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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Blessed to Be a Blessing

This weekend our nation marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It is an opportunity to gather with family and friends, enjoy parades and fireworks, and give thanks for the many blessings we have received as citizens of this country.

As Christians, gratitude has always been one of our first responses to God’s gifts. We give thanks for the freedoms we enjoy, for those who have sacrificed to preserve them, and for the opportunity to participate in the life of our communities.

One of the enduring ideals at the heart of our nation’s founding is the conviction that every person possesses inherent dignity and inalienable rights. That vision was shaped by many influences, including the writings of John Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers, whose understanding of natural rights rested on the belief that our rights come not from governments but from our Creator. The Declaration of Independence echoes that conviction in its affirmation that all people “are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

The founders also made another remarkable decision. While many were people of faith, they intentionally established a government that would neither establish nor favor one religion over another, protecting the freedom of conscience for people of every faith and for those of none. That commitment to religious liberty has become one of our nation’s greatest gifts.

Of course, our history reminds us that America has not always lived up to these ideals. Slavery, segregation, discrimination, and injustice reveal the painful distance between our aspirations and our actions. Yet our story also includes moments when we have moved closer to the vision set before us: the abolition of slavery, the expansion of voting rights, the Civil Rights Movement, the welcome extended to immigrants and refugees, and countless acts of compassion and service both at home and around the world. At our best, we have continued striving toward the ideals that inspired our founding.

That reminds me of God’s promise to Abraham:
“I will bless you… so that you will be a blessing.”

God’s blessings are never meant to end with us. They are given so that they may overflow into the lives of others.

Perhaps that is a faithful way for Christians to celebrate Independence Day. We give thanks for the blessings of our nation, not because we believe our country is perfect, but because gratitude inspires responsibility. We pray that God will continue to guide our leaders with wisdom, strengthen our commitment to justice, deepen our compassion for our neighbors, and help us become an ever-greater blessing to all peoples and nations.

May God continue to bless our country. And may God, by grace, help our country become a blessing to the world.

See you in church!

Peace, Grace, and Love,
Pastor Kevin

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Gathered in the Spirit: GA227

Next week, commissioners from across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will gather in Milwaukee for the 227th General Assembly, the highest governing body of our denomination. Commissioners, advisory delegates, staff, and observers will come together for worship, discernment, conversation, and decision-making as they seek God’s guidance for the future of the church.

The Presbytery of Southern Kansas will be represented by Teaching Elder Melissa Krabbe of Sterling, Ruling Elder Mary Buchele of Garden City, and Young Adult Advisory Delegate Sophia Randle from our own Grace Presbyterian Church. They have already begun participating in online meetings this week and will travel to Milwaukee this weekend along with our Executive Presbyter, Christina Berry, and our Stated Clerk, Joe Wiseman.

The General Assembly will consider a wide range of issues affecting the life and witness of the church, including the denomination’s structure and mission, environmental stewardship, global mission partnerships, matters of inclusion and justice, a proposed new confession, and many other items of business.

Personally, I am especially excited to watch this year’s co-moderator election. One of the candidates is a former classmate and friend. I am also eager to hear the Assembly’s discussion of the proposed new confession for the PC(USA), a project connected to one of my favorite professors at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary who has served on the special committee that drafted it.

What I love most about General Assembly, however, is not any single item of business. It is the gathering itself.

General Assembly is a celebration of what it means to be Presbyterian. It is an expression of our conviction that the Holy Spirit continues to guide the church when we gather in prayerful discernment. It is a reminder that we belong to something larger than ourselves. Commissioners come from every corner of the church: large congregations and small congregations, rural communities and urban centers, different generations, different backgrounds, different experiences, and different perspectives. Yet together they seek to listen for God’s voice and to lead Christ’s church faithfully into the future.

At its best, General Assembly offers a glimpse of the church as a diverse body united in Christ, trusting that wisdom emerges not from any one person but through prayer, conversation, study, and mutual discernment.

As the Assembly begins, I invite you to pray for Sophia, Melissa, Mary, Christina, Joe, and all who will participate in the 227th General Assembly. Pray that the Spirit’s presence will be felt in their midst. Pray for wisdom, humility, courage, and grace. And pray that this gathering may bear witness to the unity we share in Christ even amid our diversity, as together we seek to follow where God is leading the church.

See you in church.

Peace, Love, and Grace
Pastor Kevin

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