Fifty years ago today my parents were married at a historic Presbyterian Church.  They now have many great years together, three children, three children-in-law, five grandchildren, and lots of friends of which many have been with them through the fifty years.  It is a marriage well practiced and lives well lived.

Looking at our family, it is in some ways a cross-section of the mainline churches today.  Now there are some differences, one of which is that we, my parents and all my baby-boomer siblings and all the grandchildren, are presently active in churches.  But in the youngest generation the mainline is losing its hold.

With my parents, myself, and my siblings, we take the mainline church seriously.  Besides my service as an elder, including the stint as a presbytery officer and now the synod circuit, my parents are elders and deacons.  My wife is an elder and deacon as well.  My sister is an elder and her husband is a Minister of Word and Sacrament and was a TSAD.  And of course, their grandson is, at this moment, a YAD.  From the foundation and example my parents gave us we have continued to find our connection to Presbyterianism.

So Mom and Dad — Congratulations, thank you, and well done!  Love Ya!