CURRENT CAREER – I am doing pastoral care work for First Congregational Church. What that means is that I visit people, those side-lined by age or illness, or the hospitalized, or in nursing homes or assisted care settings, or in their homes. I listen to and pray with them. I am learning a lot about the frail side of life, especially macular degeneration and fading memories. I also do a little teaching and preaching and assist FCC's outstanding Lead Pastor Chad Oyer in any way he invites me to help out.
EDUCATION - Majored in philosophy at Muskingum College. I have a Master of Divinity from McCormick Seminary in Chicago but took my third year at Heidelberg University in West Germany. I was blessed to receive lots of scholarship assistance all the way through school, partly because I was smart but mostly because I had no money. I earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from United Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. I have done post graduate work at the University of Chicago and Princeton Seminary.
FAMILY- Married Karen 9/14/1968. We have two sons. The younger is in TC, Jeremy. He is the Friend of the Court. Mike is in Chicago and a Professor of Theology in a seminary. We have 11 grandchildren. Jeremy's eight are mostly grown. Mike has a one in kindergarten, a first grader, and a junior in high school.
FAVORITE DESSERT - I love cookies, cakes, pies, donuts and ice-cream. If it is bad for me, I probably crave it. As a kid, I dreamed of being locked in a bakery overnight. My first discovery in TC was Potters Bakery.
FAVORITE ACTIVITY – To make up for all those calories, I elliptical for about 50 minutes from 9:00 till 10:00 at night while watching sports - football, basketball, volleyball, swimming, American Ninja Warrior, and mixed martial arts. I have maintained this habit for many years.
LAST BOOK READ – Seriously, I read a lot. To help me in my pastoral care work I recently taught a class on the book, Keeping Love Alive As Memories Fade: The 5 Love Languages and the Alzheimer's Journey. I am on the staff of the Trinity School of Transformation and two books I am currently studying: You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit, James K.A. Smith and Dallas Willard's Renovation of the Heart.
For fun, I just started Thomas Jay Oord's The Uncontrolling Love of God and just completed Roger Olson's The Essentials of Christian Thought: Seeing Reality Through the Biblical Story, explaining how the Bible has its own philosophy. Olson is convincing, I think.
However, the most important book I've read in the last decade is by a Muslim intellectual, Ibn Warraq, Why the West Is Best. He along with other Muslim intellectuals lives with constant death threats. He has written many books. Every Rotarian should read this book. His exposition of the values of the West is brilliant, scintillating, accurate, and critically important. I am saddened by how little Americans and Europeans know of our own history. We focus on the flaws, which are numerous, but we are deeply ignorant of our true wealth. Warraq is an outsider who sees with great clarity what we take for granted.
FAVORITE MOVIE – A recent movie we enjoyed, Hidden Figures. We also watched a truly inspiring movie about dealing with the Ebola virus in Liberia, Facing Darkness. Real stories of real people, doing courageous things.
FAVORITE SONG – "Let Him Live" from Les Miserables. My son Jeremy can sing it beautifully.
TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT YOURSELF NO ONE IN THE CLUB LIKELY KNOWS –
I went to school to play football. As a freshman, I started as an offensive pulling guard. Muskingum played in the first ever Division III Bowl game, the 1964 Grantland Rice Bowl: Muskingum College vs Middle Tennessee State. We lost big time. I was far, far from a star, but I was the best guy left at the position who could still block and run. It was the apogee of my football life.
LIFE ROLE MODEL – Many men influenced me, but the campus minister who nurtured my faith was Dr. Will Franklin, and the professor who was a great philosophy teacher was Dr. Joe Elkins. They awakened in me a passion to learn and to love God and others.
MOST SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENT – First, waking up most mornings, so far. Second, being able to move. I'm feeling more and more like the rusting Tin Man. More seriously, after 9/11 I was honored to study for a month with University of Chicago professor Jean Bethke Elshtain. She also came to FCC and gave a couple of presentations on the Just War tradition. Secondly, I spent a month with Princeton professor Max Stackhouse on the topic of his multi volume study, God and Globalization. Both were great teachers and exemplary human beings.
PROUDEST MOMENT - Being with my wife for the births of our two sons.
FUNNIEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU - This was embarrassing and funny. I was at a conference at the Bismarck Hotel in Chicago. There was an agreement that allowed me to exercise at the Randolph Athletic Club on the 27th floor across the street. I did so Thursday and Friday. On Saturday morning Tony the elevator operator was not present so I took the elevator up to the Athletic Club. It was closed Saturday. The elevator would not respond to the call button. I found myself stuck on a 27th floor in a hallway with no way out. This was long before cell phones. I prayed and God pointed out a window in that hallway. I opened and discovered a hardly ever used fire-escape. It flipped down 27 floors, section by section. I had no idea what I was doing but I started down. It made a ton of noise. Clickety-clack, clunk, clunk, down and down I went 27 floors, each time wondering if it would work. I flipped down the rusty fire-escape ladder section by section on the outside of a downtown Chicago building. I imagined headlines: "Clergyman arrested for waking the dead on Saturday morning." When I finally descended the last section of the creaking clanking fire-escape to an alley there was a security guy in a uniform to greet me. He kind of looked like John Candy. He asked a bunch of questions about what the hell I was doing. Finally, he allowed me to go back to my conference. Going down those fire-escapes was quite an adventure but not a lot of exercise. It did make for a pretty good sermon illustration of the amazing ways God works to deliver us.
SECRET AMBITION - Maybe visiting the National Parks.
IF YOU COULD BE ANYONE IN THE WORLD FOR A DAY (present or historical), WHO WOULD THAT BE---AND WHY? Maybe Winston Churchill. I love his courage and his testimony. He planned his own funeral. He instructed that after the benediction that a bugler positioned high in the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral would play Taps, the universal signal that says the day is over. After a pause, a second bugler on the other side of the massive dome would play Reveille, it is time to get up. That was Churchill's testimony that Jesus Christ has the last word, both at the end of his life and of history; the last note will not be death but new life.
MOST FAMOUS PERSON MET - President Gerald Ford. He spoke a few words at the rededication of Shiloh Church in Dayton, Ohio. There had been a terrible fire and we rebuilt over two years. President Ford was visiting Dayton and Sr. Minister Barry Johnson invited him to say a few words. He did. The secret service was all over the staff and the building. President Ford and his wife were wonderful.
ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO SHARE – I thank God for Rotary, especially for Traverse City's Noon Rotary Club. It has been and remains a force for good not only in our community but throughout a hurting world. It is a privilege to be a part of TC Rotary. Service above self is not just a motto.
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