A Tribute To Bud Lovell<title> <link rel="STYLESHEET" type="text/css" href="../../sermon.css"> <style fprolloverstyle>A:hover {color: #FF0000} </style> <style type="text/css"> p { font-family: sans-serif; font-size: small; text-align: justify; } cite { font-variant: small-caps; font-size: smaller; } </style> <link rel="STYLESHEET" type="text/css" href="../2002/sermon.css"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" vlink="#0000FF"> <table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=4 > <tr VALIGN=BASELINE BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <td COLSPAN="2" BGCOLOR="#000080"> <b> <font color="#FFFFFF"> <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Times New Roman; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">  A Tribute To Bud Lovell </span> </font> </b> <font color="#FFFFFF"><br>A Sermon based on </font> <a target="_blank" href="http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NIV&passage=1+Corinthians+4:1-3"><font color="#FFFFFF"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Times New Roman; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">1 Corinthians 4:1-3</span></font></a> </td> </tr> <tr> <td COLSPAN="2" width="640">  <p>Some five or six-hundred miles northeast of here, as the crow flies, there is a point at which southeastern Illinois, northeastern Missouri and southwestern Kentucky come together. At that same point, the Ohio River, which has journeyed hundreds of miles from the East to the West, joins up with the Mississippi River. That point is called the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. It is a very historic point. Lewis and Clark were the first to map it in 1806 and to send word back to President Jackson that a fort should be built on the northern bluff just above it, a bluff where Nancy and I stood just a month ago and marveled at the majesty of those two rivers coming together.</p> <p>There is that one point at which the two rivers become forever one, never again to be separated. It's virtually impossible to calculate that exact point. All you can see is that, where there were two rivers, there is now only one that winds its way hundreds of miles south until, just below New Orleans, it pours itself out into the Gulf of Mexico. No other river has played such a crucial role in shaping the history of the United States. Yet, the Mississippi is the river it is because, at some point in ancient history, two rivers became one.</p> <p>Some thirty-five years ago, the mighty river of Kingdom hope that was Cliff Temple and the beautiful and creative Kingdom river that was Bud Lovell flowed together, on this very platform, and became together something they never could have been apart. Over the past thirty-five years, fully one-third of this church's history, they have wound there way, not only through this community and City, but throughout this world. To this day, there are islands of hope and Kingdom influence all over this planet carved out of the bedrock of God's kingdom work that owe their very existence to the influence of the mighty Kingdom River that became of the confluence of Cliff Temple and Bud Lovell.</p> <p>Thirty-five years means more than a few minutes allows. Its real influence is marked in the uncountable thousands of lives Bud and Cliff Temple together have touched. Bud, how many weddings? How many funerals? How many choir rehearsals? How many hours standing by the bedside of a great saint about to exit this world only to enter God's eternal kingdom on the other side of another river? How many miles in stank buses crammed with unbathed youth at the end of long mission trips that smelled more like that greyhound than the bus? How many committee meetings? How many hours of counseling? How many worship services? How many people, born into this church family, who cannot paint the panoramic history of God's presence in their lives without your face in the picture? It is true, only God knows. But, trust me, God knows.</p> <p>Bud, the scripture commands that <b>"those who have been given a trust must prove faithful."</b> You, my friend, have proven yourself faithful, over and over again, for thirty-five years with the trust this church placed in you. Thank you, and, thank you again! This church would not be the church it is, we would not be the people we are, had our lives never come together in the providence of Eternal God. I remember one time when this platform was very crowded and cramped and the choir rail was moved forward, too close, and I didn't pay close enough attention to the fact that Bud was standing right behind me. When I stepped into the pulpit our lives literally touched in a very personal way. That is the only time that has ever happened and I will never be the same. Thanks be to God! Our lives did come together and, no matter what, none of us will ever be the same!</p> <p>On a personal note, I'm going to miss you deeply. There are many things I will miss. Some of them are even mentionable from this pulpit. I have never worshipped more in my life than I have under your leadership. The more I've gotten to know you, the more I've gotten to know God. I'll miss your friendship, your sense of humor. Thank you for laughing at my bad puns when no one else would and Walter could only groan.