Wednesday, May 5, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Donald J. Shelby writes this: "Our commitment to Jesus Christ and our faith journey, while always personal, is never private...Remember how the prophet Micah underscored it: 'What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?' Personal piety is commended, but only when it leads to concern for the stranger and to moral righteousness and justice in society. To be alive in the Spirit and to follow Jesus is to put faith to work; it is to translate our love for God into caring concern for the least and the lost. Did not Jesus do that himself? His own moments of prayer and spiritual preparation were often followed by gestures of healing and help."

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

A few people have requested a copy of John Workman’s list of ‘duties” for a Christian from last Sunday’s sermon. Here they are:

1.      To be a faithful people in an age when keeping faith is a seemingly impossible feat.

2.     To be proclaimers of hope in a time when even the saints despair.

3.     To be seers of beauty and joy in a world where wonder often is crushed by human greed.

4.     To be encouragers of one’s fellow human beings.

5.     To be strugglers towards love, pushers toward the way even though one may stumble awkwardly along the earth.

6.     To be, however frail and unfit, keepers of dreams and custodians of visions, and

7.     To be bringers of light, however small, into dark places, however large.

One of our members shared this:  There’s a name for the Blah you’re feeling – it’s called languishing.  To learn more, follow this link:

Feeling Blah During the Pandemic? It's Called Languishing - The New York Times

 Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

In his book Earth and Altar, Eugene Peterson writes this: “Prayer acts on the principle of the fulcrum, the small point where great leverage is exercised- awareness and intensification, expansion and deepening at the conjunction of heaven and earth, God and neighbor, self and society. Prayer is the action that integrates the inside and the outside of life, that correlates the personal and the public, and that addresses individual needs and national interest. No other thing that we do is as simultaneously beneficial to society and to the soul as the act of prayer.”

 Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, April 14, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

James C. Fenhagen writes this: “Holiness, in one strand of biblical understanding, is closely associated with Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God. It is not concerned so much with accumulating desirable attributes that we call holy, as it is with the way we perceive reality and the way we act on these perceptions. Holiness, therefore, is a political word. A holy person is a person who sees the world, if only momentarily, through the eyes of Christ and is drawn to act in response to this vision.”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

John Wijngaards writes this: “Christian faith must constantly grow. It cannot remain static. Either it will slowly wither and die, or it will mature and bear ever more fruit. And as the stem grows higher and the branches heavier, it needs to strike deeper roots. Without deeper roots, there is little hope for survival.”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, March 31, 2021 - Wednesday of Holy Week

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Edward J. Farrell writes this: “I find myself reflecting on the last supper of Jesus. We seldom recognize a final occasion when it is happening. Only in retrospect do we recognize that it was the last. Then we recall every moment, every gesture and try to draw from it what we will carry with us the rest of our lives. So easily we take for granted the meals of every day. They are so regular and common, so ordinary as long as they continue. But when it is the last one, all of the previous ones are drawn into it and it becomes a singularity, a once and never again. It becomes a rare, precious moment to be treasured forever.”

Have a blessed holy week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Edward J. Farrell writes this: “Reverence has something to do with holiness and wholeness. It is a word ordinarily ascribed to God alone. When we speak about reverence in regard to ourselves we speak of the holiness of our relationship with God. This wholeness, this holiness, is given to us not because we are without sin, but in spite of our sin. We have to believe that God loves us so much that even though we are sinners we are holy. And we are holy in a way that we give holiness to others. We have been loved so much that there is enough left over to give to others… This inner stream of God’s love, like running water, always refreshes us so that we might offer a cup to others.”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, March 17, 2021 - Happy St. Patrick's Day

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

John Carmody writes this: “The only time that is fully real is the present. Yesterday is old news and tomorrow is full of maybes. This is obvious enough, when one reflects on it, but it takes most of us many years to realize its full implications. So most of us spend a great deal of our time daydreaming about the past or worrying about the future. Not realizing the value of the real bird we have in hand, we leave the present to go rooting in past or future bushes. As a result, the personal business that should stand highest on our agenda often never gets done. What is this personal business? Finding peace of mind, and so happiness, right here and now. Learning to live so that we savor each day, waste none of the precious moments God has given us.”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

James C. Fenhagen writes this: “The call to a holy life is extended to everyone whose life has been touched by the reality of God. Holiness is not the fruit of specialness, but of faithfulness. For to be faithful in a relationship is to honor it by the way we live. The call to holiness in our day, as it always has been, is a call to live in the world as a sign of the Kingdom. It is a call to participate in those things that contribute to human solidarity, forgiveness and compassion, righteousness and justice, and ultimately global peace (shalom!).”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Joan Puls writes this: “The amazing truth of the kingdom is its availability. The kingdom is not for buying. It is not exclusive. It can’t be hoarded. It succumbs, not to power, not to birthright, or even to the magnitude and sparkle of one’s achievements. It is available to those born of the Spirit, those imbued with a simple faith. It requires one possession, freedom. The freedom to recognize kingdom-events and to follow a kingdom-course.”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

