O GIVE THANKS UNTO THE LORD

Bobservations Column
By Pastor Bob Lawrenz

Happy Thanksgiving Week! Though it is a non-religious holiday, it’s a day when God’s grace was and is evident. From Google we learn that “The event that Americans commonly call the ‘First Thanksgiving’ was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October 1621. This feast lasted three days, and—as accounted by attendee Edward Winslow—it was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims.” 

As in the Book of Esther, nowhere is God mentioned, but the work of God is evident everywhere in the story of that first Thanksgiving feast. People came together to work and grow a harvest that would sustain them. Pilgrims and Native Americans combined their efforts for the sake of life in the New World. 

Sins Of The Fathers

Bobservations Column
By Pastor Bob Lawrenz

Among my initial assignments in ministry was to reach out to one local Jail Inmate who was to be transferred into a State Prison. Word of mouth spread, and within two years, I received referrals to about 500 State Prison Inmates. My electric typewriter and copy machine were busy printing up newsletters with Bible Studies and words of comfort and encouragement to for both male and female Inmates. Teaching tapes from my Senior Pastor followed.

What I learned was that most all were incarcerated for the bad choices they had made, not for their “criminal minds.” Educated, or lacking in education was not the issue. More often than not, they had (sometimes inadvertently) surrounded themselves with others that seemed to lack direction and discipline. 

Tough Love

Bobservations Column
By Pastor Bob Lawrenz

Many State and Local Prisons had a program known as “Scared Straight.” It combined the efforts of Social Services, Faith-based Ministries, and each State’s Department of Corrections. Young men and women who had several low level arrests were “recruited” into a prison, where Inmates and Corrections Officers would present a very real experience of what it’s like to live behind bars. 

The testimonies of inmates in particular were frightening as they related their own experiences of mental, physical, and sexual abuse from different prison factions to the “recruits.” Scared Straight was a program designed to deter individuals from a life of crime.