Taking away time

Good afternoon everyone,

Sorry for the delay in today's email. I have been up to my ears in statistics that are due to the NC Annual Conference on January 31st. Thank you to all the people who have submitted information to help me get these numbers together!!!

The last several days I have had all sorts of strange phone calls to my cell phone and the office phone. One frightened me enough that I called the police (at the advice of the phone company). The police were here lickity split! I appreciate them! I have gotten prank calls in Spanish late at night. I have gotten telemarketing spam calls in Spanish. People send junk faxes trying to get us to sign up for a fake phone book at $30/a month. The list seems endless of ways people try to get money for nothing and take away time from me.

Interestingly, the God who created the world and each of us ask for nothing in return but faith. God gives us grace freely. We sin and God is still offering forgiveness to us. All we have to do in response is accept grace and believe. That is something that we get for nothing. Pretty cool!

In Paul's letter to the Ephesians chapter 1 we find this: 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Have a great afternoon!

I will be out of the office tomorrow at a Sexual Ethics seminar. Every four years every pastor in the United Methodist Church is required to be trained on how to keep proper boundaries, how we can best care for people who have been abused, and other topics in that vein. You can be proud that the United Methodist Church takes these sorts of issues seriously.