Monday Ministerial Musings

By Rev. Mark William Ennis

2023 Blog #31

July 31, 2023

Passing The Torch; What’s Next?

For five or six years now our congregation, in conjunction with the UCC congregation in the nearby town of Cresskill, has been doing a lunch program for day laborers in our town. This originally was funded by a Lilly grant but now depends on donations from the congregations as well as outside donations. Our rhythm has always been that we make lunches on Wednesday and distribute them on Thursdays. My Spanish is far from fluent but it is better than the other volunteers, so our distribution was dependent on me, and one other volunteer from the Cresskill congregation. This changed in January, and again last week.

In January, our procedure changed as Ivan Gil came to our congregation with the mission of beginning a Spanish-speaking congregation, nested within our congregation. He joined me in distributing these lunches and our interactions with the day-laborers deepened because of his Spanish fluency. Increasingly, I found myself holding the boxes of lunches as he did the talking.

This past week I received a “demotion” from box carrier to “chauffeur.” Two of the young men from the fledgling Spanish-speaking worshiping group joined Ivan and I in the distribution. Now three people were able to interact and invite these laborers to join this small group of worshipers. One of these young men held the box of lunches. My job was simply to drive around and offer encouragement. I wonder how long this trio will want me to be part of this group. Clearly they will be able to do without me when the new volunteers are familiar with the routine. In terms of this project, I may become obsolete.

So, should I feel hurt that I can be replaced? Should my ego be wounded by these three taking over a task that I have been such a part of for so many years? Or should this be a celebration that a new generation of leaders is rising up with language skills that I do not possess?  I prefer this “passing of the torch” to be a celebration of new, young, leadership.

When the day comes when I am not needed on this project I know that God will give me some other job to do. What will it be? I do not have a clue but I know that God will not keep me idol for long. With the surrendering of this mission, I am quite confident that God has another mission in mind for me. At the right time, God will tell me.

The book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, tells us that “for everything there is a season.” When one season ends, another begins. We do God and our neighbors, a dis-service if we try to hang onto tasks and projects after we are no longer functional. Sometimes it is best to let go and start new adventures as God directs us.

Do we trust God to give us something new to do? If so, we can easily let go of what we are doing. If we have no such trust in God, then letting go is difficult to do. Our egos will tell us to hold on long after it is good for us to let go.

Do you trust God? If so, be willing to “pass the torch” at the right time and pick up a new torch, also at the right time. If we trust God and are resilient, we will do great things to bless our community and honor God.

Go to this link to hear the podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/pastormarkchat/1049327/

Monday Ministerial Musings

By Rev. Mark William Ennis

2023 Blog #30

July 24, 2023

Theological Reflections From A New Cell Phone

I am usually the last person I know to update my technology. I was the last person I know who got cable and among the last to get a cell phone. I remember that it took a while for me to learn how to use it. I confess that probably the first two dozen calls that I received on a cell phone were not answered. I couldn’t figure out how to do that.

Well, that was about twenty years ago and I am now on my fifth cell phone. It took me several years to figure out my fourth phone and I really liked it but I dropped it on hard surfaces too many times and it was starting to show problems. It was getting difficult to enter my password to use the phone. When I pushed the button for a number, a different number was entered. After two weeks I realized that it was time to upgrade once more. This week I got my newest cell phone. I am trying to get used to it.

So far I am doing quite well with the phone. After a few hours I was able to figure out how to take pictures, text, and even make a phone call. I am still dealing with pop-ups requesting that I download and install aps that I have never heard of and don’t know if they are good or bad for me. It only took me two hours to figure out how to access my Facebook account from the phone, but I got there. I’m still trying to figure out why text messages seem to “archive” when I am trying to read them but I’m sure that this learning will come.

It is never easy to have change in our lives or to learn to do new things. We easily get used to patterns, for better or worse. Nevertheless, even though change is difficult progress is good. One of the things that we do to have successful lives is to turn the changes of life into progress.

Sometimes we as Christians, as well as congregations, have difficulty making the changes necessary to have progress in new contexts and amid new societal contexts. We don’t like change, but it is a part of our lives. Do we find the grace to make that stressful change into beneficial progress.

What do you need to change in your life to be a better Christian? What do we need to change as congregations to make us more in line with our neighborhoods and neighbors? These changes won’t be easy but when we see progress we will be happy that we did change. Let each of us and each of our congregations ask God what we need to change and be courageous when we start those changes. We will be better people and God will be glorified when we do this.

