A year ago, as we resumed operational control of the church property at 2344 Center Street, the Session decided to schedule a contemporary-style worship service at 9 am and a traditional-style service at 10:30 am each week, more or less matching the worship practice in recent years for the congregation....
PASTOR’S MESSAGE FROM REV. J.C. AUSTIN: Sudden Events = Lasting Impact I just learned this week that PNC Bank does an annual calculation of the actual cost of all the presents that are supposedly given in the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” This year, they warned that the devoted...
A MESSAGE FROM PASTOR J.C. AUSTIN: Christmas Blessings Merry Christmas!!! One of the odd things about the Christmas season, of course, is that the cultural observance of Christmas essentially ends on Dec 25, when that is only the beginning of the Christian season of Christmas. As even the secular song...
A MESSAGE FROM PASTOR J.C. AUSTIN: Christmas Reality When I first visited the “other” Bethlehem (the one where Jesus was born!), we first visited the Church of the Nativity, which marks the traditional spot where Jesus was born. The church sits at one end of a large public area called,...
A MESSAGE FROM PASTOR J.C. AUSTIN: Waiting for the Light to Come This coming Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, has the Advent theme of Joy. That is why one of the candles is pink; it goes back to when Advent was primarily a season of personal penitence, like Lent,...
A MESSAGE FROM PASTOR J.C. AUSTIN: “What’s the Deal with… the Offering (and Pledging)?” (part of an occasional series on aspects of being Presbyterian) When you talk to people who have little experience with Christian worship, one of the things that often strikes them as the most odd when they...
Remembering All Saints November 1 is designated as All Saints’ Day on the Christian calendar every year. This year, we’ll be observing it in worship this Sunday, November 4. But what is All Saints’ Day? In the early years of the Christian church, during the time of Roman persecution of...
One of the themes of our church over the past year has been that we would become an “experimental church.” That means we would identify potentially fruitful new ideas for our ministry together and then try them out, evaluating what happened so we can learn what we should do next...
The Log College Project needs your help! But let’s take a step back before we get to that. As you hopefully know, the Log College Project is the partnership that we have entered with the Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton Seminary, which is working with us and 11 other...
One of the most powerful and passionate voices in Christian history about the topic of Christian freedom is John Calvin, the founder of the Reformed Tradition, from which Presbyterianism comes. Calvin has a bad reputation in some circles because of perceptions that he was very rigid and prescriptive in his...