This has been a week of getting together with old college friends.
Wednesday
We rescheduled a meeting a couple of weeks ago and were needing a place to pass a couple of days in Pennsylvania. I called Dave, a college friend, who pastors in the area we wanted to be in to see if he had a missionary house/apartment at his church. We had trouble making the connection. When I finally got in touch with him and confirmed that he had a place we could crash for a few days we were only 15 minutes from the church. Dave has been at the church for 9 years as the pastor. He allowed us a chance to put up our display table and let me preach his Wednesday night service.
Sunday AM
Knowing that I would be in Michigan for a couple of other meetings I called a friend from college who pastors near one of my scheduled meetings. Unfortunately Mike was going to be gone the weekend we had free, but he allowed us to be in his church and present our work. Mike has only been at this church about 9 months. We will be seeing him later this week as we drive back through the area headed south.
Sunday PM
One of the meetings in Michigan we were most excited about was with our friend Bruce. He has been in this church about 6 years but we got to know him best when he was an associate pastor in Florida. Bruce’s wife and my wife were suite-mates in college. Bruce and I had several classes together and many mutual friends. It was great sitting and talking with him and his family after church tonight. We ate some great pizza and reminisced for a couple of hours.
There was a time in our ministry when we seldom ran into guys from our college days who were pastoring churches. I guess as they get older they move from being youth pastors and associate pastors into the driver’s seat. I am excited as I think about the many more meetings we will have in the future with former college friends.