#ReformedChurchInAmerica                                 #PastorMarkAuthor            

#BergenCounty                                                        #BergenfieldNJ

#Change                                                                    #Progress

#Improvement                                                          #Santification

To read more of Pastor Mark’s writings, please look at his website:

www.pastormarkauthor.com

Monday Ministerial Musings

By Rev. Mark William Ennis

2023 Blog #29

July 17, 2023

Where Have You Left Your DNA?

Those of us in the North Jersey area have been inundated with one news story during this weekend. The story was the arrest of an architect from Long Island who has been accused of being the “Gilgo Beach Killer.” This has been a case that has haunted this area since the disappearance of a woman in 1996. Ultimately the bodies of 11 women were found in this area and the man who was arrested has now been charged with 6 murders.

How law enforcement officers came to identify the suspect and arrest him is rather complex story of pain-staking and methodical police work. I listened to a press conference by the Suffolk County Executive who announced the arrest and described some of the investigative procedures that were undertaken. I was amazed at the persistent hard labor that the law enforcement officials performed. One piece of evidence was crucial and led to the arrest. Police obtained the suspects DNA where matched DNA from hair left on several of the victims. The suspect had left a DNA trail wherever he went.

Don’t we all leave such a DNA trail as we walk through life? Wherever we go and whatever we do we leave our DNA. We leave our mark. Where do we leave it? What have we been doing in these places? My grandmother and other older women in my childhood neighborhood. told the young people on the block many things. Among them:

1. No matter where you go, someone is always watching you. Behave yourself!
2. God knows what you are doing. Always do the right thing.
3. Don’t go anywhere you wouldn’t want to be found dead in.
4. Act so that people will want you to come back.

Yes, we leave our DNA wherever we go. Where have we left our DNA? Have we left it comforting a troubled child? Have we left it building a house for a family in need? Have we left it encouraging someone who was depressed? Will we be remembered for being the customer who spread joy and peace? Is our DNA sitting in a place where we fed needy, hungry people?

We leave a legacy of the places we go and the things that we do. Let us leave a good legacy and a good trail.

#ReformedChurchInAmerica                                 #PastorMarkAuthor            

#BergenCounty                                                        #BergenfieldNJ

#Legacy                                                                     #DNA

#Deeds                                                                      #Scrutiny

To read more of Pastor Mark’s writings, please look at his website:

www.pastormarkauthor.com

PastorMarkCast

In this episode Pastor Mark asks the question “Where have you left your DNA?” We do leave our mark wherever we go.

Pastor Mark is a Christian Pastor, author, blogger, and sometimes background actor. He brings all of his years of life experience to ask spiritual questions about the ordinary events of life.

Go to this link to hear the podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/pastormarkchat/1040302/

Monday Ministerial Musings

By Rev. Mark William Ennis

2023 Blog #28

July 10, 2023

The Theology of the Cape May Light House

I spent a wonderful Independence Day down the Jersey Shore. Specifically I was in Wildwood and I also visited the Cape May light house. This lighthouse is part of a New Jersey State park and has been guiding ships since it was made operational in 1859. This lighthouse is actually the third lighthouse to sit on the site. The first two, built earlier in the 1800’s were the victims of beach erosion. The current light house, like the two before it, has one purpose, to guide ships away from the potential danger along the coast.

I once read that runway lights at airports were conceived of by modeling light houses. Pilots, like sailors, need lights to guide their passages and keep them out of dangerous terrain. I liken these to reflective posts along highways to keep drivers on the road. In every context of life, we need guidelines to keep us from danger. What are your guidelines?

I have been told by people older than myself, who have a longer view of history, that prior to World War II, our nation frequently used religious faith as the guideline to actions. People in that era would frequently ask, “what does God want me to do?” In the post-World War II era there was a shift in thinking toward the question “what makes me feel good?” In short, we shifted from divinity to humanism.

Certainly, I believe that the shift in philosophies is reflected in our cultural behavior. Just compare how politicians who grew up pre-World War II presented themselves compared to how our current ones do. Is it my imagination or have manners and social graces declined with this change of philosophy from pleasing God to pleasing ourselves?

The pre-World War II America certainly was not perfect and had flaws of its own but I suggest that if we return to letting faith, and God’s written word guide us, we shall have a more civil and classier nation. If every day we woke up more concerned with what God desired of us than our own desires, how much improved would our behavior be?

