Edgar French

When it comes to stories or movies with good endings, I confess I can’t help but be a critic. Something about tales ending “happily ever after” leaves me questioning whether the author or filmmaker conceived of four-year-olds as their audience. “Get real!” I chime. What brought on my “realism”? Experience – a life in which I am both witness and recipient of the consequences of a fallen world.

Before becoming a pastor at Portage Avenue Church, I was employed as a maintenance assistant at a personal care home. My work, for the most part, was quite menial. I took out the garbage, unplugged toilets and sinks, replaced light bulbs, and painted rooms.