not just words how grateful we are, how thankful we are for how he is taking care of us.  That’s why we do a Stewardship Emphasis every year – not for the budget, but for ourselves.  Not because the church needs money, but because we need to give.  Each of us needs desperately to give to God.

And so, November 8^th, we’re giving ourselves the opportunity to write on a piece of paper our gratefulness to God, and to make a commitment to him and what he has in mind for ministry in our corner of the world.  We will “Walk the Walk” that Jesus showed us by giving thanks – in action and in words.

The article also had good news for us if this all seems a little crazy: But what if your family is struggling, say with a job loss, and no one is feeling like they have much to be thankful for?  “There’s nothing wrong with faking it,” says Robert Emmons, Ph.D… “Act grateful, and you’ll soon start feeling it.”

And I thought to myself, that’s exactly right.  Tithing seems crazy.  Giving first-fruits away (i.e. giving off the top, rather than what’s left) seems crazy.  Saying “thanks” by giving away seems crazy.  But sometimes, that’s the walk of a disciple: even if we don’t get it, we try it – we fake it – until we discover that it’s exactly right.

See you at our celebration November 8!

I find it interesting how the timing of coincidence can sometimes work.  We’re here at the beginning of the school year, which matches up to our programming year – Sunday School, Confirmation, and Bible Studies have started back up; our Young Couples’ Ministry is beginning; our Stewardship Emphasis time is approaching; and our Hospitality, Fellowship, and Service group has lots of ideas up their sleeves.

At the same time, of course, we’re dealing with some difficult questions in the wake of the recent decisions at the Churchwide Assembly.  While some authors I’ve been reading have been quick to point out that what happened in Minneapolis simply puts a name to the reality in which we’ve been ministering for 15-20 years, and others have decried that this is the final straw in a long slide into heresy, there is an underlying question that we need to ask, that remains the same: how are we to minister to the corner of God’s creation that he has given us?  How are we to serve our neighbors and Make Christ Known?  Are we able to be in ministry together?

What I find interesting is the juxtaposition that, with our September calendar, Holy Trinity hit a turning point of sorts that I knew was coming someday, but arrived sooner than I expected: all of a sudden, there is so much that the Spirit is up to in our midst, we are finding it difficult – sometimes impossible – to schedule things the way we always have, that counts on the same people being at everything.  It’s

impossible for a single person to be at everything happening at Holy Trinity, and I for one find that very exciting!

What this means, is that we’re continuing to grow into our mission to Make Christ Known.  Our

passion to share the love of God that we’ve found with and among each other is getting stronger.  We’re looking in new ways to reach out to the lonely, connect to the hurting, feed the hungry,

protect the vulnerable.  In short, we’re focusing ever more on our mission to share what God is up to in our lives: Making Christ Known.

I recently heard our Bishop, Jim Stuck, describe our ELCA in a way that helped me put things in context.  There has never been a church organized in quite the way we are, Bishop Stuck said, no one has ever tried this before.  We are one Church, the ELCA, in three expressions: congregation, synod, and national church.  And just as Jesus said “Wherever two or three are gathered…”, whenever any of those expressions is gathered, that is the Church – not the complete Church, but the Church nonetheless.  I suppose it’s like our committee meetings at Holy Trinity – when Worship and Music or Council meets, that’s our church – not the complete Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, but our church gathered in that place nonetheless.

It’s the same for our national church and our synod.  Each of them is the Church too, but not the complete Church.  And just as our congregation has no right to tell the Churchwide Assembly what to do, neither do they have the right to tell us what to do.  Each of us is a separate expression, gathered together into ministry that the others simply cannot accomplish on their own, yet fully dependent on each other.

I find it interesting to hold what is happening in the wider Church up against the evidence that our mission to Make Christ Known is alive and well.  What the Spirit is up to here is so exciting, so vibrant, so absolutely necessary, it’s fascinating to wonder what’s next.  I’m looking forward to what God has in store for us as we, together, look to Make Christ Known.

-Pastor Tim

By now, after articles in the newspaper (picked up by the AP, Reuters, CNN, ABC, etc.), announcements in worship and stories from Bill, you’ve surely heard at least a little about our most recent Churchwide Assembly held in August in Minneapolis. This is our highest authoritative body – not the ELCA Church Council, not Bishop Hanson, it is the collected members from every synod, gathered around prayer and worship and study of Scripture, gathered in discernment and dialogue and sweat (it’s hard work to concentrate that long!).  It is people just like you, gathered to discern and determine God’s future for our wider Church.

