“Arise! Arise! Arise and shine! May Christ’s message of eternal life fill your heart with everlasting love, hope, happiness and new dreams.” ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

 

Upon returning from vacation recently I unlocked the office door, breathed deeply, and prepared to wade in to texts and emails and phone calls. Even from outside the office I could hear the phone message alert going off. 

Well, that seemed like as good a place as any to start so I hit the message button -- and chuckled upon hearing a message from Bruce Smith. He writes for the Cascades Presbytery (our regional group of 96 Presbyterian churches mostly in Oregon) newsletter and covers Central Oregon churches.

He wanted to know how PPC’s building program was going. In thinking about my response the first thought that came to mind was a single word: ‘COVID.’ Our Future Facilities teams had interviewed two general contractors when – COVID.

As Oxford Dictionary defines it, COVID is a noun: “a statement, fact, or situation that tells you why something happened;“ yet how COVID has changed our lives and related actions during these past two years makes it feel more like a verb (action-word).

COVID has become this broadly ambiguous yet clearly understood umbrella term to explain all things odd and changing and suspended and undone over the last two years.

However now with Easter having provided an end-date to COVID (at least currently) and our lives once again find stability, we want to remember that while the Cross brought an end to Jesus’ earthly life, His resurrection signaled the start of God’s new season.

And on that first Easter, as the disciples’ joy and astonishment was quickly replaced by anxiety and doubt -- they retreated…until Jesus reminded them that there was more to His story…and in commissioning the disciples Jesus was counting on them to step up and step out in telling it.

So how will we respond? We hope you would  join our response.

As we look to the rest of the ‘post-COVID’ year ahead, and PPC’s future long beyond that; I pray that we all will step up in faith and consider stepping out into new roles in telling all about God’s unfolding story.

Together We Serve,

Pastor Mike

 “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” ~Luke 4:1

3 times Jesus was tempted, each time with the ‘rewards’ subsequently growing.

Looking at this the through lens of my previous sales career, it’s easy to make the case that the devil was probing; what’s the least it had to invest in this?

As we move into Lent and this period of tuning up our relationship with God – is there a caution here for us?

Are we trying to get the full and abundant life promised by Jesus…

…while clinging to our fistful of coupons?

We’re working for that rock bottom discount while seeking the richness of life with Christ...

…and doing so while at the end of Lent, Easter shows us that God goes all in with God’s abundant gift of grace for all of us.

So with Lent still ahead of us are we willing to declare that complete faithfulness to God is the best investment we can make with our lives?

And when we say yes…meaning that at the very least we’ll really try every day to match this grace…

…dare we even imagine what God’s return on our investment looks like...for us...and for our community...for our world?

Together We Serve, 

Pastor Mike

“…built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” Ephesians 2:20

Returning home from vacation recently my wife and I took a side trip to the Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux. It’s a Trappist monastery.

15 years earlier we had stumbled across it and learned about “its sacred stones.”

While archeologists have thousands of years of history about who had previously used the land, specific to the monastery its history started in the mid-1800’s.

The stones are from a 12th century monastery in Spain…

…10,000 stones painstakingly dismantled and abandoned in Golden Gate Park where they laid until the monastery’s abbot who arranged to get 13 hundred of those stones to the monastery not quite 30 years ago.

That’s where we first saw them, laid out on a warehouse floor where those old stones gave shape to something new.

And recently we saw that ‘new’ church built from those 800 year old stones.

I find this inspiring and informative as PPC – as part of the larger Christian church - steps into the year 2022.

As our time in the larger span of history continues between pre-pandemic…

…and…well…we’re still waiting to see where post pandemic leads us.

Those 13 hundred stones brought over were used for the arches and corners - the ‘distinctive’ arches and corners of the church building.

The other stones form the more ‘ordinary’ flat wall sections; built into the overall design to meet current day earthquake needs.

