He told me once that he did not write books because he had enjoyed rather writing on "the tablets of men's hearts". Some of my most cherished tablet pages were written by my dear and kind indulging friend, Dr. Vernon Grounds.

Today my day started by opening a letter to find out that at ninety six years old, the Lord came for Him and Dr. Grounds absented his body. I only knew him for the last nineteen years of his life. It is a good story, indulge me please.

In 1991 I was two years out as senior pastor and neck deep in the harshest of human brokenness and feeling I was qualified for advanced post doctoral fellowships in inadequacy. So I went to a conference at Elmbrook Church outside Milwaukee and one plenary speaker was Vernon Grounds. The conference was on Holiness and Mental Health. He spoke for three days on the difference Christianity brings to life in a broken and shattered world. He spoke boldly of how Christ is as Peter described "all that we need for life and godliness". He spoke of the sufficiency of Christ and the grace of God for the suffering and tragedies and struggles we face in life. My heart was greatly encouraged. As the conference closed, I approached him, just as another face in the crowd. I wanted to tell him what it had meant to my heart to listen to the truth the last few days as he presented it. He was standing on a stage above me. He motioned in a way that was confusing to me to come down to the end of the stage. I followed a little confused. The end of the stage found us both on the same level and we were eye to eye. He wrapped his arms around me in a big hug and told me how much my encouragement meant to him. That started it all.

I was pastoring in Grand Ledge, Michigan (outside of Lansing). He was on the board for Radio Bible Class in Grand Rapids. So when he would fly in for meetings, we would try to get together. He came to Grand Ledge twice to speak. We relished being with him. He was full of wit and experience and wisdom and a theological grid that traversed the ages and personalities. I remember he spoke the first Sunday night on the one message that he would preach if he knew it was his last message. It was on Colossians 1 and the supremacy of Christ. It was a great message. On his second trip a few years later, he got up to preach this last message of the weekend on a Sunday night...and preached the same exact message. At first I was disappointed. But the more I have reflected upon it, accenting the supremacy of Christ is just the order of the day...and Vernon knew it.

When I came to Southgate, the church welcomed me with an installation service. Dr. Grounds agreed to be the speaker. I treasure the weekend he was here. He was so happy for me. He spoke a message I will always remember. I need to dig the video tape out of the archives and play it again.

His seminal articles on a Christian approach to counseling in Christianity Today in the late fifties and early sixties provided impetus to a fledging entity that has grown to massive proportions. He was so wise. Andi moved with me down here to Springfield. She was turning forty, had just left a house they let us redecorate and we had just re-landscaped the whole place. Our youngest was now leaving home for the school years. She had lost her place. He quietly listened to her in a tender moment that weekend and then put his arm around her and thinking of our new home and this new environment for her, he said, "Plant a bush, Andi. Wait a year. It will all be better." He was right. It was just the sage advice we needed to hear. Realistic, proven over time and spot on.

I heard Dallas Willard say one time that being with Vernon Grounds was like being with on the "Fathers" in that Old Testament sense. What an agile mind! What a warm spirit! What affection for Christ! A giant of influence and grace. His biography written by his long time colleague at Denver Seminary (Bruce Shelley) is aptly entitled Transformed by Love.

He was in seminary with Ken Kantzer and Edith and Francis Schaeffer. Armand Nicholi at Harvard Psychiatry Medical School notes his mentoring influence over his life. He lived so long, he touched so many. His work is done. In his wake is left a bunch of tablets. He has set his quill pen down. No more Christmas letters full of thoughtful provocation. No more lunches with laughter and wisdom and wit. No more consults with pastors-my last visit with him was in his library at the seminary (his ten thousand volume special section..."his library") about four years ago. No more thoughtful devotionals (marked VEG) in our Daily Bread. His work is done.

How grateful I am for the several times Andi and I had the privilege of being with Dr. Grounds and characteristically he would always pick up that godly quill and write on the tablets of our hearts.

Go ahead...pick up your quill today...write away on the tablet of one's heart. Speak gracious godly vitality into their lives! Relating in God's family on this good journey following Jesus has many treasures. Relating to each other in encouraging ways is one of my favorites.

