My name is Larry Wimmer, and I have been a pastor since 1977 in places like Iowa, Ohio, Spain, Puerto Rico, and Massachusetts. I am retired and serving First United Methodist Church in Hamilton seeking always to go where love will take me.
Jesus said one time these words: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down their life for their friends (John 15:12-13). I believe in community and that we live for each other. I believe in the principle that the more we give, the more we have. I believe that God is love (1 John 4:8) and that love is the reason we live at all. I believe that the Church is the Community of the Beloved. I live by the Three Simple Rules: Do no harm. Do Good. Stay in love with God. I believe in the practice of kindness as an expression of God’s grace and mercy. I believe that the Church is here on earth to provide community to go where love will take us.
Jesus said in another place: The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how (Mark 4:26-27). We are the scatterers of seeds. We do all the good we can without knowing all the good that is done because we did. I believe in the mystery that is our life in God on earth, the journey of discovery and revelation as we become acquainted with the things of God.
It was written many years ago in a classic of Christian devotion, The Cloud of Unknowing: God may well be loved but not thought. I believe we can only know God by loving God. It is love for God that will bring us to God and it is this love that will lead us to do what love does, which is care for each other and for all living things including this beautiful planet that affords us a place to be and the time for finding each other along the way. I invite you to join us on the journey at First United Methodist Church in Hamilton to go where love will take us.
Pastor Larry Wimmer