Pastor's Corner: WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?

  The Hope of Advent Titus 2:10b-15 Introduction :  Thanksgiving is past, and the Christmas decorations around the church (and around our neighborhoods!) have begun to appear. In our neighborhood, we saw some decorations going up already right after Halloween!    For many people, Christmas is a time for adorning the house and decorating the tree with the symbols that are associated with Advent.  Those traditions are fine, as long as we maintain our focus on the One who is the reason for the season!        This week as we begin our Advent celebration, we’ll focus on the “Hope” that came with the first coming of Christ.  His coming according to promise in the incarnation is the foundation of our hope for His second coming. We’ll turn today to a passage in Paul’s letter to Titus and we are reminded that sound doctrine, right teaching of God’s word, is something that we can adorn, it is visible as it impacts us and changes us,  it gives us hope , while revealing the beauty of the Gos

  Thanksgiving 2022: Give Thanks! Psalm 100 Introduction : Today most of us, along with millions across our nation, will gather with family or friends for Thanksgiving.  Fewer people will acknowledge and celebrate God as the source of our many blessings . Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation is a powerful call that we need to hear afresh:        "It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord. We know that by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our

  C alled and Sent! Mark 6:6b-13 Introduction : We can be thankful for the grace of God revealed in Jesus! Mark introduced his story of Jesus with the phrase, “ The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God .” He, like the other gospel writers, wants us to understand correctly who Jesus is and why He came. He wants us to understand what it means to follow Him. So, we see the various characters in the story struggle with their own answers to those questions, and we are invited to follow along, to examine our own heart, to ponder the question “ Who is this? ” And then, to consider the implications of His person and work, and the implications of His call on our lives.        He had already called the twelve, with the intention of sending them out (3:14). Now, the time had come to put their training into practice, and to seek to multiply the outreach of the gospel. This first “short term mission” experience would prefigure the sending out of the church after the cross