Thirty years ago, psychologists did a simple experiment with 4 year olds. They gave them a marshmallow and told them that they could eat the marshmallow or wait until the researcher returned and they would be given two marshmallows. The researcher put it in front of them and left. The children were left alone for 5 minutes, an eternity to a four- year-old.
Twenty years later, a graduate student decided to follow up on the kids and see what correlations they could draw. The correlations were startling. It turns out that those kids that could exercise self-control at four had better social relations as adults, made better grades in school, had fewer eating and drinking problems. And it predicted success in college and career far better than say the SAT or IQ. Conversely, low self-control correlated with cheating, detention, accidents, delinquency and addiction. The results were sufficiently arresting that a whole new area of research developed on how we can strengthen our character.
     At root, that is really what Lent is all about. Christians remember that Jesus went into the desert for 40 days to clarify his purpose and strengthen his spiritual will. Ultimately, he had to endure injustice and torture for the sake of integrity and truth. We hope we will avoid this. But at a minimum, we must all eventually face our own mortality and the death of those we love around us. For these seasons of our life, we need strength of character. And we need it in areas of our life that are of lesser significance as well. The good news is that character is like a muscle and the benefits in one area of our life spill over into others. This week we will lift up the virtue of strengthening our will.
Thanks to the artistic carpentry of Mike Paytas and the generosity the Stifel family, we can now accommodate all sizes of wheel chairs into our sanctuary. Mike took the entrance next to the organ and cut through brick walls in order to widen the hallway and doors to code. Then he replaced all the wood and resized three doors so that it looks like it has always been this way, only sharper, less cluttered, cleaner. It gives concrete meaning to our motto, "No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here." Our gratitude and you will be blessed by future generations.
I'm glad to report that more people pledged to the church this year and I want to thank you all for taking the plunge. We had about 17 families that moved or stopped pledging this year, which is about average for our community. Transition is part and parcel for living here. The good news is that we had 39 families pledge for the first time. So we are widening the circle. It is a sign of health because it is a symbol of your commitment on a lot of levels. Probably the single thing that you can do to keep us healthy is simply to tell people that you know what Christ Church is like. It has been a tough few years of recession, so a double thanks. Your family helped us reach our goal.

The Rev.