One of my heroes died this month. Ninety nine year old John Wooden, famed coach of the UCLA Bruins, succumbed June 4th. His life was well lived.

Today lead stories on ESPN's Sportscenter are chronicles of our favorite sports hero's latest crime spree or scandal. John Wooden's long life of virtue stands in bold relief. He wanted most to be conceived of as a teacher, a life coach. Oh sure, he was outrageously successful by all standards of measure in ways no coach will ever be. He won seven NCAA March Madness Tournaments in a row (1967-1973). He won ten NCAA Championships in twelve years (1964-1975). He won 80% of his 826 college games. He was ESPN's Coach of the Century. In 2009 Sporting News named him the Greatest Coach of All Time. The Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003...

But one does not get medals and fame for the three most compelling emblems of his life. Yet, we are still talking about him thirty five years after he retired because virtue has a shelf life that out lives our fifteen minutes of Warhol's fame. Ok, his was a half hour.

John Wooden loved his wife. He met Nellie at a Carnival in 1926. They married in August of 1932. It would be a joyous union of 53 years. In March of 1985 cancer ended their storied love affair. Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly made famous Wooden's devotion to Nellie describing monthly love letters on the anniversary of her death each 21st. After agreeing to a book on enduring love, Reilly showed up at the appointed hour and found Wooden weeping saying, "It is too soon!" It was 1995. It is no small irony that his faithfulness in marriage was next door to Hollywood.

John Wooden was out in front of the diversity curve with a city game that actually accelerated the breaking down of walls between the races. In 1947, while coaching at Indiana State, he refused an invitation to the NAIB tournament because they would not allow black players. The team stayed home with their African-American starter. In the aftermath of the turbulent racial discord of the 60's Wooden is found embracing Sidney Wicks when the 1971 NCAA championship game was over. He loved Wicks and every other member of that great team. His pyramid of virtues includes "Friendship: comes from mutual esteem, respect and devotion. A sincere liking for all."

Coach stuck with the fundamentals. His teams excelled because they were devoted to the consistent practice of the basics. All the while he taught them about the basics of life. John Wooden was a follower of Jesus Christ. In a cynical age, Wooden sticks out. He is not easily dismissed. He was the genuine article. His faith explains the legacy of his life. He said, "I've trusted Christ... There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior." May His tribe increase!

Aunt Barb died last Saturday morning. Barbara Wilt was my mom's older sister and the last one left in mom's immediate family, her mom and dad and her middle older sister already gone. You've noted the name of this blog, "Wilt Dairy". Aunt Barb was Uncle Dick's partner for life. She died a couple of days shy of sharing sixty two years in marriage together. Uncle Dick's term of endearment for his life partner was "Becky". His Becky succumbed after a long fight of about ten years with heart, heart value and congestive heart and a troubling blood disorder. She was weak and tired and died a week ago today.

She was a bright gal who loved education. After graduation from Enon High School in 1947 she got married in 1948. She married a dairy farmer who was parlaying a hundred acres plus and some rented ground into a Jersey Dairy farm enterprise. She and Dick shared a great relationship that was practical. She did whatever had to be done to make farming work. She was known to wash the milkers, work the fields, always feed the hired hands and generally lead the household in whatever was needed. She was the designated driver for...the bailer. She noted that was when she always got her tan. She relieved me disking once when were trying to get a field planted before the rain. She was a lot better at it than me.

What was extraordinary was that she stepped up for all that help, while...working full time (teacher), going to night school and finishing a degree, and rearing four kids, with intensive summers in class. The Springfield News-Sun picked up on such super woman tendencies and did an article on how one could get so much accomplished.

She loved to read. Alan Eckert was her favorite historical novelist. The Frontiersman is all about Ohio. She was the perennial threat at Trivial Pursuit. She was the go-to source for knowledge. She was smart and enjoyed learning. She was always asking her grandkids about how they were doing in school. Each Halloween was candy and books. Each Easter was underwear and books. She was covering all the bases.

She lived all of her life on Rebert Pike. She lived a lot of her life next to three married children living on three contiguous properties. The grandkids maintained she never missed anything that went on. She was director of family intelligence in more ways than one.

