Lancaster County Air

I see Phil Ryken is busy posting.  I have a theory as to why, and it has to do with Lancaster County air.  Phil paid us a visit this past weekend, speaking at my church's, Westminster Presbyterian Church (PCA), fortieth anniversary banquet held at Shady Maple Smorgasbord.  Now we need to unpack this exegetically full statement.

 

First things first.  Shady Maple.  There's no way to describe this really.  You have to go there.  It seats well over one thousand people and easily feeds three to four times that on any given Friday or Saturday night.  The whole Shady Maple Empire, grocery store, gift shop(s), restaurants(s) and smorgasbord, employs over six hundred people.  And it's only five minutes from my house.  But that's not the only reason I went there last Friday night.

 

Somewhere amidst the beef, herb-crusted chicken and ham loaf--if you're asking then I know you've never been to Lancaster before--Phil Ryken could be spotted, talking, about all things, the future and our investment in the Kingdom of God from, of all places, Jeremiah 32.  A good reminder to us historical types that the best type of historical reflection has to do with thinking about our place and work and discipleship in the present.  Phil is a born preacher.

 

And then there was the occasion:  the fortieth anniversary.  The bank wouldn't give the church a mortgage to buy and build.  Founding members put up their own homes as collateral.  That says something, a lot actually.  One of the founding members also said something worth repeating.  Her reason for leaving the mainline Presbyterian church and venturing out in this new Presbyterian church had to do with kindergarten Sunday school curriculum.  There it was in black and white, she recalled:  Daniel and the Lion's Den is a nice story, but it isn't true.  She just couldn't bring herself to teach that to five year olds.  I'm humbled when I teach Sunday school at Westminster and look upon a class with such people. 

 

The Lancaster county air can be refreshing indeed.