Windmill Maintenance

"The LORD bless you and keep you."
~ Numbers 6:24

Monica and I have been very intentional this year about getting out of the city on Saturdays periodically and exploring outstate areas of Minnesota we’ve never seen or walked before. We’ve had some wonderful mini-road trips together!

On one such road trip in June, we found ourselves walking around the little known Minneopa State Park near Mankato, Minnesota. Hidden away at one end of the park is the partially restored Seppman Windmill. This windmill was built in 1864 and operated profitably until lightning blasted off two of its arms in 1873. After that the mill limped along on two arms, making only animal feed, until a bad storm in 1890 and changing economics finally closed it down. Eventually the mill was donated to the State of Minnesota and partially restored. The stone work looks nice, but the internal machinery and the arms are gone. It is a nice, old windmill, but without sails or machinery to catch the wind or accomplish anything.

If we aren’t careful and intentional, this old windmill could become a metaphor for the church. With the merciful help of the Holy Spirit and the powerful leading of God, our people built something solid and lasting here, which operated wonderfully and effectively for a while, but after time, a couple lightning strikes, storms and the ever-changing economics of life taking effect, we often find ourselves left with only a stone building and little effectiveness. The building is still there, maybe even nicely restored, but the arms and machinery are gone. We no longer grind out grain. We no longer catch the wind as we were designed to do.

This isn’t going to happen to Elim! Not if I have anything to say about it…

Every year at the end of November, I set aside a few days to pray, plan and prepare my preaching schedule for the coming year. I want to do all I can to ensure we all receive the balanced diet of the wisdom and encouragement from God’s Word we’ll need in the coming year. And every year I ask people to give me their sermon ideas, deepest questions and life concerns. I am committed not only to ensuring we have a Genesis to Revelation understanding of God and His Word; I also want to ensure that the felt needs of the congregation are actually being met, to the best of my ability to do so. I want to do everything possible to ensure the machinery and arms of the windmill are in good shape and catching the wind!

But the responses to my requests for sermon input are always disappointing. In all the years and in all three of the congregations I’ve now done this, I’ve never received much response. There are all sorts of good and bad explanations for this lack of response, but none of them are very convincing or helpful.

So this year, I’m going to do something different. Don’t send me sermon ideas, Scripture references or opinions about all the good and bad stuff going on in the church. Those things are always useful, good and thought-provoking, but this year I want to do something different. I want to know something simple…

Just tell me how you’re doing.

Is your life still catching the wind? Is the machinery of your life still grinding out the grain you believe God has created you to produce? Be brief, be anonymous, be as painfully honest about what is going on in your life (for better or worse) as you wish, but talk about yourself. Just you. If things are fantastic, tell me. If things are awful, tell me. If things are confusing, tell me. But talk about yourself, not about Elim Church.

You are the gears and sails of this place. If we aren’t doing okay individually, we’ll won’t ever do well together. We won’t accomplish what God has supernaturally brought us together here to accomplish.

So please take some time over the next few weeks and drop me a note. Every Sunday from the 6th of November through the 27th of November, I’ll have an insert in the bulletin for you to use. Take it home, fill it out and return it to me here at the church some time before the first week in December, when I’ll be going away somewhere to pray and plan again. Responses can be placed in the offering plate, the prayer request box next to the prayer room off the main foyer or simply dropped off in my mail slot in the office.

And as you’re thinking about these things this month, if anything surfaces you want to talk directly with me about, my door is always open. You are never a distraction! Please know I mean that.

As God instructed Aaron to bless the people in Number 6:24-26, I too seek God’s tenderest blessings on your life and our life together in the coming year. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

May this family wonderfully catch the wind in our coming year together!

Amen.