We took a deep dive into Jesus’ teaching called the ‘Good Samaritan’ recently. It gets going as Jesus asked a lawyer (then they were considered experts-in-knowing-the-nature-of-God):

"…what does the law say?"

The lawyer began with:

“…love the Lord your God with all your heart…and with all your soul…

…and with all your strength…and with all your mind."

Then the lawyer followed that repeating something Jesus had earlier added: “…and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus had taken two different parts of the Old Testament Law and wove them together which was repeated in the lawyer’s response.

Then the lawyer essentially asked for an example…

…and in using the ‘Good Samaritan’ Jesus made a hero out of someone they had historically been taught to treat with contempt.

Well that suddenly and certainly casts doubts on notions of them being an enemy…

…and prompts even more questions about who we’ve told who our enemy is?

…and why?

Part of this is prompted by a sense that media attention today is mainly on churches that define themselves by who they keep out…

...who they hold in contempt…

…rather than those churches striving to show that Jesus wants to welcome them in.

May the ‘Good Samaritan’ keep prompting questions throughout Jesus’ church.

May those question keep pushing us to better love our neighbors.

Together We Serve,

Pastor Mike

p.s We meet in-person and online 10AM Sunday. Email prinevillepc@gmail.com for a link to our livestream.

 “When I gaze to the skies and meditate on Your creation - on the moon, stars, and all You have made; I can’t help but wonder why You care about mortals - sons and daughters of men” ~Psalm 8:3-4 (The Voice)

We recently used Trinity Sunday to talk a bit about The Trinity. Traditionally it is understood and Father (God), Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit (God’s Spirit working in us). Other definitions include Creator and Redeemer and Sustainer, and also Creator and Savior and Life-Renewer.

The concept was developed several generations into the life of the early Christian church through two church conferences 60 years apart.

Since then some scholars have made it their life’s work to explain what it is and is not – taking that all the way down the smallest detail.

I do appreciate their discipline and passion…

…however…

…being more of a ‘billboard’ theologian (i.e. can we say it using no more than 10 words?)…

…can we instead look at this as our psalm writer does?

Let that open-ended question invite us to marvel and bask in the love of our God of all Creation…

…and as we let that wash over us…

…we find our peace knowing that with all of that everything God’s is…

…God is only too glad to have that include you…me…us.

We wonder and marvel and bask Sundays at 10AM in-person and virtually too (email prinevillepc@gmail.com and we’ll send the invite).

Together We Serve (and wonder),

Pastor Mike

 

William Barclay was a well-known minister and Bible scholar who wrote that there are two great days our lives…

…the day we are born…

…and…

…the day we discover ‘why.’

The first Sunday of June we celebrated 'Pentecost.'

It’s considered the birthday for the Christian church as God’s Holy Spirit landed upon those first Christ-followers who empowered by that launched the Christian church.

From that start, the Spirit has continually led the church in constantly discovering its reason why.

And it remains on the loose today.

Broadly speaking the Holy Spirit is active and at work in each of us for the good of all of God’s creation.

As for how that may look in each of our individual lives?

We gather at 10AM on Sundays to sort out “the why?” 

We’d love to have you come sit and sort with us.

Pastor Mike  

 

“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