In 1948, my dad pioneered a church in Farmington, New Mexico, the unpaved streets shared by Navajo Indians in their horse drawn wagons, shiny cars, Buick or Oldsmobile, a town populated by Indians, Latinos, wildcatters looking for gas and oil and uranium prospectors. He found property one block off Main Street, laid the cinder blocks with his own hands. One day he delightedly showed us boxes of colored glass from Sears and Roebuck, green and orange, a bargain batch, then reverently installed them one by one, his stained glass windows.

My first Easter in that humble church, I was six years old, and brought to the early Easter Sunrise Service thrilled with the flounced, pink dress I’d waited so long to wear. My dad gave the Resurrection sermon, radiating love for that dusty little town, the lilies, light covering the cinder blocks with hallowed, orange and green, and the Divine Presence made it all holy. I met God that morning and the course of my life has never changed. When I go back to Farmington, I drive by the church, a Salvation Army outpost now, but I still remember—it’s my burning bush, my Damascus road, my Jacob’s ladder.

I’m thrilled with the coming Friday night Love Song concert with Pastor Chuck Smith. Hundreds of young people came to the Lord in the early years of the Warehouse, when Chuck sent Love Song and other groups from Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, CA to help us with Saturday Night outreach concerts. Louis and I will ask someone when they came to the Lord; we’re surprised how often they will say “a Love Song Concert”, “Sweet Comfort Concert”, “Daniel Amos.” It’s good to reminisce about the moment we first believed. In uncertain times, the Psalmist said “I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds”. (Psalms 77:11-12)

Thanks Love Song and Chuck for coming and for calling us to remember, to return to our first love.

Mary Neely

It’s four in the morning  and I’m sitting up thinking, I’d rather be asleep, but I’m not.  I’ll call friends in Europe on Skype, my California friends will be asleep. Faces float by, no, not that one, we have grown apart, like strangers now.  How did I let that happen?  Another face,  no, so much time has passed!  Reaching out to them would be like crossing the Arabian desert!

Today we make friendships with a mouse click, but a Facebook friend today may {be} un-friended tomorrow.  We social network, correspond by e-mail, text message, feed comments to twitter{;} we are interlinked but can feel unattached, observers watching the lives of others passing by like a caravan on the distant horizon.

God wouldn’t allow alienation to happen in His relationship with us.  He was estranged from His creation, it was our neglect and chosen disobedience, not His.  He longed to restore fellowship with His created children, to provide a way to cross the awful gulf of His holiness and our unrighteousness.

And God made the phone call, showed up on {our} doorstep, knocked on the door, said, “May I come in and have supper with you?” Feeling our godforsaken, forlorn, abandoned state, God sought us, grasped for us through His son, Jesus, reaching through our desolation, our turning away, with His fervent love.
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