There are so many stories to share – of a tornado hitting the Convention Center, of decisions to fight malaria and work for peace in the Middle East, of an agreement to join in communion with the United Methodist Church.  But probably the story you’ve heard is the one the media has decided is news-worthy – that the voting members of our Church, wrestling with gifts for ministry given to (in our eyes) unlikely people, made a decision to allow “structured flexibility” regarding who can be a minister in the ELCA.  What this means, is that for a congregation that so chooses – and that’s incredibly important, that this is for a congregation that so chooses – for that congregation, which through prayer and discernment feels the next minister God has in mind for them happens to be in a committed, life-long, publicly-accountable same-sex relationship, that congregation that so chooses, can call that man or woman to be their Pastor or Associate in Ministry or Diaconal Minister.

The ramifications of this decision, the faith convictions on both sides, the theological and scriptural underpinnings on both sides, are way too complex for me to even begin to approach here.  For now, I want to talk about the nature of the conversation at the Assembly and throughout the long (oh, so very long) process that led to this point.  Because I think the nature of that conversation shows an incredible gift and strength, one that I’ve long admired in our own community here.

At its heart, the conversation and decision in Minneapolis was to recognize that people can have different opinions, for good and faithful reasons, on a topic – not because they are being obstinate or hurtful, not because they are willful or not as smart, but for reasons of faith conviction, based in prayer and discernment.  On all sides of the issue, as on so many others, stand caring, committed, faithful people who are listening for what God has to say, and who believe, for reasons of faith, that God is leading them forward.  The great strength of the decision made in Minneapolis – and its great challenge – is that it recognizes that we can disagree for reasons of faith.

It’s not always easy, but I think it’s an incredible strength, one that I’ve been impressed with here at Holy Trinity.  We do not always agree.  We do not always see things the same way.  In Council or annual meetings we vote differently and sometimes have deep conversations.  But at the end of the day, or at the end of the meeting, we stand together – we stand together at the foot of the Cross, because that is the only place we can be.  We are all equally in need of Christ, and so it is only in the shadow of his Cross that we can possibly stand together.

As we continue forward in the ministry God has called us to, we will continue to wrestle with how to reach out to our neighbors with the saving love of that Cross.  We will not always agree.  We will not always hear the Spirit call us the same way.  We will not always like hearing differences of opinion and conviction.  But we will still stand together at the foot of that Cross, because that is the only place where life is.  That is the only place we can stand.  We are people of the Cross, gathered and called and blessed and challenged.  We are so privileged to stand together.

-Pastor Tim

The figures tell a story, and it is impressive.  37,000 people gathered around service and social justice, the largest conference hosted in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina.  12,000+ people going into the city each of three days to do community service, with a cumulative effort that would take a single person working every single day more than 98 years to match.  A blood drive that saw around 300 donors a day, when they typically receive 15 units per day.  $129, 591.93 gathered for a “Change for Change” offering.   Communion served, Christ proclaimed, Bibles studied, lives changed.

But it’s the other stories that really matter.  Stories of signs on shop doors: “Welcome, ELCA Youth!  Thank you for helping us!”  Front-page stories that “the Lutherans are coming.” Crowds and crowds of young people walking down the street, greeting each other with a “Where ya from?”, slapping high-fives, carrying signs that said, “Free hugs.”  Shopkeepers who said, “You wish adults behaved like this.”

Or more importantly, Mildred’s story, who we met in line in Subway on our last day.  Mildred who lost everything in Katrina; who had to step onto the boat from the 3^rd floor of her building carrying her grandbaby on her back; who had to sleep on the I-610 bridge under the stars for five days, amid the mosquitos, because shelter and aid were slow in coming; who described when the army arrived with guns and helicopters how scared these lost people felt.

But then there are the stories that capture the Gathering best.  It’s our young people, who after a hard days’ work moving boxes and cleaning schoolrooms for children they will never meet, glowed with their sense of “making a difference,” who want to take up a collection this year to send back to that school.  It’s the mayor of New Orleans, who was in tears at the energy of 37,000 gathered in the Superdome, a place that represents so much pain and disappointment and heartache for the city of New Orleans, who wished he could gather the entire city to see the power of a rainbow of Christ-loving kids.

