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September 01, 2006
September Newsletter
Pastor's Pen
George MacDonald, the 19th century Scottish story teller and pastor published a sermon on this sentence in the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians 4: 20: “You have not so learned Christ.” He cuts right to the chase. Christ, and what we think we have learned of Him may not be the same. What we firmly believe, in fact, may not be what Jesus taught at all. We quote Jesus’ words, but then put a twist to them that turns them inside out. “You have not so learned Christ.” It’s a statement posing a sad question: “Is that really what Christ taught?” The matters now troubling the denomination and Faith Church hover around people’s opinions on faith and life. The Bible’s words may be clear, but over the years they are read or
misread, vaguely remembered, or have a word changed here and there inadvertently, or because a popular translator thought the change made clearer what he thinks Jesus really meant. Thus drifting happens, to the right and to the left. Christianity is the victim. Christians are the victims. They don’t realize that what they think is right is wrong. Thus we are now suffering.
I spoke recently with Louis Feldman, the scholar who directed my doctoral thesis. He towers over the field of Josephus studies. He is an orthodox Jew, observant as faithfully as any man I’ve ever known. Now in his late 70s, he is as productive as ever. But in all his writing, teaching, giving lectures, the non-negotiables have little to do with his scholarship it might seem, but everything to do with his life. The non-negotiables are praying dutifully, observing the Sabbath, and maintaining the purity of life. Yet he doesn’t come off either as proud or as a “legalist.” He comes off as a man who loves God with all that he is. He also comes off as one of the most loving men I’ve met. I hope it does not bother you that I should observe these things in a man who is not a Christian, but who exemplifies the gold standard of living.
When I was in the early stages of my dissertation Bonnie was very ill a lot. Trying to care for her, be father to two children, be pastor at Faith Church, and teach Church history at Purdue left me little time or energy to devote to my dissertation. If I didn’t have a number of you “church ladies” to help, I’d have not made it.
At one point, in embarrassment and weariness I wrote to Dr. Feldman telling him I simply could not keep on. I got the most gracious reply to this letter that was largely responsible for my finishing my thesis.
This is what he wrote to me. “In our tradition to study is to pray. Can you think of your study on this project as prayer for Bonnie?” In some way, this gracious question motivated me to dig in so that I not only completed my dissertation, but he taught me something about the integration of my faith with my work. I have never regretted finishing my thesis. It has opened so many doors for usefulness.
But my point has to do with what I learned from Dr. Feldman about faithfulness. The effects of his faithfulness on his scholarship and on his personality were evident. He is not a Christian, but a Jew. Observant Judaism requires a discipline of life not in order to earn salvation, I sense, but simply because really loving God requires it.
When the Apostle Paul seemed to pit grace against works of the law he did not thereby declare a disciplined life of faith out of bounds for a Christian. When there is no discipline in life as a Christian it drifts, it withers, and it may decay. We may try to sustain some semblance of the Christian life by saying the familiar phrases and by some sort of regularity in church attendance, but these cannot substitute for a life held together by disciplined faithfulness.
When everything about our faith becomes optional, whether it be praying together, studying the Bible, attending worship, doing deeds of loving kindness, the result will be as we now see. We’re suffering from the fallout of generations of optional faithfulness as the standard of Christian living. We will not repair the institutions to which we belong without allowing God to repair our broken faithfulness.
It is easy to blame the system that has corroded. It is harder to recognize how our own personal drifting, our arbitrary understanding of a faithful life, has been the catalyst for this corrosion. Will you consider how you have learned Christ? Did you learn of Him as a take it or leave it Son of His heavenly Father? Or did you learn Him as the One who said, “My will is to do the will of Him who sent me?” How have we learned Christ?
Pastor Stuart Robertson
Worship Information
Sept. 3rd – Sermon: “The Evidence for Trust in Jesus?” OT: Deuteronomy 18: 15 - 22 NT: John 5: 30 - 47 CommunionSept. 10th – Sermon: “Jesus’ Idea of Enough”
OT: I Kings 17: 8 – 16
NT: John 6: 1 - 15
Sept. 17th – Sermon: “Perils of the Deep”
OT: Jonah 1: 1 - 6
NT: John 6: 16 - 21
Sept. 24th – Sermon: “Bread, the Staff of Life”
OT: Deuteronomy 8: 1 - 10
NT: John 6: 22 - 34
Sept. 31st – Sermon: “Food for Eternal Life”
OT: Numbers 11: 1, 4 – 9
NT: John 6: 35 - 40
Clerk's Corner
At its August 1, 2006 meeting the Session voted to provide $ 1500 towards an upgrade of the present sound amplification system, and $199 to cover expenses for the Sunday Evening Kid's Club Meetings.With approval by the Session Pastor Robertson has invited the Reverend Nancy Mockros to present a Minute for Missions on Sunday September 10, 2006, at which time she will outline the projected activities of the new Life Path Presbyterian Church that is being established in South Lafayette.
