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Death and Taxes

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Death and Taxes

April 2026

by John Partridge

It is said that the only two certain things in life are death and taxes.

And, since this month is the deadline for filing our federal income taxes, that seems like an appropriate topic. But, maybe not in the way that you might think. Our taxes, local, state, and federal, are things that we, as a society, have chosen to do together, though often they are also things that our elected representatives have decided that we should do and added that burden onto us as well. Regardless of our complaints to the contrary, these are burdens that we have, one way or another, chosen for ourselves.

As United Methodists, I have sometimes heard our conference apportionments described as taxes, but that language is not only officially discouraged, it’s wrong. Despite the feeling that our apportionments are levied on us from afar and, much like taxes, we do have the ability to elect representatives that vote on these things, a fundamental difference remains. While taxes are most often spent on things that we want for ourselves, such as defense, healthcare, highway, sanitation, parks, and so on, our apportionments are largely dedicated to helping others, doing the work of God’s kingdom, and sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ outside the four walls of our church. Occasionally, we are on the receiving end of that giving pipeline when local churches apply for grants to do projects that benefit their communities. When that happens, other churches in our connection are helping us to reach for, and to accomplish, projects that would otherwise have been far too big for us to attempt on our own.

But that brings us to what is often an even more misunderstood idea in the church, and that is… the tithe. Several of you, if not more, just grumbled. But most, if not all, of that is why I say that the tithe is misunderstood. First, gifts to God, and gifts to the church… are not tithes. Whenever scripture mentions these things together, they are two separate things, tithes… and offerings. Offerings are just what they sound like. A gift that is presented to God. These gifts, biblically, could be an expression of thanks for what God has done, or as a part of a vow to God, or the fulfillment of a ritual. But regardless, they are gifts that are in addition to, or outside the scope of, an ordinary tithe.

So, what is the tithe?

Scripturally, the Old Testament said that when God gave the people freedom, blessings, land, and abundance, that his people were to return one tenth of what they had gained each year to God in obedience and in appreciation for what God had done for them. A big part of that was directed to the priests of God who, unlike the other eleven tribes of Israel, did not receive an inheritance of land but who relied upon the tithes of the other tribes for food, shelter, and survival. Tithes that were in excess of what was needed by the priesthood maintained the temple and were to be used by the temple leaders to care for widows, orphans, the poor, and anyone who legally, or financially, couldn’t care for themselves.

While this still sounds a lot like a tax, there are several things that are different. First, while God commanded that this was something that his people were to do, it is one of the few, if not the only, command that had no penalty for failing to obey. God never said that failing to do so was a sin, or that he would bring calamity upon those who didn’t or couldn’t tithe. From the beginning, this was an aspirational command, something that God’s people were called to do, but with the understanding that people in poverty wouldn’t be able to do give that much. Second, while God people are often warned never to test God, and there are plenty of stories in which people are chastised or punished for testing God, this is the single and only thing about which God openly invites and challenges his people to test him. In Malachi 3:10, God says:

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”

Unlike government taxes that we pay out of obligation, self-interest, and fear of retribution, God asks that we give back a small portion of what he has given to us out of gratitude, devotion, and love. Moreover, God promises that if we dare to test him by giving him these gifts, he will pour out even more abundant, even amazing, blessings upon us, not to mention even defeating death and granting us eternal life.

They say that the only certain things in life are death and taxes.

But for the followers of Jesus Christ, we can only be certain of taxes.

And tithes are not one of them.

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Easter and Kermit the Frog

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Easter and Kermit the Frog

by John Partridge

As I began thinking about what to say as we celebrate Easter and see the end of the Lenten season, it occurred to me that we should challenge ourselves to remember the regular appearance of Kermit the Frog on Sesame Street. Frequently, Kermit, in addition to his many other vignettes, Kermit would appear in various sketches asking the question, “What happens next?” In each case, there was a Rube Goldberg (some of you will have to look that up) contraption that Kermit would examine and repeatedly, ask, “What happens next?” And, I think, that’s where we find ourselves as we come to the end of Lent and the beginning of Eastertide.

During the season of Lent, we spent time in private study, Zoom devotionals with Pastor Chris, and both Sunday morning and evening opportunities for worship. In many, if not all of these, we spent time in self-examination considering our sins, our relationship with God, and with one another. But as we reach the end of this season, celebrate Easter, the resurrection of Jesus, and the beginnings of Eastertide and Spring, we should be asking ourselves the question that Kermit has asked so many times, “What happens next?”

