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8/29/2017 0 Comments August 29th, 2017 Step into the FutureAs you are most likely aware, the back steps into the church near the office have been in deteriorating condition for several years now. Our Trustees have been working on a plan to repair them for the last couple of years and shared that vision with us on Sunday. Their recommendation is to repair by installing freestanding metal stairs in the place of the concrete ones. This has several benefits for us as a congregation. The metal stairs will not require chemicals for snow removal or have water buildup during rainstorms. The grating of the stairs will be ADA compliant so as to not create problems for those wearing heels. This setup will also allow us remove the bottom landing such that there will be a gentle ADA compliant ramp leading to the fellowship hall. This is one of the things we are most excited about - making it easier for our older members and those who have trouble walking to participate in our fellowship events. We hope to complete this work this fall. The total cost is a not-to-exceed bid of approximately $32,000. In the last year, we have received a generous gift in addition to the faithful pledges of many who have given to the Building and Window Fund each month. We currently have about $25,000 available in hand to begin the project. Although the total cost will hopefully come in below this maximum bid, another $6000-$7000 would ensure our ability to fully fund this much-needed repair, while any excess would provide the seed for future projects needed to maintain our beautiful church. I hope you will consider making a gift toward this exciting step into the future for our congregation! Blessings on the journey, Jim Responding to Hurricane HarveyThis week, we have seen the pictures and stories of devastation as Hurricane Harvey has flooded so much of Texas and Louisiana. As is so often the case, our United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is one of the first on the scene offering relief and will likely be one of the last to leave following the years of recovery to come. You can check out updates on our work at umcor.org. UMCOR is currently taking donations for the relief and recovery efforts. You can donate online, or you can drop a check designate for Hurricane Relief in the offering plate this Sunday. We will also be collecting supplies for cleaning buckets in the coming week. The buckets will go to UMCOR's supply depot where they can be sent where needed. One of our larger depots is nearby in Louisiana and already had buckets ready to go before the storm hit, but more are needed at this time. Sign up to bring in items at church on Sunday. Please continue to pray for all those affected by the storm and especially for brothers and sisters on the ground working tirelessly on our behalf to bring relief in a devastating situation. Sunday's Sermon SnippetA Life-Changing Gift: A Lasting Legacy (2 Cor. 8:1-7) It is a blessing to receive a gift so well-suited and well-timed that it changes the very direction of our lives from that point forward. We can all name at least a few of those gifts we have been given - a book, toy, or hobby that spurred us into a career, a wedding ring, the birth of a child. Many of these life-changing gifts come from God, of course. God gave such a gift almost 2,000 years ago to a group of people living in Macedonia and in Corinth. The gift came by way of the Apostle Paul. Paul met with the leaders of the church in Jerusalem, and, in an effort to build unity between Jewish and Gentile Christians, he invited the churches he had founded in Asia Minor and Greece to raise a collection for the poor of Jerusalem. This is the topic of discussion that Paul addresses midway in his second letter to the Corinthians. He reminds them of the collection that they had begun a year earlier and tells them of the faithfulness he has seen in their brothers and sisters in Macedonia who begged for the opportunity to give to this cause and gave well beyond their means. On the surface, we may think that Paul is guilting the Corinthians by bragging on the Macedonians. This way of looking at it, however, misses the point at the root of the issue for Paul - that the opportunity to give is itself a gift - a life-changing gift - from God. We do not often view it this way in church when we focus on meeting the budget and asking if we are ahead or behind on our obligations. In our personal lives, we know the truth of this. So often, we get so much more fulfillment from giving the perfect gift than in receiving it. Both are good, but we know the deep satisfaction that comes from giving. That's what giving should be for us, because giving to God allows us to be a part of something far greater than ourselves. Yet there is more to it than just that - when we give to God and are a part of God's greater work in the world, God also gives us the life-changing gift of a lasting legacy. Think about those Macedonians - so many barely able to give yet their faithfulness exceeded their ability to give. They were not famous, powerful, or rich - just common folks like us - and yet here we are almost 2,000 years later still hearing about the legacy of their generosity. That is indeed a gift! What legacy is God wanting to give us? What generosity is God calling us to? In a hundred years, will people in our community say, "Our kids are safe, well-fed, nurtured, and loved, and that's because of what started at that church in Port Republic"? That is the legacy I see God inviting us to claim, and it's the one I hope we will work towards! Living in CommunityThanks to the Trustees - Lauren, Keith, Jennifer, Randy, Bob, Perry, Dave, Davida, and Kerry - for all the work they have done planning for the repair of the back steps of the church! Please be in prayer for this work as we move forward. This Week at Port ChurchTuesday, August 29 9:00 - 11:45 am - Office Hours Thursday, August 31 9:00 - 11:45 am - Office Hours Sunday, September 3 9:30 am - Worship - "A Life-changing Gift: Overflowing Poverty" 11:00 am - Sunday School Looking AheadWednesday at the Port, Bible Study on John, and financial classes
will begin in September. Contact Pastor Jim for more information on these opportunities! Youth contact Dinah about a special learning opportunity for them! Wednesday at the Port resumes September 13! Paint Night on Friday, September 22nd - Enjoy fellowship and fun painting a fall scene! See Lee for more details. Cost of $25 is due by 9/13.