The adult Sunday School activities will begin after Sunday services on September 3, 2006. Three classes are scheduled: The first, by Glenn Sparks deals with the First Book of Peter. Mark Johnson will lead the Young Adult class on Minor Prophets; persons of any age are invited to join. I will continue the class on New Testament Greek; I can also accommodate anyone desirous of starting to learn Greek - please see me if interested.
The Friday Noon Book Club continues to meet at Pastor Robertson's home; we are currently reading a biography of Saint Jerome that includes much material on theological issues of his day. All interested persons are invited to join.
J.M. Honig, Clerk of Session
Adult Choir
Everyone is invited to join the Faith Church Choir. The choir will begin practicing on Wednesday, September 6 at 6:30pm and will start singing during worship service on Sunday, September 10.Childrens Choir
Children’s Choir will begin during after the sermon on Sunday, September 16. All children are encouraged to joinSummer of 1977 Mexico Mission Trip
I just found some of my scribbled notes from our Faith Church trip to Mexico to build a Presbyterian Church in the summer of 1977. Since Amy and I are the only ones left in Faith Church at this time (although our son, John, was a real help and is still included in our Directory), I thought it might be appropriate to pass this information on for our files (if not already there), or possibly for use in our newsletter since one of our missions still include the Priscilla Girls School in Merida, Yucatan, which our Faith work group visited several times during our two weeks working on the church at Chuburna Puerto on the Gulf of Mexico, about 20 miles north of Merida. Of course, Rev. Scotty Old arranged for this trip with help from the missionary there, Earnest _____?, whose house and dormitory we lived in. About 20 of our congregation were involved. I was in charge of the working crew and Amy was in charge of food and the sleeping arrangements at Chuburna Puerto. Jim Anderson was in charge of securing the nightly accommodations while traveling down and back. Bob and Sharron Johnson were in charge of food on the way down and back. Bob also played his guitar accompanying the singing at every evening service officiated by Scotty. Joyce Davis is a nurse and was in charge of any sanitation problems, such as dish washing. Part of the reason for our going down is that the protestant services in private homes were illegal in the Catholic dominated government. At least two of their Elders had been imprisoned for six months before we went down to help start building their church. On June 3, 1977 (next year will be the 30th Anniversary of our trip, although there was another trip surveying the progress several years later), our group attended the Chuburna Puerto Church meeting with Rev. David preaching. I know the Scripture reading was Psalms 127 and I only noted two items: (1) Building the temple is a gracious gift of God, and (2) Building of the family is also a gift of God because we are all sons and daughters of the Lord, and we belong to his family. I was then asked to say a few words to the congregation about our progress on building the church which follow: "We have really enjoyed Mexico and the gracious hospitality of the people of Chuburna Puerto, especially Rev. David and his wife, Elvia. We are delighted with your congregation which is about the same size as ours. We are building a new church because our 160 members are just a little too much for our present Quonset Hut building, but Rev. Scotty and Rev. Earnest have persuaded us to help you start your church building here. At our Faith Presbyterian Church we have 9 elders and 6 deacons, and God has blessed us with the generosity of our members and other Presbyterian churches to raise enough money to start our building this fall. Your Don Hugo has also been working on us to help your effort with the church at Chelem. Although the church is a gift of God the only hands God has is ours. We are much impressed with the masons that Don Bernardo, Don Felix and Don Baltazar have been working with us. We have learned a lot about concrete work! Tomorrow morning the footings should be complete and we will start laying concrete blocks Monday. We have surely enjoyed the lunches you church ladies have brought out to us at noon, and we have enjoyed the wonderful songs from the children near the building site, whether they are in your church or not. Yesterday we sang with them while waiting for Don Bernardo. We appreciate your hospitality and fellowship, and with God's help hope to see the roof on the church before we have to leave on June 14. I'll close with a prayer: Our father, thank you for the safe trip from Lafayette, IN to Chuburna Puerto, Yucatan. Be with us all as brothers and sisters in Christ as we work to build your church, not only the building but also your congregation. Amen." As a postscript to my remarks above on June 7, 1977, I should point out that on completion of the concrete block walls, which were all accomplished by mixing concrete by hand on flat pieces of plywood and carrying the mortar to the building in buckets, a real surprise happened on the day before we left. Early in the morning what should show up but an electric concrete mixer and perhaps 10-15 Mexicans we had not seen before to lift the ceiling beams and complete the roof in that one day! Following that, all workers and perhaps most the congregation were invited to a final picnic dinner that evening, during which we used all of our left over food, as well as all other foods contributed by the Chuburna Puerto people. It was a glorious event, and we left the next morning. Bob DaleAlong with my discovered notes typed above, there was also a letter from Amy to her mother in Rockville, MD, which describes some of the conditions we worked with:
