Pastor John

or the last two days I have taken Miss America (Grammie Ruthie) out for a stroll in the sun. Her version of a stroll is me pushing her wheel chair. We have waited for months to go outside. I was so excited to see her reaction. The first thing she said was, “Fresh air!”  It has to be at least 68 degrees and no breeze for her to tolerate the weather at age 97. Thursday it was warmer and she liked it better.We usually look at the flowers and talk about them. She and my father used to own a greenhouse and they worked for years among the flowers. She said, “I don’t see any flowers.” Her eyesight is failing. I reached down and picked a dandelion and handed it to her. She held it and felt it as though she was cherishing the moment and said, “They are so pretty.” Her life is so simple. She has no material possessions to speak of. Her life is a testimony of a life well lived. She sees beauty in the simple things of life and I am so happy for her. She deserves this and more. The next time you pick a dandelion, I hope you see the beauty in it. 

At age three, Irish Missionary to

Amy knelt down and begged God to change the color of her eyes, and she just knew she would have blue eyes in the morning. When she looked in the mirror the next day and saw that there was not a change, she was not devastated.  Her initial disappointment was replaced with the impression that God had not let her down and neither had He failed to answer. Amy dimly knew that “No” could also be an answer. God had surely heard, but sometimes His answer is “wait” or “no” instead of the “yes” that we all want to hear.

She didn’t know what an asset her brown eyes would be in her future missionary work. In later life she would stain her hands and arms and any other exposed area of skin with coffee and wear an Indian sari so she could enter places where a foreign woman would be prohibited as she searched for the poor, ill-used

You may be disappointed when God says “no” but don’t stay disappointed. He is looking  out for your future.

This Sunday is Palm Sunday. I can’t explain it, but I’m always so excited about this day. Maybe it dates back to my Grandmother Arnold’s apartment in McKees Rocks when I was a little kid. She would come home from her church on Palm Sunday and take her palms and drape them over the picture she had of Jesus on her living room wall. That picture always intrigued me. Jesus was on the mountain overlooking a city. It was a night scene as though Jesus was guarding the city and praying over it. It imprinted something memorable on my mind, as you can tell. The Palm Sunday parade for Jesus was so exciting… for a while. Then Jesus wept and dashed the hopes of those who wanted deliverance from Rome. That would not happen. He wouldn’t deliver them physically. He had something more important on His mind. They turned against Him because He wasn’t the Messiah of their dreams. Jesus wouldn’t stop until His mission was completed. The cross was in His sights. I hope you take something away from this Palm Sunday that will warm your heart about what Jesus went through for your eternal salvation. Don’t miss this extraordinary opportunity to attend and bring friends this Thursday or Friday to “The Wonderful Cross.” You will be glad you came to experience this musical drama. You couldn’t invite your friends to a better explanation of our Lord’s great sacrifice for the sins of this world.

When Paul was preparing Timothy for the long spiritual race, He said in 1Timothy 4:8 “…bodily exercise profits a little.” The older you get, the more profitable it becomes.  JoAnn and I have always been walkers, sometimes bikers, mostly walkers for years. We have walked many miles together throughout our married life.

One of our favorite places was

In 2006 I made some goals for the New Year. One of them was to fall in love with the treadmill. So I began to pray each day that I could become more consistent walking on it. Once I came into the church office and said I had been walking on my walker, and I was quickly corrected by someone saying, “That comes later.” 

For a few years now JoAnn and I have doing our best to face the treadmill here at our house. Do you know how boring that is? I have discovered some things to take the boredom out of treadmilling.

1. Memorizing Scripture. This was the first thing I learned to do on the treadmill by putting Scriptures on small cards and spending the walking time reviewing them. What a good way to make the time pass profitably.

2. Listening to oldies. Taking a little trip down memory lane, enjoying the songs that JoAnn and I listened to in our high school years.

3. Reading Hot Rod magazines. I have three subscriptions to different hot rod magazines. I have always loved cars. I just discovered recently that I could read a magazine article and not fall off the treadmill. I do not recommend you do this. Falling off the treadmill is a dangerous proposition. Years ago when I was looking to buy a treadmill,  I went various stores. In one store I jumped on the treadmill and turned it on for a test drive. Standing on the walking surface did not last long. It propelled me off the end and out onto the floor in the midst of a few onlookers. It is a wonder I didn’t get seriously hurt. My pride was hurt…who is this foolish man lying flat on his face on the floor of Sears?