For me, the most important story of the Gathering is Joyce.  Joyce worked in our hotel in the Atrium, their restaurant.  The hotel had youth-friendly foods available to us at all hours, which is important when hosting teenagers, and I talked to Joyce many times about the city and where we were headed, asking for suggestions.  The day we left, as we were gathering our luggage and checking out of the hotel, I looked down into the Atrium and saw her.  Someone had given her one of the Bibles we received for being at the Gathering, and she was standing at the checkout, reading Matthew.  And a little later, she was in the corner, gathered with other workers there in the Atrium, again with the Bible open in her lap, reading to them.

To me, that’s the story of the Gathering, as it is the story of all of us as disciples of Christ – to live and serve and love so transparent to God’s love, that others are invited into the circle of his radiance.  To live into God’s grace so deeply that others want what we have.  And then to share it with them.

On behalf of our youth, thank you for making the Gathering possible for Ashley, Kalab, Marissa, and Zach.  And to them, on behalf of our congregation and the city of New Orleans and all of us in our walk with Jesus, thank you for serving and loving Christ.  We are so very proud of you.

-Pastor Tim

July, 2009

At our Synod Assembly at the start of June, our headline speaker was Kelly Fryer, a nationally-recognized author and speaker on Lutheran renewal, outreach, and evangelism.  In sharing some of her own story, and the insights she’s gained through years in ministry, teaching, small-business owner, and recently as a speaker and consultant, I appreciated very much how clearly she condensed our life as disciples of Jesus, and the particularly important understanding that we Lutherans bring to the wider Church.

Kelly told the story from seminary, on one of those long, droning, summer days, when the best of intentions can get lost in the singing of cicadas and haze of humidity.  On this particular day her class was taught by one of the older, wiser professors, not known for his dynamic presentation.  Kelly, along with the rest of the class, slid into glass-eyed distraction.  Until, that is, the professor slammed his book down on the table, spun around, and drew a single, vertical line on the chalkboard.  “Until you know this,” he seethed at the class, “you don’t know anything.”  And then he stalked out of the room.

Naturally, that got the class’s attention, and they wondered for a week what that line meant, talking it over every chance between classes, over lunch, etc.  The next class, every single student was present and eagerly attentive as the professor walked in.  He walked to the front, looked solemnly over the class, and waited through an awkward silence.  After looking into each of their eyes, he turned, and drew the line again.  Every student leaned forward, waiting.  Finally, he said a single sentence in explanation: “God always comes down.”

This is the first part of our Lutheran heritage that is so important: God always comes down.  We cannot lift ourselves up by any repetition or effort; God always comes down.  And in Jesus Christ, he comes all the way into us, into a world that is cracked open by self-interest and tilted dangerously away from where it’s meant to be, living and breathing and connected to the One who stitched it together.  But God always comes down, down to us where and who we are.

But that’s not the whole story.  Martin Luther, writing a few years before Kelly’s professor, finished the sentence in his essay On the Freedom of a Christian: “… so that we can love and serve our neighbor, so that we can give ourselves away.”  God’s love for us isn’t just for us, it isn’t intended to stay with us; God loves us always with the hope and expectation that this kind of welcoming embrace will transform us and set us free from our own self-absorption, so that we can love and serve our neighbor.  That is the horizontal component of our cross-shaped lives: God always comes down, so that we can give ourselves away.

There was more, much more, that Kelly shared with us, especially this basic truth about being disciples of Jesus: “God has a mission, and we’re invited to jump on board.”  We’ll continue talking about this basic truth, and exploring it together.  In the meantime – keep your eyes open for what God is up to in your life, and where you might jump in, transformed people of God!

-Pastor Tim

As I begin this note, I want to hold up to you two stories simultaneously, two stories for you to hold in your mind side-by-side.  The first, is from an article in the South Bend Tribune, of an evangelical atheist group (which just sounds amusing to me) which has bought space on 20 of our buses to display their ads saying, “You can be good without God.”

The second story is from your Council’s most recent meeting, in May.  For our Teaching Moment, I asked the members to pair up, and then gave them a series of questions to talk over.  We started easy: “When did Jesus first become real to you?”, but we ended perhaps tough: “What difference does Holy Trinity make in your life today?”