Our “teachable moment” comes as we make our way to the post-pandemic church…

…with its shape and form built on the pre-pandemic church it will look a lot like the pre-pandemic church…

…yet we must remain alert to making the church attractive by meeting modern day needs.

With Christ as our cornerstone, with the distinguishing marks of His unconditional love…His boundless grace…His ever present hope…and .His steadfast compassion...

…we use His distinctive and timeless cornerstones to bring about new life.

Together We Serve,

Pastor Mike
 

“What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.” ~Agnes M. Pharo

As we come to the ‘backside’ of Christmas, it’s good that we remember Christmas is but a day on the calendar.

Certainly it’s a day worthy of our admiration and celebrations, yet the ‘hope’ that comes with Christmas is on-going every bit as much as it is ever-needed.

And depending upon our life’s circumstances, that hope can be an ethereal concept for us to ponder every bit as much as the concrete need for a warm place to sleep or something to eat.

Over roughly a 2 1/2 week period Prineville Presbyterian Church found itself in a position where we got to nurture hope directly and indirectly by putting 170 food boxes into our community.

Some of these food boxes were taken by PPC folks directly to individuals, and, we also supported the hope-filled work done by a larger organization.

Join us at 10AM on Sundays - with a New Year ahead of us there are plenty more ways to make hope happen.

Together We Serve,

Pastor Mike

 

“A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny.” ~Mark 12:42

As so many other organizations do this time of year; PPC winds up the year while also looking to the year ahead. And as we do, we’re encouraged to know we’re finally getting ahead of the pandemic.

As quick as the pandemic brought things to a halt our return to the new normal comes after a series of next normals. Per the Washington Post: “The pandemic appears to be winding down in the United States in a thousand subtle ways, but without any singular milestone, or a cymbal-crashing announcement of freedom from the virus.”

Has this 20 months or more ‘time out’ given us pause to reshuffle our priorities? To let go of some things will clinging more tightly to others?

In looking ahead, it’s good to remember the above passage. Technically her offering was not in pennies they were ‘leptos;’ but like pennies they were the smallest piece of money…

…and it was everything she had to offer; this woman who as a widow was powerless and now she was “penniless.”

Yet in His teaching story, Jesus uses her to open a window for us to explore what it means to live as people of faith…

…as her coins are a faith-filled investment in offering all of who we are and hope to be as Christ-followers and in service to building Christ’s Kingdom.

We faithfully gather Sundays at 10AM and online too. Send your email to prinevillepc@gmail.com and we’ll make those arrangements.

Together We Serve,                                                                                                                    Pastor Mike

 

^“But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.” ~ Luke 15:22

Yesterday was a ‘two-for-one’ on the church calendar: Halloween and Reformation Sunday.

The reformation is a big turning point in the 2,000 year history of the Christian church and as Presbyterians we’re part of that.

As tradition records it, a little over 500 years ago a small town monk named Martin Luther challenged the authority of big organized religion by nailing his 95 arguments to the church door. These included his insistence that we cannot ever earn or buy our way into Heaven.

Instead, it’s all about and only about our all-powerful God’s all-powerful love gracefully offered to all of us only because of God’s all powerful love for all of us.

About 20 years later another man - John Calvin – expanded on this theme as well in starting the Presbyterian Church.

So in thinking about bringing the two days together (Reformation Sunday and Halloween), I looked for appropriate costumes. There are none to be found. (Although there was this t-shirt).

Something else that tuned up is: “costume” is both a noun – the ‘thing’ you dress in; and a verb – as in the action of dressing somebody.

And there’s the overlap: Jesus has a teaching about this all powerful love and grace with a lesson that includes a young man who had dishonored his father and family, even going so far as to abandon his religious teachings and disrespect religious traditions.

When he came to his senses, he returned with little hope and wearing a lot of shame.

But his father would hear none of it – instead he had his servants dress (costume) the son in a powerful demonstration of love and acceptance.

Grace had cast off that heavy coat of shame.

Dr. Brene Brown writes this about grace: “Grace means that all of your mistakes now serve a purpose instead of serving shame.”