It was as their kids got older that they gave themselves a little permission to get away. Twice daily milking will keep you tied to the farm unless you make special provision. They got into boating at Lake Cumberland. She loved it and reading on those long summer afternoons off of the back deck of the house boar became one of her favorite past times.

She taught school for over thirty years. She finished at Enon Elementary around 1995. That was the very building where she graduated from high school. She taught two of her kids in kindergarten (Andy and Lori). I had her in kindergarten and she rescued me from one of the great early crises of my educational career. We all took our chairs to the back of the room for a movie. The lights went down and the movie came up. When the movie was over, all of my classmates moved their chairs back to their desks...except for me. I could not move. I was paralyzed with anxiety. I peed my pants and left a puddle and a great crises in the wake. She handled it all so well.

I saved the money I made bailing hay and milking those sweet Jerseys and bought a new Schwinn Continental ten speed touring bike that was sweet. I would ride my bike over to the Wilts and park outside the milk house and go to work. While I milked one night, soon after I took possession of that sweet bike, two kids riding the same bike out from town, spotted that bike and took it as their own. After milking, the thievery was discovered. Aunt Barb took up my honor and we went on an expedition to recover the bike. We drove around a bit and went on a tip about ten miles from the farm into Yellow Springs. Appearing on the horizon were the thieves, one of whom was riding my bike. It was one of her greatest recovery operations of her life. We laughed about it for years. Aunt Barb never did like you to mess with people she cared for.

Aunt Barb was eighty. She shared life with Uncle Dick for more than sixty years. She will be sorely missed. Her four kids and seven grandchildren love each other and they are hurting together. It was a privilege as an outsider, albeit and nephew and cousin, to enter into the inner place and go through the week with them this week. God was such a genius in creating the family.

Pray for Uncle Dick. His Becky is gone. This will be a big transition.

Seventy years of friends and school mates got together. It was an old Greenon High School affair. What a joy to have the privilege of sharing hope with the whole network and extended community. Jesus Christ entered our sorrows and offered himself as the remedy to our sin which brought death. He is still the resurrection and the life. "He who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, yes, he that lives and believes in him will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26

He is seventy seven. He is still sprinting in that great race of following Jesus. Oh, he can't really sprint anymore and, in fact, has walked with a hitch in his gate for years after an accident at work. I love that guy. His name is Bruce. He buried his wife in the last year. But he is still going. But there is a reason why. He is just keeping up an old habit. He and his wife sprinted all of their days.

Their sprinting of choice was investing into other people's lives. They made friends for the kingdom out of their kitchen with Bruce's pancakes and that Maple Syrup he had boiled down in his sugar bush. Those Michigan Hard Maples are all right. He and his wife were always simple folks with a deep faith in Jesus, just always investing in others.

Every fall we would pack the car and head out to their home with our kids. We would go back to the Apple Orchard and pick some apples and come up and drink some warm cider and eat a hot dog; never sophisticated, but always affectionate. I hunted squirrel with my kids in the woods and hunted deer in his woods. In fact, I broke the world record for most shots without results on the first day of dear season in '92 or '93, I can't remember which. I shot sixteen times without success, once from about ten feet when I woke up to see a nice buck staring at me. I would have set a better record if it were not for the fact that I ran out of slugs. Peg said it sounded as if a war had started back there. The three of us laughed so about the whole thing. I got Bruce into the act after retirement. Then he joined me in missing the opportunities of harvest. He could not hit them either.

In the Summer time I lived off of the spoils of their garden and rhubarb. Sharing was second nature and their high joy. They were always investing in people. Five trees survive in my yard from the woods. Bruce and Peg brought them down and we planted them. Bruce and I mudded them in one night and five have survived. They remind us of their generosity.

Just to keep them in the loop of our family eight years after we had left their area, we sent along Caleb's graduation announcement. We were stunned when they pulled into the open house....five and half hours down, two hours there, five and a half hours back. That is Bruce-just another happy day of investment.

It was no surprise then when Bruce called me and asked for lodging. Yes, it was lodging for four. At seventy seven Bruce was continuing his investments in senior high boys. One in particular he had tracked with since childhood. Poor kid has had it rough. His dad was not around for a while and Bruce took up the slack and kept investing and inviting him into the race.

