Join us sundays at 8:00 & 10:30 AM

From The Pastor

January 10, 2020 by Rev. John Hartman

From the Pastor

In an old Peanuts cartoons, Lucy observes, “Charlie Brown, life is like a deck chair.” “Like a what?” “Haven’t you ever been on a cruise ship, Charlie Brown? Passengers open up these canvas deck chairs so they can sit in the sun. Some people place their chairs facing the rear of the ship so they can see where they’ve been. Other people face their chairs forward. They want to see where they’re going. On the cruise ship of life, Charlie Brown, which way is your deck chair facing?” Charlie Brown thinks for a moment and replies: “Gee, I’ve never been able to get one unfolded.” Do you ever feel that way? It seems like all the people around you know who they are, and where they’re headed, and how they are going to get there, while you fumble your life away trying to unfold that dumb old deck chair.

On Sunday, we say hello to a Charlie Brown from the Bible, a man who for 38 years lay by the pool without so much as unfolding his deck chair. But, one day a stranger worked his way through the crowd and came to stand right next to this beggar’s mat. That stranger was named Jesus Christ! In our own lives we may have a sorrow in our hearts that just won’t go away. We may have some conflict in our lives that is draining all our joy. The good news is that this is where Jesus shows up. He shows up at the place where we are lying helplessly on our mat like this man at the pool.

Please come join us for worship at either 8:00 am or 10:30 A.M. and listen to this wonderful story from John 5, and may all of you rise, take up your bed, and walk with Jesus Christ.

Pastor John

Quote of the Week

“Fear imprisons, faith liberates; fear paralyzes, faith empowers; fear disheartens, faith encourages; fear sickens, faith heals; fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable.” Harry Emerson Fosdick

Harry Emerson Fosdick was an American pastor. Fosdick became a central figure in the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy within American Protestantism in the 1920s and 1930s and was one of the most prominent liberal ministers of the early 20th century. Although a Baptist, he was called to serve as pastor, in New York City, at First Presbyterian Church in Manhattan's West Village, and then at the historic, inter-denominational Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, Manhattan.