Pastors Message

Pastors Message – December, 2015 / January, 2016

“How can we possibly thank God enough for all the happiness you have brought us? Day and night we sincerely pray that we will see you again and help you to have an even stronger faith. We pray that God our Father and our Lord Jesus will let us visit you. May the Lord make your love for each other and for everyone else grow by leaps and bounds. That’s how our love for you has grown. And when our Lord comes with all of his people, I pray that he will make your hearts pure and innocent in the sight of God the Father.”
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 (CEV)
Dear Friends in Christ,

Paul was no longer present at the church in Thessalonica. Timothy had reassured Paul that the church was growing in faith and love. Paul writes to the church a blessing or benediction, ‘good words’, wishing they will love one another the same way they loved Paul, Timothy and others, through Christ’s example.

Recently I have had anxious feelings knowing that my time to leave my post at First Presbyterian draws near. It’s something that will take time to adjust to as we go through this together – I daresay there will be a grieving period.

At Christmas we celebrate the gift of Christ. In this gift we find unconditional love through God. Yet, this time of year especially, we do try to put gifts into boxes where they can be controlled and defined. However, the unconditional love God has given us is boundless, it cannot be boxed in, it will not be boxed in.

On March 22, 1992 I was given a gift as I was ordained to minister our little country church. I have cherished this gift as gifts must be so. I believe I remember someone once said that Christ needed to leave our world so that disciples would not hold onto him and worship him. Rather they had to let go and live him, and the tenets he taught, and the love he gave.

I am so thankful for the time I have had with the gift I was given in 1992. May this gift live on in my heart as the Christmas Story unfolds again for us this Advent.

It is important that this church love each other as Christ has loved us all.

Peaceful, Blessed, Merry Christmas.

Pastors Message – November, 2015

If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is “thank you,”
that would suffice. — Meister Eckhart

Dear Friends,
Happy Thanksgiving! I send my love to all and appreciate your love and support for me, my family and our community. Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday because it is one we can all celebrate – whether Christian or Moslem, American or African, male or female, gay or straight, our thankfulness is something we have in common because we are the family of God.

We return thanks to our mother, the earth, which sustains us. We return thanks to the rivers and streams, which supply us with water. We return thanks to all herbs, which furnish medicines for the cure of our diseases. We return thanks to the corn, and to her sisters, the beans and squash, which give us life. We return thanks to the bushes and trees, which provide us with fruit. We return thanks to the wind, which, moving the air, has banished diseases. We return thanks to the moon and the stars, which have given us their light when the sun was gone. We return thanks to our grandfather He-no, who has given to us his rain. We return thanks to the sun, that he has looked upon the earth with a beneficent eye. Lastly, we return thanks to the Great Spirit, in who is embodied all goodness, and who directs all things for the good of his children. An Iroquois [Confederacy] Prayer (from the 1800s)

Thanksgiving is not only a time to thank our creator for all we have been given. It is also a time to show our thanks by working to make our world a better place in which to live. Someone once said, “We human beings are quick to say, “Why me?” whenever something bad happens to us, but we rarely ask the same question when good fortune befalls us.” In a world that is full of constant chaos we are thankful for the constant force of God’s love. St. Paul said, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.”
Peace and Thanks,
Oh, Heavenly Father, we thank thee for food and remember the hungry.
We thank thee for health and remember the sick.
We thank thee for freedom and remember the enslaved.
May these remembrances stir us to service,
That thy gifts to us may be used for others.
Amen.
Written by ‘Dear Abbey’s’ mother Pauline Phillips