Bruce thought it would be great to bring them down for a day at the Creation Museum. On they came. We had a great time together for a few hours. Bruce was beaming with joy to invest in these lives. He was telling us about how God was at work revealing himself to these young men.

He got up, kind of limped to his car and took off down the road. He called me later to say they had an outrageous day of fun and learning and challenge.

Some day Bruce will be gone. The body of Christ will be lesser. We need guys like Bruce who live simply and invest themselves in others. I find so few in their seventies like Bruce. May their tribe increase!

Bruce has been a great blessing to our family. He and his wife loved us and loved our children. Those are great gifts...that we all can afford and which pay such rich dividends.

I can hear it now over the balcony, "This is my beloved son, Bruce, in him I am well pleased." He'll limp home someday and enjoy forever those relationships that he and wife sought to cultivate in God's family for all their days.

Keep going buddy! We need more of you and your investments!

About ten days ago Harold Hoehner died. He was my professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. As I understand, after his morning jog, he experienced a cardiac event and went to heaven rather abruptly. This New Testament Scholar and director of PhD studies at Dallas was seventy four. It made me realize that as I stumble onto fifty years of age those who have gone on before me in previous generations begin to pass off of the scene. Again, "we're it!" surrounds my conscience in something with much greater stakes than tag.

I had Dr. Hoehner for two classes at Dallas Seminary. One was for a class in New Testament Introduction. This thorough going Cambridge scholar was encyclopedic when it came to the history and chronology of the inter-testamental period. He knew all the stories that added color to the important fill that helped the learner. Most every class was a combination of a beginning Aggie joke (humor indigenous to Texas as the Aggies fall prey to the butt end of the barb) and an engaging discussion of the matters before the class working through the content. He drew from such a deep well that the discussions for him seemed effortless. He was scholarly, but approachable and his humor made him humane and tricked you into thinking he was common. His mind and heart were anything but common.

He was a thorough going New Testament scholar. I had him for the section of 1 Corinthians in the Greek cycle that all ThM students took at that time. He understood the grammar of the New Testament and could unpack the nuances of the language with such clarity. I will always remember an experience I had in my section of the 1 Corinthians class. After we exegeted 1 Corinthians 7 we all had to write a position paper on marriage, divorce and remarriage. He chose from our section a range of positions on the topic and got us all up in front of the class on a panel to defend our position. At the time, I was espousing some bizarre position that divorce in the Bible exclusively and only related to the break ups of engagement/betrothal (not unlike the Joseph and Mary issue that Joseph contemplated after God overshadowed Mary). At the time myself, Bill Gothard, and three independent fundamentalists pastors in South Carolina held that view. Gothard could not have even defended that view on that day, but nonetheless I tried. I have never been skewered so graciously nor has a rotisserie ever treated its prey with such dignity and respect. His questions made me think about thoughts I had never considered before. He pressed me in frontier areas of my thought that blazed virgin trails. Isn't that the job of the master teacher- to lead in thinking and reflection? As he pressed me in front of the class before whom I was empanelled, He treated me with so much regard and held affirmation out for my convictions. All the while, he was frying my ideas on the text and other passages he brought to bear on the issue. He closed with a pastoral charge to all of us to hold these positions with the utmost grace as we dealt with people. He knew way ahead how easy the arguments go down in front of your peers in class and knew well before we saw it clearly how painful the issue of divorce is for the church. He urged us to maintain our convictions earnestly, holding onto them with grace as we deal with the broken. I have never forgotten how he dealt with me that day. Grace, scholarship and careful thought soaked in the text were the order of that day...and every day in Dr. Hoehner's classes.

The best vantage point I have ever heard to explain a Biblical recognition of changes in God's economy (dispensations) was his rehearsal of a debate he was involved in (if I am remembering right) at his beloved Houghton College. In the middle of the debate he asked his foe if he had brought a lamb to worship the previous Sunday. His partner reluctantly admitted that in fact, he had not. Dr. Hoehner then inquired into whether approaching God was different before Sinai than after. Then he pressed to ask if at the consummation of all things relating to God would be different. On all four fronts his interlocutor had to admit change. That is just recognizing Biblical change and not making the text walk on all fours...or is it sevens? I think even the DTS doctrinal statement only lists four seasons of God's relatedness to humanity in redemptive history. I've used his "Did you bring a lamb?" question since that time. Yes, it is finished...gloriously finished once and for all. The curtain was changed...just unraveled right in the face of being made obsolete. How delightful is the new and living way.