It isn’t enough for us to go to school and get an education. All of us, as we approach graduation, whether from high school, undergraduate, or graduate education, must ask ourselves, “what happens next?” Will we continue our education? Will we pursue a job and a career? Will we take a “gap year” and travel? Eventually, life will force us into a decision, but choosing our course and making plans for what happens next is always better than stumbling forward and allowing others to choose for us.

Easter is no different. We have spent six weeks in self-reflection, but what have we learned about ourselves? And, more importantly, what are we going to do about it? I had a professor in seminary who taught classes on how to preach, and to do it well. And in his classes, he was fond of reminding us that while a well-prepared sermon was important, we should often, at the end of each message, answer the question, “So what?” We have spent hours studying, writing, preparation, and rehearsal, the scattered congregation has gathered and listened, but so what? It isn’t enough to do all those things if the congregation departs without knowing what they should do with the information and instruction that they have been given.

After all our study and time of self-reflection, what have we discovered about ourselves? As this season ends and another begins, what will we do with what we have learned?

Have we learned what triggers, or leads us into sin?

Have we considered choices and behaviors that cause us to wander away from, rather than closer to God?

Have we discovered habits and resources that are useful in building and maintaining a richer, fuller, relationship with Jesus?

After spending a season in self-reflection, what have we learned? And, what will we do with that information?

We should do something.

And so, as Kermit often asked…

… “What happens next?”

Blessings,

Pastor John

Are You Marble, Sponge, or Tea?

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Are You Marble, Sponge, or Tea?

by John Partridge

As we pass through the seasons of Lent and Easter, and move ever closer to spring and warm weather, it is worthwhile for us to consider what we will do with what we have learned. After spending time during Lent in contemplation of our need for forgiveness, and celebrating the arrival of that opportunity at Easter, we must consider what we will do with what we have learned, and more importantly who we will be, as we go forward.

A visual analogy that has stuck with me for many years has been to ask the question of whether you are a marble, a sponge, or tea. If we imagine that the world and the culture which surrounds us is a big pot of water, lemonade, or soup, what happens because we are in it? If we are marbles, we take up space, we displace the water, but our presence changes nothing. If we are sponges, then we absorb so much of what surrounds us that we take on the flavor and essence of what surrounds us. But, if we are tea, what we are, and who we are, steeps into every drop and every crevice of the culture around us so that its flavor is irreversibly changed to reflect our morals, ethics, and values.

According to scripture, our calling is to be tea. Or, in the language of the bible, salt.

In Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus said:

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

If we are salt, we don’t just take up space, or absorb the culture around us, but our saltiness flows the other way, like tea, and flavors the world around us. Likewise, as the people of light, we don’t just take up space, or even navigate through a world filled with darkness, we bring light into the darkness. By our presence, and the light that we bring, we show the people around us where the pitfalls lie and reveal a path of safety as we move forward together.

As we consider the lessons of Lent and Easter, and think about who God calls us to be, both as a church and as individuals, let us think about who we will be in the days ahead.

Will we be marbles, sponges, or tea?

 Blessings,

Pastor John

Photo by Ablestock.com on FreeImages

An Invitation to Lent

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Our season of Lent begins this coming Wednesday, February 18th.

But what does that mean?

The season of Lent is a time that we have set aside as a season of preparation.  It is a time to remember and to reflect.  We will soon celebrate Jesus’ resurrection at Easter but also, like any of life’s significant endeavors, to do something well, we must take the time to prepare. 

Lately, I’ve been reading some adventure fantasy fiction with swords and dragons and things like that. But despite the many differences between the stories, one of the common threads that crop up somewhere is about preparation. The good adventurers, the ones that are more likely to survive their encounters with monsters, are the ones that spend the time preparing themselves and their equipment. They spend their time away from the adventure sharpening swords, refilling magic potions, packing bandages, and other “boring” things that might not be needed, but will save their lives if they are.

Although Easter may not seem to be quite so “life and death,” our preparation is still of significant importance. Easter is the biggest event of the church year and is a bookend to the Christmas story.  For that reason, both emotionally and spiritually, we don’t want to show up unprepared.  We don’t want to show up on Easter morning and hope that our equipment and whatever preparations are leftover from the last time are going to be good enough.  Instead, let us commit to a season or preparation so that we will arrive on Easter morning properly prepared, with our hearts renewed, our souls properly exercised, and fully open to the joy, wonder, excitement, and the calling of God.

