This past weekend, we celebrated our lead pastor, Mark Norman’s, 25th year at Grace Community Church. It was a weekend filled with surprises, a bit of deception to make those surprises…surprises, lots of tears, and glory to God. The tension we had in thinking about the weekend was to honor Mark as a servant and glorify God as the Provider. Occasions like these can so easily steer into the extreme of glorifying the servant at the expense of the Lord, or glorifying the Lord and belittling the servant. I was blessed to work with a team of servants who achieved that balance well.

As part of my message on faithfulness for the service, I penned a poem for Mark. I’ve had several requests to see it in print, so I’m nervously posting it here.  Continue reading →