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Hi everyone! I hope you’re enjoying this beautiful June week, which feels very much like a preview of the summer that’s just around the corner.

For those who have a dad or grandpa in your household, I trust your plans for Fathers’ Day are also coming together nicely. (This is a friendly reminder in case it slipped anyone’s mind! ) We don’t make a big fuss about it in our house, but conversations have started about where to go for a dad-friendly dinner in the next week.

Diane and I had a quite different conversation a little while ago. She suggested that maybe it’s time for us to go through some more of the abandoned boxes that are cluttering up our storage room. We downsized quite a bit when we moved to North Vancouver (9 years ago now!), but there are still a number of boxes on the back shelf, filled with unused gear, “maybe we’ll want that thing again someday” stuff, and old memorabilia that we weren’t ready to throw away at the time.

She was right. The stuff has sat there long enough, unopened and gathering dust. It was time to clear some more out. So we spent a few hours pulling things off the shelf, spreading them out on the table, sorting, looking things over, throwing most away, and re-packing a small residue to keep for another 9 years. It was a good exercise.

We found some interesting things that I’d completely forgotten about. One box in particular caught my attention. It was absolutely full of big brown envelopes. “What an earth are all these,” we wondered. I pulled a few open, and out fell piles of half-sheet paper, absolutely covered in what turned out to be old hand-written sermon outlines.

“Ah. Now that’s interesting.”  These were items belonging to my grandfather, that my mom had saved. I knew Grandpa had been a lay preacher for a while at a couple of the churches his family attended. What I did not know was how much preaching he actually did over the years. There must have been 50 or more envelopes, with literally hundreds of sets of sermon outlines in them. It was quite amazing. I have a feeling Grandpa preached far more sermons than I ever will—and he did it all while he was farming, working as a mechanic, and supporting himself in other ways. It was quite impressive.

Now, I should say: I didn’t keep all those sermon outlines. I found them quite hard to read. And they were outlines, not scripts, so they assumed a lot in between the lines. It’s not as though I could pull out a set and use them to guide my own preaching, even if I wanted to (and few preachers really want to use someone else’s notes anyway). So I kept a few samples for the memory and let the rest go.

But I came away with a greater appreciation for my grandfather. I never heard him preach. He served tiny little prairie churches in the years before I was born. He died when I was about 5, so I didn’t know him well at all. I knew he was a man of faith, and that he raised a family which passed on a strong legacy of faith to me. Now I had an even richer understanding of his love for God’s Word and his willingness to serve the church where God put him. I was impressed, and all the more grateful for a wonderful Christian heritage.

That experience has been very much on my mind as we come up on Fathers’ Day. I’m sure my family will have a lovely time together eating dinner, opening a few cards, and enjoying each other’s company. I pray that my kids (and grandkids, if I have them) will remember our family for more than just pleasant times together. I pray that they too will have a strong and growing faith, nurtured by the faith Diane and I live out before them. I pray that someday in the future they will thank God for a godly family heritage, and that perhaps they will run across some old reminders that we too really loved our Lord and sought to serve Him where He put us.

May that be true for all of us—and especially for the fathers as we remember and honor them this weekend.

In keeping with the Fathers’ Day theme, this week we’ll be thinking about some lessons from the most famous father in the Bible: Abraham. If you’re wanting to read ahead, we’ll focus on that provocative story in Genesis 22 where God tests Abraham’s faith by instructing him to sacrifice his son Isaac. That must have been quite a difficult time for father Abraham, which is why this week’s message is “The Worst, and Best, Fathers’ Day.” 

Meanwhile, have a wonderful week. Enjoy the sunshine, cook something on the BBQ, cheer your favorite FIFA team (Go Canada this afternoon!), and may God’s blessing be with you in all you do. See you soon!

—Pastor Ken