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8/23/2017 0 Comments August 23rd, 2017 Fall in the AirIt comes so suddenly! Almost overnight, the first leaves litter the ground, and those still hanging are starting to take on a yellow, orange, or brown hue. It is hard to believe that fall is almost here. Of course, this week the kids are starting off a new school year, so it should not surprise us that fall is around the corner. With the first sign of changing leaves, the school buses running the roads again, and the arrival of the first cool weather of the fall, possibility is in the air. There is always something about new beginnings and changing times that brings renewed hope. Who knows what can be with a new year, in a new season? The things that weigh on us today can give way to healing and new life tomorrow. In this new year of school and the coming of a new season, may you find hope and healing along life's way! Blessings on the journey, Jim Sunday's Sermon SnippetI Do: Happily Ever After (John 2:1-11) One of the goals of a friendship is to have someone we can count on through thick and thin. Marriage, as a special kind of friendship, is likewise about having someone we can grow old with as we journey through life's paths. When we marry, we are looking for a happily ever after. Of course, in fairy tales, the happily ever after sums up in three words the 10, 20, 30, 50, even 80 years of the relationship that occurs after the high point of the wedding itself. How could such a long time be summed up so shortly as if nothing were to happen - at least nothing interesting or worth noting? Possibly because we are ambivalent about the prospect of growing old together. On the one hand, we romanticize growing old together by dreaming of sitting on the front porch reflecting on life or still holding hands as we still do everything together. On the other hand, we (particularly younger folks) see older couples sitting quietly at a table eating and not talking, and we judge it harshly hoping we will never run out of things to talk about. God wants our marriages to be a lasting blessing, not something we tolerate until it ends. So what happens when Jesus shows up in a marriage, for a wedding? At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was invited to a wedding in Cana along with his mother and some of his disciples. When they ran out of wine, Mary pushed Jesus to do something to help. Jesus told the servants to fill the cleansing jugs with water and then take some to the master of the feast. The master drank this water that Jesus had turned to wine and, not knowing where it had come from, was surprised that the host family had saved the best wine for last. From this incident, we can reflect on three things that happened when Jesus showed up for a wedding. First, Jesus blesses our relationships and should be a part of the foundation of all our friendships and especially marriage. Second, Jesus takes the ordinary of our lives and turns it into something extraordinary. This is true of our relationships as well. This is where we need to be careful, because we can work the reverse miracle - turning the extraordinary that Jesus gives us into something mundane or ordinary. In marriage, we do this by taking each other for granted and focusing on the small disappointments rather than the great blessings. Third, when Jesus shows up in a marriage, he saves the best for last. Growing old together is a blessing in which our relationship grows deeper, more comfortable, stronger. To sum up a marriage as a fairly tale happily ever after assumes the best peaks at the wedding and the rest is okay. Yet God has a different plan for our relationships - that the best is yet to come! A Life-Changing Gift Have you ever received a gift that changed your life forever? What you did after that point was different because of one single gift. God, of course, is a master of the kind of gift-giving that changes everything. In the coming weeks in worship, we are going to look at one of the most overlooked life-changing gifts that God gives us. Join us this week as we look at how God gives us the opportunity for "A Lasting Legacy!" Living in CommunityRemember all of our teachers, staff, students, and families as school begins this week. Hope it is the beginning of a great new school year! A Prayer for a Really Good School (from The Lion Book of 1000 Prayers for Children) Dear God, Let us make our school a really good school: let us be kind, let us be fair, let us be honest, let us be respectful, let us be friendly, let us be ready to forgive, let us grow up good. Amen. This Week at Port ChurchTuesday, August 22 7:00 pm - Administrative Council Thursday, August 24 9:00 - 11:45 am - Office Hours Sunday, August 27 9:30 am - Worship - "A Life-changing Gift: A Lasting Legacy" 11:00 am - Sunday School Upcoming EventsWednesday at the Port, Bible Study on John, and financial classes
