Letter from the Pastor

It often appears to me that the church in the latter part of the twentieth century, and now  in the   beginning of the twenty-first century, has a golden opportunity to make the gospel of Jesus real and relevant to a world that is weary of wars, weary of emptiness, and increasingly weary of moral degradation.  It is time to make all things new.  It is a time when we should prepare ourselves to be the church at its best.  We must remind ourselves that the world is most ready now for the message of God’s love, delivered by people like […]

I suppose there are times when everyone longs to recapture the carefree innocence and joy of childhood.  We wish that for just one day we could shake off the burdensome responsibilities of adult life and put our feet under Dad’s table once more.  Admittedly, this emotion carries with it  an element of escapism, but it is not necessarily all bad. There are, of course, some characteristics of childhood that we should outgrow and leave behind forever.  Such childish traits as impatience and a total self-centeredness have no place in adult life.  But there are certain basic elements of childhood that […]

All of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments.  We have heard about them all of our lives.  Many of us could recite most of them from memory.  They are the moral and ethical foundation upon which our society is based.  Without them, it would be impossible for people to live together in peace and harmony.  But there is another set of laws that are even more basic than the Ten Commandments.  We could call these the “Twin Commandments”.  They, too, are found in the gospels. The first is a quotation from the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament:  […]

The month of June, as we know, is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Today, I ask the question:  What does it mean to love God?     For the most part, many are inclined to think of love as a fond feeling of warmth and  affection.  We sing about it; we read about it; we watch it in movies and on TV.   Love is a deep feeling that one person has for another.  And quite clearly, not even God can demand that.  How can we command the human heart to feel a certain way?  So if we are […]

One of the most fascinating things about the New Testament is the amazing faith that Jesus had in all sorts of people.  Follow Jesus through the years of His ministry, and you will see that same attitude reflected toward all sorts of people – a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery, a dishonest tax collector named Zacchaeus, and a Samaritan woman who had failed in marriage five times.  And one of the last things He did, just before He died, was express His confidence in a condemned felon, who was dying on the cross right next […]