Frank Chlastak Friends are forever 10/3/24

Friends are forever

Growing up in the ‘70s and 80s one of my favorite Christian singer was Michael W. Smith. I learned about him when I was a DJ on a campus radio station in graduate school in New Orleans at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

He wrote a song “Friends are Friends Forever.”

The words went, “And friends are friends forever, If the Lord’s the Lord of all of them, and a friend will not say never, ‘Cause the welcome will not end. Though it’s hard to let you go, and in the Father’s hands we know that a lifetime is not too long to live as friends.”

But what is a friend? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a friend, “as a person who you like and enjoy being with.”

Friends are people with whom we dare to be ourselves. They asked us to put on nothing, only to be what we are. They do not want us to be better or worse.

When we are with them, we feel as an inmate feels who has been declared innocent. We do not have to be on our guard.

We can say what we think, as long as it is genuinely us. Friends understand those contradiction in our nature that lead others to judge us. With them, we breathe freely.

Friends take us as they say with “warts and all.”

As the Apostle Paul tells the church at Corinth, “Put up with each other and forget each other if anyone has a complaint, forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Friends understand. We do not have to be careful. We can misuse them, neglect them, and tolerate them. Best of all we can keep still with them. It makes no matter. They are like us.

We can pray with them. Through it all and underneath it all they see us and love us.

In the summer of 2015, I received a call from the search committee chair of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

It was the beginning of a new friendship and a new ministry together in Poplar Bluff.

I still remember one committee member telling us, “Poplar Bluff is hard to get to anywhere else in Missouri.”

I remember our first trip to Jefferson City and how those words echoed true.

Since then, many Three Rivers Raiders basketball trips to Springfield, Columbia, Sedalia, Moberly and points in between also affirmed those words

In September 2015, we began our friendship and ministry together.

We began sharing the good news in our community.

Over the past nine years, our church family and our community has had his ups and downs and Doris and I have been glad to be a part. We have laughed together and we have cried together as best friends and family.

As a community we weathered the storm of COVID-19, although it was a challenge for all of us.

We all were pushed to our limits. We had to learn new ways of doing ministry and working for almost four years.

But we were not the only community of faith and friends that had to deal with this issue and we felt God’s hand in all that we did.

At the end of this month, as the scripture says, we will begin a “new season” in our life as well as the church will begin a “new season.”

We will remain in the community and we will probably bump into you from time to time as we go about our business.

Doris will continue to work at Walmart and I will continue to volunteer at the hospital and write for the newspaper.

However, we will by church protocol sadly have to find us another church home for a season.

So we will be testing our areas churches’ hospitality.

May God continue to bless each one of our friends at First Christian Church and those in the community.

I am glad to have been the pastor and part of the larger community family but more importantly being a friend.

Friends our friends forever and the Lord is Lord of all.

Shalom

Rev. Frank Chlastak began work as senior minister of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Poplar Bluff in 2015. He is a graduate of Northeast Louisiana University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and has served congregations of the Christian Church in Louisiana, Arkansas, Virginia, Oklahoma and Missouri.