will begin the week of September 10th. See attachments for more details on John study. Contact Pastor Jim for more information on these opportunities! Wednesday at the Port resumes September 13! 8/16/2017 0 Comments August 16th, 2017 Love Your EnemiesOver the last week, we have seen a lot of violence and hatred on display just over the mountain in Charlottesville. It is hard to see such things happening in such a familiar place, especially when they lead to the loss of life as a result. As followers of Jesus, it is even more difficult as we consider how we are to respond to the growing sense of divisiveness, intolerance, and downright hatred that is becoming more prevalent all around us. What would Jesus do? We do not have to look far for answers, for Jesus himself spoke directly about what to do under oppression and violence. Love your enemies, and pray for those who oppress you, he tells us in Matthew 5. Anyone can love those they like or agree with. It takes something special, however, to love and wish the best upon those you despise, those you disagree fundamentally with, and those who would seek to harm you in return. Yet this is what Jesus says we are called to do - to love our enemies. We do this because God is love, and we want to live as God's own children who repay hatred with love, violence with peace, anger with calm, oppression with prayer. So what specifically are we to do now? Pray - pray for those who mourn, those who were injured, those whose beloved hometown has become a national focal point, those who seek to establish peace in these turbulent days, those public servants doing their duty as best as they are able, those who need to find the peace of Christ in their hearts. Witness to the love of God we have found in Jesus Christ - witness to its power to change lives and overcome differences, to its strength in the face of hate and violence, to its willingness to sacrifice for the sake of those it loves. Let go of the things that divide us one from another - the labels that divide us into warring tribes, the hatred being stoked between us, the fear of the other - and have a conversation with an enemy, with a neighbor. Whatever you do, err on the side of love, for that is the side that eventually wins in the end, because it is God's side. Blessings on the journey, Jim Sunday's Sermon SnippetI Do: Building a Home (Matthew 7:24-27) "On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand..." the old hymn tells us. This song is based, of course, on the image Jesus used at the conclusion of his Sermon on the Mount to talk about how we build up our lives. When we build on solid rock - his words, teaching, or love - our lives can withstand the storms of life. When we build on sand, the storms easily knock us over. As we talked about last week, there is a lot of similarity between our lives of faith and our marriages and holy relationships. That is true for this metaphor as well. What we build our homes and our marriages on matters. If the solid rock is Jesus' love and teachings, what is the sinking sand upon which we can build a marriage? For one thing, it can be the romantic love into which we fall without choice if it does not grow deeper. If our relationship is simply about how the other person makes us feel and the warm fuzzies we feel inside, even a small storm can ruin the home we build upon that foundation. So what solid ground does Jesus gives us to build our relationships upon? His teachings about love that culminate in his final, new commandment to love one another the way he has loved us. To base a relationship on this foundation means that our love does not depend on how we feel about them today as a result of an argument we have had or what circumstances life has thrown our way. It depends on who we are as a child of God and Jesus' love for us - a far more stable ground. Our love for the other is not nearly as fickle as what is happening today. A home built upon this foundation is a covenant rather than a contract. In a contract, if one person fails to live up to their responsibilities, the agreement is null and void, and the other person no longer has any responsibility to their end of the bargain. A covenant is not so easily broken, however. In a covenant, when one person fails to live out their end of it, the other continues to work on and build up the covenant. A covenant is more of a living, growing, healing relationship than a black-and-white, fragile agreement. To live in covenant means to seek the good of the other because we know of Jesus' love for us rather than to seek to treat the other as they have treated us. May God give us all the grace to live in covenant with one another and especially in our marriages! Living in CommunityRemember all of our teachers in prayer as they prepare for and begin a new school year! Remember our brothers and sisters in Charlottesville that peace may return to their community. This Week at Port ChurchTuesday, August 15 9:00 - 11:45 am - Office Hours Thursday, August 17 9:00 - 11:45 am - Office Hours Sunday, August 20 9:30 am - Worship - "Happily Ever After" 11:00 am - Sunday School Trustees Meeting Looking AheadWednesday at the Port, Bible Study on John, and financial classes