The book Living Simply offers this advice: “Simplicity, then, is the gift to live a holy life. It is the gift to live in the deeper awareness of connectedness to others and to all creation. It is the gift to travel lightly because accumulation of things, people, and experiences are unnecessary for our joy. In Christ all things are ours, and we belong to them. When St. Francis called the sun and moon, water and fire his sisters and brothers, he was being not so much a romantic as he was witnessing to the wholeness of life. Since we do not have to accumulate things for our survival, we are able to care for all of life rather than use it up. We are able to live freely with compassion because we do not have to be minding our possessions.”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - Ash Wednesday

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Richard J. Foster writes this: “Our ambivalence about power is resolved in the vow of service. Jesus picked up a basin and a towel and, in doing so, redefined the meaning and function of power. ‘If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do what I have done to you.’ In the everlasting kingdom of Christ, low is high, down is up, weak is strong, service is power. Do you sincerely want to engage in the ministry of power? Do you want to be a leader who is a blessing to people? Do you honestly want to be used of God to heal human hurts? Then learn to become a servant of all.”

Have a blessed week and stay warm,
Pastor John

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Edward J. Farrell writes this: “We begin, sometimes without realizing it, to worship things, to relate to them as persons. And in the process, we inevitably relate to other persons as if they were things. No wonder Jesus spoke five times as often about money and earthly possessions as about prayer. And everywhere in scripture we hear the warnings: money has power; wealth is addictive. Be careful, be on your guard… When God breaks in on a sufficiently prepared people, a new generosity emerges, one that is outgoing, joyous, spontaneous and free.”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

In her book Every Bush Is Burning, Joan Puls writes this: “Spend some time with children. Count among your friends and regular associates those who are poor.  Learn from the sick and those who treat life as the gift it is.  And observe true lovers, or better, become one.  Such as these are sacraments of freedom in a world frightened by its own uncontrolled destructiveness and oppressed by its own denial of innocence and gentleness.  It was not by accident that Jesus placed a child in the midst of his adult followers… Children are obedient to their element: innocent joy, eager trust, endless inquisitiveness.”

 Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Pastor Eugene Peterson wrote this: “The opposite of foolish in Scripture is wise. Wise refers to skill in living. It does not mean, primarily, the person who knows the right answers to things, but one who has developed the right responses (relationships) to persons, to God. The wise understand how the world works; know about patience and love, listening and grace, adoration and beauty; know that other people are awesome creatures to be respected and befriended, especially the ones that I cannot get anything out of; know that the earth is a marvelously intricate gift to be cared for and enjoyed; know that God is an ever-present center, a never-diminishing reality, an all-encompassing love…”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Kallistos Ware writes this: “At some thoughts (one) stands perplexed, above all at the sight of human sin, and…wonders whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide: ‘I will combat it by humble love.’ If you resolve on that once for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force: it is the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, January 6, 2021 - Epiphany of the Lord

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Presbyterian pastor Lloyd John Ogilvie wrote this: “A healthy forgetter is developed by forgiveness. We cannot erase the memory cards of our failures in our brain computer until we have a profound experience of forgiveness The authentic mark of truly mature persons is the capacity to forgive themselves. But that is a rare commodity. Years of experience of seeking to be a whole person and helping others with their self-esteem has led me to the conclusion that one of the greatest miracles of life is self-forgiveness. I have never known a person who has been able to do it without a healing experience of Christ’s kindness.”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Our 150th anniversary year is drawing to a close. We have been sharing a lot of memories this year so let me offer two more.

 Mary Lou Graves grew up in this church. She died not too long after I came here, but before she died she shared this story. During World War I the song “Keep the Homes Fires Burning” was popular. Mary Lou, just a young girl at the time, led the congregation in singing that song one Sunday. That night the church burned down. Mary Lou’s father kidded her that it was her fault because she sang that song with the suggestive title. That church was rebuilt, but a short time after that the congregation decided they needed more room and started work on our current church building. Once this building was finished they had a big parade from the old church to the new one.

Pearl Grabham was also a long-time, faithful member of this church. She was here every Sunday One Sunday we had an ice storm and cancelled church. We telephoned church members to let them know not to come. “Oh, I’m glad you called,” said Pearl to the person who phoned her. “I had decided it was too icy to drive to church, so I was going to walk instead!!!” Pearl was in her 80s at the time and lived about eight blocks from the church. I miss these two ladies.

Have a blessed week and Merry Christmas,
Pastor John

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Deborah Smith Douglas writes this: “From firsthand knowledge Jesus understands our inevitable times of being enclosed in imprisoning narrowness with no way out. Christ not only understands these moments because he has had his own, he also comes to share ours with us: to lighten our darkness, to love us beside us, from inside our walls of stone. This is the inestimable gift that we approach in this season of Advent: the saving gift of the love of God in the Incarnation, the unfailing presence of God-with-us in all our darkness. This Presence is so powerful and all-encompassing that absolutely nothing can divide us from it.”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Mark S. Burrows writes this: “Advent is a time of the unexpected gift, both in our remembering and in our hoping. It is a season when we recognize that God became flesh in a place emptied of comfort and privilege, a presence that took form in a forlorn crib as the start of a journey that would carry all the way to an ignominious cross. It remains a season haunted by such memories…longing as we do for some trace of the One who was among us for a season and whose coming again we await in life’s long winter.”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John