In the 1950s, one of the churches I was serving held a picnic at an Oregon state park. For a brief time, I found myself in conversation with another group in the same park. On learning that I was a pastor, one person in that group said, "Oh, you poor man " As the conversation went on, it became evident that the remark was not based on a perception of my economic condition, but on some previous experience of a church's demands on a pastor's time. I did not share such a negative view of a pastor's life then, nor have I done so since. Serving as a pastor of a parish is not always easy, but it is a fulfilling learning experience, learning with, and from, parishioners. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to see God at work in the lives of individuals, marriages, families: To see how the Holy Spirit led a man who "wanted nothing to do with things Christian" become an elder and a leader in evangelistic outreach; to watch young people who were given opportunity to serve in the local church decide to go to seminary and become pastors themselves; and to receiving, during a worship service, a phone call from a dear lady, calling from her hospital bed to say she was praying for the church gathered.

Central in the Bible is the message of the love of God in Jesus Christ. I am writing in the hope and prayer that this life-changing, redeeming love of Christ may occupy the center, not the periphery, of our lives and be the main motivator of all we think and do.

Bob Hampel