Blog: Forest Lake Talks

Romans 13:11-14 Paul practically comes through the pages of this ancient text, begging his hearers to recognize what time it is. The time is at hand, he seems to shout, for those of us who follow Jesus to get it together and reflect the One on the cusp of coming to meet us. Salvation is near, nearer than when we first believed, so we best wake up, stand up, look up and get ourselves ready for this  transcendent, transformative, life-upending encounter with God. Imagine if we thought of the season of Advent in these terms. When the purple paraments adorn…

November 20, 2019 Dear Friends, Though you will receive this letter before Thanksgiving, I want to welcome you to the Advent Season!  You have been seeing Christmas decorations in stores since before Halloween, but the first Sunday of Advent is December 1st.  And inside this newsletter is a summary of the events, opportunities and services that will guide our preparation for the coming of the Christ Child. This year, the editor of The Presbyterian Outlook, Rev. Jill Duffield, has challenged us to think about the distinctiveness of our Christian celebration of Christmas.  We understand very well that many people think…

Dear Friends, I remember back when the Kid’s Garden volunteers grew potatoes in potato bins in our church garden, and they timed the harvest so that the potatoes would be ready when we held Vacation Bible School.  The children went out into the heat and were given little gloves to wear.  Then, they watched while the adult volunteers pulled the slats off of the potato bins.  The children were not certain what was going to happen and looked apprehensive.  When the adults told them to dig, I think they thought it was a joke.  But, once someone actually unearthed a…

Dear Friends, The evidence that we have given our hearts to God in Christ is called “fruits of the Spirit” by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Christian Church in Galatia (Galatians 5:22+).  We can evaluate our own progress in faith by evaluating our own day-to-day lives.  Are we making progress in the characteristics that mark followers of Jesus – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?  Or are our day-to-day lives marked more by anger, envy, jealousy and greed/idolatry? This year’s stewardship campaign centers on the characteristic of generosity as a marker of disciples…

Dear Friends, I love watching the children come down for the Time for Young Disciples on Sunday mornings.  They are so beautiful, so wonderful and so vulnerable.  When we plan for Sunday School, Vacation Bible School or even to hold a nursery, we – as a congregation – accept the terrible and all important responsibility of keeping them safe while they are in our care.  When we hold a youth event, we take on this same responsibility to keep them safe.  We want everyone who comes into our building and fellowship to be safe, and we bear extra responsibility for…

Dear Friends, Mother Teresa is reported to have said, “We cannot all do great things.  But we can do small things with great love.” There is very little we can do, as individuals, when the world feels overwhelmingly chaotic or hostile.  But we have all the control over how we approach that chaos or hostility.  And, over and over again, in the face of chaos and hostility himself, Jesus called for love. Last Monday night, about 35 FLPC souls brought food and welcomed two visitors into our congregation.  Sally Harwood, a financial consultant and the American Board president for Ministry…

September 11, 2019 Dear Friends, It can be difficult to look at the world, read or listen to the news, and not feel overwhelmed.  It is possible for the threat of war, the level of need, and the terrible destruction of natural and man-made disasters to make us want to go back to bed! But Christians are people who have a unique ability to look evil, destruction, need and anger in the face and call it what it is, while at the same time clinging to hope, love and peace.  But that ability to live “in” the world without being…

Dear Friends, For as long as anyone can remember, Wednesday nights were “church” nights.  At Forest Lake, Wednesday nights have been called Kirk Night (the word “Kirk” is a Scottish word for “church”) since the 1970’s!  It has been a time to eat together, to study together and to build community together.  I know of at least one long time couple who met at Kirk Night!  But as with all of life, things change and “business as usual” is under more pressure because of the increasing speed of life and the ever expanding number of responsibilities and choices that our…

Dear Friends, Does your journey of faith feel more like a cul de sac?  Do you wish you had a safe place to ask real questions of faith and talk to others who are thinking about the Christian faith?  Do you wish that you had some help in understanding The Bible, but you have been afraid to ask?  Do you wish you had a group of friends who could pray for each other and eat together?  Or do you already have that group of friends but have a hard time actually finding time to get together? If your answer to…

July 31, 2019 Dear Friends, Sometimes when I drive around town and I see all of the churches in Columbia, I see that they are publicizing all sorts of events that, I assume, are intended to attract people to come to that church.  Lots of the events are what we expect from churches:  Vacation Bible School, a women’s conference or a Bible study.  But then I increasingly see all sorts of odd events:  Family Movie night – “Free Popcorn!” (as if they might charge for it?), or a Jazz music festival (cool, but), or Zumba (really? OK, but is that…

Dear Friends, As we approach the celebration of our national holiday, I have been thinking of the role and the responsibility of the Christian Church in our nation.  As you know, Americans cherish and protect a tradition of separation of Church and State.  And there are many important reasons to keep a distance between these two.  The need for that distance was seared into the collective memory of Protestants who lived with the deadly and evil consequences of having the medieval Roman Catholic Church collect to itself every form of power:  civil, religious, political and wealth/resources.  Our Book of Order…

Dear Friends, The world really is smaller than we think.  Yesterday, Elder Steve Hyman told me that he called William Hunter to ask him a question, and when William answered his cell phone, he told Steve that he was in Mexico!  William is a part of the mission immersion team from our congregation who are visiting and working with our PC(USA) mission partners, Frontera de Cristo on the Mexico/Arizona border.  Then, yesterday, I picked up the phone in the church office and the voice on the other end of the phone said, “Ellen, this is Mark Adams, calling from Mexico…

June 5, 2019 Dear Friends, You have begun to see notices that “H3 Groups are coming!”, and I have had several folks ask me what that means.  I am grateful for the questions.  Because the answer is one that I have wanted to give for a number of years. Beginning this summer, all of us are invited to consider becoming part of a new small group opportunity at FLPC.  The small groups – called H3 (for Head, Heart and Hands) – will meet at a day and time of the group’s choosing and will study, eat, pray, play and even…

Do you have a negative view of how our government and other institutions deal with problems in our communities?  Do you get tired of commiserating with friends about how unjust policies and priorities affect people negatively, but are impossibly hard to change or improve?  Do you think we might just as well give up before we get started to try to change anything? An organization called MORE Justice is remarkable for taking on unsolvable problems and working to make change.  The Columbia organization is composed of more than twenty churches, synagogues and a mosque who believe that we should do something…

Sunday, May 19, 2019 Elder Jane Shear gave the following devotion and reflection on confirmation from earlier that day. Growing up, I really loved almost everything about church—it was Sunday School; it was sitting in the balcony with my friends during the service; it was MYF. But I’m pretty sure I did not consider my friends or myself the church because, as we all knew, the church was the building. Then, not as an “ah ha moment”, but rather as a seeping, creeping feeling, I realized the church was me. It was my husband, my sons, my friends, my extended…