Tag Archives: holidays

A Message from Pastor Craig: 6-23-2024

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Two pastors that I have known well have passed away recently.  One of them just last week and I’m kind of reeling from it. His name was Tanner White.  Tanner came out of Tampa, went to Seminary, and through some mishaps that were beyond my understanding, did not have an appointment at the end of his Seminary stint.  Tanner or the District Superintendent, I don’t remember who, approached me about taking him on as another associate.  I found in him an incredibly gregarious young man, an odd mix of incredible drivenness (he was making good money as a medical recruiter even during seminary) and an innocence about the religious life, its complications, politics, demands, etc.  For the time that he was with us, I had three young associates, and our weekly pastoral staff meetings always included intense conversations, deep laughter and sincere prayer.  I had not experienced that ever before, and never will again.  That privilege was not lost on me, but conversely, I did not fully live into all the talent that was in the room for those years.  God is not done with me yet!  Tanner was 36 years old and now he is gone.

The other pastor I got to know over lunch.  I knew who he was but he didn’t know me.  He was well known and I wasn’t.  He was our Bishop, and I was just a pastor in Southwest Florida somewhere.  But one day at Annual Conference, I dared to ask him if he would be open to lunch someday, and to my surprise he said yes.  Now, I had to drive a couple of hours to meet him in his office, but we became friends through those times.  I learned a lot about his life, both professionally and personally, through the ensuing couple of years when I would
sporadically drive all the way to Lakeland for lunch.  He was older and wiser than me.  And substantially smarter too.  He could talk patristics at the drop of a hat.  Actually, at the drop of a hat he could speak authoritatively just about anything.  He was brilliant, and well read, and soft spoken.  And a bishop.  A wonderful mix that suited our Conference well.

He eventually asked me to be the District Superintendent of the Southeast District. That meant that I spent a lot more time with him in the last 3 years he remained the Bishop of Florida before he retired.  We still had lunch together occasionally during those years, which was a personal time with him that I cherished.  Timothy Whitaker had a lot to offer me as the younger pastor in ministry. I learned a lot from him…I appreciated the spirit in which he did everything, with charity and a lot of thought.  Bishop Whitaker was 75 when he passed away in March.

When you lose a retired pastor, you lose history.  You lose a sense of the past.  And you lose insight informed by years of failures and successes.  With Timothy Whitaker specifically, you lost a fountain of information on the distant past – he was known for the depth of his knowledge of the Early Desert Mothers and Fathers, and general church history.  We lost a theologian who brought personal and scholastic history into his sermons, writings and conversations.

When you lose a young pastor, you lose the future.  No matter what uncertainties lie in the future, you know who will confront them when you know younger people.  The church generally, and the United Methodist Church specifically, is headed into unchartered territories, and Tanner was the face of that new church.  As a matter of fact, Tanner was just ordained at the June Annual Conference as a Full Elder.  He literally was the youngest pastor in our midst.  We knew who was going to take on the future.  Or at least we thought we did.

We are diminished by anyone we lose.  Mathematically that is not significant, I know.  But as friends, as colleagues, as people who pour into our lives in different ways, when they are gone, we are diminished.  And I feel that in both bookends of my life right now.  I miss both T.W.’s.  I am better for having known them both.  And grateful to the Lord for the privilege.

Craig

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful servants.  Psalm 116:15

A Message from Pastor Craig: 6-16-2024

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Recently a group of us went to a Marlins game together.  I had gotten a call from their marketing people saying that they had a “faith and family” night, and so a group of us braved the traffic to downtown Miami during rush hour (not the textbook time to drive to Miami), and ate Casola’s pizza (a sort of historical pizza place in Miami, and a favorite for working guys; it’s always packed at lunch time).  Anyway, we had a great time.  And the Marlins won!  If we were good luck charms, they should have invited us way earlier!

I read something yesterday that blew my mind.  Not about our church and not about the Marlins, but about professional baseball.  While watching the game last week, Janice and I had wondered about how they could get the close-up cameras onto the field like they do in football.  We couldn’t figure it out.  But it turns out others have been working on alternatives.

A couple of weeks ago now, a guy by the name of Kiké Hernández made an error at third base.  A ball came to him, it hit his bare hand, he flubbed it a little, eventually grabbing it and threw the ball to first base, but too late to get the runner out.

