Spring Cleaning

March 4, 2026

Leadership Notes

     Time to get a jump on some spring cleaning. I have some stuff to clear off my desk.

     First and foremost:

Good Morning…It’s Wednesday, March 4, 2026, and Jesus is Still

King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

     What I love about Covenant Church is that on any given Sunday, you can hear the congregation singing joyfully and loudly. It’s a beautiful sound. But lest I be misunderstood, I’m the only one allowed to stop singing and listen once-in-a-while. Get my drift? When Ben has us go A Capella, it is especially nice.

     Do you ever wonder what would have happened if more people had simply said “No” to the fear-driven responses to the pandemic? Sometimes it seems to me like the “trust the science” crowd uses that simply to push conformity and compliance.

     On the lighter side:

Read the Vowels in “CELINE DION” out loud. You can thank me later…

     Captain Mitsuo Fuchida flew the lead plane against Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. After the war, he met a former American POW. Jacob DeShazer returned to Japan after the war, not to punish them but to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

     Shocked by the forgiveness DeShazer preached, and lived by, Fuchida bought a Bible. He converted to Christianity in 1950. He spent the rest of his life preaching the gospel in Japan and the United States. He said, “I was a follower of the sword. Now I am a follower of the Cross.”

     All praise, glory, and honor to the sovereign purposes of God. Is it wrong to think that such things could happen today in places like Iran?

     One day, after he finished reminding his 8-year-old son of his chores for the morning, the boy asked, “How long until I can stop listening to you?” Dad replied, “You have to listen to me for the rest of your life.” To which his son shot back, “I’ll only have to listen to you for the rest of YOUR life.” Brutal…

     One morning, a husband and wife had a kerfuffle over an issue of some import. Later that day, a Bible verse showed up in his daily devotions. He decided to text it to her, as an encouragement:

A continual dripping on a rainy day    

and a quarrelsome wife are alike;

to restrain her is to restrain the wind    

or to grasp oil in one's right hand.-

Proverbs 27:15-16

He’s going to be more judicious in his use of Scripture next time.

     Abraham Lincoln once asked an audience how many legs a dog has if you count the tail as a leg. When they answered, “Five,” Lincoln told them that the answer was four. The fact that you called the tail a leg did not make it a leg.

     Before closing with two Moments of Spurgeon, I’ll leave you with a riddle:

What has four letters, occasionally has twelve letters, always has

six letters, but never has five letters.

And now, your Two Moments of Spurgeon:

1.  “Bold-hearted men are always called mean-spirited by cowards.”

2.  “Better to go to heaven alone, than to hell with a herd.”

          With Much Love and Affection,

                           Richard