My wife and I enjoy watching the various “fixer upper” shows on the DIY or HGTV channels.  At some point in the next 10 years we will need to leave the blessing of the parsonage system and acquire our own retirement home.

        Our interests seem to be drawn to the restoration and transformation of an existing dwelling that is in need of some renewed time and resources.

       A favorite show on the DIY Network is “Salvage Dawgs”.  It features the owners and staff of “Black Dog Salvage” in Roanoke, VA.  We are fortunate that our daughter and son-in-law live in Roanoke.  Each time we visit them we make a trip over to the store.  All the folks you see on the TV series are hustling around the store greeting customers, working on projects and arranging the raw materials and finished products.  The Black Labrador, Sally, for whom the store is named, is lazily resting under a table or warming near the stove.  You can imagine how excited I was to get a photo with Mike as I wore my old souvenir t-shirt and have him say, ”Man you must have worked here before.  That shirt is nearly worn out.”

       What I am most intrigued by is how they frequently take an item that had one type of previous life and transform it into a completely new form and function.  Yet a glimpse of the previous boat/railing/wainscot/beam/piano/trim/molding/light fixture/door/etc. can still be identified.  Seeing their creativity inspired me to change my grandmother’s meat/food grinder into a small table lamp.

       That grinder had seen its share of meat pieces, fruit and vegetables pass through the screw crank and out past the small inserts that chopped or crushed the pieces into components for a ham spread, gelatin salad, juice, or meatloaf.  Times, tastes and equipment have changed and it was bringing me no joy in a box on a basement shelf.   A little time, some wire, a couple of parts recycled off a broken lamp and a new orientation (upside down) transformed this 75 year old piece of cast iron into a functional source of light and pleasant décor.

       All this is a metaphor and inspiration for my ministry.  I am consistently faced with a practice, a process, a tool, or an idea, that seems to no longer have the same needed result that it originally had.  We encounter persons who seem to be discarded by some, neglected by others and left for what appears to be a slow painful life of decay.  The power of the God in Christ has the capacity to re-purpose, renew and reuse each and every one of these persons, you and me, in ways we never imagined.

       I have been inspired by the passion and focus of the Design Team that has been given the responsibility to help us create a new conference in the MI Area.  We have been consistent in looking at our task through the lens of, “What will it take to be an instrument of God in our current new reality and for the future?”  We are confident that God will inspire us to take the necessary time, add the needed new components, discard what is no longer functional and, when necessary, see ministry from a new point of orientation.

       I will be writing to you each month as part of rotation between Bishop Kiesey, her Clergy Assistant, Melanie Carey and my Detroit Conference Director of Connectional Ministries colleague, Jerome DeVine.  They each have a title for their writings.  I am calling my “Home Words Bound”.  It is based in John 8:13 in the New Jerusalem Bible, “If you make my Word your home, you will indeed be my disciples.  You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” For me this verse speaks to both a condition and a destination.  Interesting that by being “bound” to the words of Scripture is actually what gives us “freedom.”   How exciting it is to be disciples of Jesus!

       Labor Day weekend Linda and I were in Roanoke, VA.  I had my Black Dog Salvage t-shirt on in the breakfast area of the hotel.  I was honored when an older woman put her hand on my arm and said, “Excuse me a moment.  I just have to tell you how much I love YOUR show.  I watch it all the time.”  I replied, “Well thank you, but it is not MY show.  I just have a souvenir t-shirt.”

       The encounter left me wondering, “Gee, do I equally put forth a persona and model image of the One for whom I truly choose to be a disciple?”  I pray we are all constantly open to the life changing words of the Scriptures as we make them our “home destination?”