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11/21/2016 0 Comments  Taking the Next StepAs we look to the end of the year in a little over a month and even begin new year in the church with the season of Advent this Sunday, I want to take a moment to share with you what I hope to make priorities for our church in the coming year: 1) More opportunities for church-wide fellowship: We are a busy church with a lot of ways to serve others. When we do happen to get together for a time of fellowship, we always have a good time and our faith is strengthened by one another. I hope to make these kind of opportunities for us to gather a regular part of our church life. For a start, come out for our Christmas Musical Program on December 18th at 7 pm, and stay for a cookie reception and time spent together! 2) Diving deeper into God's story: Our Scriptures hold such a wealth of wisdom and inspiration for the life of discipleship. In our worship in the year to come, I hope to focus more in depth on some parts of God's story that hold a challenge for us as we seek to live faithfully. We'll start it off this week with a new worship series "Unleashing Christmas!" Between now and Christmas, we are going to look at how Christmas is more than a just a heart-warming, joyful celebration but also an amazing act of God that utterly changes how we see and live in the world. 3) Filling our community with everyday blessings: Here at Port Church, we tend to do things according to the motto: Go big or go home! We make an amazing impact on our community because of the way we do things in a big way, but there are so many little ways that we can impact our community each and everyday. In the coming year, I plan to focus on growing how much of an impact we make in these little ways as well. More details to come on this in the new year! 4) Preparing for and discerning the future: Last month, I shared with you how I sense that God is calling us to some new work that we have not dreamed of yet. Since then, I have heard from some of you about the glimpses you have seen of that future. There remains a lot of work to do to prepare for and fully discern God's vision for this village church with a mission to the world. We need to complete the restoration of our large stained-glass window (we have currently raised about two-thirds of the money needed), we need to repair our office steps that have been growing steadily worse with each winter, and we need to fully support the global missionary work of our church. If we get our house in order, we will be ready to hit the ground running when we discern the Next Step for our church. Please pray for our church and especially for the Next Step that God has put before us! Blessings on the journey, Jim ThankslivingSunday's Sermon Snippet: Thanksgiving Everyday (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) Near the end of his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul gives a series of short commands to them: "Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances." While short and simple, these commands are certainly not easy to fulfill. The problem is not so much with the verbs - rejoice, pray, give thanks. These are all things we hope to do as a regular part of our lives. The problem comes with the timing - always, continually, in all circumstances. How can we rejoice always when sometimes life is just plain hard? It helps to remember that joy, unlike happiness, is not dictated by the outward world. We can choose joy even when it is hard to do so. How can we pray continually? We have to do other things, right? Perhaps we can grow to live our lives as a prayer. Instead of seeing prayer as a phone call to God that is over when we say "Amen" and hang up, we can see prayer as an ongoing conversation with someone in the same room with us. Even when neither of us is talking, we are still together and strike up the chat again at any moment. How can we give thanks in all circumstances? This may be the hardest of the three. There are certainly circumstances that give us little to be thankful about - when bills arrive in the mail, we see a child struggling, violence overtakes the peace of the world, or our car won't start in the morning. Paul is asking for a tall order by wanting us to give thanks in those circumstances. Yet he tells us that this is God's will for us in Christ Jesus. Earlier in the letter, Paul talks about God's will in connection with our growing in Christian maturity and being made holy by God. These three instructions are God's will for us because through them we can grow in our discipleship. It is not about how completely and perfectly we live out these commands but about how striving after them deepens our relationship with God. May we attempt to live in connection with God joyfully and thankfully everyday! This Week's Prayer for Growing a Thankful Heart The Celtic Christians had a tradition of "bless to me" prayers in which they asked God to make the mundane, everyday, even difficult things of life a blessing. These prayers help us to find the beauty of the everyday world that we may overlook, to claim the blessing in the mundane tasks of our day, and to seek God in the difficult circumstances of life. As an example, if we struggle with opening the mailbox for fear