Wedding Ministry

In the Rockbridge course, we are discussing ministry that you can have in connection widh the task of performing weddings.

I want to share one of those with you here. (Bro. Roger, you will probably recognize who I am describing.)

A couple of days ago, I described an experience I had in a wedding where the groom used a cigarette lighter to light some of the candles. That was when I met him. (Our church did not have a policy of requiring pre-marital counseling.)

His wife had attended our church off and on for the last couple of years before the wedding. He was a truck driver and not home a lot of weekends. Then he got sick (some type of cancer--possibly related to his years of smoking.) He started attending church. Then he came to join the church. He said he had been saved and baptized (by immersion) earlier in his life, and he attended a Methodist church in those earlier years.

He could no longer drive his truck, and he started attending very regularly. On occasion I talked with him, and he "firmed up" his assurance of salvation. Then he had surgery on his throat. He was on oxygen and carried his tank with him. Still, he bacame more and more regular in church.

One Sunday, he was in church, and one of the ladies in the church was talking to him about his wife who was not there. He carried notepads with him to communicate. He said, "My wife asked me if I was not feeling well." He wrote further that he replied to her like this: "I'm not feeling well. That's why I'm going to church."

A few weeks before he died, our song leader asked if anyone had a request for a congregational song. He raised his hand, and the person next to him told the song leader what song he had picked out. It was, "I'll Tell the World That I'm a Christian." What a testimony that was. He wanted to communicate that assurance even though he could not speak.

I did perform his funeral, and I am thankul for the relationahip we developed and how a ministry developed from a humorous wedding experience.

(Bro. Roger, I am having internet connection problems--wrote this from McDonalds. I will get back on by Monday at least even if I have to take the computer somewhere else to hook up.

We will see you at church tomorrow for Homecoming. I will be preaching at ten o'clock at another church, so we will probably come in a little late.)