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Message from the Pastor:
As we approach Pentecost Sunday, I would share these words on the work of the Spirit from Rufus M. Jones: “You cannot command or compel people into holiness; you cannot increase their spiritual stature one cubit by any kind of force or compulsion. You can do it only by sharing your life with them, by making them feel your goodness, by your love and sacrifice for them.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A message from the Pastor:
Henri Nouwen offers these words: “Hope and faith will both come to an end when we die. But love will remain. Love is eternal. Love comes from God and returns to God. When we die, we will lose everything life gave us except love. The love with which we lived our lives is the life of God within us. It is the divine, indestructible core of our being. This love will not only remain but will also bear fruit from generation to generation.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A message from the Pastor:
Dear Friends,
By now you have probably heard the new guidelines for Kansas from our governor. Based on these guidelines the Session has decided to continue with online worship service only through the month of May. We are hopeful that we will be able to gather again on the first Sunday in June, but this hasn’t been determined yet. The month of May will tell us a lot. Will the best-case scenario work out or the worst-case scenario or something in between? We won’t know for a while. We are all certainly hoping and praying for the best
outcome.
Thank you again for your contributions to the One Great Hour of Sharing for this year. We sent a check for $440 to Trinity United Presbyterian Church in Hamburg, Iowa, to help with their recovery efforts from flooding last year. Also, thanks for keeping up with your giving to the local church. Our treasurer tells me that overall the giving has been good.
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A message from the Pastor:
Dear Friends,
One of my favorite quotes is: “Lord, give me patience…and give it to me right now!” It is hard to be patient these days. We’re used to instant gratification so we instinctively feel that since we’ve done our part by social distancing for six weeks, then the Covid-19 pandemic should be over. I wish it could be that simple and that the decisions of when to re-open society could be easier. I am reminded that God never promised us easy times, but did promise to be with us every step of the way. That’s something I can rely on even in my impatience!
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A message from the Pastor:
Dear Friends,
We are starting to look ahead to the time when we will be able to gather in the sanctuary for worship. Some people have expressed an interest in continuing to provide a worship experience online. In order to do this we need to change how we do it.
We are asking two things from the congregation:
1. Do any of you have any experience with doing Facebook Live?
2. Would any of you be willing to be a part of a team that would be in charge of Facebook Live?
Let me know of your experience and interest and we’ll see if we can’t keep our online worship going.
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A message from the Pastor:
Dear Friends,
How are you spending your time? Have you found something new and interesting to do or are you a little bored or a little of both? What new things are you learning in order to do your job in a different way? For those
comfortable sharing, I would invite you to “Reply All” as a way of staying in touch with one another. I’m trying to exercise more and have tackled War and Peace as a way to spend evenings without sports. I hope to finish it by the start of football season if there is a football season. So, what are you doing? Don’t be shy. Let us know.
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A message from the Pastor:
Dear Friends:
In recent years some people have often lamented the lack of community. Fewer people know their neighbors. Fewer people join service clubs or organizations. There is often a feeling that more than ever we need to pull together. That is why this Covid-19 pandemic is so strange. We are being asked to come together
as a community by staying apart. From a public health perspective, I get it. Yet, by protecting our health we are giving up something vital- each other! I will continue to follow the guidelines set by our public health officials in the hope that this will be over relatively soon. Our first Sunday back together will not be Easter, but it will sure feel like it! Until then…keep the faith…pray…call…give…worship.
Have a blessed Holy Week and Easter,
Pastor John
A message from the Pastor:
Dear Friends:
There are a lot of emotions that have come out during this Covid-19 pandemic—fear, anger, boredom, anxiety. For a moment I want to focus on grief. This interruption of normalcy has caused us to lose a lot. As a congregation, we have lost the opportunity to gather for worship each week. That is especially difficult as we approach Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Easter.
There are many losses we share with the general community. We are unable to visit the sick and the dying in the way we are used to doing. We are unable to have funerals right now. We can no longer attend school, go to prom, have concerts and athletic events, and walk across the stage for graduation. Some of us are no longer able to go to work because of severe effects on our economy. All of these and more cause a great sense of loss, strong feelings of grief.
Earlier today, I was lamenting that all of this was happening around Holy Week. Perhaps, if something like this had to happen, Easter is the best time for it to happen. Easter is the great annual reminder that grief does not have the last word. God is the giver of new life and resurrection. That gives me hope and helps soften the blow of what we have lost.
We will get through this. I am looking forward to seeing all of you again. In the meantime, I hope you stay well, and if you have any needs we can help with, please give us a call.
In Christ,
Pastor John
A message from the Pastor:
Dear Friends,
Perhaps we don’t learn how valuable something is until it is taken away from us. This past Sunday felt so strange to me. I am used to the rhythm of weekly worship. I start each week with one of our short-term study classes and then move into worship. I miss the faces, the greetings, the conversations…some
short, some longer…the music, the time in prayer. It is all a part of who I am. So, to have that taken away was difficult and even more difficult to think that it could be this way for an indefinite time. I know that many of you may be feeling the same way.
