Pastor's Message

For all who are members of this or any church, when you joined the church, what did you expect to happen?  Were you expecting to find a place where everybody got along?  Where everybody agreed with one another or thought alike?  Not even the first disciples did those things.  Jesus was often trying to get their attention off of their petty squabbles  (Who is the greatest?  Mark9:33-37) and focus them on the greater things of God’s Kingdom.  Mainly what Jesus was teaching them was citizenship in the Kingdom of heaven or more simply put, Discipleship.

Though it may rarely look like it in today’s world, that is still the role of the Church of Jesus Christ .  And it is for that reason that people should desire to join the church .  We should see in Christ, not just an entity that is God who has the power to save them from the fires of hell, but someone who knows a way of life that is lovely and peaceful and offers to those who seek him an abundance of it. In short we who join the church should do so because we desire to be like him. 

Jesus first attracted me to himself not only because he claimed to be an all powerful God, but also and perhaps more importantly  because I learned that he loved me, that he was willing to go the extra mile for me and for so many who were like me and many more who were not like me.  I saw in Jesus someone who cared about all people not just some, someone who sought to understand and did understand others and also put the needs of others before his on needs.

That in a nutshell is what love is all about, It is what Christianity is all about and it is why so many people are attracted to when they actually see it.  Remember 9/11.  Were any of you moved by the selfish acts of those who took the lives of the three thousand + people?  Was there anybody at that time whom you applauded for not helping a fellow human being in a desperate time of need.  And what about Enron? Who of us thought the CEO’s caught in that scandal were ideal people to follow?

Yet who of us were not moved by the acts of mercy and kindness that one stranger offered to another during and after 9/11?  How many of you thought that our nation needed to be more like that all of the time and less like the terrorist or the scandalous CEO executives? 

Here is my point.  Jesus came to offer us a better life, and he taught by his words and his actions how to receive it.  But to receive it, we must give ourselves to his teaching in actually becoming disciples who make the effort to learn and follow him.   History has proven that this is done best in the acts of corporate worship (which is not so much about a good preacher as it is about a faithful group of followers in Jesus). It is also done best in small groups of study and fellowship where you may not always agree with one another, but you do hold one another accountable in a loving relationship, and where you also encourage one another in fellowship.    

Being a member of the church is supposed to mean that we who claim to follow Jesus are actually doing that by continuing to grow in the way of Christ, The marks of a Christian (faithful disciple) is not someone who says or does what they think, but someone who first thinks about what Christ would say and do and proceeds to do that to the best of their ability. The best way we can do that as a community in Christ is to join us for a time of Christian Education and worship on Sundays.

                                                                                                            IN His Peace,

                                                                                                            L. Bryan McClain

                                                                                                            Pastor