We are here in a small village on the Gulf of Mexico about 22 miles north of Merida. It has a center square without a tree. The streets are sand, and small houses are built of stone from the mountains, large ones with inter stitches filled with rock chips off the larger rocks,
called cuena. All buildings are one story. Houses we have seen have a kitchen, bath, and one large room used for both living room and bedrooms. The greatest differences in our living conditions is that everyone sleeps in hammocks suspended at night with S-hooks hung from hooks in the walls. There are also ropes on the ends of the hammocks to adjust to the different hooks. It is quite a trick to sleep in a hammock, to sleep sideways or at a diagonal rather than lengthwise all the time, no pillow. There is a tortilleria in town so we have fresh tortillas every day. Outside the back door of our kitchen there is a long narrow bench upon
which there are three buckets of water for everyone to wash his own dishes, the first being warm soapy water, the next warm water with a dash of Clorox, and the third started out with clear rinse water. There was always a line waiting to wash their dishes, because none wanted to be last. Bob and my hammocks hung in the missionary's house over the kitchen table so we had the shortest walk to breakfast. ..... Amy
Sunday Evening Bible Study
Sunday Evening Bible Study will begin again on September 10. We will meet 6:30 to 8:00pm; light refreshments, sharing and prayer; and careful Bible study. The topic for the fall is “Women of the New Testament,” starting with Mary the mother of Jesus. We will meet at the Moore’s, 4840 Jackson Highway. All are welcome. For more information, contact Nancy or David Moore at 583-4583.Cell Phone?
I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phones?
*What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?
*What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
*What if we flipped through it several times a day?
*What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
*What if we treated it like we couldn't live without it?
*What if we gave it to kids as gifts?
*What if we used it as we traveled?
*What if we used it in case of an emergency?
*What if we upgraded it to get the latest version?
*This is something to make you go...hmmm...where is my Bible?
*Oh, and one more thing. Unlike our cell phone, we don't ever have to worry about our Bible being disconnected because Jesus already paid the bill!
Christian Women United
Our church helps distribute groceries twice a year – once in the summer and again in December at the Hanna Community Food Center, run by Christian Women United. Our volunteers in August were Carolyn Kessler, Grieke Toebes, Kris Stith, and Kathy Bowker and her daughter, Katie. Your giving of your time is very much appreciated! Anyone wishing to help our community in this way should contact the church office or Marilyn Hinze 583-2530Parking Reminder
Would those of you who are able bodied kindly park in the lower lot, leaving the upper lot for our guests and those who aren't able to walk distances.Anyone who is unable to walk distances, feel free to use the upper lot.
Birthdays
Sept. 1 Sawyer Latour Sept. 3 Hannis Thompson Sept. 4 Erin VanHorn Sept. 7 Fran Thompson Sept. 14 Ainslie Taylor Sept. 14 Horace Tyler Sept. 16 Cynthia Clinton Sept. 17 Becky Chapman Sept. 21 Kathy Trinkle Sept. 22 Nancy Dunn Sept. 26 Timothy Anderson Sept. 29 Jurgen Honig Sept. 29 Olivia Lockwood Sept. 30 James VarysAnniversaries
Sept. 3 Kenneth & Lois Wark Sept. 10 Thomas & Eleanor McKay Sept. 16 Horace & Polly Tyler Sept. 28 Charlie & Pat ShortCommunity Worship Services
• Sun., Sept. 3 St. Mary’s Healthcare 2:30pm • Sun., Sept. 10 Tippecanoe Villa 1:30pm • Sun., Sept. 10 Friendship House 3:00pm • Sun., Sept. 17 No Davis Manor 3:00pm • Sun., Sept. 24 Rosewalk Commons 2:30pm The Deacons invite you to become a part of this ministrySchedule Information
You can contact Pastor Robertson by calling the office, 743-3683, on Wednesday mornings 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. and Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Pastor Robertson's day off is Monday. Outside of office hours please feel free to call Pastor Robertson at home at 497-2162.Worship With Us
We invite you to join in the worship of God each Sunday morning at 9:30am and each Wednesday morning at 7:00am. We also invite you to participate in the prayers, fellowship, work and activities of this church. For more information about this opportunity to be involved at Faith Presbyterian Church, please call or talk to any member of Session, Pastor Robertson or call the church office at 743-3683.Posted by faithpres at September 1, 2006 10:54 AM