Rather than focusing on what’s missing, I want to make a few suggestions on how
to still be the church even when we are not meeting together:
1. Pray. Pray for our health care workers and the government leaders making difficult decisions. Pray for those who have lost their jobs or whose businesses are threatened. Pray for those in hospital and nursing homes and their family members who are prevented from visiting. Pray for our educators and students.
This list could go on and on. Add to it as led by the Holy Spirit.
2. Call. Call not only your circle of friends, but find someone outside that circle that might be neglected. Depression is a prominent health concern during such times. Let’s be sure to look out for one another.
3. Give. Give of your time even if it is just over the phone. If possible, give to the One Great Hour of Sharing. As a reminder, we are giving money directly to the United Trinity Presbyterian Church in Hamburg, Iowa, which experienced a devastating flood last March. I understand the food basket ministry is running
short of food. You can take your donations to the Community Access Center on Pecan St. by Woods Lumber, but call before you go since they are closed to general public traffic (331-5115).
4. Worship. Worship with us online if you can or watch a service on television (Boston Avenue Methodist Church in Tulsa at 11:00 on Sundays is one of the most easy to access from here).
I hope you have a blessed week and stay well,
Pastor John
A mid-week message:
Corona Virus response…For the next couple of months we are going to take some precautions to do our part in trying to prevent the spread of the virus. A bottle of hand sanitizer is in the Narthex. Please use it when entering the Sanctuary for Worship! Also, we will be doing “elbow bumps” instead of handshakes during the greeting time. The most vulnerable people to this virus are the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. Guess what? That includes a lot of us. Let’s keep each other healthy by taking these few precautions.
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message:
Thomas Merton wrote this: “There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible- until we manage to get so used to it that we make it comfortable for ourselves. But then we are perhaps too used to it and too at home in it. Let us not be too sure we know the Bible…just because we have learned not to have problems with it. Have we perhaps learned…not to really pay attention to it? Have we ceased to question the book and be questioned by it?”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message:
Douglas W. Johnson and Alan K. Waltz write this: “A reading of the New Testament, especially the Gospels that tell what Jesus looked for in people, produces a picture of a quality church member as one who has been touched and changed by the Holy Spirit. He or she is committed to doing the will of God even though
sin will test the commitment. Over the years the church has required a part of a person’s commitment to God is expressed by attendance at worship and regular observance of certain disciplines of a holy life such as prayer, sacrifice, and care for others. To specify how these must be done or carried out is not only
inappropriate but is arrogant. God’s relationship to people determines how they should pray, sacrifice and care for others.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
Dennis M. Campbell writes this: “All Christian believers are called to ministry. Sometimes this idea is not understood because of the tendency to use the term ‘ministry’ to refer popularly to those who are engaged in full-time professional service in the church, usually ordained ministers. Thus we speak of one entering ‘the ministry’ and we mean the occupation of the clergy… This narrow usage of the term ministry is unfortunate, however, because it seriously truncates the wider and richer understanding of Christian ministry in the Bible
and church teaching.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message:
Steve Harper writes this: “We take a giant step forward in Christian devotion when we see it more as a life to be lived than as a time to be observed. Consequently, it is more appropriate to speak of a ‘devotional life’ than a ‘devotional time.’”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message:
James C. Fenhagen writes this: “The Christian faith for most people is not communicated by doctrinal pronouncements or the solemn assembly of ecclesiastical dignitaries, but by what goes on in the church in its most local setting. It is here, in the church down the street, that people are caught up in the Gospel
promise- or are turned away.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message:
A short while before his death, Rabbi Zusya made this remark: “In the world to come I shall not be asked: ‘Why were you not Moses?’ I shall be asked: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’” God has different plans for each of us. You can only be who God created you to be, not someone else.
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message:
Henri Nouwen writes this: “The word community has many connotations, some positive, some negative. Community can make us think of a safe togetherness, shared meals, common goals, and joyful celebrations. It can also call forth images of sectarian exclusivity, in-group language, self-satisfied isolation, and
romantic naivete`. However, community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message:
Joyce Rupp writes this: “God’s love is such a powerful companion for us that no matter how searing or how intense the hurt of a loss is we know that our spirit need not be destroyed by it; we know that God will help us to recover our hope, our courage and our direction in life.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message:
Henri Nouwen writes this: “Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, ‘How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?’ There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour, or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go.”
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
A mid-week message from Rev. John Wilson:
It’s time for another round of thank you’s. First of all, thanks to choir for providing another inspirational cantata for Advent/ Christmas. I always hear many people comment on what great sound our choir has even without large numbers of singers. Well done! Also, thanks to all who decorated tables, prepared food, and helped clean up after the Christmas dinner. As always, it was delicious! And finally, thanks to the congregation for the Christmas love gift for our family. It is much appreciated.
Have a blessed week,
Pastor John