Join us so that our team can prepare together during this season of anticipation.

Blessings,

Pastor John

Christ United Methodist Church

Still They Endured

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Still They Endured

December 2025

by John Partridge

15:4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.

5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had,6 so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:4-6)

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Dear Friends,

As I was reading the scripture from our devotional guide today, I thought how important it was to our understanding of Christmas. In Romans 15:4-6, Paul says that every scripture that has been written was given to us to teach us that through the endurance taught by scripture, and the encouragement that we find there, we might find hope. Those are, honestly, not the words that we expected. We expect to hear that our hope comes from our faith in Jesus Christ, or from a future home in heaven, or from our confidence in an all-powerful, all-knowing God. But Paul teaches us that the entire purpose of the Old Testament (and we can include the New Testament as well) was to teach us that hope comes from the endurance that we witness in the people of the Bible and the encouragement that we find as we begin to understand it.

But why? How do we find hope in the stories of endurance that we find in scripture?

It’s simple when you think about it. I have often said that one thing that becomes obvious as we read history and scripture, is that human beings haven’t changed much. For as much as we pride ourselves on our enlightenment, knowledge, education, and technology, the things that motivate human beings, and the way that they behave, haven’t changed much, we are just as motivated by love, lust, money, greed, power, and pleasure as we were three thousand years ago. As much as we like to think that humanity has changed, it seems more like we’ve repainted the cover of the book and left the contents unchanged.

And that’s why we are encouraged by the endurance of the people that we find in the ancient writings of scripture. When we read the stories, we find people who are just like us. Sure, they lived in an entirely different culture but the desire for love and for children, the need for parents to provide for, and to protect their families, and many of the other emotion driven stories all resonate with us. It isn’t difficult at all for us to put ourselves in the place of the heroes and heroines that we find there. They seem familiar because in many ways they look just like us.

And that’s when we notice that the heroes of the Bible didn’t have perfect lives. Their entire world often was set against them. They weren’t perfect people. They had flaws. They struggled. They had everything they had taken away from them. And they waited, sometimes for times that must have seemed like forever.

And still they endured.

The greatest desire of Abraham and Sarah was to have children. And they waited for almost one hundred years to get one. Jacob fell in love with Leah and agreed to work for seven years to pay off her bride price. But he was tricked by his uncle and ended up working for fourteen years instead. David was anointed as the king of Israel when he was fifteen years old but didn’t actually become king until he was thirty. And much of that time, he was a fugitive that lived in the wastes of the desert as King Saul, and his entire army hunted him so that they could take his life. Over and over again we see the great heroes and heroines of scripture struggle, stumble, fall, wait, and endure.

And as we see their imperfections, their struggles, their endurance, and their faith, we are encouraged because we see that our struggles and failures aren’t new or unique. God’s people have been where we are before. They have felt what we feel. They have passed through the same trials in their lives that we face in our own.

And yet they endured.

Even in the Christmas story, the lives of Elizabeth, Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, and even Jesus, were far from perfect. They were poor, they were powerless, they struggled, and they endured. As Paul said, as we read these stories, we are encouraged by the endurance of the people that look just like us. And as we encouraged by their endurance…

…we find hope.

May we find hope, together, as we welcome the birth of the Prince of Peace this Christmas.

Blessings,

Pastor John

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What Does “Clothe Yourself” Mean?

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What Does “Clothe Yourself” Mean?

by John Partridge

In a recent worship service, we read a scripture in which Paul urged the church to “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 13:14) And, as we concluded the service, I offered the following story to expand our understanding of that phrase.

Marie Chapian’s book Of Whom the World Was Not Worthy (Bethany House, 1980). The book follows the Yugoslavian Christian church’s suffering under a corrupt church hierarchy:

One day an evangelist by the name of Jakov arrived in a certain village. He commiserated with an elderly man named Cimmerman on the tragedies he had experienced and talked to him of the love of Christ. Cimmerman abruptly interrupted Jakov and told him that he wished to have nothing to do with Christianity. He reminded Jakov of the dreadful history of the church in his town, a history replete with plundering, exploiting, and indeed with killing innocent people.

“My own nephew was killed by them,” he said and angrily rebuffed any effort on Jakov’s part to talk about Christ. “They wear those elaborate coats and crosses,” he said, “signifying a heavenly commission, but their evil designs and lives I cannot ignore.”

