The Cow with the Wow
I don't know...it just caught my attention. It's the story of Colantha Walker. She was one of 96 Holstein-Friesian cows that comprised the herd at the Traverse City State Hospital. She was born on April 29, 1916, died on January 1, 1932 and is buried with an engraved granite tombstone on the grounds of "The Villages", the renovated campus of the State Hospital. She produced 22,918 pounds of milk in a single year, making her the highest producing cow in the entire world! In her lifetime Colantha's total milk production was 200,114.9 pounds. No wonder she was known at "The Cow with the Wow". 80 years later she will be remembered with a kazoo parade circling the Village and marching around her tombstone on June 10.
I guess the thing that impresses me about Colanta is she understood her purpose in life. Her purpose was to give milk. And she did. She did it well and she did her best. She produced. Her calling, her purpose in life was to give milk, and wow, she did.
Brian, Monica and I will be at annual conference this week. We all say that our mission as United Methodists is to "make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world". The Bishop will repeat the mantra frequently and we will all agree, but then the conference statistician will report that for another year the membership, worship attendance and Sunday School attendance of the annual conference has declined as it has every year for the past 3 decades. We will say that our purpose, our calling is to make disciples, but we aren't producing.
I give thanks for the strength of this church, the number of new members we have received recently and the vitality of our student ministry and Sunday School, but even a church like ours can take a challenge from Colantha. Our calling, our task is to "gather, nurture and equip disciples of Christ for mission and ministry. And if we aren't producing...
Mo-o-o-o,
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