Every other month our church publishes a newsletter and as part of that I write an article. This is from the June/July 07 edition of The Preston Wesleyan Church Informer.

As most of you know we are getting ready to graduate our first child from high school. Eighteen years really fly by. I remember how excited Rebecca was to go to kindergarten, only to find out that she was too young to go to kindergarten in Indiana. Now, she is only days away from finishing high school and making plans to attend Southern Wesleyan this fall.

I remember finishing high school myself. And then I enrolled at Lehigh County Community College. I graduated two years later thinking that would be the end of my educational career. Just this week I was mentioning to someone, how I some point I would like to get my Masters Degree in ministry. It is hard to believe that now I have been back to “college” twice. I graduated from Indiana Wesleyan in 1996 with a degree in Church Music and several years later would graduate from The Wesleyan Church’s FLAME program. In reality, I have become a life long learner. Not only “book learning” but also learning to be the person Christ has called me to be.

Sometimes it’s just so easy to rest on what we have already learned, but we need to press on as Paul says. We need to be hungry for more of Christ. We should want to know more of Him, so that we can be like Him.

That would be my prayer for you today. First, I would encourage you to get all the knowledge you can regarding your calling, where ever that is. It’s important in our Christian walk to be the best worker we can be. That’s part of what it means to be a lifelong learner.

Second, let me encourage you to be a life long learner when it comes to the things of God. When we finally reach the prize God has called us toward (heaven,) then we give up learning. But until then, press on to learn more and to become a complete believer.

To our students, I hope you have a great summer. Rest, relax and then go back in the fall and learn all you can, even if it doesn’t seem important now. It will be later. God bless each one of you. You are loved…Pastor Dale.