Your Custom Text Here
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
John Wesley wrote this: “All that Christians do, even eating and sleeping, is prayer when done in simplicity; according to the order of God, without either adding to or diminishing from it by their own choice.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Tilden H. Edwards, Jr., writes this: “Contemplation is the ever-fresh world of the spiritual heart. Noncontemplation is the ever-constricted world of the head, sense, and feelings separated from that heart. The spiritual heart is the true center of our being. It is the placeless place where divine Spirit and human beings live together. When the great historical spiritual elders of the church advocated keeping the mind in the heart, I believe they were speaking of the need to keep our thoughts, feelings, bodies, actions, wills, and sense of identity connected with our spiritual heart day by day, moment by moment. Our sanity and authentic discernment, love, and delight depend on this connectedness.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
Marjorie J. Thompson writes this: “Reconciliation is the promise that lies at the heart of forgiveness; it is the full flower of the seed of forgiveness, even when that seed is hidden from sight. The gift of forgiveness will always feel incomplete if it does not bear fruit in reconciliation. This, I am convinced, holds as true in God’s forgiveness of us as it does in our forgiveness of one another. Reconciliation means full restoration of a whole relationship, and as such requires conscious mutuality. No reconciliation can take place unless the offender recognizes the offense, desires to be forgiven, and is willing to receive forgiveness. Thus, the role of acknowledgement and confession of sin belongs to the dynamic of forgiveness in relation to reconciliation, not to forgiveness alone.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Donald J. Shelby offers this Christmas prayer: “God, we are as confounded as Joseph and Mary, as busy as the innkeepers, as lonely as the shepherds, as frightened as Herod, as wayfaring as the Magi. Turn us again to the place where, with quietness, you wrap up your truth and promise, your love and salvation in the Child born in a rude stable. We would ponder these things as the noise and clamor of the world is stilled for a time and there is a peace that settles deep within us. Bring us to Bethlehem, to the place where he was homeless but where we are truly at home. Amen.”
Have a blessed week and Merry Christmas,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
James Finley writes this: “ The world is the place where we meet God because it is the place where God meets us in the person of Jesus Christ. Christ did not merely inhabit human flesh; he became flesh. He made himself, as God, to be one with humanity in the concrete, historical realities of human life. Truly, God has entered into the world and it is in the world that Christians must turn to find God.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
James Fenhagen writes this: “ The gift of holiness- which is in reality the gift of our full humanity- is received when we are able to see the world in a new way, when in faith we are able to discern and respond to God’s vision of the world through the eyes of Christ. This kind of seeing is the fruit of a contemplative vision- a vision that can only be nourished in solitude and in prayer. Prayer for the Christian therefore is not something added to our lives, something extra we do, but rather it is as fundamental to our lives as the act of breathing. It is through prayer that we are caught up in the rhythm and energy of the Kingdom that is amongst us and learn to see in a new way.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Bernard of Clairvaux wrote this: “The right time for seeking God is always now. ‘Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation,’ and He promises, ‘Before they call upon me, I will say, Lo, I am here.’ And if it is by good works that we seek God, while we have time, let us do good unto men; and that all the more because the Lord Himself warns us that the ‘night cometh, wherein no man can work.’ Do you expect to find some future time in which to seek God and do good other than this present day of mercy?”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Sunday marks the beginning of the season of Advent. Norman Shawchuck offers these words about the season: “There is a divine initiative in our every encounter with God. Even before we knew our Creator, God loved us. Even before we turned to look toward God, God was moving toward us. Our faintest yearning for God is assurance that God is already longing for us. Our first feeble step toward God is possible only because God has already been moving toward us, drawing us nearer by the divine magnet-heart of love.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
P.S. Thanks to all who helped with the Hanging of the Greens. The sanctuary looks beautiful!