</p> <p>You need to know, Cliff Temple, that Bud's sense of humor saved our staff meetings more than once. I cannot remember how many times we'd be sitting in staff meeting, trying to work our way through some seemingly impossible problem. Bud would reach into that huge Santa Claus-sized bag of Cliff Temple memories and recall a very similar event from twenty or thirty years ago and we would find ourselves lost in laughter at how we'd taken everything too seriously. Good rivers have a way of washing away yesterday's mistakes and restoring new life. By the way, nearly all of those stories involved someone in this very room today. Some day soon, I hope to publish a book entitled, "Stories Bud Couldn't Tell Why He Was Still on the Payroll." And, I will be naming names.</p> <p>Bud, there are no words to express how much we will miss you, on every level. You have touched our lives, shaped our hope, and helped reveal Eternal God to us. No matter where you go from this point forward, the thing we will miss most, just your quiet, loving presence, will still be with us nonetheless.</p> <p>If I may, in closing, recall one of my very favorite real life parables of hope for you, Bud, Elaine and Cliff Temple. It's the story I heard an elderly couple tell in East Texas some ten years ago. They were in their 70's when I met them and had been married most of their lives. They recalled a time when a tornado struck their farm house while they were still in it. The storm had come up suddenly and all they had time to do was hold onto each other and the door frame that looked out back toward the swirling black death coming their way. The storm picked up their house and set it down several times. The entire time, they just knew death would come any second. Just as quickly as it had come up, the tornado had vanished back into the ink black clouds.</p> <p>They stepped outside to collect themselves and were horrified as they looked across the tree-twisted, debris-strewn farmyard to where her mother's house had been. It was gone and they feared the very worst, until they turned back around and looked at their house. Only then did they realize that, when the tornado had picked up their house and set it back down, it had turned the house around so that what was once the front door had become the back door and what was once the back door had become the front. Mom's house was safe in the distance after all and, more strangely, what had once been the exit from their house had become the new entrance into it.</p> <p>So it is, that, what often appears to us to be nothing more than an exit has been or will be reshaped in the providential care of our Heavenly Father into an entrance into another life we could have never imagined. In the Romans 8 grace of God, every exit is truly an entrance.</p> <p>The exit from Israel was frightening. The children of Israel even complained to Moses that, though it was slavery, at least Pharaoh's world was a predictable and relatively safe one. Moses knew that, as frightening as the wilderness appeared, it was more than just an exit from Egypt, it was also an entrance into the Land of Promise the children of Israel could have never imagined.</p> <p>The stone that was rolled in front of Jesus' borrowed tomb that supposedly marked his exit from this world actually, we now know by faith, only served three days later as the open door through which God in Christ would re-enter his creation through the resurrection of his Son, Jesus, the Christ.</p> <p>For all of us, this day feels something like an exit. As with all exits, beneath the laughter of great friends reuniting, in some cases, after decades of separation, there is grief mixed with sadness and even anxiety. With all my heart I believe we can and must trust for Bud, Elaine and those of us they are leaving, that the God who brought us this far has not done so to leave us in the wilderness. Have you noticed that, in nearly all of the music Bud has selected for this morning's service God, the theme is "Great is Thy Faithfulness"? In ways that will amaze all of us God will turn this exit into an entrance to something new and good for all of us we could have never created ourselves.</p> <p>Someone asked me the other day how we will fill Bud's shoes. I thought very briefly and said, "We won't fill Bud's shoes. No one could do that." But, we can all trust that the same God who brought us to a confluence in this very place thirty-five years ago, when, by the way, I was a junior in high school Bud, has plans for a new confluence, just downstream. We will all be amazed at what happens in Bud and Elaine's lives and in this church in the providence of God.</p> <p>In the providence of God, the winter snow that melts and becomes the Mississippi River eventually washes out into the Gulf. Over time, the sun evaporates the moisture into the clouds and sends it back north over the very same land from which it came to water it again in the spring, so that as winter passes, new crops are resurrected where the warm sun rises on freshly plowed soil. Bud, as you leave us, your influence will continue to nourish us, like the spring rain, and we will bask in the warm glow of your presence that will always linger here.</p> <p>Bud, once more, thank you for being so faithful, for so very long. We love you and Elaine and we will miss you. This is always and forever your church home. In our hearts, there will always be a place reserved just for you.</p> <hr width="100%" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Glen Schmucker, Pastor </td> <td> <div align=right>  December 31, 2006 </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td COLSPAN=2> Copyright © 2006, Glen Schmucker </td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>