will begin the week of September 10th. See attachments for more details on John study. Contact Pastor Jim for more information on these opportunities! 8/7/2017 0 Comments August 07th, 2017 A Gift from GodOur family truly enjoyed our time in Georgia with our family. It was good to catch up with them, rehearse the old stories, learn about new ones, and just spend time together. Such special time with family is good for the soul and indeed a gift from God for rest and renewal. As this summer winds down and we gear up for the fall to come, I pray that you too have time to slow down, visit with family and friends, and find some rest and renewal - all a gift from God! Blessings on the journey, Jim Sunday's Sermon SnippetFaithful (Hosea 1:1-3, 3:1-3) The story of Hosea is one of the great love stories of the Bible - even if it is not one that would fit into our notion of romances and fairytales. God told the prophet Hosea to marry a promiscuous woman, so he takes Gomer as his wife, and they have children. Not exactly what we would expect for a good foundation for a marriage - especially one willed by God. The story takes a turn for the worse as Gomer returns to her old ways and goes to live with another man. God comes to Hosea again and tells him to go after his wife and love her again. Hosea does so and makes a covenant with Gomer that neither should stray in faithfulness from the other. This is an odd story, to be sure, but it is one with an important point. Hosea's life is turned into a living parable for us to teach us about God's love - a love that believes in us and comes after us no matter what mistakes we may make. It also tells something important - that marriage and faith are similar. In fact, faith is also seen in light of a marriage between God and God's people throughout the writings of the prophets and into the New Testament. So how are marriage and faith similar? We can start with a word that is prominent in Hosea's story: faithfulness. To be faithful in a friendship means to be loyal and trustworthy, but in marriage we often boil it down to the fidelity of not cheating on the other person. If we are to be faithful in marriage, we need to live out all of our vows and not just the one that says we will forsake all others. (As an aside, vows themselves are one of the things that unite marriage and faith as well.) We need to love and cherish, to have and hold, in good times and bad. To be faithful also means to be faith-filled as well. Faithfulness means holding onto the faith we have in our partner - that they are good and worth our sacrifices. This can be challenged when we feel wronged or betrayed, but faithfulness means forgiving and continuing to believe in the other person. To be faithful in marriage and holy relationships means to live out our vows day by day and to have faith in the other person. This Week's Challenge What is something you have avoided doing that your significant other or a family member is counting on you to do? Make it a priority to do that this week. Think about your significant other or a family member. What good do you see in them? What do you believe in them to do for your relationship? Write down your thoughts, and reflect on them each day. Living in CommunityPlease continue prayers of Christian sympathy for the Craun family. Thank you to Jeff, Susie, and Lee for leading worship in the absence of Pastor Jim and the praise band! Thank you to Bob, Dianna, and Meg for helping to serve communion this past Sunday and to Linda and Donnie for setting the table for us! Thank you, Dinah, Isaac, and the youth group, for representing Port Church and serving our communityby volunteering with the custodians at South River! This Week at Port ChurchTuesday, August 8 9:00 - 11:45 am - Office Hours Thursday, August 10 9:00 - 11:45 am - Office Hours Sunday, August 13 9:30 am - Worship - "Building a Home" 11:00 am - Sunday School Upcoming EventsBible study on the Gospel of John led by Dianna, Financial Peace University - a class on how to handle money in a Biblical way, and the Legacy Journey - a class on living purposefully and creating a legacy through investing, estate planning, and generosity - will all be offered this fall. More details to come! Let Dianna know if you are interested in the Bible Study and Pastor Jim know if you are interested in either of the finance classes.
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