Welcome, friend. My name is Dwight Coombs, and for the last twenty-two years I have been the pastor of a small United Methodist church in a town of about eight hundred people in the southwest corner of Iowa. We have a white frame building, a bell that still rings, and on a good Sunday about ninety souls in the pews. In the Methodist church the bishop usually moves a pastor along every few years, so twenty-two years in one place is something close to a miracle. I have a suspicion they forgot where we are. I pray they keep forgetting.

I won't preach at you here. You can come on a Sunday for that. Worship is at 9:30, and there's coffee after.

How I came to it
I grew up on a hog and corn farm and fully expected to die on one. When I was seventeen my younger brother Gene was badly hurt in an accident with the power take-off on the tractor. He lived, thank God, and still farms today, but he was in the hospital in Omaha for three weeks. Our pastor, Reverend Hollis, drove over every other day and sat in the hallway with my mother. He didn't say much. He brought her coffee and he stayed. I decided then that I wanted to be the kind of person who sits in the hallway. Everything since has been learning how.

Marilyn
My wife Marilyn and I have been married thirty-seven years. She was the school nurse here until she retired last spring, which means half the town has been patched up by her and the other half has been preached at by me. She has heard every sermon I have ever given, which is more than I can say for anyone else, including me. When one of them runs long she folds her hands in a certain way. I have learned to watch for the hands.

The potluck
Third Sunday of every month, in the fellowship hall downstairs. You can count on ham balls, scalloped corn, at least three kinds of Jell-O salad and Doris Kinney's rhubarb pie, which has settled more church arguments than I have. I believe the Lord's work gets done in the sanctuary, but I believe a good deal of it also gets done in the line for the coffee urn.

The funeral that taught me most
In my third year here we lost Walter Brandt, who ran the garage. Walter was not an easy man. He didn't come to church, he didn't much like me, and I will admit I dreaded the service. I planned something short. Then people started standing up. A widow whose car he fixed for nothing, for years. A young couple he'd loaned money to and never asked after. A boy he'd given a job when nobody else would. The service ran two hours. I went home that night and asked forgiveness for thinking I knew what was in a man's heart. I have tried not to make that mistake again. I don't always manage.

The tomatoes
Now for the lighter side. Our organist, Evelyn Strand, has played for this congregation for forty-one years, and she grows the finest tomatoes in the county. I grow the second finest, and I don't care to discuss it. She took the blue ribbon at the county fair in '96 and '98. I took it in '97, and she has been asking for a recount ever since. She grows Brandywines and won't tell me what she feeds them. I suspect Epsom salts. She suspects I pray over mine, and says that ought to disqualify me.

This August the judge gave it to her again. I congratulated her from the pulpit the next Sunday. She played the postlude noticeably faster than usual. Next year, Evelyn. Next year.

Thank you for stopping by. If you have a prayer you'd like remembered, or a tomato question, you're welcome to write.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Dwight Coombs