CALF PATH

I have gone down a lot of roads in my life journey. Long ago as a senior in college I found the narrow road with a small gate that Jesus says leads to life.

Along the way there have been byways, highways, expressways, and more than a few detours. I have stood at many intersections and pondered which road to take. Sometimes I have felt like the traveler in Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken.”

Currently, I am on the “road to recovery” as I await a stem cell transplant to get a cure from lymphoma. As Willie Nelson sings it, I can’t wait to get "On the Road Again.”

On the road I like the lyrics George Strait sings in “The Road Less Traveled.” The song talks about going against the grain … having no fears … daring to dream … marching to the beat of a different drummer …that it might all come together …living life to one day leave a mark.

The majority of my adult life has centered around serving God through the body of Christ, the church. My greatest satisfaction and fulfillment has come through leading small groups. I led action groups for college and high school students in the early 1970’s with Campus Crusade for Christ, discipleship groups in local church youth ministry in the late 70’s, DISCIPLE Bible Study in the 90’s, and various adult Bible studies in more recent years.

I think the remainder of my years on the pathway will be spent to help organize and lead small groups that seek for people to honor and please God, to experience the presence of the in-dwelling Christ, and to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to serve. Another way I have tried to describe my mission is to:

                          Know the love of God,
                          Grow in the grace of Christ,
                          Show the power of the Holy Spirit.

I plan to spend the coming days, weeks, and months during my stem cell transplant process and recovery to seek God’s direction about how I can be involved in small group ministry with authentic biblical community. I am studying all types of formats and venues such as house churches, cell groups, churches with groups, etc. I hope to be ready to “launch out” this Fall. I will stay active in my current church fellowship unless led by God to do otherwise.

One of the greatest roadblocks along this road is “tradition.” It has been said that the seven last words of the church will be, “We never did it that way before.” The storyteller in “Fiddler on the Roof” reminds me, though, that there are positives with tradition. He decries that tradition gives balance, identity, and clarity of expectations. He sums it up, “without traditions our life would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof.”

Poet Sam Walter Foss wrote over one hundred years ago the tendency of people to follow the path that everyone else has taken for centuries. It could be called the “herd mentality” to stay on the rutted road of the old and familiar.

The Calf Path(click the arrow at bottom of each slide to continue)

I have come to the point in my pilgrimage that I do not want simply to follow in the hoof prints. The coming months of exploration will be exciting, even if it involves also the process of going through a bone marrow (stem cell) transplant.