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14 Aug

August 14, 2009 |

David Datema, UB endorsed missionary who is director of the US Center for World Mission, wrote a blog post called, “My Unsolicited Advice for Mission-Minded Singles.” He offers three pieces of advice, with explanation. The second one include:

Instead of stopping to look, look while going. I wouldn’t expect anyone to stop looking for someone. But don’t make it the main thing. Go after the vision of the kingdom before you. If someone gets in your way and you like them, by all means marry them. But the Kingdom waits for no one. Get on the Kingdom train and you’ll be surprised who else might be on board.

13 Aug

August 13, 2009 |

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Bishop Ron Ramsey scored one of the morning’s 3 holes-in-one.

As mentioned yesterday, the Healthy Ministry Resources staff took Ron Ramsey and
Pat Jones out for breakfast that morning, as a way to spend time with them before they left office. But that was only Part 1 of the morning.

Part 2 was mini-golf.

After breakfast, we headed over to the domed building on Engle Road to play 18 holes on their indoor miniature golf course. Ron and Pat are avid golfers. Actually, Ron is avid, and Pat is fanatical. The staff thought it would be fun to play golf with them, but in a setting where the playing field is more level–in other words, not on a real golf course.

The staff divided into three groups and gave it a whirl. When scores were tallied, Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries, emerged as the winner. Darlene Burkett, fresh from vacation (her first day back) and full of energy, placed second. Actually, she was tied with newly-elected bishop Phil Whipple for second. Then came Pat Jones. Here’s most of the list (we’ll skip the last-place finishers) and their scores:

1. Jeff Bleijerveld (43).
2. Tie: Darlene Burkett and Phil Whipple (46).
3. Pat Jones (48).
4. Donna Hollopeter (55).
5. Tie: Ron Ramsey, Steve Dennie, and Jane Seely (56).

There were only three holes-in-one: Ron Ramsey, Pat Jones, and Marci Hammel.

12 Aug

August 12, 2009 |

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The Healthy Ministry Resources staff book Bishop Ron Ramsey and Pat Jones out for breakfast this morning (Wednesday, August 12). They’ll be leaving office in a couple days, and we wanted to treat them. We went to Spyros, a family restaurant in Fort Wayne that feeds you obscene amounts of food, and wise souls always leave with a doggy bag.

We gave both Ron and Pat a bag of goodies, mostly golf-related gift cards, since they are  avid (to put it mildly) golfers. Then Phil Whipple, who will officially take office as bishop on August 15, presented a retirement pin to Ron Ramsey: 32 years of service to the United Brethren in Christ.

11 Aug

August 11, 2009 |

One thing Bishop Ron Ramsey has emphasized is, “Lead!” Get out from underneath your wussiness and lead. Guys, it’s time to stand up and take a leadership role. Everything rises and falls on leadership.

I believe most of our churches have people who want to be exposed to some empowering leadership, and want to be part of an effective church. But they need some good leadership.

When I go into churches and start talking about principles of leadership and church health, I almost always see a couple people who are like wilted flowers that got rain water on them. You can see it in their faces: “Yes, that’s what I’m looking for!

Where leadership is exercised, we find people waiting in the shadows to step up and get involved. People who previously stayed on the sidelines decide they now see a situation in which they’re willing to invest themselves. When people see things change, resources that have been sitting there the whole time get unleashed.

10 Aug

August 10, 2009 |

For the second time, Forbes.com included Huntington University in its list of America’s Best Colleges.

Huntington was fifth among Indiana public and private colleges and universities and the second highest-ranked Indiana member of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. The list:

32: Wabash college
42: DePauw University
50: Notre Dame
91: Earlham college
97: Huntington University

Of those, Huntington has the lowest cost: $29,390 (followed by Wabash Collage, at $37,750).

In addition, Huntington ranked No. 86 on Forbes.com’s list of America’s Best Private Colleges.

“We are honored that Forbes has chosen to list Huntington University among the top 100 institutions in the country for the second consecutive year,” said Dr. G. Blair Dowden, president of Huntington University. “We understand that college rankings are subject to some controversy and debate; however, we feel privileged to be recognized by a highly-respected company such as Forbes.”

You can read more about this on the Huntington University site.

