Monday, July 2, 2018



‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ ~ John 6:9 [from the Feeding of the 5,000]

As a machinist friend of mine Eugene often said (while chuckling): “Slow work takes time.” His quote came to mind as I opened a large envelope that arrived at the church recently.

 Inside the envelope was my Certificate of Ordination as Minister of Word and Sacrament – dated February 9, 2014! Apparently it was waiting for a needed signature, wound up being put into a drawer…and…well…hey, I understand how these things happen.

 While I’m proud to display the fact that I’ve been fully and formally recognized as the Reverend Michael Gregory Wilson; through sermons and presiding over communion and leading celebration of life ceremonies and stopping by people’s homes and hospital visits…I wasn’t any less of a pastor without the certificate.

 I’d been doing all of those things a pastor does long before that envelope arrived.               

More than that, I’d been doing lots of those things a pastor does long before I went to seminary to become a pastor.                                                                                              


It’s just that I had neither the title nor the certificate.                                                         


Beth Brooke writes: “Success is fine, but success is fleeting. Significance is lasting.”


Throughout the Bible we come across lots of people who have nothing in the way of formal recognition, let alone even name recognition; and yet, like in the case of the above noted and unnamed “boy” who we never hear about again, these people played a significant role in furthering God’s Kingdom through the ministry of Jesus Christ.


I even go far as to wonder what our understandings about Jesus Christ would be like without this boy, and the countless others like him.


Regardless of wherever we think we are in the scheme of things; everything we do as Christians has significance for now and forever.


May we draw always draw encouragement from this.


Together We Serve, 
Pastor Mike