Jakov, looking for an occasion to get Cimmerman to change his line of thinking, said, “Cimmerman, can I ask you a question? Suppose I were to steal your coat, put it on, and break into a bank. Suppose further that the police sighted me running in the distance but could not catch up with me. One clue, however, put them onto your track: they recognize your coat. What would you say to them if they came to your house and accused you of breaking into the bank?”

“I would deny it, ” said Cimmerman.

“‘Ah, but we saw your coat,’ they would say,” retorted Jakov. This analogy quite annoyed Cimmerman, who ordered Jakov to leave his home.

Jakov continued to return to the village periodically just to befriend Cimmerman, encourage him, and share the love of Christ with him. Finally, one day Cimmerman asked, “How does one become a Christian?” Jakov taught him the simple steps of repentance for sin and of trust in the work of Jesus Christ and gently pointed him to the Shepherd of his soul. Cimmerman bent his knee on the soil with his head bowed and surrendered his life to Christ. As he rose to his feet, wiping his tears, he embraced Jakov and said, “Thank you for being in my life.” And then he pointed to the heavens and whispered, “You wear His coat very well.”

We are called to be ambassadors for the kingdom of God and to “clothe ourselves” in Jesus Christ.

How well are you wearing his coat?

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Pastor’s Report 2025

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Pastor’s Report 2025

Each year during our Charge Conference, we report on the activities and accomplishments of the year to the East Ohio Annual Conference. What follows is what I reported. As is often the case, I am proud of what the people of Christ Church have accomplished, and I continue to be optimistic for our future.

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In 2025, Christ Church continues to be committed to keeping our mission statement in front of our awareness and keeping our focus on reaching out to our community by using our gifts to do what we can to meet the needs of the people around us. Our committees are challenging themselves to find ways that we can be a visible presence in our community rather than just “hiding out” inside the four walls of the church.

This year, after forty years of participation in the Alliance Carnation Days in the Park with our burger booth, Christ Church made the decision to pass the baton and hand off the booth, and the accompanying income stream, to our youth ministry through Scout Troop 2050. Troop 50, aided by some of the veterans of Christ Church’s previous experience, did extremely well and was able to raise funds that are greater than their anticipated operating costs for the year. Their hope is that with this additional funding will give them additional opportunities for growth, training, previously unaffordable excursions, and even, in future years, the possibility of high adventure camps out of state.

We continued our goal to offer training to members and leaders that will equip us to do the work of Jesus in our community. Toward that end, we held an afternoon seminar, led by Rev. Dr. Chris Martin, on usher and greeter training and began what we hope will be a continuing conversation, involving all our church committees, about hospitality. We hope that this conversation will create an environment that is welcoming to visitors and encourages them to choose Christ Church as their spiritual home. Further, next month Christ Church will host a training event in the use of Automatic Electronic Defibrillators (AED) led by one of our city firefighters. This training has been announced and has invited our scout leaders as well as the members of the Alliance Chamber of Commerce.

Christ Church also is continuing to pursue the development of a more active presence and ministry on the campus of the University of Mount Union UMU). After failing to develop a productive relationship with the Coalition for Christian Outreach (CCO) due to a shortage of staffing on their part, we have now partnered with Rev. Tim Morrison, the UMU Chaplain, in his successful application for grants, and the development of three Resident Spiritual Life Assistants (RSLA) who now live in the freshmen dormitories. Partnered with each of these RSLA’s are married partners from Christ Church who will serve as Community Mentors. These mentors will attend bible studies on campus, at least monthly, offer fresh baked treats, and build relationships and friendship with students.

Once again, Christ Church had a presence at the summer concerts in downtown Alliance where we gave out popcorn, water, and ice cream in exchange for donations to Habitat for Humanity. This allowed us to increase our gifts and sponsorship of this year’s Apostle Build house that is funded, in large part, by many churches in and around Alliance. We also continue our collections in support of the Alliance Community Food Pantry, the Salvation Army, and the Alliance of Churches as well as our monthly children’s “noisy can” offering which is directed to the Alliance of Churches bread ministry and the Salvation Army food pantry. Christ Church also continues its ministry of offering Thanksgiving dinners, in partnership with the First Christian Church and others, to deliver over 1400 meals on Thanksgiving morning to members of our community.

We continue to have two Sunday school classes for children and have now begun offering a small youth group meeting for our middle school students. Likewise, our youth ministry through scouting which connects us to nearly one hundred local families between our Scout troop and Cub Scout pack.

