Light And Darkness

I am not your pastor, John. I am a different pastor, if I haven't met you yet. My name's Carl Galick, and it is my privilege to bring the word of the Lord for a while. Just a brief little background. I've been in the ministry 38 years, retired for one, and thanks to your pastor, John, I now have to do retired in air quotes, but that's good. It's a delight to be here and to do that, to give him a break. I'd like to welcome all of our online folks. There's two people especially I want to address online. One is my mom. Hi, mom. Good to see you. She doesn't get to hear me preach a lot, so she always pulls online. So good to see you, mom. And Pastor John, if you're watching from Michigan, pick up the remote, press off, walk away. Hugo and I are gonna run things just fine, aren't we, Hugo? Everything is fine. Everything is fine. I am from Chicago, so don't worry about it. Kind of comes naturally. So 38 years in the ministry. Started out in East Texas and went to Dallas-Fort Worth area for a while. Then I switched cultures, almost switched countries. Moved from Texas to Minnesota. You don't find a lot of us right there on the internet. From Texas to Minnesota, despite the objections of my daughter, who was in eighth grade at the time, but that's a whole nother story for a different time and place, isn't it? So that being said, served God's people in Minnesota and have some delightful and wonderful friends up there. Spent nine years or 18 winters in Minnesota. If you get the math, if you've been there. So I knew that. Then from there to St. John in Rochester, Michigan. Doing that, so from that part of the world as well for a number of years. And then Lutheran Church Extension Fund asked me to come to work for them. Started out as a consultant asking pastors and congregations two questions. What's God's vision and how are you going to fund it? And so it was, you can make a career out of that. And I did for seven years and concluded my time with the Lutheran Church Extension Fund as vice president of ministry support, doing that. And what a delight that was. It really is, we'll have to ask that question sometime in a worship series. What's your vision? How are you going to fund it? Because those two questions apply not only to the congregations, not only to Thrive, but to your life. You know, that's part of it. Anyway, we started on that. So that was my life in that time. And then was ready to retire Peace Church in Naples, Florida. Called me and asked me to be their pastor. And I did with a primary focus on rearranging and re-managing the vision and the debt, doing what I was consulting. It's really God's opportunity. He really kind of said to me, okay, Carl, put up or shut up. Stop consulting and now go do it. So we had a chance to do that at Peace Church and reorganize their debt. And then I retired and came here. What a delight it is. Pastor John, by the way, has been my pastor before. I lived in all these places while I was with the Lutheran Church Extension Fund. I could live wherever I wanted. Do you know how exciting that was for me to hear the first time? You can live wherever you wanted. It turns out that my wife, Mira Louise, her mom was in need. So we moved into Gainesville to support and assist my mom. That's where Pastor John, her mom, that's where Pastor John became my pastor when he was there at First Lutheran. So helped him work through his doctoral dissertation and lots of other issues there. This was a lot of fun. And began to respect him with all honesty. We're not only friends, but I deeply respect his mind. He's very sharp and a great teacher in many, many aspects. So that's where I came from. But the thing I want you to know most about me is that's all kind of yada, yada, and it's a delight to be here. And, but I just want you to know of my calling because this Sunday's theme in 1 John is all about making it personal. That God's word by design is to take it off the philosophical, theological, out of the hypothetical, out of the distance mechanisms that we all have to keep people away and get down to it being personal. What does the word of God mean to you? How has it changed you? How have you failed with it? How has God restored you? Not in general, but you. I was called to the ministry, true story, called to the ministry in first grade. I never went through the fireman, policeman stage. It was a little bit confusing for my first grade teacher because we had to draw pictures of what we wanted to be. And a first grade's picture of a pastor at the time kind of looks like a man in a dress. So it took a while to sort that out. No, that's, and figure all that out. That was a stole that was there, and that was a robe, and it was that far back, if you can remember, some of you back there, it was the, it wasn't just the robe, but it was the black gown covered by the white, and it was very elaborate. But I did. I never wanted to be anything else. I never wanted to do anything else. I never wanted to do ...