I am not a champion tread miller but I am still praying that God will let me be consistent in exercise.  When we exercise we feel better and have more energy to serve the Lord.

Happy Walking.

 It took me a long time to learn that the Lord did not want to change the weather patterns just to make me more comfortable in the winter. This last summer I was at a car cruise and one of the guys said, “Rev, you have a connection with the man upstairs. Could you speak to Him about the weather.” I told him, “I have often done that but God doesn’t listen to me when I bring up that subject.” Since God is unwilling to give me Florida weather in the winter in Pennsylvania, I started to ask God to change my attitude about winter. You guessed it; God is answering that prayer of mine. 

Why do ministers have an issue with the weather? It hinders people from coming to church when the weather is inclement. After all, we don’t have too many service times as it is throughout the year for our people to gather for worship and instruction.

I’ve been telling people recently to make at least one service a week during the winter months. If Sunday is weathered out, do Saturday or Wednesday. Don’t break the habit of church attendance.  Recently two of our teenage girls showed up at the Saturday evening service and said they didn’t want to miss church as they had to go somewhere on Sunday. I hope everyone will eventually adopt that attitude. After all, “Attitude is everything.” I’m still not singing, “Let is snow, let it snow. let it snow,” but things are getting better.

It is not too often you can use that word about what happens in life. But I’ve been thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas and  to me,   they were both perfect. I have this praise journal that I use almost everyday of the week and it records both a perfect thanksgiving and perfect Christmas. 

 Attending the Thanksgiving Eve service always puts me in the right frame of mind for turkey day. On Thanksgiving Day, our entire family was together having an incredible time. John and Lori had been working real hard to remodel a house they bought here in the ‘Burg which was built in 1938. When a house is that old, there are many things that need attention. Well, they got a lot of it done and we were all there…all 13 of us. I remember an interviewer asked George Bush, 41, what he enjoyed most about life and he said “My children still come home.”   

The Christmas season was fantastic. Our Dinner Theater attracted 1000 diners over the course of three evenings and the church had such a beautiful experience working together to bless the community, friends and acquaintances. We have been overwhelmed with the positive responses from those who came about every aspect of the program. Christmas Eve greeted us with a full auditorium for the six o’clock service and another excellent crowd for the eight o’clock service.  

The Grand Finale of the year is our missionary offering. We set this really high goal that only God could provide and pray throughout the ten-week period that God would open the windows of Heaven and bless His missionaries. We are going to reach our goal again this year and everything that comes in above the $64,000.00 goal is placed in our missionary fund. These funds are used to help our young people go on missions’ trips in the summer. 

Our church is going through a most blessed time right now, for which we thank the Lord. I’m thanking the Lord for everyone who calls our church their church home. 

It all couldn’t be more perfect to me.

This exercise is not as much fun as bringing them up. Remember, I told you Blake and

Last night I sat in family room paralyzed by a nasty cold while JoAnn and Blake started dismantling the decorations, and in the morning I felt good enough to help get some of the boxes downstairs. Blake, age 10, is an awesome worker.

We just talked to grandsons Jason and Josh in

I can’t believe that this is New Years Eve. JoAnn and I are planning on doing our normal schedule which leaves no room for staying up past twelve.

I’ve really enjoyed, “Unwrapping Christmas.” The five weeks of speaking about the symbols of Christmas during the Sundays of December has been encouraging to me. The Bible is a book for our entire lifetime. Each time you read it God has something for you that is fresh and challenging.

I’m watching Fox News and they just showed fireworks going off over

Locally officials are getting ready for a special non-alcoholic First Night in

My prayer for you is that this will be a most blessed year as we endeavor to serve the Lord.

It’s Wednesday and I’m reflecting on all that transpired here at the church over the last weekend. I didn’t get to see the “Joy of Christmas” until Sunday eve. I was not feeling up to par… hernia surgery. It’s been over a week now and I’m feeling fine.  