Though we experienced a substantial summer drop in attendance, our membership remains stable. Though we lost three members, (two to death and one to transfer), we also added two new members. We are hopeful that our increased emphasis on hospitality will aid us in attracting more new members in the year ahead. Additionally, while our endowment income has insulated us somewhat, we have seen a decrease in giving over the last two years, likely due to the death of longtime members and as a result, we have decreased our budget for next year to compensate. Even so, I remain optimistic that we are laying the groundwork for future growth, and I believe that there is much life left in this community of faith, its mission to the people of our community, and our part in the work of Jesus Christ in this place.

Blessings,

Pastor John Partridge

Resisting the Urge to Withdraw

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Resisting the Urge to Withdraw

by John Partridge

There are times in our lives when we simply want to give up and quit.

In those moments, we feel as if God, or life, or the universe has stacked the deck against us, that everything is going wrong, or just that we’ve taken such a hit to the life that we once had that we just want to take our ball and go home. It happens when our lives make major, often unexpected, and unpleasant, changes. Whenever we experience job loss, relationship breakups, divorce, the death of a loved one or spouse, or even watching your church grow older and shrink in membership.

In those times, we often feel crushed and powerless, and it is common for us to retreat into our safe spaces and hide out. We make a cup of tea, sit on the couch, pull a warm blanket over us, and hide from the world. But as comfortable as it might feel in the moment, that is often quite the opposite of what we ought to be doing. When we are in pain and suffering from loss, one of the keys to healing, moving forward, accomplishing our goals, and rediscovering joy, is not to retreat from the world (although we may very well need some time to do that) but to reconnect with out friends, our family, and get back into the world.

As human beings, as well as members of the family of Jesus Christ, we are social creatures at our core. We long for human connection. While they may often limit their interactions with others, even those who tend to be bookish introverts will feel isolated if they stay away from everyone for too long. We might not want to be in a crowd, or even in any kind of large group, but we still long for friendship, connection, and community. But more than that, it is when we share our burdens with others that we feel our burdens get lighter. Carrying on, moving forward, or even just standing up after life has dumped tough times on us can seem impossible. But when we open our hearts and share our souls, and our burdens, with others, we are encouraged and find the strength to move onward together.

Just as it does with a block of ice, insulating ourselves from the world only makes the chill last longer. The way to melt the chill, find joy again, and start growing again is to open ourselves to the world again, to seek out new opportunities, do new things, and reconnect with our friends and community. I’ve seen these things happen in the lives of both people and churches. While it might be comforting at first, retreating for too long and insulating ourselves from the world only prolongs our suffering. The path to growth and rediscovering joy will not be found under a warm blanket on the sofa surrounded by comfort food. The path to joy and growth can only be found in community.

As members of the family of Jesus Christ, the key is that we already have the greatest family ever.

We just need to get out of our safe spaces, get off our sofas, and invite others to join the family that we already found.

Focus

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Focus

July 2025

by John Partridge

I was forgotten at Annual Conference… again.

It wasn’t the first time.

What happened was that despite a lot of talk about accessibility, our conference staff has, more than once, forgotten that wheelchairs and walkers aren’t the only disability. As a result, while significant efforts are usually made to ensure that the facilities that we use have ramps, elevators, and golf carts to shuttle delegates to and fro, the facilities that are used do not have assistive listening devices or, if they do, no one knows how to use them. The result was that I heard only a handful of words during the entirety of the half-day clergy session on Wednesday. The regular session on Thursday, likewise, did not have any assistive listening systems, but the sound system was significantly better. This was especially surprising since the Thursday venue was held in the indoor track facility at the College of Wooster. The improved sound quality, combined with my use of a voice transcription app on my cell phone, enabled me to keep up reasonably well (though still imperfectly) with the business of our conference.

I don’t mean to beat up on our conference staff. I know many of them personally, they’re great people and they aren’t mean, or particularly forgetful. I know that my exclusion wasn’t deliberate. But neither was my experience at Annual Conference unique. It happens at churches, lecture halls, and businesses everywhere. And, as I think about such things, the problem is one of focus.

It happens to all of us.

We’re busy.

And, because we’re busy, we focus on what’s in front of us. We focus on work. We focus on our families. We focus on our hobbies. We focus on the causes that we support. We focus on the things that are important to us. And all that focus causes us to miss what is going on outside of our focus. Our architecture reminds us that handicap accessibility was not in focus for previous generations. People unable to climb stairs simply could not go to church, or to the post office, or many other places. But now that we are doing better at remembering to include accessibility in our planning, we still have a way to go. It is easy to remember to include wheelchair ramps, elevators, and golf carts into our planning when, every week, we go to church alongside folks that need those things. But disabilities like hearing and vision are less noticeable and so churches with braille or large print bulletins, assistive listening systems, or sign language interpreters are far less common because they are easier to overlook.

