Dog Days of Summer

When we hear the phrase “the dog days of summer,” we may picture a dog stretched out on a cool floor, conserving every ounce of energy while the temperature climbs outside. The expression, however, does not come from our four-legged friends. It comes from the stars.

Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is part of the constellation Canis Major, the “Greater Dog.” Ancient Greeks and Romans noticed that Sirius appeared near the sun during the hottest part of the year. The Romans called this season dies caniculares, or “dog-star days.” They believed that the brilliance of Sirius combined with the sun to produce the oppressive heat, drought, fevers, and other troubles associated with midsummer. In ancient Egypt, however, the appearance of Sirius was welcomed because it signaled the approaching flood of the Nile, which replenished the soil and made the crops grow.

The “dog days” are not mentioned in the biblical text, but the phrase did find its way into the calendars printed in early editions of the Book of Common Prayer and the 1611 King James Bible. These calendars included Scripture readings and holy days alongside agricultural and astronomical markers that helped people follow the changing seasons. The church understood that faith is practiced within the rhythms of ordinary life: planting and harvesting, working and resting, watching the skies and paying attention to the world around us.

The dog days may be associated with slowing down, but August will be anything but sleepy at Grace. This Sunday, August 9, we will bless backpacks as our students, teachers, administrators, and school staff prepare to return to their classrooms. We will surround them with our prayers as they begin a new year of learning, discovery, and growth.

On August 16, we will have a special old-time gospel sing-along at both our 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. services. The Sunflower Jammers, featuring our own Janet Rhodes on fiddle, will help us raise our voices in some beloved songs of faith. On August 23, Kirk Anderson will preach, and later that afternoon at 3:00 p.m., we will gather for a special service celebrating his commissioning. On August 30, Scott Randle will return to the pulpit at Grace while I have the pleasure of sharing a good word with the congregations of Wellington and Viola.

The ancient Egyptians saw the appearance of Sirius not merely as a sign of heat, but as a promise that life-giving waters were on their way. Perhaps that is a helpful image for us as well. Even in the most exhausting seasons, God continues to replenish the earth, renew the church, and prepare new growth.

May these dog days be filled with worship, music, learning, laughter, and perhaps a little well-earned rest. Enjoy the remaining days of summer, have some fun, and please take good care of yourselves and your neighbors in the heat.

See you in church!

Peace, Grace, and Love,
Pastor Kevin

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A Lifeline of Hope

Amid ongoing power outages and food shortages, our sibling congregation in Placetas, Cuba, continues to be a lifeline for its community. This week, we received a message through WhatsApp from Xiomara, one of the congregation’s oldest members.
Xiomara lived through the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s and remains an active leader in the church. She helps teach Sunday morning classes, participates in community programs throughout the week, and has repeatedly opened her home to members of Grace during our visits to Placetas.

Recently, a donation of rice, beans, and other essential food arrived for the church family. Xiomara wrote:
“Since I am the oldest in the group, I want to express our gratitude and let you know just how important this food is to us. We are truly going through very difficult times in Cuba, and this is something to be thankful for. So, thank you to the church, thank you to all of you, and thank you to God. It is very important to thank God for placing this desire in your hearts. Goodbye. Sending you a big hug.”

It is easy to feel helpless or discouraged when we hear about the dire conditions facing the people of Cuba. Yet God continues to work through the generosity our congregations share, through the prayers exchanged on WhatsApp, and through our unity as the Church, the Body of Christ in the world.

I am filled with gratitude and hope because of our connection with the people of Placetas, and I continue to pray that conditions will improve. I encourage you to hold Xiomara, the congregation, and the entire community in your prayers as well.

We are grateful for the faithful work of Darcy Eads and for everyone whose contributions have made this ministry possible. We are planning to return to Placetas in December. If you would like to learn more about the trip, please contact Carolyn Shaw. If you would like to support our ongoing ministry in Placetas click here or help make the December trip possible here, you may contribute through the giving page on the church website.

What a privilege it is to participate together in God’s work of compassion, hope, and love.

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Called to Care: Ministry of Deacons

When I was still in high school, I was asked to serve as a Deacon in the church where I grew up. I remember feeling deeply proud that the congregation that had helped nurture my faith would entrust me, even at that young age, with a ministry of care and service. I did not fully understand then what that experience would come to mean in my life. Looking back, I believe a seed was being planted, one that would eventually grow into my vocation in pastoral ministry.

Over the next few weeks, I want to highlight the different leadership roles within our congregation: Deacons, Elders, and Trustees. Each group serves the church in a distinct way, but all share a common calling to participate in Christ’s ministry. We begin with our Deacons.

he Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Book of Order describes the ministry of Deacons as one of “compassion, witness, and service.” Deacons share the redeeming love of Jesus Christ with those who are poor, hungry, sick, lonely, oppressed, or experiencing distress.

In other words, Deacons help our congregation care for people.

They reach out to members who are ill, grieving, homebound, or facing difficult circumstances. They offer encouragement, prayer, companionship, and practical assistance. They help us notice those who might otherwise be overlooked and remind us that no one should have to face life’s struggles alone.

The ministry of a Deacon is more than completing a list of tasks. It is a ministry of presence. Deacons listen with compassion, serve with humility, and bear witness to Christ’s love through the relationships they build.

