This week Pastor Laitinen and Pastor Zarling interview Pastor Thad Bitter who serves at Grace Lutheran Church in Portland, OR. Pastor Bitter discusses ministry in a place that has wonderful, fantastic beauty, but is plagued by the ugliness that has torn apart and burned many parts of the city of Portland. He describes it as “apathetic agnostics” in the Portland area.
We also discuss the sorrow followed by joy in Jesus’ words to his disciples in the upper room in John 16:16-24 and the beauty of heaven that John describes in Revelation 21:21-27. Pastor Bitter was Pastor Zarling’s roommate in college and best man at his wedding. We examine soccer at Northwestern College, hiking in the mountains, 25 years in the pastoral ministry, and which version of “Jerusalem the Golden” we’ll be singing in heaven.
Stay thirsty, my friends. Quench that thirst in the Water of Life.