I had few personal encounters with him. He did not know my name. But around 1987 I ran into him at a national conference. We exchanged pleasantries and he began to inquire just where I was and what was going on in my family's life. At the time we were potty training Caleb, our oldest. It is not everyday that you get the opportunity to discuss potty training toddlers with a Cambridge scholar! But I will always remember the advice he gave to my wife and me. He said, "You know my wife and I stressed over potty training with our oldest and the more we stressed the less successful we were. We decided that as long as he was potty trained by college, we were ok. We relaxed and then it happened." We laughed and departed, but that was probably some of the best advice we ever received on potty training. "Relax, it will happen!" That reminds me of the many faceted sides to a neat guy: scholar, quick witted aggie jokester and down to earth friend and mentor. That is a great package and one which will be sorely missed in the DTS family and God's kingdom.

Oh sure, he was not perfect. It is funny to read his introduction to his magnum opus on Ephesians. I think he was only fifteen years or so late on the deadline for publication. The series the book was to be included in might have been out of print by the time he went to press. He blew by all length restrictions and wrote himself out of anything but a stand alone publication with New Testament scholars galore from all over the world commenting on the jacket cover.

All of us do something with our lives. Dr. Hoehner's something was with the text of the New Testament and with students. His students live indebted to him. His memory spurs us on to careful thought and life long learning. Thank God for Dr. Hoehner.

Every once in a while someone in our culture wakes up! They seem to rise above the joint aspirations of all humanity in the western world and they see over the top of our frantic quest for material goods and they call a time out. Then they make some announcement about change and everyone is stunned, especially if their cultural position is one most envied-big salary, multiple properties, in a word-one of those "have it all" people. Annika woke up this Spring, but that is getting ahead of the story.

Annika Sorenstam is the most successful professional women's golfer who has ever played the game. This sweet Sweed grew up in Skandanvia and developed a passion for golf. She went to college at the University of Arizona and has had a storied career. The girl won just about all of the major college titles. In 1994 she was the rookie of the year on the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour (LPGA). Fourteen years later, it is more than ten major tournament victories, over seventy regular tournament wins and as of the end of last year $20,837,280 dollars down the road. Those numbers put you in stead for amazing opportunities with endorsements and advertising checks you can cash as well.

What red-blooded America male does not yearn for those numbers and those opportunities? Those are the numbers of dreams for most. Her lifestyle is the envy of the masses in this headlong quest to get all you can and grab for such financial gusto. Is not that the pinnacle? Is not that what is best? Is not that the ultimate? Is not that the good life?

"No, it is not!" That was her answer at a stunning press conference where she announced her retirement from professional golf. She is walking away from it all...at full stride in the midst of an incredible run. Time magazine's May 26th edition quoted her as saying, "I have a lot of dreams. I want to live and I'm getting married." The article later went onto to say that she wants to have a family. What? She is trading it all in for a family life that makes sense and children. What's wrong with Annika? Or is it what is right with Annika?

How many families do you know have been ruined with debt and obligation way over their head? How many families do you know that have mortgaged their children on the altar of building their portfolio and moving up the corporate ladder with mind bending and family wrecking hours? Annika has "been there and done that" and now offers a piece of advice, "Family life is worth more than it all!"

It seems counter-intuitive to what we are taught and how we live. Yet, we can see that personal tragedies abound as folk wreck, relationally and financially, on their way to the mountain peak of fiscal nirvana. It takes someone who has gone before us, someone with the courage to say what is true and someone with a will to swim against the culture of unquenchable financial appetites. It takes a high profile success story to stab us awake.

By God's design, the family is life's great treasure. Knowing God through Jesus Christ and being in his family stands at the head of the list. Then relating to your own family is next. Loving your spouse and children and celebrating the blessing of God in relating. Now not everyone has the privilege to be married. But we all have the privilege of celebrating our relatedness to our friends. People matter. They are life's great treasures. Relationships are the spoils of the good life, not assets and accumulated wealth.

