Thanks to our great Staff for taking such good care of First Church in my absence! Our family enjoyed our Tulsa vacation and got to worship in two good churches. Glad to be back “Home” this Sunday with you! Thanks to Tony and Sara for their insightful blogs; Candi for keeping our First Church “House” in order and Kim for “ordering my office world”-she did an amazing job! Thanks too to Frankye Johnson, our South OKC District Superintendent and our Lay Leader Gene Massey for “bringing the Word” so effectively these last two Sundays. God is good!

Today I thought I’d share a story with you from a young pastor’s experience. I hope you’ll enjoy it!

As a young Minister in La Harpe, IL, I was asked by a funeral director to hold a grave-side service for a homeless man, with no family or friends, who had died while traveling through the area.

The funeral was to be held at a cemetery way back in the country, and this man would be the first to be laid to rest there. As I was not familiar with the backwoods area, I became lost; and being a typical man I did not stop for directions.

I finally arrived an hour late. I saw the crew, eating lunch, but the hearse was nowhere in sight. I apologized to the workers for my tardiness, and stepped to the side of the open grave, where I saw the cement vault lid already in place.

I assured the workers I would not hold them long but this was the proper thing to do. The workers gathered around, still eating their lunch. I poured out my heart and soul. As I preached, the workers began to say “Amen”, “Praise the Lord”, and “Glory”. I preached and I preached, like I’d never preached before: from Genesis all the way to Revelations.

I closed the lengthy service with a prayer and walked to my car. I felt I had done my duty for the homeless man and that the crew would leave with a renewed sense of purpose and dedication, in spite of my tardiness.

As I was opening the door and taking off my coat, I overheard one of the workers saying to another, “I ain’t never seen anything like this before and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years!”

I remember my very first funeral in Spiro. OK. I met with a retired United Methodist Pastor Brother Frank Jones to ease my fears and get his wisdom on how to perform a meaningful funeral. Everything was going well until I saw the panicked expression on the Funeral Director’s face from the back. I started the service without the casket in place! We stopped the service while he wheeled her in! Not quite as bad as Craig Groeschel’s line at the close of a funeral when he was trying to describe the difference between the spirit and the body. He looked at the casket in closing and said, “The shell is still here; but the nut is gone!”

Blessings!

See you this Sunday!

Yours in Christ,
Mark