of bills, we can pray, "Bless to me this mail that brings news to my home. Bless to me these bills that have given heat and light to my home and healthcare for my body. Bless to me the writing of checks that gives those who have served me the money they need to live." The "bless to me" prayer is a way of focusing on the blessings of life that are hidden in things we tend to avoid. This week, try this type of prayer as a way of living out your thanksgiving everyday! Living in CommunityPlease continue to pray for Tristan, Mark, Larry, and Sue and their healing. Thank you, Davida, Keith, Dalton, Zach, Hunter, and Dinah for your help cleaning up the barn in preparation for our Nativity! This Week at Port ChurchTuesday, November 22 9:00 - 10:45 - Office Hours Thursday, November 24 Office Closed - Happy Thanksgiving! Sunday, November 27 9:30 am - Worship: "Unleashing Christmas: Resurrecting Life" 11:00 am - Sunday School Looking AheadAdvent Bible Study Begins November 28
Drive-thru Nativity - December 9 & 10, 7-9 pm Christmas Musical Program - December 18, 7 pm Christmas Eve Service - December 24, 7 pm
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11/15/2016 0 Comments November 15th, 2016 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. - Galatians 5:23-24 Over the course of the last week, I have heard from several of you about how the bitterness of this election campaign has affected your lives, in particular how you have lost friends because of political disagreements and arguments. I have also heard of folks dreading the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday because they will have to sit with family members they wholeheartedly disagree with and possibly have even had arguments with over social media. The love and unity among Christian brothers and sisters and even in families has been a casualty of this campaign season, and it will take a long time for those deep wounds to heal. As we tend to these wounds, seeing lost friends and sitting uncomfortably at a table that is supposed to be about Thanksgiving, let us remember that there is no law against love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is nothing that prevents us from letting the Spirit guide our actions rather than our passions. As I have shared with you before, my sister has chided our children when they argue over who did what to whom: "I don't care who is right; I just care who is being kind." May we be kind to all of God's children this week! Blessings on the journey, Jim Thanksliving Sunday's Sermon Snippet: The Guardian of Prayer (Colossians 3:12-17, 4:2) Paul wrote to the Colossians about how they were called to live. He encouraged them to put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience so that they could be tolerant, forgive one another, show love, be thankful, teach and share their lives, sing out praises, and do all things for God. They needed to clothe themselves with these virtues from Jesus Christ because these things are not things that all come naturally. Perhaps one or a few may be more or less a natural part of who we are, but none of us is completely virtuous and able to act as we know should at all times. That brings us to a further instruction Paul gives them - to keep praying, and guard their prayers with thanksgiving. It is perhaps an odd notion to think of guarding prayers. What is it that we need to protect our prayers from? What should we keep watch for on the horizon to keep from invading our prayers? Since our prayers are our conversation with God, they are at the heart of our relationship with God. What threatens our relationship with God are the same things that threaten all our close relationships with a spouse, with parents, with children, or with best friends - becoming self-centered and caring more for ourselves than others, taking others for granted, and growing impatient or even judgmental. When these things invade our prayers and turn them into a list of requests that serve us in the way we want at the time we want, we shed those virtues we were supposed to put on and no longer live the lives we are called to. We return to our natural selves and forget that we are not better than God, that we need God, that we love God. Paul tells us that the way to prevent this is to pray and to guard our prayers with thanksgiving. This means we need to be intentional about giving thanks to God for all the bounty of blessings we have in our lives, but that doesn't mean it has to be an endless, monotonous task. Giving thanks and recognizing the blessings we have can be a celebration, like writing a love letter to the one we have fallen for, like the pride we feel at seeing a child thrive, like the joy of seeing a friend we have not seen for far too long. May your thanksgiving in prayer help you stay in love with God and put on the virtues of Jesus Christ! This Week's Prayer for Growing a Thankful Heart This week's prayer for helping us grow in thankfulness is an old prayer recorded in a collection of traditional Celtic prayer and is a dedication giving thanks for the day. Thanks to You, O God, Who brought me from yesterday to the beginning of today, Everlasting joy to earn for my soul with good intent. And for every gift of peace you bestow on me, My thoughts, my words, my deeds, my