Sometimes it takes an oddity like Annika and her decision to step away from golf to experience family life to wake us up to what has been embedded in God's book and God's mind all along.

"How blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways. When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy and it will be well with you. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine, within your house, your children like olive plants around your table. Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord." Psalm 128:1-4

I think Annika's next great announcement after the wedding will be a birth announcement. She is coming back to what God had designed all along.

March of 2008 is over and its passing was a bit significant for Andi and me. It marked thirty years. Yes, thirty years...a thirty year association with Southgate Baptist Church. How that association has enriched our lives!

In March of 1978 we came to our first service...a half-hour late. We arrived at 11:00, when the service had started at 10:30 A.M. We were shuttled to the then "overflow room" (now the kitchen area). We sat down, as Dr. Franklin Logsden got up. He had been a former pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago, Illinois. He preached on God coming to Hagar and Ishmael and revealing Himself as Beer-Lahai-roi. It means "You God see me". It became a place-name for God coming to Hagar and sustaining her with His promise and presence. I will always remember that first message that I heard. In the middle of the message, Dr. Logsden unfurled an accordion like mesh of strung together letters cut out of colored construction paper. It was secreted in his Bible. As he spoke about this name for God, "You God see me", he pulled it out and held it up. I said to myself at the time, "I'll never do that". And I have not. But I have never forgot that first message and that name for God has come home to mean a great deal to me as I have been with God's people through the years.

I was eighteen and a freshman in my third quarter at Cedarville College (now university). Early on I tried out a Spring clean-up the grounds and tree planting meeting. I connected to the Johnson family that day and had an inkling of a thought that maybe I could belong here. Shirley was clearly the CEO on the project. Bucky and I loyally followed. Paul Ware was the brains but became demure before the organizational skills of Shirley Johnson. The only dissenter was Everett Wipert who pushed back all morning as we planted trees. The banter was classic, neither one of them gave ground and we all laughed and left and went home. After that, I knew a couple of people. That was the beginning.

Thirty years later everything is different and the same all at once. Shirley is still organizing. The clothes pantry is organized better than most major department store clothes' warehouses. Everett's wisdom is still in vogue (he always maintained that it was not done snowing flaking until the Forsythia bush had bloomed. I saw one blooming today. Yes, Everett we'll wait on Spring until we see the last flakes). Colby Goodrich, Jr. is still without a mom on earth. Ruth died at thirty-nine in those days. Colby is still here in worship. God be praised...for our hope and more! Whole bunches of people have moved on. Stable jobs in our area and the chance for vocational promotion have not been plentiful. We no sooner get to know great families and God moves them on. Staffs have changed and lay leadership has changed. We are in the midst of the second wave of lay leaders who have taken the baton and are moving forward.

It is difficult to describe what this body means to Andi and me. You supported me and followed my basketball games while I was in college. We were married here in June of 1982. We birthed our boys here. An OB/GYN who cares for your wife is worth his weight in gold. We will always live in Dave and Vangie's debt. Your affirmation and generosity helped us through seminary. Your belief in our gifts helped us get our legs in ministry. You let me fail and still loved me and helped to shape me. I was ordained here in May of 1987. And to top it off, in 1995, you entrusted me with the care of the flock. It is a great honor and privilege and a joy of my heart. I covet your prayer.

Ok, there were some missteps. What was that 40th year birthday surprise? ? I also do not want to leave the impression that it has been some thirty year uninterrupted love-fest. I have made some people mad and am not on other folk's favorite list. Because I am proud that used to bother me more. It stills bothers me. But my heart now yearns more than ever to be on God's pleasure list. I want Him to take pleasure in me. If that takes place, it doesn't matter how it sorts out with others. If we would all but live for the great day! Let's us live to please Him! Then when we please Him, he makes even our enemies to be at peace with us (Proverbs 16:7).

But I have many more friends here and brothers and sisters who have meant the world to me in these last thirty years. Thank you Southgate for the pleasure of your company along this good way following Jesus Christ. There is nothing like a great family to accompany you on the way. Thank you, I will always live grateful for your affection and support. You mean a great deal to us.