People who practice faith are now a minority in our nation. But there are many of us who still strive to live faithfully. It is time for us who are faithful to set the badly needed example. To we act as people who ask “what does God expect from us before we think, speak, or act?

Without the faithful lighting the lighthouse, people will follow other lights to guide them. I believe that our communities will benefit if we again shine bright light to guide people toward better, more Godly, ways of living. Will you join me in constructing a tall light house and making sure that it stays lit?

#ReformedChurchInAmerica                                 #PastorMarkAuthor            

#BergenCounty                                                        #BergenfieldNJ

#Lighthouses                                                            #Guidance

#Behavior                                                                  #Godliness

To read more of Pastor Mark’s writings, please look at his website:

www.pastormarkauthor.com

PastorMarkCast

In this week’s episode, Pastor Mark talks about his recent trip to the lighthouse in Cape May, NJ and asks the question, “what light guides you in life?”

Pastor Mark is a Christian Pastor, author, blogger, and sometimes background actor. He brings all of his years of life experience to ask spiritual questions about the ordinary events of life.

Go to this link to hear the podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/pastormarkchat/1030305/

PastorMarkCast

In this week’s episode, Pastor Mark pays tribute to the United States, thanks God for blessing the nation and calls on all of us to pass that blessing along.

Pastor Mark is a Christian Pastor, author, blogger, and sometimes background actor. He brings all of his years of life experience to ask spiritual questions about the ordinary events of life.

Go to this link to hear the podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/pastormarkchat/1022535/

Monday Ministerial Musings

By Rev. Mark William Ennis

2023 Blog #27

July 3, 2023

God Has Blessed America. Pass On The Blessing

Each year on and around July 4^th I hear the phrase “God Bless America.” I say this a lot as well. I love this country. Every time that I have traveled outside of the Unites States, my experiences have caused me to love this country even more. God truly has blessed America and I am grateful that I was born here and continue to reside here.

Each week, accompanied, Ivan who is our Spanish church planter,  when I give lunches to the day laborers in town I hear from these gentlemen how grateful they are to be in this country. Most are fleeing poverty but many are fleeing violence from drug lords and even violence from their governments. There is often terrible retribution to pay for speaking out against the governments in other nations. For these people, coming to America is the greatest blessing of their lives and they appreciate being here in ways that most native born Americans do not.

These newcomers remind me of the grandparents of grammar school friends who immigrated here to gain a better life and insisted that their children and grandchildren learn English and enjoy the fruit of their labors in their new nation. No one that I knew growing up was more patriotic than immigrants and their children. I find that the same is true for newer immigrants as well. They appreciate this country more deeply than those of us who grew up here.

With our aging population I can’t help but wonder what will happen to us without the new wave of immigrants to our country. There are simply not enough native workers to staff our hospitals and rehabilitation centers. We do not have enough people born here to staff the jobs requiring manual labor. Our immigrants bless us at least as much as we bless them by granting them residence here. In short, as the immigration of the 1920’s was mutually beneficial, so the recent immigration is a mutual blessing to us who were born here and to those who are arriving.

Our blessing other does not stop at our shores. My Grandparent’s generation blest the world during World War Two. My parent’s generation kept South Korea Free from the Chinese and North Korean armies.

People a decade older than I traveled the world with the Peace Corps and blessed many nations throughout the world.

Our nation has a long and glorious history of blessing those overseas as well as those traveling the seas to come and live with us. I pray on this, the cusp of Independence Day, our nation will continue to be a blessing to others even as we have been blessed.

I pray that in the future, our nation will continue to be a blessing to those who have lived here for generations as well as for those who have lived here just a short time. God has blessed America and will continue to do so as long as we continue to be a blessing to others.

#ReformedChurchInAmerica                                 #PastorMarkAuthor            

#BergenCounty                                                        #BergenfieldNJ

#IndependenceDay                                                 #Immigration

#Blessing                                                                   #BeingBlessed

To read more of Pastor Mark’s writings, please look at his website:

www.pastormarkauthor.com

PastorMarkCast

In this week’s episode, Pastor Mark talks about Ivan Gil, who has now begun the process toward ordination in the Reformed Church in America.

Pastor Mark is a Christian Pastor, author, blogger, and sometimes background actor. He brings all of his years of life experience to ask spiritual questions about the ordinary events of life.

Go to this link to hear the podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/pastormarkchat/1013124/