But what I really want you to hear is the context.  After we finished that last question and we heard a quick summary, I told the Council that these conversations matter – because that evening, I had come directly from a visitation for a 21-year-old suicide victim who didn’t believe in God.  He said that God didn’t make sense, and so he didn’t believe in God.  And what I told the Council is this: the things we talk about here, they matter.  They are, quite literally, life-or-death for hurting people.  And everyone needs what we have here: an authentic encounter with a living, loving, transforming God.

When I read about those bus ads, I wanted to ask them, “Why do you assume that faith is just about being good?”  They’re absolutely right, people can be good without knowing God.  But why do they think that’s all that faith is good for?  Have we really done such a terrible job of sharing our joy in God at work in and through us, that those who look on think church is just about being good?  Have we failed our job descriptions as witnesses to God at work that badly?

If I could find a way to sum up and describe what you have found – God, alive and well, living within you; God, his presence transforming who you are into what you never dreamed you could be; God, present in faith, hope, and love today, not in some abstract heaven with feathers and circular headgear – if I could find some way to wrap that into a pithy bus ad, I would.  Or rather, God would have long ago.  It just doesn’t work that way.

The only way that works, is to share it.  To show it.  To live it.  And to talk about it.  To be witnesses to these things, in other words.  That is, after all, our job description.  To live so into the life faith brings, that it splashes over us onto everyone around. And make no mistake, it is a matter of life and death for hurting people.

You can be good without God?  Sure.  But you can’t live like this without him – fulfilled, where we belong, with infinite meaning and purpose attending every moment.  Life lived with God present with you.  Or in churchy talk, “eternal” life.  Here. Today.  Available to you, and to your hurting neighbor, through faith in Jesus, available to make today, this day, different.

You are witnesses to these things.  Now, if only we could tape ourselves to the sides of the Transpo buses.

-Pastor Tim

There is a phrase that we use at Holy Trinity on a regular basis, a phrase that rings in my ears every time I hear it or have the chance to use it.  This phrase explains my repeated answer to friends’ and family’s question “How’s it going?”, it explains why I have trouble falling asleep at night sometimes, it explains why sometimes it’s hard to sit still during our time together – in short, it explains why, as Paula Jackson said in her marvelous Stewardship temple talk the other day, why I am so excitable sometimes.  That phrase is: “It’s a God thing.”

We use this phrase whenever we see God at work, at work transforming our lives, at work through our hands and hearts, at work filling and fulfilling the ministries he’s called us toward.  It’s sort of our marker that God is here and we’ve caught a glimpse of him, sometimes behind the scenes and sometimes right in front of us in awe and glory-filled presence.  What’s so incredible to witness, and so humbling to be a part of, is how often we do see him at work among us here:

• In our teenagers, whose faith and compassion is leading them to go hungry for 30 hours, so that children who have to live that way might have something to eat;
• In our worship, shining in our tears as we waited in line to show our adoration and respect to the cross on Good Friday;
• In our Stephen Ministry, when we witness God healing and transforming his children on both sides of those Spirit-filled caring relationships;
• In our community, where God is continually bubbling up new ways of serving our neighbors in the Seeds of Faith community garden, Hope Meals, Game Nights, Preschool Storytime, and more;
• In our transformed lives, because working with God changes us into something closer to him.

In all these ways and so many more, our stunned and awed response can only be: “It’s a God thing.”

One of the important things we do for each other as a faith community is to teach ourselves to see God’s hand at work, and that exclamation is one of the ways we open our eyes to God’s presence.  (Right now we’re working on revising our website, and want to include a page where we share these stories – and if you don’t have access to our webpage, just write it down and give it to us in the office.)

So if you see God at work in someone – tell them!  If you feel yourself being changed toward the kingdom – exclaim it!  If you feel that tug to minister to the world in some new way we haven’t encountered yet – let’s go!  If you are as excited about what God is up to here as I am – well, you’re already showing that in your lives, and you can’t help but make your friends and family want that, too.  That, by the way, is what Jesus tells us to go and do: to give your friends, coworkers, and family a vision of what it’s like to be in love with God.[1]

It’s a God thing, my friends, and he’s up to something here.

-Pastor Tim