10 Aug

August 10, 2009 |

My greatest concern is finding leaders to assign to churches. I get resumes nearly every week, but few of them I believe would be the kind of people I want to assign to one of our churches, because their experience shows that they’ve never led or grown anything. I think our single biggest need is to have enough of the right quality of people when we need them.

Years ago, if you started in a small church and kept your nose clean and didn’t ruffle feathers, you got promoted to a little nicer church. Then, if you continued to keep your nose clean, you got promoted to another church.

I think that kind of approach to assigning churches is terrible. But it’s all we knew and what everybody was doing, so I don’t condemn anyone for doing that. But to find people who are leaders, you really have to do some recruiting. It’s something I didn’t take the time to do as bishop–go to seminars, talk to professors, see who the top students are, build a relationship with them, see if they’re interested in doing something with us.

06 Aug

August 6, 2009 |

Well, I moved the last of my books out of the office over the weekend. I will complete a few loose ends over the next two weeks and then I will go to Greencastle, Pa., to preach at Macedonia UB and at the Rhodes Grove Camp Meeting Aug 16-20. Those will be my last duties as Bishop.

Many have asked what I am going to do in retirement. So I thought I ought to respond.

For the first couple of weeks, I plan to do very little. I am sure I will become involved in some projects around the house. This will be the first time for many years when I will not have a job to go to in the morning. But I believe more than my job defines my life.

First and foremost, I will still be a follower of Jesus Christ. I hope to have the time to read and study in detail a few topics for which I have a great interest.

I look forward to spending more time with my wife of 49 years, EJ. For all our married life, I have held a job and a great deal of the time she has been employed as well. Next to Jesus, she is the love of my life and I look forward to the time we will have together.

I haven’t been a “person in the pew” since my days in Wheaton, Ill., with Scripture Press. EJ and I look forward to finding a church home where we can serve in our areas of giftedness and interests.

Moving is also in our near future. Don’t know where yet. We had hoped to have a house purchased way before this, but so far nothing. We don’t know what the Lord is trying to say to us, but at this point we are still looking. We have leased a house from Huntington University for the past four years and we need to move out ASAP.

Every time we have moved, EJ and I have talked about the need to rid ourselves of much accumulation of “stuff,” but we really never have. We move it and store it away somewhere…garage, closets, attic, basement…you get the drift. This move we will have a huge moving-on sale, and hopefully a lot of that “stuff” can be moved from our house to someone else’s so they can store it away until that time they need to have a huge garage sale.

It will be nice to get settled somewhere.

After the dust settles, I’d like to do some pulpit supply, seminars, and church consultations as opportunities present themselves. I still believe what the rock in my yard says, “Where God is taking us is always better than where we’ve been.”  I look forward with eager anticipation to whatever that may be.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve my church in this high capacity.  It has been a rewarding, challenging, and humbling experience.

05 Aug

August 5, 2009 |

Dick Raab, a retired minister in Michigan, has been diagnosed with sarcoma cancer. He begins radiation treatments around August 24, and chemotherapy will come after that. On Monday, August 4, we received this message from Dick’s wife, Donelle.

“We went to the oncologist this morning. He said without treatment Dick wouldn’t make it past 5 months. With treatment he could live several more months, even years, there is just no way to know at this point. There are some extra spots, too, on the outside of his lung. It is too hard to know if those spots will take off and grow or not. They could stay dormant for a long time and then grow quickly. Or, they could be the same kind as his tumor and grow very fast right away. There is no way to tell.

“We do know that things were slowed down, at least temporarily, by the removal of the large tumor. The rest of the tumor that the surgeon couldn’t get and ‘still have a live patient’ needs to be treated as soon as healing takes place enough that he can be treated. We have an appointment next Monday with the radiation oncologist to go over radiation treatment possibilities and the possible date to start up treatment. The extra spots on his lung will be treated with chemo after the radiation is done. It all doesn’t sound like a pleasant fall even in the best case scenario.”

You can send a note to Dick by email.

04 Aug

August 4, 2009 |

Jeff Bleijerveld and Donna Hollopeter returned from China, and were in the office today until jet-lag got the best of them (about mid-afternoon). The trip went very well.

Darlene Burkett, administrative assistant in Global Ministries, and her husband Phil took off for two weeks to celebrate their 30th anniversary. They’ll be in California visiting their daughter Carissa, and at a lodge somewhere in Colorado. Today begins the second week of their vacation.