That kind of service does not only care for and nurture the lives of others. It also shapes the person who serves. Every visit, conversation, prayer, and act of compassion can deepen our faith and open our hearts more fully to the presence of Christ. Service teaches us to listen more carefully, love more generously, and recognize God at work in the lives of our neighbors. That was true in my own life, even before I understood where God was leading me.

While Deacons are called to lead us in this ministry, caring for one another belongs to the whole church. Our Deacons equip and encourage all of us to become a community in which Christ’s compassion can be seen, felt, and shared. Their ministry reminds us that when we care for one another, God is not only working through us. God is also working within us, planting seeds of faith that may continue growing in ways we cannot yet imagine.

See you in church!
Peace, Grace, and Love,
Pastor Kevin

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Gathered for the Harvest

When our children were little, my mother served as pastor of the Presbyterian church in Cottonwood Falls. We lived just three miles away from our little motel along Highway 50 in Strong City. Every Sunday morning, our drive to church took us through the rich bottomland of the Cottonwood River.

The fields changed with the seasons. Some years they held corn. Other years soybeans. But my favorite was always the wheat. Driving that same stretch of road every Sunday morning, we became quiet witnesses to a miracle unfolding one week at a time.

Week after week we watched the first green shoots emerge in the spring. As the days grew warmer, the wheat stretched higher while an occasional stalk of volunteer corn, left from the previous year’s crop, poked up among it. By early summer, the fields had transformed from brilliant green to waves of amber that shimmered in the Kansas wind.

Then, almost overnight, harvest arrived.

Combines rolled through the fields from sunrise until well after sunset, leaving behind neat rows of stubble, clouds of dust, and the unmistakable smell of fresh-cut wheat drifting through the air.

Just down the road stood the grain elevator beside the railroad tracks in Strong City. Truck after truck unloaded wheat harvested from fields throughout the surrounding countryside. Once those kernels were poured together into the elevator, there was no separating them again. Grain from many fields became one harvest.

During college, I spent a summer working for a commodity grain company in Kansas City, processing shipment orders from grain elevators like the one in Strong City. It was there I discovered that Kansas wheat doesn’t stay in Kansas. It is milled into flour and shipped around the world. A loaf of bread served halfway across the globe may well have begun as wheat growing in one of those fields between Strong City and Cottonwood Falls.

That image has stayed with me.

Every Sunday, God gathers us from different homes, different neighborhoods, different backgrounds, and different experiences. We arrive carrying our own stories, our own joys, and our own burdens. Yet, in Christ, we become part of something much larger than ourselves. Like grain gathered from many fields, we are joined with one another and with faithful people in churches throughout Wichita, across Kansas, and around the world.

Grain isn’t gathered simply to fill an elevator. It is gathered to become bread.

In the same way, God gathers us not simply to sit together in the same pews, but to become nourishment for a hungry world. May we give thanks for the harvest God is gathering among us, and may we be willing to become part of the bread that Christ is breaking for the life of the world.

See you in church!

Peace, Love, and Grace,
Pastor Kevin

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Garden of Grace

One of my favorite things about the house we are renting is the garden.

Over the late spring and early summer, I have watched with delight as our yard has slowly come to life. There are echinacea and daisies, roses and hollyhocks, and several other flowers that I cannot identify at all. As the flowers have bloomed, the yard has filled with butterflies and bumblebees. A family of neighborhood bunnies has even made a home in the bushes.

I love walking outside in the morning and discovering what has bloomed overnight.

Rachel, who is far more astute about gardening than I am, pointed out something else about our yard. If you pay attention, you can see the visions of several previous renters who have lived in the house before us. Over the years, different people have added different plants to the garden. Some are carefully plotted and arranged. Others have slowly spread beyond wherever they were originally planted, appearing in unexpected corners of the yard.

We inherited a garden that many people have helped create.

I have been thinking about how much that garden reminds me of Grace.

As I continue to settle into my new home here, I am increasingly grateful for all the gardeners who came before me. For generations, faithful people have planted seeds of worship, faith formation, mission, fellowship, and community. They have cultivated ministries, watered new ideas, and nurtured seeds of faith in children, youth, and adults.

Today, we are blessed by the beauty and abundance of what they planted.

Many of the flowers in our yard are perennials. Year after year, they return. They bloom, drop their seeds, and slowly spread into new parts of the garden. Sometimes new flowers appear in places no one planned or expected.

I think the same is true of the church. The ministries and missions of Grace continue to produce seeds of faith and grace. A child learns that they are loved by God. A teenager discovers a place where they belong. A hungry neighbor receives food. A stranger is welcomed. Someone finds comfort in worship. A volunteer discovers a new calling. Seeds are scattered. And by the grace of God, they take root and grow, often in places we may never see.

I am grateful for the garden of grace that I have discovered here at Grace. I am grateful for those who planted before us, for those who have faithfully tended this community through the years, and for the opportunity we now have to work together.

There are still seeds to scatter. There is still soil to cultivate. There is still new life waiting to emerge. And I cannot wait to see what God grows next.

See you in church.

Peace, Grace, and Love,

Pastor Kevin

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