You know WHY he messed up?  He was being interviewed for a radio show!  On the field!  While he was playing.  And the league?  They are the ones promoting it!  To the tune of $10k for regular games, and $15 large for post-season games!  Have you counted the exclamation points here!?  What could go wrong with that?  For instance, it’s the fourth game of the World Series, there’s a full count, bottom of the ninth, the pitcher is aiming the ball in his head, mindful of the 15 second clock winding down on the side, when through his earphone he hears Gomer Pyle asking him “how ya feelin’?’  Oh wait, that’s what happened to ol’ Kiké.  He was on the phone when the ball came his way!  Who could possibly think you will get the best performance from an athlete while they are involved in a conversation with somebody elsewhere?  How about this example. Tiger Woods is about to tee off, the crowd is hushed, the announcers are whispering little nothings, and over Tiger’s headphones someone asks “how’s your love life?”  What could go wrong with that?!

We live with a lot of distractions.  It’s against the law to drive distracted, but distractions bombard us whether we are driving, working, studying, or anything.  Those distractions affect our work and even our conversations.  If Janice had a dime for every time I have asked her to repeat her last sentence, she’d be a rich woman.  I create my own distractions, never mind putting another conversation in my earpiece.

I think we often talk to God distracted.  We only say short prayers because, if we elaborate with Him, we end up thinking about something else, and “Squirrel!” we’re off thinking about something else, and have to apologize to the Lord when we eventually come back.  We need to work at having less distractions, and hence focusing on what is before us.  All conversations are important, and whether with God or with other people, they deserve our full attention.  Just like the game deserves Kiké’s, or anybody else’s carrying on a conversation on the field for an extra $10,000.00.

I’m sorry, what was I saying…?

The Reverend Craig Nelson

All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.  Proverbs 14:23

A Message from Pastor Craig: 6-9-2024

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Is it true that absence makes the heart grow fonder?  You’ve heard the expression many times I’m sure, maybe even used it when missing somebody, or realizing they’re not there.  As I write this, I am having such an experience, not with a person, but with a thing.

That thing is called A/C.  The A/C in our home died four days ago, right before the weekend—of course!  The technicians couldn’t get an order in soon enough, so we have been dealing with the heat here on 10th Ave!  It really is OK, but I will tell you: not having A/C truly reminds me of the blessing, no, I’m going to call it necessity, of A/C.

Historians as well as myself could wax eloquent on the history of A/C to the direct correlation of the advent of A/C to the boom of Florida residents.  Of course lots of people lived here before A/C, but they were hardy people, pioneering-type people. The masses came once you could cool your personal space down.

So, obviously, people can live without A/C, but like any potent drug, once you have found relief in feeling it, you don’t want to go back.  And that’s where I sit today, waiting for the technicians to come with our new A/C like a puppy looks out the window waiting for the school bus in the afternoon.

I know that I will celebrate when they come. I will dance when it gets connected, and crank that thing down so low that Janice will be wearing a parka!  By this evening though, I will have forgotten all about it, carrying on as we normally do along with the rest of normal Floridians.  I will take it for granted just as I did back last Thursday before it died.  So did the A/C’s absence make my heart grow fonder of it?  Well, right now, sure.  By tonight… not so much. 

Now all of this has been about air conditioning, but it’s probably not what the saying refers to.  What about people?  Do their absences make our hearts grow fonder?  I don’t know.  Maybe it depends on what you mean by “fondness.”  I remember when Janice and I were engaged.  She lived in Texas and I lived in New York.  That was the time of the breakup of AT&T, and we benefited from a then-new long-distance company called Sprint.  We also benefited from an ill-fated airline called People Express.  We could tell you stories about that one!  We travelled as often as we could, as we missed each other, but I do think my heart grew fonder of her when I spent time with her.  The partings were harder and harder the more time we spent together, not the time we spent apart.

I think loving relationships grow as we spend time together.  What do they say – love is spelled T-I-M-E?  Relationships are built around experiences and conversations, not spending time apart.  And so it is also with our relationship with God.  Spending a month full of Sundays away from church will not grow us closer to the Lord.  A year without cracking a Bible will not make us better children of God.  Hanging out with non-Christians will not better Christians make.  So I guess it should say “presence makes the heart grow fonder.”  The more time we spend with God, the more our love for Him will grow.  I think that works in the spiritual world and in the physical world.