We’ve done it again. All of those boxes that we took to the basement last January; they are all upstairs again. Each year Blake and

Morning came and

We have this little four foot tree we call our “Charlie Brown tree.” It is a frumpy looking thing. We put that up in family room. After the boys got it decorated they said, “Boy does that look like a mess.” That is exactly what we were shooting for. It wouldn’t be a Charlie Brown tree if it looked otherwise.

JoAnn guided the decorating of the other tree…the regular one, in the living room and the boys were such a good help, untangling the strings of colored lights and wrapping them around the tree before putting the decorations on. We have this pitiful angel on top of the tree that the kids insisted on. I hope angels don’t look like it! In the middle of all the fun of putting up the decorations

We have a box wrapped with gold paper under the tree with a big tag on it, “TO JESUS.” This is our way of saying that we have an important gift for Christ this Christmas. It is our annual Birthday Gift to Jesus that we are gathering now at the church for our Lord’s missionaries. This year for the first time in many years every penny of our $64,000.00 goal will be dispensed for something other than any needs we have for our local ministry.

We are sending a message that Christmas will be a lot more about Jesus and less about us. I just asked JoAnn how many manger scenes we have up in the house…she said we have eight in our little collection. How important it is for us to pass on the message of Christmas to our kids in this secular Christmas environment. What we are doing in our Sunday school classes is so important. With each passing year there is less emphasis on Christmas and more on the Holiday Season. Christmas is so empty without a relationship with Jesus. Lots of people will be reliving this story below.

 “Forgive Us Our Christmases” 

The story has been published of a little girl caught in the pre ~ Christmas swirl of activity, all of which seemed to be coming to a head on Christmas Eve, Dad, loaded down with bundles, seemed to have an even greater number of worries.  Mom, under the pressure of getting ready forthe great occasion, had yielded to tears several times during the day. The little girl herself, trying to help, found that she was always under foot, and sometimes adult kindness to her wore thin.Finally, near tears herself, she was hustled off to bed.  There kneeling to pray the Lord’s Prayer before finally tumbling in, her mind and tongue betrayed her and she prayed. “Forgive us our Christmases as we forgive those who Christmas against us”.Perhaps the little girl’s prayer was not such a great mistake.  Too often we leave out the Christ of Christmas.  Too often He iscrowded out of our busy lives.  Remember, the best gift won’t be found in a box but in a person.   ~Author Unknown 

 I am getting excited about “bringing up the boxes” from the basement. That’s one of the things I do each year to help get ready for Christmas. I have plans this year to throw away some Christmas decorations that we have had around since the beginning of time. You know how that goes: “Well I can’t use these things this year but I’ll use them next.” It never happens and we get more boxes to bring up out of the basement or haul down out of the attic. I can’t put anything up in the attic at our house. The opening is in one of the closets and a person can barely squeeze through, so our attic is empty. 

 One of the things I am anxious to see is the condition of my gift box that is wrapped with gold paper and has a tag on it, “TO JESUS.”  If it doesn’t look first class, I’ll put some new paper on it and get it ready to display under our tree.  Our family likes to send a message that giving to Jesus is an important part of our Christmas season. We always want to make Christmas a whole lot more about Him than us. We do this by:

 1. Asking God what He would have us give for the Christmas offering for Missions.

 2. Giving more to Jesus than any other person on our gift list. Placing Him at the top is the only reasonable thing to do since it is His birthday.

3. Give a faith offering. Ask the Lord to lay on your heart an amount that you could pray in. When you know what this amount is, pray expectantly for God’s answer…watch and pray.   Each year as we explain this concept there are some who experience a faith offering. Here is an illustration we received last year.

“Last night, about 9:15 p.m. someone knocked on my door.  To my surprise, it was a former tenant of a small house we used to rent.  She came in and handed me 2 - one hundred dollar bills!!  She said it was to repay a utility bill that had been left unpaid when they moved out!  She said, “You must need this — God told me to give it to you!”   I was so excited!    I knew immediately where that money was to go.       

           After all, we tore that little house down 5 years ago! 

        4. Thank God that we can used to encourage His missionaries.