Love Letters: Elder Rich Foss to Plow Creek

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As a hen gathers her brood

Biblical reflections on the communal life

Rich Foss has been an elder of Plow Creek Fellowship for over 25 years
and founder of
Evergreen Leaders
Ordinary people. Thriving groups.
As of July 2006, Rich now serves as an elder of Plow Creek Fellowship, but no longer Plow Creek Mennonite Church

Check out Rich's Thriving groups blog
The Bureau County Republican published an article on Rich's blog.
email: richfoss@evergreenleaders.org

A New Series June 23, 2007
The Lord opens gates June 28, 2007
A mad mixture July 23, 2007

July 23, 2007

A mad mixture

Ephraim has surrounded me with lies,

and the house of Israel with deceit;

but Judah still walks with God.

Hosea 11:12

Hosea is a mad mixture of faithfulness and unfaithfulness. The book begins with the Lord commanding his prophet to marry a whore. Hosea does and he is faithful and his wife is unfaithful.

You can’t have a Christian commune without a mixture of true love and unfaithfulness. God is our true love and each of us is untrue to him and to one another at one time or another. Life together is built on God’s faithfulness and his forgiveness and our forgiveness of one another.

Earlier this week I was pondering surrendering to God. That’s what Hosea did when he received the bizarre instructions to find Gomer the whore and marry her. As I pondered surrendering I realized that for the last while I have been doing the opposite, steeling myself in order to do my work for PCF and EGL, fearful of the slings and arrows, criticism and uncertainty.

Here’s an excerpt from my journal:

Jesus, I surrender. Steeling myself is hard and distances myself from you and your people.

Richard, surrender instead of steeling yourself.

How can I lead without steeling myself?

Richard, how can you lead with a hard heart?

That last question certainly got my attention. “Have your way with me,” I responded.

Jesus way is the way of suffering and love because of the mad mixture of faithfulness and unfaithfulness in his community. I have also been meditating through Matthew as Jesus lives out his ministry in the context of a community of disciples. One of his friends, Judas, was unfaithful, and 11 wavered but in the end were faithful. Such is life in a community gathered by Jesus.

As I continued to ponder I came to Matthew 26: 26: “While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it, he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take eat, this is my body.’”

Jesus surrendered his body in order to share himself completely. Out of Jesus breaking the bread and sharing it with his disciples, I caught a vision of what it means to surrender. Surrender means to share myself fully with PCF folks, EGL folks, and the one in front of me.

Lord, we, your people, cry out in surrender to you. Speak, that we may hear your voice and walk with you. Help us to share ourselves completely with one another and with each one you place in front of us. Amen.

Rich Foss

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June 28, 2007

The Lord opens gates

Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the Lord.

Psalm 118

Do you believe the Lord opens the gates of righteousness? Do I it?

Two weeks ago as I came to the end of a day-long retreat in Chicago that I had spent meditating and journaling on Psalm 118, I came to phrase, “Open to me the gates of righteousness…”

And I thought, “Lord, I sure have a lot of gates that need opening.” I long for the Lord to open the gates so that the next generation can enter Plow Creek Fellowship and carry on its mission of being a global village practicing the peace of Jesus.

I long for the Lord to open the gates for Evergreen Leaders to thrive as it helps other nonprofits thrive.

At that moment on my retreat I thought I heard the Lord say that he is going to open the gates. And, to show me that he can open gates, he is going to open the gates for me to go to a Cubs game. I immediately thought, “Lord, that is such a crazy idea I am not even going to write it down.” And I didn’t.

I concluded my retreat and drove back to the Evanston where I was staying at Reba Place during the retreat. When I arrived, Julius Belser, one of my hosts, greeted me and said, “Would you like to go to a Cubs game tomorrow? We have some guests in the Reba guest apartment who have extra tickets.” When I said I was interested he arranged for me to talk with the guests, Gary and Pam Reed, by phone. We arranged to meet at my van when I completed my retreat.

As Gary, Pam and I talked on the way to Wrigley Field, I discovered they were from Portland, Oregon, and belong to a small communal group called Church of the Servant King. On her 60^th birthday the group had given Pam round trip tickets on Amtrak for Gary and her to go to Chicago so that she could fulfill her dream of taking in a Cubs game.

After the gift of the Amtrak tickets, Gary went online and bought Cubs tickets. In the meantime, Pam, who works for a wireless company in Portland, received four Cubs tickets from one of her company’s suppliers, Motorola, a Chicago-based company. They arrived in Chicago with six tickets and invited other folks from Reba to go to the game with them. I was the only person who could take them up on their offer at such a short notice.

When we arrived at Wrigley Field Gary and Pam exchanged three of the tickets for handicapped seating behind home plate.

Then, just like the Lord said the night before, he opened all the gates and I rolled through every one until we were settled into our seats, 12 rows up, behind home plate. Gary couldn’t stop smiling. In the handicapped seating section they had much better seats than they had otherwise. Plus they had my wild story to tell their friends back in Portland.

And as I sat in Wrigley Field for the next three plus hours, enjoying a Cubs win, I thought, Lord, I will never, ever forget that you open gates.

Thank you, Lord. I am in awe of you. You are the one who opens the gates of righteousness that we can enter through them and give thanks to you. Open gates of righteousness for the fellowship, the church, the farm, the various Plow Creek ministries, and all your beloved people at Plow Creek and beyond. Amen.

Rich Foss
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A New Series

Hi Plow Creek folks,

For the last few years I was a church and fellowship elder I wrote periodic love letters to Plow Creek. As you can see below I'm now launching a new series.

June 23, 2007

‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

Matthew 23

I came to Plow Creek in 1977 yearning to be gathered.

Nine years earlier I had been fiercely scattered when I became disabled with rheumatoid arthritis and, despite the cries of me and my Pentecostal people, and not been healed.

Three years after my arrival at Plow Creek I told the story of my scattering to my sharing group. That led to a prayer session with two people from my sharing group. In that prayer time I encountered Jesus and he gathered me with a fierce question: Richard, do you love me?

Then his inestimable love Jesus gave me words the welled up from my depths like an artesian well: “Jesus, you know I love you more than life and help.”

Like the occasion with Peter he responded to my declaration of love with, “Feed my sheep.” In one of those strange and wild God acts, the prayer session “happened” to be on a Sunday afternoon. That morning my brothers and sisters at Plow Creek had laid hands on me in worship, praying for me as I became one of Plow Creek’s pastoral elders.

Feed my sheep. I expect to nurture God’s sheep at Plow Creek until the day I die. Over the 26 years since that command, feeding Jesus’ sheep at Plow Creek has taken many forms--teaching, praying, counseling, guiding people to Jesus, encouraging people, and leading countless meeting.

And now I add one more form--writing an e-letter and Plow Creek web posting I’m calling, “As a hen gathers her brood: Biblical reflections on the communal life”.

In 1977 Jesus gathered me with a few other brothers and sisters in a communal group here at Plow Creek. I am still part of this group, still rising each morning to spend an hour or so with Jesus and scripture.

These reflections grow out of my life with Jesus, communal brothers and sisters, and the gospels. They also grow out of a simple command: Feed my sheep.

That’s you--whoever reads this.

Rich Foss

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