Columbus Avenue Baptist Church honored Josh yesterday for the big achievement of completing his doctorate. They took some time at the end of the service to speak to his accomplishment and to their appreciation of his time at the church. Along with numerous cards of well-wishes, Josh was presented with a beautiful model of a sailing vessel built in 1847, the HMS Harvey. It sailed out of Baltimore, and made cargo runs between Galveston and the ancient Jewish port of Jaffa.
They read a beautiful statement that quoted a lot from one of his sermons from 2016 (Gotta watch what you say, Josh. Somebody might actually be listening) about his plans for “navigating” the next ten years. They also presented Christi with an envelope and the admonition to “go have a nice meal together on us.”
After the service they had a reception, and I’m pretty sure most if not all of the 200 or so folks there came by to shake his and Christi’s hand and express appreciation in their own personal way.
We did grandparent duty and got Luke and AnnaGrace from their Sunday School classes. But we were also congratulated by quite a few folks for the part we played in, well, “providing Josh to them.” Don’t guess we can deny that. We are slowly learning the names of some of the folks there. Speaking of which, “Hi, Janet! Thanks for watching the blog every day.”
And thanks to the community of faith at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church for welcoming Josh and Christi and their family, and for taking such good care of them.
Galatians 5:22-23 says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Father, please bless the folks at Columbus for their expressions of love to Josh and Christi. As awkward as it feels at the time to the pastor, he really does desperately need such times of encouragement. Amen.
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