Wednesday, September 29, 2021

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

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

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

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

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

Wednesday, September 8, 2021

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

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

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

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

A mid-week message from the Pastor:

Costa Stathakis writes this: "In the opening of his letter, James gives us hope by reminding us that our life's difficulties, trials, and temptations give us an opportunity to grow. However, we need to stop and reflect on our situation: Are our present difficulties of our own doing? In what ways might these circumstances build our character? We cannot accomplish life's purpose through the attainment of ease or luxurious comfort. We accomplish life's purpose only in the achievement of Christlike character."

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

A mid-week message from the Pastor:

Bonifacio B. Mequi, Jr. writes this: "Yet for Christ to become our light, we must do one thing: 'Repent.' Repentance always requires us to turn around, change directions, quit walking away from God and begin walking the walk of faith toward him who is God-with-us. Our continued efforts to stay on God's side and to go in God's direction encourage us in our living until that way of life becomes as natural as breathing. Our life in Christ takes a lifetime both to learn and to live out."

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

A mid-week message from the Pastor:

Judith E. Smith writes this: "One of the myths of our culture is that control of ourselves and others is what gives us freedom. If we are in control, then obviously we can make decisions, and that leaves us free. But that is a myth. The paradox is that as we give up control to God, we actually live in a deeper freedom. The freedom of God may call us to turn all of our most precious definitions of faithfulness on their heads. It may be that the most difficult call for us to respond to is not a call that demands of us great sacrifices but a call that offers to us great gifts."

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

A mid-week message from the Pastor:

Thomas Kelly writes this: "Don't grit your teeth and clench your fists and say, 'I will! I will!' Relax. Take hands off. Submit yourself to God. Learn to live in the passive voice- a hard saying for Americans- and let life be willed through you. For 'I will' spells not obedience."

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Robert G. Doherty writes this: "The realization of God's love for us comes as a life-changing, liberating moment. Jesus announced his ministry as one of setting persons free from the effects of sin and darkness to enjoy a life of complete freedom and full salvation. The 'inhabitants' of the dark recesses of our conscious and subconscious selves are often so fear- or guilt- producing that we go to almost any length to avoid admitting or confronting their existence. But once the realization of God's unconditional love is secure, we begin to look into the dark side of life's experiences in order to be led from that darkness into the light (Col. 1: 13-14). God's love for us means we need not stay as we are, for the Holy Spirit is with us to help us face ourselves and to go from where we are to where God wants us to be."

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, June 30, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Tilda Norberg writes this: "Growth is not always about getting through terrible pain. Most often it involves change, perhaps only a small shift in awareness or embracing a good part of you that got lost. Learning to love yourself and others more deeply, opening to the tender joy of pregnancy and birth, meeting the challenge of a new job, or being creative in retirement is most certainly growth, too. So is surrendering a grudge, making room for forgiveness to take root, or learning to pray from your heart."

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

P.S. Many thanks to the person who left the gift card on my desk this past Sunday.

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Robert Corin Morris writes this: " True delight in God's ways sometimes comes only after the discomfiting loss of various forms of ignorance, illusion, and innocence. Looked at this way, disillusionment can be seen as an event of purifying grace, an open door toward wisdom."

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Flora Slosson Wuellner writes this: "If we have given our whole heart to God and God's guidance and God's way of love, we have already become 'a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God' (Rom 12:1) in every small or great thing we do, whether in the home or out in the world. The ways of living this holy life are wide and varied. Sometimes the opened gate does mean a different job, a different way of life, a different set of responsibilities and relationships. But at other times the opened gate may lead to a different way of doing our usual work, a new way of responding to others, an alternative way of praying, a transformed attitude toward ourselves, a different way of relating to God."

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, June 9, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Reuben P. Job and Marjorie J. Thompson write this: "While the initiative and invitation to companionship are entirely God's, response lies with us. God gives us grace to respond to the awakening call of the Holy Spirit, but we can choose to turn away and refuse the invitation. Or we can choose, by the Spirit's help, to walk in faithfulness and harmony with God. By doing so we can claim our full and true inheritance as children of God. Choosing to open ourselves to grace means receiving life's greatest gift and walking the path of spiritual abundance."

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Reuben P. Job writes this: "Conversion is a journey. The Christian is saved and is being saved. Just as the child is not fully mature, so the Christian is not fully mature at the time of 'birth' in Christ. As the Christian grows, the Spirit reveals attitudes and behaviors that frustrate the search for wholeness. For this reason the Christian will be aware of the conflict between resistance and acceptance of the will of God, between darkness and light...This growth process is experienced as an interior struggle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. It is important in the struggle to experience God's unconditional love as freedom."

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

Norman Shawchuck writes this: "When we seek to be like Christ we come to realize that we are facing an eternal paradox- the more we become like him the greater is our realization that we are not yet fully like him. This growing similarity makes us more conscious of the vast dissimilarity. But there is increased faith that he will never stop drawing us until we are fully formed in the image and likeness of God. He is ever moving toward us with transformation as the goal...Many persons are willing to have Christ as savior. Far fewer are willing to surrender everything they possess and desire to his lordship."

 Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

A mid-week message from our Pastor:

John Mogabgab writes this: "Holy ground is the stable place of clarity and confidence in a turbulent human landscape of shifting values, crumbling hopes, frayed trusts, uncertain commitments. Holy ground is the place of life-giving rootedness in something larger than our own lives, something deep enough and enduring enough to keep us anchored and oriented in the storm. Holy ground is the place at once attractive and fearsome, where God speaks and we listen; the place of empowerment, transformation, and sending forth to live victoriously in a world too often disfigured by the defeat of justice, peace, and human dignity; the place where the gracious rule of God is known and the new creation becomes visible; where faith can move mountains." Where is holy ground for you?

Have a blessed week,
Pastor John

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