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SOUL MINING JUNE 2, 2023

Shamokin helped beautify 2^nd Street by upgrading the playground that sits to your right as you make your way into town. I was told that there have been many complaints about investing such nice equipment on a not so nice part of town. I live on 2^nd Street by the way and so I will take offense to that remark as I believe that if you want something to become dilapidated, simply do nothing and let your little neck of the world go racing downhill.

June marks my second anniversary since moving to Shamokin from Cape May County, NJ. where the ocean was just four miles away from my home. I have heard all the jokes and I’m not laughing anymore. God brought me here and He didn’t relocate me so I could sit in the corner and eat a steady diet of worms. Right from the get-go, I believed that you can create your own paradise by investing your very best into the grounds in which God has planted you. I take pride in my neighborhood, and you can be sure that we have been using the Shamokin Christian and Missionary Alliance Church as a home base to love on people from where they are so that they can get to Jesus!

I am now in my sixties and have spent lots of time here working with the children. Kids are the toughest audience of all because they have a sense about you. They know whether you really care about them or not. I know they have felt the love from the people of our church because we have offered them the prime cut of who we are. In a day when too many houses of worship pay more attention to their brand and their worship band, I have challenged us to become the hands and feet of the Savior on the streets where we live and move and have our being. I was in Weis’ the other day and ran into some of the young people who come to the Good News Clubs that we continue to hold on Sunday nights through June. I felt like the Pied Piper of Coal Town as we picked out the best watermelons for that night’s refreshments and got the Popsicle brand of ice cream to celebrate the night before Memorial Day. Why is it that we are always looking to do things on the cheap when God offered and continues to give us His absolute best.

Recently, my wife and I bought new basketball standards for the multipurpose room at the church. I wanted the brand that could take a licking and keep on ticking. We are getting the floor lined so that the open gym basketball nights to come will be done right. If they build it, they will come was the theme of the baseball classic movie, “Field of Dreams.” If you genuinely love others like Jesus loves us and do it with passion and excellence, people will respond and begin to be proud of who they are and where they live rather than being dumbed down by the fact that if the adults don’t care, why should the next generation be any different.

Come this Fall, I have talked with school officials to do some Fifth Quarters at the Church after the football games. I oversaw them at other parishes where I pastored, it provides kids with a positive environment to go to between 10 PM and Midnight on football Friday nights. Did I mention that these events would be free? I’m looking for caring adults to pay the bill so that teens can be free to enjoy a good time and not look to booze or drugs to do what they can’t do anyway. Nothing good comes from alcohol and drugs and I have done enough funerals in my lifetime to back up this statement. Let’s make it hard to get addicted in Shamokin and Coal Township. Let’s stop the whining and put our best foot forward so this place can start winning off the field too.

I don’t know how many years that I can keep doing what I do. I’d be lying to you if I said that I don’t feel the aftereffects of the radiation that took a toll on my body during my battle with prostate cancer. I just know that I want to go with my boots on. I would love to be preaching up a storm in my usual passionate style when suddenly, I’m no longer confined to the halls of earth but have been ushered into the presence of Jesus.

I mentioned to the kids that I am going to take them to Knoebels this Summer, and they remind me often that this too must happen. But when we do go, don’t expect to find me sitting in the shade. I am going to be sitting in the front seat of the Phoenix with my hands held high and the wind blowing through whatever traces of hair that remains. When I read the Bible, I see Jesus with the people, walking with them and eating together and experiencing life together. The idea that clergy should inhabit an impenetrable bubble far from the congregation is not a biblical picture. If there are songs to be sung, let me sing the loudest and if there are sliding boards to conquer, then I will meet you on the top rung of the monkey bars.

God so loved that world that He gave His absolute best so that we would know how treasured we were to Him. We don’t need any more lottery tickets that will end up on the floor trampled upon as another missed opportunity. And you don’t need to fly as high as a kite on some artificial illegal substance that in the end will only steal, kill, and destroy the legacy you were created to impart for good upon this planet. The saints of old said that the glory of God is best expressed in men and women who are fully alive. How many days this year would you say that you were running on all cylinders?  There is a hurting and lonely world that needs to know they matter and if you have been filled with the love of God then it’s time to be spilled all over the neighborhoods that we reside in.

So, thank you Shamokin for the new playground equipment and I pray its just the beginning in sewing seeds of life upon the streets that we call home. You can count on me to do whatever I can to shine a light where darkness must be defeated for good.