I returned home late last night from a full, joyful, productive ministry trip to New Mexico. PCF, thank you for allowing me to serve pastors and churches beyond our own walls and our own region. I spoke six times in three days, giving Fall Theology talks for Christ Church Santa Fe on Saturday, preaching there and teaching in their adult education class on Sunday morning, and preaching a couple times at the Rio Grande Presbytery meetings on Monday.
I loved Santa Fe. It’s really old and really beautiful, bursting with culture, full of good food and art and history. I thought New England was old. New Mexico makes us look young. The Taos pueblo has been continuously inhabited for something like 900 years!
It was so deeply encouraging to meet brothers and sisters in Christ, to hear their stories of God’s work in their lives, to interact with pastors who are faithfully preaching and shepherding. In the airport yesterday, I felt tired with a good tiredness — the feeling of having labored hard and fruitfully. God doesn’t need to use any of us, but he does, and I felt the blessing of that over these past days. I also experienced the blessing of long friendships. I’ve known my friends John and Kit Standridge for about 25 years (they were friends when we were at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary together). They’re doing the hard, good work of ministry in Santa Fe, and it was marvelous to spend time with them, hearing struggles and triumphs.
Whenever I travel, I’m reminded that God is active all over the world, in many ways I don’t know and never will this side of heaven. He’s good to give us glimpses of how he’s at work. I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen in New Mexico.
