Blog: Forest Lake Talks

March 29, 2023 Dear Friends, This Sunday begins our observance of Holy Week. The Celebration of Easter is at the exact center of our faith, and is the reason that we are called Christ-ians. Christmas gets much more cultural emphasis because of the obvious economic potential. But Easter is the center of our faith. I hope to see each of you on Easter Sunday. And, I want to plead with you to prepare your hearts and minds BEFORE you come to that worship service. You might choose to prepare by re-reading the stories of Jesus crucifixion, death, and resurrection from…

Isaiah 1:17 (CEB) 17 learn to do good. Seek justice: help the oppressed;[b defend the orphan; plead for the widow Micah 6:8 (CEB) He has told you, human one, what is good and what the LORD requires from you: to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God. This year’s confirmation class began in January with a mercy and justice retreat with Charleston Youth Mission Co. in North Charleston. We participated in two service-related projects. One project was with Homeless to Hope. Homeless to Hope fund was created to in 2016 to provide help and hope to…

Dear Friends, This last Monday, nineteen FLPC folks gathered at Beth Shalom Synagogue to hear reports on the work of MORE Justice and to prepare for the big event of the year: The Nehemiah Action. If you are a person who values caring for “the least of these” and who knows that the need for mercy is great in our community, then I want to invite you to consider attending The Nehemiah Action on Monday, March 27th. Forest Lake Presbyterian is a member congregation of MORE Justice [Midlands Organized Response for Equity and Justice]. MORE Justice is an interfaith, non-profit…

Meekness/Gentleness/Humility Colossians 3:12-17 (CEB) 12 Therefore, as God’s choice, holy and loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Be tolerant with each other and, if someone has a complaint against anyone, forgive each other. As the Lord forgave you, so also forgive each other. 14 And over all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. 15 The peace of Christ must control your hearts-a peace into which you were called in one body. And be thankful people. 16 The word of Christ must live in you richly. Teach and warn each other…

Our Lenten journey of God’s Beautiful Way continues with the practice of mercy. Lord, have mercy! I have prayed it, exclaimed it, sang it. Our Lord is full of mercy. God is rich in mercy (Ephesians 2:4-5) and God asks us to be merciful, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:36) I don’t have to ask God to show mercy, God is one step ahead of me and my limited thinking. Yet when we are desperate, we cry out, “Have mercy on me” as the Psalmist does in the fourth Psalm. The Holman Bible Dictionary defines the…

March 1 , 2023 Dear Friends, I wish that you could all see our church family from my vantage point. I know that there is a lot of bad news in the world, and that we are all human beings – imperfect and limited.  But I cannot tell you how often I see you “being Church” in amazing, quiet, and wonderful ways.  By “being Church” I mean that I see you living together in generosity, grace, kindness, and respect.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t see disagreements, or that there are never hurt feelings among you.  But, more often than…

Text:  Deuteronomy 6:1-15 1Now this is the commandment – the statutes and the ordinances – that the LORD your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, 2so that you and your children and your children’s children, may fear the LORD your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. 3Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply…

February 15, 2023 Dear Friends, The images from Turkey and Syria are difficult to digest. The news from Ukraine is unnerving. The reports of bomb threats in our local schools leave us wondering what is happening. And this week there was “another” mass shooting in Michigan.  How did we get to the place where we can say “another” mass shooting?!  What are we to do? We cannot influence world leaders or fix the devastation of an earthquake a world away.  We can donate to reputable aid agencies.  The PC(USA) is one such aid agency. You can contribute to aid for…

Good morning. For today’s devotional, here are the steps: Step 1: Listen to this Step 2: Read the prayer: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that…

Text: Micah 6:8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? Devotional: Raise your hand if you’ll be watching the Super Bowl on Sunday. Now keep your hand up if you’re secretly watching the Super Bowl just for the advertisements. In an article I read this morning, it mentioned that many successful companies became “iconic” after they chose to “address the collective anxieties and desires of a nation,” sometimes using humor, sometimes not, in advertisements. While you may or may not agree…

January 31, 2023   Dear Friends,   It is everywhere I look!!!  Candy! Flowers! Cards!  Pink and purple everything. The Christmas and New Year’s merchandise is not gone from the clearance tables, before the next marketing opportunity presents itself.  Valentines’ Day.   Sometimes the pressure to celebrate the holidays seems relentless, even when I know that most of it is only motivated by a profit motive.  I was gratified to get an email from Etsy (the online platform for small vendors of crafts) asking if I wanted to “opt out” of getting emails about Valentine’s Day.  I thought that was…

Text: Mark 7:24-30 24From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the…

January 18, 2023 Dear Friends, As FLPC was beginning to come back into the sanctuary and to begin again to meet for classes and small groups, the staff had some heart-to-heart conversations about what was important to do and how to do the essential tasks safely.  And, after our commitment to worship together, we agreed that classes and small groups where we find safe space to learn, to ask questions, and to talk about faith was the very next thing we felt was critical to do, and to do well. If the purpose of worship is to point to and…

Text: Isaiah 40: 21-23 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. Devotional: The rhetorical questions that start this reading help emphasize the big conclusion: God is God and we are not. It is…

Text: Psalm 23 1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; 3 he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell…