I’m back in the saddle again. I have to admit, it felt good to unplug for a while. There was no blogging while we were at the beach, though it wasn’t a complete unplug. It was a bit of a working vacation since I was coming home to preach Sunday. Turns out a lot has changed in Happy Valley over the past few days. Who knew that STORM SEASON was approaching?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the Joe Paterno statue has been removed from the grounds outside Beaver Stadium. The NCAA announced their sanctions against the university/football program, as did the Big Ten. There’s a lot of commotion and uproar. The bottom line is that the lives of innocent children were wrecked by a man they should have been able to trust. Other leaders failed to act responsibly in the aftermath. We have the Freeh report, but I don’t know if we’ll ever really know the whole truth. Any way you slice it, it’s a mess.
Calvary is dealing with pretty major storm of our own. Dan Nold, our pastor for 18 years, and my friend/mentor/leader for the last 14, has announced that he is candidating (church word for a job interview) at a church in Minneapolis/St. Paul. In fact, he preached there over the weekend. While I hate hate HATE the thought of the Nolds not being here, I trust them implicitly and know that they’ll only leave if it’s what’s best for the Kingdom. If their time in State College is coming to a close, I’m going to be sad. Here’s a video of him telling their story of how they’ve wrestled with this decision.
The pastors of each of Calvary’s gatherings will be preaching for the next few weeks. Most of us are working through Philippians. I’m excited to preach, and looking forward to working on sermons with the other pastors.
If ever there was a time that the church should rise up to love, serve, and pray, now is that time. I have been asking God what he is trying to teach us through the recent developments. Our brokenness has been exposed. Our leaders have not led well. Our heroes have been toppled. But our hope is not in an academic institution, a football program, a coach…or a pastor. Jesus Christ is the head of his body, the church, and he loves her still. He has acted to redeem and ransom us, to atone for our sins, to heal our brokenness, to cleanse and restore.
I believe that our best days are ahead of us, and that there is hope for Happy Valley. The storms will always pop onto the radar; but Jesus is better than any storm.
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