Intersections: Reflections on Life and Faith

December 9, 2022December 9, 2022 / Greg Asimakoupoulos

**This newly released volume is an anthology of twenty years of newspaper columns written by Greg Asimakoupoulo**s

The Reverend Greg Asimakoupoulos, who has been the chaplain at Covenant Living at the Shores on Mercer Island since 2013, has published a new book. The 350-page volume is titled Intersections: Reflections on Life and Faith and is a collection of newspaper columns Asimakoupoulos has written for the Mercer Island Reporter over the past seventeen years.

According to Mercer Islander Michael Medved, who wrote an endorsement for the book, “The writing of Greg Asimakoupoulos has the power to move, inspire, amuse and, best of all, to surprise you. His unexpected enlightening connections can help the reader see the world with refreshed eyes as we travel the intersections of faith and everyday life with a wise and sympathetic guide.”

Asimakoupoulos, who grew up in Wenatchee, began writing a faith-and-values column for the Reporter when he and his family moved from Illinois to Mercer Island in 2005 to become lead pastor of Evergreen Covenant Church. His bi-weekly columns have subsequently been picked up by The Wenatchee World and The Chicago Daily Herald.

“I’m grateful these columns have a second life,” Asimakoupoulos observed. “My simple essays with a spiritual application were written to provide a crosswalk at the intersection of where daily living meets what we believe.”

Asimakoupoulos, the author of fifteen books, began publishing articles while on the pastoral staff at Interbay Covenant Church in Seattle (now Quest Church) forty years ago. The cover art for Intersections features a painting of a rainy downtown Seattle. The renown Pacific Northwest artist, David Marty, was a member of Interbay Covenant Church when Asimakoupoulos was the pastor. The book is dedicated to the late Carl Taylor, who as senior pastor hired Asimakoupoulos, a young inexperienced seminary student in 1979 to be his associate at Interbay. Taylor passed away earlier this year as the book was being envisioned.

Intersections: Reflections on Life and Faith is available at Amazon.com

Let’s Hear It for Thank Banks!

November 25, 2022November 22, 2022 / Greg Asimakoupoulos

**Making daily deposits in a Thank Bank helps maintain an attitude of gratitude** **all year long**

My Thank Bank sits beside my bed.
I look at it each night.
It reminds me what to do before I sleep.
When I deposit gratitude
for God’s hand in my life,
I have no need for counting bedtime sheep.

My Thank Bank (like a Piggy Bank)
is for using all the time.
I have pocket change of blessings every day.
Enough to eat, a place to sleep, and evidence I’m loved
are little things the Good Lord sends my way.

Those dimes and quarters all add up
when placed within the bank.
So, too, my blessings even though they’re small.
By telling God I’m grateful
every day throughout the year,
it’s Thanksgiving summer, winter, spring and fall.

Saint Michael of Wheaton

November 22, 2022November 20, 2022 / Greg Asimakoupoulos

**Wheaton College alumnus Michael Gerson was a Presidential speech writer and syndicated columnist**

Saint Michael of Wheaton
like Anselm and Paul
gifted words to those needing to speak.
With eloquent reason
and faith-grounded thought,
Michael strengthened the hopeful and weak.

He gave a Bush fire
that brilliantly burned
as the White House became holy ground.
And like Gershwin, Mike Gerson
made simple words sing
through his adjectives, adverbs and nouns.

And today we are grieving
the death of a man
who gave life through the columns he wrote.
Through Saint Michael of Wheaton,
Christ’s Kingdom has grown
by a journalist’s penchant for notes.

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/19/1137925730/opinion-remembering-mike-gerson-washington-post-columnist

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/17/michael-gerson-speechwriter-post-dies/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gerson

A New Thanksgiving Hymn

November 18, 2022November 19, 2022 / Greg Asimakoupoulos

**The lyrics of this new hymn invite the grateful worshiper to lift his hands in praise**

With gratitude
we raise our hands toward Heaven
in praise and worship of the God we serve.
We have been blessed
with mercies beyond number.
God’s faithfulness exceeds what we deserve.
With hands held high,
we reach to One who loves us
much like a child who longs to be embraced.

With gratitude
we raise our hands toward Heaven
convinced our world is governed by God’s plan.
When violence
disrupts the peace we pray for,
when prejudice and fear divide our land,
with hands held high
submitting to God’s purpose,
we gratefully declare that God is love.

With gratitude
we raise our hands toward Heaven
acknowledging the One who’s in control.
We humbly bow
before our Lord and Maker
relinquishing our bodies, minds and souls.
With hands held high, we gratefully surrender
to One who works all things for God’s own good.

Suggested tune: FINLANDIA

Election Day’s a Chooseday!

November 8, 2022 / Greg Asimakoupoulos

**Election Day is the day we voice our values and influence our future**

You cast your vote.
You voice your will
with gratitude you can.
Democracy exists because
you opt to take a stand.

Election Day’s a Chooseday.
It’s a chance to make a choice.
It’s a right that you’ve been given.
And there’s power in your voice.

Those you choose will make decisions
that will shape the world to come.
It’s your house (it’s not the White House)
where the fight for freedom’s won.

So do not neglect your duty.
On this Chooseday, choose to be
one whose wealth is found in choices
rather than the lottery.