Wednesday, December 11, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson: 

Donald J. Shelby offers this prayer for the season of Advent: “Lord, the calendar calls for Christmas. We have traveled this way before. During this Advent season we would see what we have never seen before, accept what we have refused to think, and hear what we need to understand. Be with us in our goings that we may meet you in your coming. Astonish us until we sing ‘Glory!’ and then enable us to live it out with love and peace…. Amen.”

Have a blessed week,

John

Wedneday, December 4, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson: 

Henri Nouwen wrote this: “Are the great visions of the ultimate peace among all people and the ultimate harmony of all creation just utopian fairy tales? No, they are not! They correspond to the deepest longings of the human heart and point to the truth waiting to be revealed beyond all lies and deceptions.  These visions nurture our souls and strengthen our hearts. They offer us hope when we are close to despair, courage when we are tempted to give up on life, and trust when suspicion seems the more logical attitude.”

Have a blessed week,

John

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

“Every person has many blessings and at least a few misfortunes. The ones he/ she reflects upon will either strengthen or weaken him/ her. Our most necessary blessings are apt to be uncounted because they are the most common: sunshine, rain, oxygen, soil, plants, animals, and a thousand other workings of nature. The universality of so many blessings, however, does not lower their value. If this commonness tempts us to be ungrateful, let us ask: Where would we stand if the earth caved in? What would we breathe if the oxygen ran out? What would we do if the water dried up?”- Leroy Brownloe

Have a blessed week,

John

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Instead of a devotional piece, I just want to say thank you to all who made this past Sunday such a wonderful worship experience and fellowship time. Thanks to the Indy Ensemble and the brass ensemble for adding such special joy to our day of music. Thanks to our own Chancel Choir led by Larry, Ray, Mike, and Sarah. Thanks to Lyle and all the kitchen crew and all our good cooks for such a fabulous Thanksgiving meal. I can’t imagine the day having gone any better than it did Thanks to all who made the kick-off of our 150th anniversary such a memorable day.

 Have a blessed week,

John

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson: 

Dag Hammarskjold once wrote this: “Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self- exaltation.”

Have a blessed week,

John

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson: 

Here is the devotional piece for this week:

“Life is uneven. It has its ups and downs. There are days of exaltation and there are days of despair. The weather is mixed with sunshine and shadow. Some days are too short, others too long. There are valleys to traverse and mountains to climb… But in spite of all this, it is a good day when you can crawl out of bed, put on your clothes, go to the table and eat, make an honest living and be a friend to another. That day is yours.”

Have a blessed week,

John

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson: 

Here is the devotional reading for this week: “Unless a person watches his imagination, he is sure to have more troubles than he can handle. He already has enough without entertaining some in fantasy. Horrible imaginations give you shadowy dangers and unreal burdens, but they scare and tire as much as if they were genuine. It was Mark Twain who said, ‘I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.’”

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson: 

Here is the devotional reading for this week: It is easier to say what you think than to think what you say. There is wisdom in holding back the full utterance of your mind for the more opportune time. Knowing what to say and when to say it will put you among the great! And the peaceful! And the happy! Proverbs 29:11 says, “A fool uttereth all his mind; but a wise man keepeth it in till afterward.”

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson: 

Leroy Brownlow tells this story: “The truly great person never feels any worthy task is too low for him or her. When James Madison completed his eight years as President, he retired to his Virginia plantation and filled the office of justice of the peace. No wonder he had climbed up, for he knew how to climb down. He didn’t have to appear to be great, for he was; and no office could make him less. His meekness was not weakness. His humility was not humiliation. The size of the job is not half as honorable as the size of the person who fills it.”

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson: 

This comes from the devotional book Today is Mine: Pass it by! The slur, the slight, the catty remark, we suffer from others. A refusal to forget it would keep us in war always. Our circle of friends would diminish; our blood pressure would go up; and our efficiency would go down. After all, most of us need just as much tolerance from others as we need to extend to them.

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson: 

Leroy Brownlow writes: “World improvement is everybody’s business. A person’s very presence in the world reflects his/her being a responsible part of it; and that part, good or bad, must of necessity make the world a little better or a little worse. So- just as you can improve the whole by improving the parts- world improvement must begin with me; and as I succeed in bettering self, I restore the world; for each evil conquered by me is that much of it put down in the world. A few broken habits will make the world more habitable.”

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson: 

One devotional book says this: “…the only true measurement of age is attitude- not birthdays. That is why some people become old at thirty, while others remain young at eighty. You (are young if) you:

                -Love life

                -Enjoy living

                -Are hopeful

                -Seek new thoughts for stimulation

                -Find new ways to do old things

                -Raise new ladders to climb, and

                -Enter new fields to gather

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

In her book Almost Everything, Anne Lamott writes, “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Here is a prayer from the devotional book Today is Mine: “O Lord, help me to keep my hands clean May I have hands that never steal; hands that never take a bribe; hands that know no greed; hands that move when there is work to be done; hands that mind their own business; hands unsoiled with broken trusts; hands that never knife a friend in disloyalty; hands that never hold back anyone; hands that never cheer when others fall; hands that are never raised in angry blows; hands unstained with the blood of the innocent; hands that are fit for the other person to shake.”

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson: 

Henry Brownlow writes this: “Each generation has the right to use the world, but not abuse it. The who-cares philosophy, which gets what you can, anyway you can, as long as you can, leaves a wasted world in its wake. If our hands are thieves which snatch the wealth of ages; if our feet are blockbusters which trample nature’s provisions; if we are a people whose sensitivity is seared to polluted streams, poisoned air, huge debts, and dog-eat-dog morals, we are more than exploiters- we are culprits whose prodigality shall affect the unborn. So let us ask: When we vacate this old world and the new tenants move in, what will they find?”

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this: “The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I shall die, and the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, shall be raised on the Last Day.”

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Reuben P. Job writes this: “Hope has always been a dominant quality in the life of the Christian community. From the time of the resurrection of Jesus until today, individual Christians and the Christian community have been full of hope…The source of this resurrection hope was never found in the surroundings or how things were going for the Church. Rather, hope was found in God and the assurance that God was at work in the Church and in the world. The disciples felt a calm confidence that God’s work and will would ultimately be completed and fulfilled.”

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson: 

Daniel Wolpert writes the following: “Like our other forms of prayer, praying with our material lives can and will cause upheaval. Just as our minds can revolt against us in silent prayer, so too will our social circles rebel when we begin to question how we are living, or what are our material priorities.”

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson 

John Indermark writes this: “To fears and sin that hold us back and weigh us down, we say, ‘No more. You are not the future. The future is God- and God has promised the gift of forgiveness.’ We are emboldened to face what we have done with the grace of what God has done and promises to do. Those confessions provide rehearsals for more public confessions of those truths by individuals and communities of faith. God would also embolden us to speak such truth with courage to those who would play on our fears and rely on our silenced timidity and say- ‘No more. You are not the future. This will not stand. We trust in God’s holy presence and gracious favor.’  And having said that, we then live that truth.”

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Elaine M. Prevallet writes the following: “Surely, in the end, after all our righteous judgments on what is wrong with ourselves, each other, and with the world; after we experience injustice intractably resistant to our most devoted efforts, leaving us with our thirst unquenched, our mouths dry and our throats sore from protest; surely in the end the gospel calls us to view the whole of creation, and each other, with the eyes of mercy, and to love it all anyway, with a mercying heart.”

Have a blessed week,

Pastor John