And yes, the longer I have lived with A/C, the more I miss it when it’s gone!

Looking forward to a cool house this evening,

Craig

And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds.  Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have made a habit, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.  Hebrews 10:24,25

A Message from Pastor Craig: 6-2-2024

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The South Florida Fairgrounds hosts the Barret Jackson car auction every year, and whether with friends or family, I have wasted, I mean, spent good money attending that automotive spectacle for several years now.  Because we never get there early in the day, we have had to park way out in the jingweed (as my in-laws called it). In doing so, we have always walked past this closed gate and what appeared to be wood buildings behind the tall walls. Too much in a hurry going in, and too tired on the way back, we never stopped to see what lurked behind the chained gates.

Until the other day when Janice and I decided to check out the Yesteryear Village at the South Florida Fairgrounds. We followed the GPS instructions, got redirected because of a big concert happening later that evening, but ended up at those very gates. I smiled as we got there, thinking “oh, so that’s what it was.”

Have you ever been there?  There’s not much you can do in Palm Beach County for $10 anymore, not even get a Big Mac meal.  So, for $7 for seniors, it’s the best bargain in town.  They have moved many old buildings from around the state to assemble a village of, well, yesteryear, depicting some of the history of Florida.  One building houses a collection of Southern Bell equipment, another a dentist office, and while they have no yesteryear cars (the horror!), they do have several fire trucks, one pretty old and very long.

There is a church that came from Central Florida somewhere that was being used as hay pitch once the congregation had outgrown it and moved elsewhere. They have the largest one-room schoolhouse I’ve ever seen.  Not that it was huge or anything, but in rural North Carolina and elsewhere most seemed considerably smaller than this one.  I found it interesting that that building ceased to be a school in the early 60’s, and then became a church.

So, one building was built as a church and then became a hay loft, and another was built as a school and then became a church.  What’s to be learned from this?  Well, that the building doesn’t define the activity, but that the activity defines the building.  Oh, it grieves me when I see an old church being used as a pub or a gym (as is the case of South Miami UMC), it really does.  But even on our own campus we worship in both a building built as a sanctuary at 11 a.m. and in a building built as a gym at 9:30 a.m. God is glorified in both.  What does 1 Samuel say?  “People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  That is true for people and for buildings – what matters is what is going on inside.

The stroll through the Fairground’s museum served as a great reminder that the buildings, the physical plant, is not what matters, but what we do in the space that God gives us.  Jesus said to the Woman at the Well that “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”  Not just in the temple in Jerusalem, or at a shrine on a mountain, but in spirit – anywhere and everywhere.  So, whatever the venue is this morning in worship, what matters is where our heart is, where our minds are (spirit and truth He said), not where our seats are.

Glad you are in church today!

Craig

I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.  Psalm 145:1

A Message from Pastor Craig: 5-26-2024

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Riding mountain bikes has always made me feel like a kid.  Back when I was a boy, I rode my Schwinn Sting Ray bike like it was a mountain bike—riding through coffee plantations, creating jumps wherever I could. When they came out with a front shock absorber for bikes, I thought the idea was the best thing since sliced bread (I don’t know when that was).

So, when a friend told me about the Santos Trailhead mountain bike course, I jumped at the idea.  Suddenly, any church meeting in Leesburg was a delightful excuse to take my bike up there.  Yes, my participation in Leesburg meetings both went up in terms of how often I went, and down in terms of hours spent sitting in the Green Room at the Life Enrichment Center.  Confession is good for the soul.  That was a long time ago.

Folks created that trail in the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway.  I thought it quite progressive of Florida to have a greenway all the way across the state like that, and quite generous in letting a group of guys build an extensive bike course on it (I got lost for about 20 minutes deep in the bowels of it – it’s really big!).

But last night I learned where the Greenway came from.  Back in 1567, the King of Spain proposed a canal to be built to cross Florida, allowing their bounty to be shipped quicker back to Spain.  In 1818 the US Government suggested the same thing, but for military purposes.  But it was FDR that finally provided funds to do it.  Big money.  Big project.  Big publicity.  Until somebody figured out that the salt water from the ocean was going to penetrate the aquifer, and eliminate potable water for all of Florida.

Both Kennedy and Johnson thought the idea was good and revived it in the 1960’s, and Nixon finally killed it.  YouTube has a great video on this, look under Boondoggle.