desires I dedicate to You. I humbly ask You, I beg of You, To keep me from offense, and to shield me tonight, For the sake of Your wounds with Your offering of grace. Looking Ahead Have you ever faced a difficult situation that replaced the joy and trust in your heart with worry and fear? Have you ever wondered how or what to pray for in trying times? Join us this Sunday as we discover "The Guardian of Prayer"! Advent Bible StudyIt does not take a credit card, cold hard cash or a lay-a- way. You don’t have to wonder… “What I am going to buy for Christmas?” This is a gift to you from the Lord Jesus Christ. No refunds and no returns. Let’s really get to know and come closer to God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit this holiday season. Join Dianna at her house for a four-week Advent Bible Study beginning the week of November 28. The study will be held two different days for your convenience: Mondays 7 to 8 pm and Wednesdays 9:30-10:30 am. See Dianna for more details and let her know if you plan to attend. Living in CommunityPlease continue to pray for Tristan and all of his family during this difficult journey. Thank you to everyone who so generously gave to help them in this time of need. Thank you to the youth and their leaders for a great night at the MORE Worship Service! You did a fantastic job with your skit and leading praise music! If you would like to purchase poinsettias for our sanctuary in honor or memory of a loved one, please see Pam during the month of November. The Drive-thru Nativity is fast approaching! Please see Davida to sign up for a part before all the good ones are taken (and they are all good ones!). This Week at Port ChurchTuesday, November 15 9:00 - 11:45 - Office Hours Wednesday, November 16 6:00 pm - Wednesday at the Port Come out for our final Wednesday at the Port for the fall! Pizza, salad, and brownies are on the menu. 7:30 - Choir Practice Thursday, November 17 9:00 - 11:45 - Office Hours Thursday, November 19 9:00 - Barn Clean-up Contact Davida for more details. Sunday, November 20 9:30 am - Worship: "Thanksliving: Thanksgiving Everyday" 11:00 am - Sunday School Looking AheadDrive-thru Nativity - December 9 & 10
Christmas Musical Program - December 18 11/6/2016 0 Comments November 06th, 2016 Rebuilding Relationships WThis past weekend, a group of youth from our church and Grottoes UMC filled the field on Port Road for hunger and homeless awareness. They set up boxes and fire barrels to shelter them from the cold and wind as they spent the night outside. In the evening, several speakers came out to share their experiences working in hunger and homeless ministries with the youth. I had the privilege of offering an opening devotional, and I want to share some of my thoughts with you as well. Why does someone live homeless or suffer from ongoing hungering? Certainly life circumstances could lead any of us to be without a home or to go hungry for a season - perhaps we suffer a house fire or natural disaster, the loss of job or an accidental injury that keeps us from working and piles on medical bills. Hopefully, we have the support to get back on our feet, and things return more to normal. Sometimes though, homelessness or hunger is not merely seasonal but becomes a chronic problem. Often there are complicating factors that we might expect - drug or alcohol abuse, addictions, incarceration, mental illness, and extreme poverty. But often there is another, largely unrecognized issue that goes even deeper - the breakdown of relationship. If something were to cause someone to lose their home or to go hungry, most likely they would have friends and family to call upon, and they would not be homeless or hungry for very long. What happens, however, if someone has no one left to call upon? What happens if they have burned bridges with those they have counted on in the past because of addiction or abuse? What happens if all the relationships they have built break down? Where there is a breakdown of relationship, there is potential for chronic homelessness and hunger, because there is no one left to help. While this may run the risk of oversimplifying the problem, the point that this raises is the role that a breakdown of relationships plays in the problem. As we think about helping those who go hungry and are homeless, it is important to realize that building a relationship with them is as much a part of the solution as meeting the physical needs they have. What our youth did by filling the field was to begin making relationships by experiencing just a bit of what those in need face and growing in their understanding and empathy. May we treasure the relationships we have and work to build relationships with those who are most vulnerable. Blessings on the journey, Jim A Prayer for Election DayGod of Wisdom and Power, from beginning to end, you are the Mighty Counselor, Prince of Peace, and King of Kings. For more than a year, we have wrestled with the question of whom we would have lead us. This has sadly been a time of bitter division and growing discouragement for our nation. We have lived in uncertainty and fear over what the future holds, but today we finally come together to make the decision. We give thanks to you for the freedom we exercise today to vote our