Join us Sundays at 10AM in-person (masked) or virtually as we clothe ourselves and each other in grace. For on-line email prinevillepc@gmail.com and we’ll send the invitation.

Together We Serve,

Pastor Mike  

 

“…and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.” ~Jeremiah 18:4

In early July life was headed back to the rhythms we like, we planned to use September 12th as a ‘Welcome Back to Worship’ Sunday.

But then the delta variant erupted and the bottom fell out of things.

That previously planned celebration only the latest of other habits and traditions that have once again been replaced with more question marks.

Questions that are becoming more open ended right now…

…while our call as Christ-followers remains.

The prophet Jeremiah brought God’s word to people at a time when the bottom had fallen out of things while using the image of God as a potter shaping a lump of clay.

At work with every turn of the potter's wheel...reshaping as needed…which can be messy work.

Yet here’s God up to the elbows even in this mess of a pandemic…

…working out of God’s commitment to care for us and love on us.

As we continue through the rest of this year let us draw comfort from knowing that this process is never ever done without God working to shape us into the people that God desires us to be.

And maybe find comfort as we imagine ourselves on that potter’s wheel...

...with God’s hands tenderly...coaxing a little bit more of us here...

…God’s fingers shaping us ever so gently and solidifying us there…

…reshaping us with a new awareness of how to better be compassionate and grace-filled in spite of the questions.

Together We Serve,

Pastor Mike

 

^“31Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, ³²and be kind to one another, tender-hearted…” ~Ephesians 4:31-32

 

The above verses lies in the middle of a longer passage calling the Christian faithful to unity and harmony. And because it was important enough to write down, apparently there was little of either at that time. It remains a work in progress now.

Unity does not mean uniformity.

There is tremendous diversity known in the generosity of God’s gift giving to build up the church.

Diversity that works hand in hand with harmony as we read in Oxford Languages online dictionary:

“harmony: the combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing effect.”

Think Beach Boys or The Drifters or One Direction; or as the photo suggests among an orchestra.

And there’s a 2nd definition for harmony…

“An arrangement of the four Gospels or of any parallel narratives which presents a single continuous narrative text.”

As there’s diversity that brings the harmony in music…

…there’s tremendous diversity across this part of the Bible that zeroes in on Jesus.

Diversity among His first 12 disciples, plus the several dozen more disciples Jesus sent out.

Even more among the named and unnamed people who are prominently featured in Jesus’ ministry…

…plus the countless scores of many more people who are not so prominent.

All from different societies and cultures, with different dress, languages, attitudes, etc, who we may not be quick to count…

…but each one of them did count to God and God’s Kingdom building plans and that continues forward today.

And if we -- as the collective Christian church -- would work at the above over and over until we could actually live it…

…imagine the life changing power this unity could bring.

There’s an Ethiopian proverb that helps us understand this:

“When spiders unite, they can tie down a lion.”

 TOGETHER We Serve,

Pastor Mike

 “…and he [Jesus] had compassion for them.” ~ Mark 6:34

Have we ever thought about the difference between ‘compassion’ and ‘pity?’

Even some English translation of the Bible use ‘pity’ in the above verse.

‘Pity’ allows us to keep our distance from whatever might be the object of our attention.

We can toss out a casual “…bless their heart…” and be on our way.

Compassion though is defined as concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.

As the language experts trace this development of this word over the generations, its origins begin with 'the inward parts,' especially the nobler entrails – the heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys. These gradually came to denote the seat of the affections."

Compassion is the best place from where our real care about somebody else starts -- just like Jesus showed throughout His ministry.

So instead of “bless their hearts,” that becomes “what breaks their hearts breaks our hearts too.”

Maybe we ought to think more about reclaiming compassion – and less about casual pity?

Perhaps this might the first best step in healing the divides across our communities?

We step out as we gather Sundays at 10AM.

Together We Serve,
Pastor Mike