Boondoggle – what a great word.  It speaks to a government project that costs lots and lots of money, takes lots and lots of time, and ultimately ends in nothing.  The canal cost billions in today’s dollars, and ultimately yielded a mountain bike course?!

Boondoggle – one could argue that the human condition is just that.  Paul, in writing to the Ephesians said “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world.” (Ephesians 2:1,2).  How many prophets had God sent to redeem His people?  How many oceans parted, manna dropped, wars won, kings provided, for us to end up when Jesus came, “dead in our transgressions and sin?”

The remarkable thing?  Paul also said: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  And God isn’t just making a bike trail out of millions of acres of mistake, he has made us co-heirs with Christ – we have been turned into His children!  John said so in John 1:12: Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

Wow!  God still has work to do in us, just as there is work to be done on the canal.  They created a dam, today it’s called the Kirkpatrick Dam, which creates the Rodman Reservoir in Putnam County.  To tell you about that is an article for another day. Our lives have plenty of remnants of our old life, just like the Cross Florida Greenway does.  Praise God He’s not done with us yet, and let’s pray the same for the old canal.  On that topic – let me know what you think should be done with the Kirkpatrick Dam.  But in the meantime, let’s enjoy praising the One who has redeemed us and made us whole.

Going bike riding,

Craig

In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.  Psalm 5:3

A Message from Pastor Craig: 5-19-2024

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Sitting in traffic in Tennessee is not unlike sitting in traffic anywhere else – boring and monotonous, keeping you away from your destination.  Expecting nothing different this particular day, I just sat there, looking around, and then I saw it – the license plate in front of me.

Now, we have vanity license plates in Florida. You can make them say anything you want under six or seven characters.  And we have specialty plates, plates that promote causes like manatees, education, in the case of Janice’s car, dolphins. They tend to be colorful with distinctive artwork, and I thought they were distinctive in the country – I really don’t remember where else I’ve seen them.

Except now in Tennessee.  In front of me poked along an SUV with a distinctive license plate.  In slightly muted yellows and blues and a spot of orange, the license plate had a blue ridge in the background with the sun setting between the mountains.  But that was just the background framing, wait…what—is that a portrait!? In the same yellow, pink and blues was a picture of Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton!?  I could see Davy Crockett or even Tennessee Ernie Ford, at least he bears the state’s name. But a picture of Dolly Parton?

What would we do in Florida?  A portrait of OJ Simpson?  Burt Reynolds?  (You could park that car next to the SUV I saw and, no, never mind).  Maybe Ponce de Leon or Henry Flagler?  And then I thought of the ultimate vanity license plate – a picture of yourself!  Then, you wouldn’t have to pull out your license, the cop could just see that it’s your car.  Those little stick people in the back of people’s back windows could be replaced by a family photo!  The possibilities are endless.

What picture would you put there?  Who is so important to you that you would place their picture on a license plate?  Now, if you were sitting up front with the preacher for a Children’s Moment in church, you would say “Jesus!”  because that’s usually the right answer for any pastor’s question in that context.  But, seriously, if they could print onto your plate any picture you wanted, who’s would it be?

I think that’s what struck me in seeing Dolly Parton’s portrait on that plate.  Of all the people in the world to immortalize on a license plate, that driver chose Dolly Parton?  Why not Minnie Pearl?  Or, seriously, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or St. Augustine, or John Wesley or George Washington, or Mary Bethune Cookman.  Anybody.  But Dolly Parton?

There is a saying that you are known by the friends you keep.  I think that is very true.  And so are the people that we quote, that we read, that we listen to, that we watch.  And who we would put on a license plate.  Proverbs 13:20 says ‘Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm” (ESV).  In a media driven culture, I think this verse becomes more important, if more complex as well.  Where do we get our news from?  Who are we entertained by?  What quotes do we come up with because of the TV we watched last night?  What quotes or thoughts do we pass on because of the books we are reading? 

We live in a world that bombards us with information smothered by opinion and innuendo.  Keeping the closest we can to the Truth, to the primary sources of truth, to those who speak it with humility and sincerity, this is the challenge of the age.  And to honor those whose wise counsel and presence we keep is important.  And worth sharing. 

Maybe not on a license plate though.

Moving with the traffic,

Craig

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  Philippians 4:8