conscience, and we thank you for all those who have sacrificed and struggled to ensure that right for us all. Help us to see more clearly how you would have us to vote, not only on the presidential election that has consumed so much of our attention but also on local elections and state initiatives. Fill us with your love not only for those who think like us but also for those who are opposed to us. Keep our tongues and tempers in check, and help us to trust one another again. Surround our polling sites with your protection that they may be places of peace rather than disputes. Sustain all the election officials and volunteers working so hard today with your patience and encouragement for the long day and night ahead of them. Bless each and every candidate who have offered their service to their towns and cities, their counties and states, this nation and indeed the world with your grace and strength. Throughout this day, help us your people to reclaim and proclaim our unity as a country and our love for our neighbor. Remind us of who we are in you, and may the way we live today bring glory to your holy name. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Worship This Week: Thanksliving Sunday's Sermon Snippet: The Present of Presence (Ephesians 1:15-23) Thanksgiving is approaching soon, and we will give thanks for our many blessings on that day. But how can we not only give but also live out our thanks everyday? In his letters to the saints of the early church, the Apostle Paul connected giving thanks with the act of prayer. In writing to the Ephesians while he himself was imprisoned, Paul affirmed that he never stopped giving thanks for them, their faith, and their love when he remembered them in prayer. Moreover, he prayed that God would give them the wisdom and revelation to know God more fully and deeply so that their faith and love could grow. To this end, he prayed that the eyes of their heart would have the light to see three things: 1) the hope of God's call that we would be an honor to God in how we live, 2) the richness of God's inheritance for us of salvation and the indwelling of the Spirit, and 3) the greatness of God's power through which we - along with all things - are made, redeemed, and remade through Jesus Christ. When we see these things clearly, we recognize the great gift that God is always present with us and around us - making and remaking us. We are always surrounded by God's protective hands working for our redemption although we may at times wonder where God is. We are always surrounded by God's goodness indwelling in the world around us although the corrosion of sin may sometimes make it hard to see. Paul gives thanks for this present of God's presence within and around us, even though he is in prison for preaching the gospel of Christ. We should give thanks for this presence as well and grow in our thankfulness everyday by looking for God's presence in our midst. This Week's Prayer for Growing a Thankful Heart This week's prayer for helping us grow in thankfulness is an ancient Celtic prayer attributed to St. Patrick. This prayer celebrates and asks for God's presence with us. Christ be with us, Christ before us, Christ behind us, Christ in us, Christ beneath us, Christ above us, Christ on our right, Christ on our left, Christ where we lie, Christ where we sit, Christ where we arise, Christ in the heart of every one who thinks of us, Christ in every eye that sees us, Christ in every ear that hears us. Salvation is of the Lord, Salvation is of the Christ, May your salvation, O Lord, be ever with us. Looking Ahead Have you ever faced a difficult situation that replaced the joy and trust in your heart with worry and fear? Have you ever wondered how or what to pray for in trying times? Join us this Sunday as we discover "The Guardian of Prayer"! Living in CommunityPlease continue to pray for Sue and her healing over the coming weeks. Thanks to Mary and Kendra for organizing the Operation Christmas Child party! Thanks to Ralph for serving as our lay leader! Thanks to Bob, Dianna, Connie, and Davida for serving communion and to Linda and Donnie for setting it communion up for our service on Sunday! Thanks to all the youth crew leaders, volunteers, speakers, and neighbors who made Fill the Field possible - Dinah, Meg, Chris, Angela, Eddie, Jordan, Brad, Pam, Pastor Brian and Kara from Grottoes UMC, Dianna and Bob, Joe and Jean, Tracey, Keith, and Randy! If you would like to purchase poinsettias for our sanctuary in honor or memory of a loved one, please see Pam during the month of November. The Drive-thru Nativity is fast approaching! Please see Davida to sign up for a part. before all the good ones are taken (and they are all good ones!). This Week at Port ChurchTuesday, November 8 9:00 - 11:45 - Office Hours The Church will be open and Pastor Jim available for prayer during office hours. Go vote, and come by for prayer! Wednesday, November 9 6:00 pm - Wednesday at the Port 7:30 - Choir Practice Thursday, November 10 9:00 - 11:45 - Office Hours Sunday, November 13 9:30 am - Worship: "Thanksliving: The Guardian of Prayer" 11:00 am - Sunday School Looking AheadDrive-thru Nativity - December 9 & 10
Christmas Musical Program - December 18 |
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