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Stephanie Ford writes this: “Contemporary life provides precious little space for discernment, given the overriding burden of time. We hurry from one task to another, expressing thoughts and emotions on the fly but rarely sitting down to discern what they may be saying to us. Even accomplished multitaskers know moments of loneliness. In a quiet, predawn moment or while daydreaming between gulps of coffee at a traffic light, an ache may surface We yearn to share the ordinary ups and downs of our lives with someone, the unspoken prayers we don’t feel comfortable uttering at a church meeting and experiences like the moment when we realized God had healed our heart after years of grieving a loss.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Reuben Job writes this: “I can well understand why Christian spirituality is often described as a journey rather than a destination. The spiritual life is characterized by movement and discovery, challenge and change, adversity and joy, uncertainty and fulfillment. It is also marked in a special way by companionship, first with the One we seek to follow and second with those who also seek to follow Jesus Christ…Life is not a stationary experience. New understandings and developments continually challenge our understanding of life and our experience of God. Yet if we see the spiritual life as a journey, these cycles of change will not alarm us or turn us aside from our primary goal- to know and love God.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
David Rensberger writes this: “’Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds’ (Rom. 12:2). These quiet words have the potential to turn the world upside down.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Here is part two of the quote on reconciliation by Doris Donnelly: “When Paul passes the mantle of ambassadorial rank to each of us, we may surmise two things: First, that God’s intention for the world is unity, and second, that the mission to gather the world as one that was begun by Jesus was left incomplete by him. That mission was delegated to the community of believers gathered in his name. Each of us is an ambassador in the service of a leader who deputizes us to spread news of peace, restoration, and collaboration to a world sorely in need of this news. There are few things about which God is more persistent than this- that each of us engage in the ministry of reconciliation and bring it to completion.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Doris Donnelly writes this: “From the scriptures we get a glimpse of reconciliation far more profound than patching up differences, or making a private peace with what’s wrong in the world, or putting a bandage over hurts inflicted in the course of living. Paul, for one, had something else in mind. Reconciliation for Paul begins ‘within,’ when we hear (and believe) God’s words of acceptance and mercy. That realignment of the hearts spills across all of our relationships, closing the gaps that distance us. Eventually, those who minister reconciliation, as well as those affected by it, create the world heralded by the angels at the birth of Jesus where peace and goodwill prevail.” (Part 2 of this quote on reconciliation will be next week)
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
William O. Paulsell writes this: “Holiness is a gift of grace. Its qualities cannot be imitated or faked. If we try to act them out, people will sense our inauthenticity, for such gifts come from deep intimacy with God. How can we cultivate such gifts in our own lives? It would be nice if we could take a course guaranteed to produce personal holiness or find some exercise or technique that would make us saints. But, of course, it is not that simple. It is not a matter of technique; it is a matter of values, of commitment, and, more than anything else, of love- love for the God who created us and has called us to discipleship.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
P.S. Thank you for all of the nice cards on Pastor Appreciation Sunday. It made my day!!
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Stephen V. Doughty writes this: “Our identity as God’s beloved children, then, embraces both who we are and who we are becoming. We are infinitely loved. We are, with all our vastly varied gifts, being renewed in the divine image, and we bear this image back into the world. We each do this in our own way- a thousand different ways, indeed a million ways and infinitely more. Our core identity comes with particular gifts. Unique gifts and graces are an expression of God’s personal love for us, a confirmation of our belovedness. No two of us act, think, or serve alike.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Paul Wesley Chilcote writes this: “The signs are unmistakable. Those who place their trust in Christ receive his peace, a peace that is unspeakable and unknown. We are thankful first and foremost for what Jesus Christ has done for us. It is by the Holy Spirit that ‘we know the things of God’ and experience God’s power in our lives. And the fruit of the Spirit is ‘the meek and lowly heart.’ Thankfulness for the activity of the Spirit in our hearts and lives marks the true Christian.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
John Mogabgab writes this: “We live in a world convinced that security is the most reliable context for freedom. The bitter irony of this conviction is that the havens of security we create are unable to provide the freedom we seek. The quest for national, economic, or personal security too often guarantees compulsive patterns of life at the expense of genuine freedom. Christian tradition offers an alternative. In biblical perspective, it is obedience rather than security that forms the proper context for freedom. Thus, the Christian vision of freedom is focused through the lens of a paradox: ‘Whoever cares for his own safety is lost; but if a man will let himself be lost for my sake, he will find his true self.’”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Stephen V. Doughty writes this: “After Jesus told his followers all that they would one day do in his name, he gave them a single piece of counsel. They were to continue in Jerusalem until clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). This was it. Hold. Stay put. Wait on the power. Nothing more. And absolutely nothing less. In the midst of a people who did talk about spiritual things, they were actually, and single-mindedly, to wait on the Spirit.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Larry James Peacock writes this: “As people of peace who live in the house of love, we need to resist our culture’s fascination with violence, might, and death. Video games, TV shows, and movies are filled with images of combat and destruction. Some have suggested a new discipline of fasting from the violent images in entertainment as a method of noncooperation with evil… God speaks the language of love and affirms life. In your prayer ask God to show you where to resist the world’s fascination with violence and death. Ask God to guide you in living with love and peace.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from the Pastor:
Norman Shawchuck writes this: “Spirituality is a growing awareness of our receptivity of the spirit of God in our lives, and the means by which we can keep that receptivity alive and vital as we are formed into the image and nature of Jesus. Now we are able to serve others even as Jesus offered himself as a servant to all. This is Jesus’ spirituality, and it is his gift to all who bind their lives to him.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