These disabilities remain outside of our focus.

But that means something for our ministry to the world and I’m not talking about disabilities (although that’s a part of it). It is common for us to “stay in our lane,” pay attention to the things that are inside of our focus and ignore most of the things outside of it. Unintentionally and without any malice, we neglect to include people with disabilities, but the middle class finds it easy to ignore both the poor and the rich. We notice what is happening locally, but it’s easy for us to ignore hunger, violence, and natural disasters that are hundreds, or thousands, of miles away. We notice what happens to people to look like us, think like us, act like us, and vote like us, but it’s easy to ignore the people that don’t.

But that is not the call of Jesus.

The message of the gospel is to include the excluded and to invite the outsiders to come in and join our family. My experience this week was inconvenient, but it is a reminder of how easy it is to focus too narrowly on the things in front of us. If we are to do the work of the church, the work that Jesus has called us to do, we need to consciously widen our focus. We need to pay attention to the needs of the people around us, to notice the people who don’t look like us or think like us and worry about the problems of people who live far away.

Yes, there are pressing matters in front of us and focus is important, but the call of Jesus, the message of the gospel, and the work of the church requires us to step back from time to time and make sure that we haven’t narrowed our focus and forgotten the people that Jesus wants us to include, invite, and welcome.

Focus is important.

Where is yours?

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How Are You Finishing?

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How Are You Finishing?

June 2025

by John Partridge

At least twice (and probably more like ten times) in the last few weeks I have been asked about my retirement. Most notably, when I had my annual consultation with our district superintendent, Rev. Edgar Brady, we discussed my plans, whether I wanted to continue for another year at Christ Church, and my thoughts about my eventual retirement. I assured him, as I have for the last six years, that Patti and I are happy at Christ Church and, if Christ Church is happy for us to stay, then we are in no hurry to retire. After that, we spent some time discussing how long it might be until we decided to make such a change. I had a few thoughts on that subject, but no specific plans, and he noted that he was turning seventy and thought that he still had a few good years left, especially since he will begin a new pastoral appointment in July.

The second most notable instance was during my semi-annual meeting with our financial advisor. In the middle of our discussion, I mentioned something general about retirement, possibly as we discussed our search for a house in which to live. It was at that point that he looked at me and pointedly asked, “Why haven’t you retired yet?” My answer was the same as the one I gave to Edgar, “I’m not finished yet.”

But these questions got me to thinking. I’m not ready to retire because I have some things that I’d like to do first. I want to finish my doctoral thesis, we need to find a house that we like that will accommodate all the stuff we want to do at home for the next couple of decades, and I have a few more things that I’d like to accomplish at Christ Church. But those things led me down a train of thought that eventually led me to think more generally about how we are finishing. Regardless of age, when we transition from one thing to another, we finish the first thing before we can get started on the next one. We wind down our projects, we wrap up details, and we prepare for the next chapter. Our inability to do these things is one reason that being suddenly laid off or fired can be so painful, and the same is true for divorce, or the death of a family member.

And that train of thought started me thinking about how all of us are managing our transition from this life to the next. We know that it is coming, though for some of us that transition will be sooner than for others. But how are we preparing for it? If we were planning a camping trip, as our scouts are preparing for summer camp, we would have a list of things that need to be done. Food must be purchased, tents mended, fees collected, service hours recorded, wood collected, physical forms signed by family doctors and turned in, rank advancement done, clothing packed, practice swimming for the camp swim test, and so on.

But as we consider our eventual transition from this life into the next, even if that day is quite far off, we should consider how we are preparing for it. One day we will stand before the throne of God on the day of judgement, and we might imagine being asked “What have you done with my son, Jesus?” How will we answer? How have we prepared? What have we done? With what things have we filled our lives?

I have things that I want to do before I retire, and more things that I want to do afterwards. And just as our scouts are preparing for summer camp, all of us have some time to prepare for our eventual transition from this life into the next. It is my hope that when that day comes, we will be able to say, as Paul did, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Likewise, we hope that upon our arrival, we might hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant! (Matthew 25:21)

But until that day comes, we should consider how we spend our time, and with what things we fill our lives.

How are you finishing?