I am blessed to be colleague with a pastor very different from me.

Phillip was born in Vietnam.  He came to know the power of Jesus and knew from that moment on that he could not be still; even in Communist Vietnam, even at the risk of his freedom and life, even when jailed, even when cast adrift as a boat person, even and thank God, now.

Phillip serves here as the Vietnamese Language minister.  His congregation is new.  Members of his church are first generation immigrants and their children.  Some speak English fluently; many over the age of twenty do not.  They are members of Richfield UMC and there is much to be learned from them about what it means to be thrown into a new culture, language, customs and mores.

And there is much to be learned through them about this thing called being a Christian.

What I am moved by is the power of wonder and how that transforms faith.  For Phillip and his congregation, being a right-out-loud Christian is yet a marvel.  It is gift, this walk with Jesus, and sharing the gift has the urgency of life unbound. 

I am humbled.  I am humbled by the ways my brother Phillip and his congregation share their witness.  The teachings of Jesus are shared with  joy and gratitude and newness of life and when did the mainline church become so bored by transformation that we lost our urgency?

I am humbled.  God sends into our lives those who jiggle complacency and so it is for me.  Again and still, I grow in the rich loam of humility.