Any parent yearning for the right thing dies to have great folks involved with their children. The aspirations of our hearts are informed by 3 John 4 where John says, "I have no greater joy than to see my children walking in the truth." Because of that joy, we break ourselves to get these people around our kids who can influence them for Christ's sake. We love to have them around models that are following hard after the One who loved us and gave Himself for us.

Our Abbey has several older young married gals who are interested in her. These ladies love Jesus and it rubs off on Abbey and wets her desire as she is with them and they pour their lives into her. They are worth their weight in gold to Andi and me. We relish every time that Abbey has to be with them. We relish Caleb spending time with this one older young leader in our church.

Ben had a neat thing happen in his life. He is a sophomore at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We knew they were in a search for a new president, but we are way out of that information loop. Then eight days ago, I received word that they were announcing their new president over the weekend-a guy you would die to have influence your children.

When I was in college at Cedarville in the late seventies, it was chapel and what some Cedarville then Dallas Theological Seminary graduate preachers modeled in chapel that stuck home to my heart. I began to ponder my vocational future as I experienced yearnings in my heart to dig deep into the Word of God and communicate it to others. Leading in that provocation was young man in his thirties named Joseph M. Stowell III. He had been the founding pastor at the church where I was attending and now serve, the Southgate Baptist Church. When he opened the Bible, God filleted my heart and exposed my unbelief and my fear and self-centeredness. I majored in Business Administration with an emphasis in management and was headed to Navistar to follow my dad into management there building trucks. But God intercepted that pass and ran beside me in another direction.

That change of course was particularly mediated in one hour I spent with Joe in the Spring of 1980 when he was preaching a week of meetings at Cedarville. I took my spirit, which was wrestling with my future and trying to identify what I now know as desires for ministry involvement, into that office and laid it out in front of Joe. He kindly indulged me and encouraged me to not consider why I should not go into ministry with such aspirations, but to think, why shouldn't I (given these yearnings) go into ministry. He gave me permission to think that God could use me. He then talked about an important threshold moment of decision that he had in being counseled years before by our mutual friend, Wendell Kempton. That discussion with Wendell proved decisive for Joe, as did that March of 1980 discussion with Joe proved for me. He encouraged me to pray a prayer that I have utilized these last twenty seven years. "Lord, make me to be your kind of man (a prayer for godliness) and make me to be in your place of ministry." That prayer covers all the bases. Be godly! Be in God's place! What more is there?

Joe ended that discussion with a line I was foolish enough to believe, "Eric, let's stay in touch. I am interested in you." And he was serious. And I have. And one of the great blessings of my life has been the times, however infrequent, that Joe has taken me into his circle and we would grab a personal hour here and there. He is one of those guys who gives you his undivided attention when you are with him. I was with him one day with a professor from Wheaton with a great wit who I had just met. He leaned over to me as we were eating lunch and said, "Isn't it great to be one of Joe's five thousand close friends?" We both laughed heartily and gratefully unto the Lord.

Joe spoke at my ordination service in 1987. Psalm 11, I will always remember the message. He spoke at my installation service in Grand Ledge, Michigan in January of 1990. That was a surprise gift to me by the leadership of the Church. But it was super bowl night. I felt a little bad...we had a great preacher there...but Joe Montana drew a larger crowd than Joe Stowell. Those kinds of friends in ministry are invaluable. I stand on their shoulders and serve our Lord. I will always live in his debt.

So, you could understand our joy in receiving the news last Thursday that Joe was to be announced as president. I immediately emailed Ben the line, "I just feel like something good is about to happen". I told Ben he was going to have a good weekend. He phoned back and said the tease was too much...but we held out.

On Monday Ben went to chapel as Joe spoke and was introduced as the new president of Cornerstone University. He waited in line and at his turn, introduced himself as Benjamin Warfield Mounts. Ben is named after a famous Princeton Seminary prof from the 19th and early 20th centuries who loved the Bible and loved his wife all of his days. Years ago when Ben was a boy, I introduced Ben to Joe with his full name. Characteristically, Joe celebrated the introduction and enveloped Ben in a big bear hug and gave a focused few minutes to a college sophomore. Ben walked away and immediately phoned us. His world was just enlarged. God had delivered a grace gift to the university and Ben will benefit from the bounty. And we who yearn to have godly folks around our kids to build into their lives...could not be more pleased! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!