A Link in the Chain
by Andy Perry

As I write this article, it’s about a week until Christmas. Probably like you I’ve been reading the Christmas cards as they appear, a few more every day, in my mailbox. Some are from people I’ve known only a few years—my history with them is rather short. But then comes a Christmas card from Edye Eklov.

Edye ( Mrs. Eklov to me ) is one of my mother’s best friends. She and her husband arrived in Sparta, Wisconsin a few years before my parents moved to town in 1967. Edye was always part of the backdrop of my life growing up. She wasn’t too far away from St. Mary’s Hospital when I was born there in 1969. She was a part of Trinity Lutheran Church when I was baptized a few months later. Edye was my fourth grade Sunday School teacher and led one of the youth choirs in which I sang. Her Saturday morning baking is famous in my hometown, so it wasn’t unusual for my dad and I to drop by her house on occasion, sit at her kitchen table and eat something fresh out of the oven. When I was eight years old I began piano lessons. Edye was my teacher and inspired me to try, though my stubborn lack of interest won the day. In the summer Edye and her husband Avert like to walk, and their walks often took them to our back porch. They didn’t come to see me, and I didn’t sit on the porch to talk with them—but they were there, always a thematic line of the background music of my life.

After high school that changed. When I was pulled out of college to serve in Operation Desert Storm, Edye wrote me letters filling me in on doings in my hometown. When I came home and attended seminary, she wanted to know what I was learning and I believe the Lord used some of our conversations to strengthen her own very vibrant walk with the Lord. Over time Edye became to me not only my mother’s friend but mine. She’s shown interest and care for my wife and sons and ministry, first in Iowa, now in North Dakota.

In light of all this, you understand why sitting down to read Edye Eklov’s Christmas Card is a special, almost reverent, experience for me. She’s not just a faraway friend with news to share. She’s a tangible connection to my past in its entirety. She reminds me that I’m just a link in a larger chain.

All of us have people and events which remind us that life is bigger and more important than this small place and this short moment which we are now experiencing. Perhaps in ministry especially we are tempted to focus to such a large extent on the present, that we forget that we are merely a link in the long chain God has been forging for His own glory on earth for thousands of years. We can be tempted toward a type of unconscious egocentrism - convinced that our place in church history or the history of a local church is far superior to what has gone before. That is not necessarily true. God’s work is God’s work at whatever juncture, in whatever form. In order to understand that, we occasionally need to encounter people and experience events which put the present and its people, places, and events in historical perspective, reminding us that we are presently just one link in the Lord’s long chain .

2007 will provide us, as a local church, a wonderful opportunity to do just that as we take time and make room to celebrate the 25 year history of Trinity Church. We are setting aside most of the Sundays this June to do several important things in that regard. One of them will be to remember and celebrate our past. Many of us at Trinity have been a part of only a brief moment of that past. Some of you have been around to witness and experience its full length, though none have experienced its full scope. The past at Trinity deserves remembering: A Bible study in Earl Sutton’s home, a small gathering at North Hill School, transition to a nearby church building and then establishment and growth here at 3500 4th Street SW. But those are just locations. More important to remember are the hundreds of people and acts of God for the gospel experienced down the years. Just think of all the songs of praise sung to God over 25 years! How many sermons have been preached? How many conversations that led to encouragement and understanding and reconciliation and conviction and salvation? We need to remember and celebrate our past and remember that God was at work then and there as much as He is now and here.

Secondly, we need to look toward the future with excitement and hope in God. The past only has meaning as it continues to impact the present and future. Lord willing, Trinity Church will be given grace to be a lighthouse for the gospel for another quarter century and beyond. Lord willing, we will see more zeal for the gospel in our lives, more sinners come to Christ, more sanctification in our hearts, more of the Kingdom of God built because of our labor and prayers as the Spirit gives us grace. And much of it will be owed to the foundation of the ministry laid in the past twenty-five years. We owe our forebears more than we can say. If we can see farther than they did in ministry, it is only because we are standing on their shoulders.

As long-time members of Trinity Church reveal themselves and as pastors Mark Bendell and Greg Strand return for our month-long celebration next summer, let’s arise and applaud them - let’s thank God for them and the faithful work they did yesterday which makes our faithful work possible today and tomorrow. May the Lord use them to remind us that what He’s doing in and through us today is the same He did yesterday only with different fashions and different faces. It’s His church. It’s His work. We’re just links in the chain.