Bristow Presbyterian Church — Bristow, Oklahoma Twenty years ago, the church started Youth Club, a Wednesday night ministry serving students in the church and the community through high school. We play games, share a meal, learn in Bible study and worship together. When members of my family began Youth Club in 1999, I was in kindergarten. From that time until I graduated high school, Youth Club was a major part of my life. After college, I felt called to return to Bristow and serve in my home church. I began leading music and completing “behind the scenes” tasks on Wednesday nights. A year later, I was asked to become Youth Club director. I just completed my second year as director. James 1:17 reminds us that “every good and perfect gift is from above.” Our children are our greatest gift, and Youth Club is an essential part of our ministry to the most precious members of our flock. — Kara Blansett, Youth Club director … [Read more...]
The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life
David Brooks Random House, 384 pages Reviewed by Linda Danney Britton The public man: Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times. Commentator on “PBS News Hour” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Author. The private man: “Something unexpected happens that knocks them crossways. … They are down in the valley of bewilderment or suffering. It’s never too early or too late to get knocked off your first mountain.” David Brooks, writing in “The Second Mountain,” uses the metaphor of mountains to tell his story. The first mountain is about climbing the ladders of success. The second mountain is “relationalist … where relation, commitment, and the desires of the heart and soul” bring meaning and purpose, “a better way to live.” In the book, he tries to show how people – and then societies – move from the first to the second mountain, “to show what the kind of deeper and joyful life looks like.” The first part of the book is Brooks’ story of getting knocked off his first mountain and living … [Read more...]
Faith
I called faith a gold-trimmed Gospel, a half-note suspension resolved in hymnic harmony, rehearsed prayers punctuated with perfect gasps and laughter, old tome imprisoned in an heirloom pulpit and marked with slight scratches from years’ wear and tear only visible to guests who squint. But it spills Communion wine into dresses and stains. It stings eyes, nostrils, singes an amateur’s hair. It flies into mouths as you sputter, sits in the chest till you’re coughing wildly and everyone in your pew turns to stare. It ties your legs up and trips you, it swallows footprints whole. There’s the second after you stir and realize what you dreamt. Awake, you grasp gifts from familiar symbols, inventing vocabularies for stumbling litanies, baptismal vows, wild stories evading substantiation. It is faith in everything you cannot see & despite all you do. Amy Cerniglia is the director of music and arts at Peace Presbyterian Church in Bradenton, Florida. A … [Read more...]
The process of rejuvenation: Krislund Camp and Conference Center
Krislund Camp and Conference Center is settled in the rural northern stretch of the Appalachian Mountains in central Pennsylvania. Like many faith-based camps, Krislund began a slow decline in summer participation in the late 1990s, and by the turn of the century was facing significant economic concerns. As one of the several camp and conference centers located in the Synod of the Trinity, Krislund hit financial distress about 10 years ago. Today, however, there’s a new story to tell. Krislund is thriving — the result of what volunteer leaders and staff have done together. Krislund is owned and directed by three presbyteries: Carlisle, Huntingdon and Northumberland, and serves rural central Pennsylvania, stretching from the New York border south to Maryland. Those who oversee the ministry of Krislund come from each of the presbyteries, forming what is called the Joint Camp and Conference Committee (JCCC). The committee has taken several steps that have resulted in greater … [Read more...]
Guns and the gospel: A personal perspective
Guest commentary by Paul Watermulder “And a little child shall lead them,” we read in Scripture. Or in the words of Jesus himself, “out of the mouths of babes and infants” comes the truth. Across our land, students, teachers, families, police officers, social workers and pew-sitting Christians are in an uproar about America’s lack of effective control of abuse of guns. Adults have debated and argued the matter through the killings and the attempted assassinations of presidents, congressional leaders, judges, civil rights advocates, police, teachers, gang members, innocent bystanders and innumerable victims of spousal abuse. But the parade of shocking injustices against the innocent has continued. It has been laid at the feet of the mental health community, of politicians, of hunters, of terrorists, of the political left and the political right — to no significant avail. But now it’s the kids. Last year saw our children and grandchildren picking up where we have dropped the … [Read more...]
7th Sunday after Pentecost — July 28, 2019
Hosea 1:2-10 Ordinary 17C; Proper 12 This week, we are grateful to guest contributor John Wurster for writing this week’s lectionary reflection. The prophets regularly challenge us to face the truth about God’s identity and our own. We may prefer a god who doesn’t care, who doesn’t get involved, who would just leave us alone. A god always above and beyond, out there, up there. A god who would just give the universe a spin and then go and do something else. A god who wouldn’t seek a relationship with us. A god unconcerned about what we do and how we do it. A god to whom it didn’t matter what we worshipped, what we pursued, what we gave ourselves to. That may be the god of our preferences, but that’s not the God of the Bible, the God of the prophets, the God of Hosea: a God not only out there, but also down here, right here. Not only beyond us, but also within us, closer than our breath. Not only the sovereign creator of the universe, but also our lover, our … [Read more...]
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