September 2014 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Dear friends,

We are thinking about the question of what we do as God’s people.

I remember a few weeks after one of our children had been confirmed he was not ready to go to church on Sunday morning. We called for him and eventually he showed up and said that he was now an adult Christian who could make his own decisions and had decided that he was not going to go to church that day. We (his parents) told him he had to but he said it was not fair that just because he was the pastor’s kid he had to go to church. Then we said he was not going to church because he was a pastors kid, but because we were a Christian family and that is one of the things that Christian families do. What do you do because you are a Christian or a Christian family? There are many answers to that question and they depend on what sort of a person you are and what your situation is and what you have and what God has put in your heart.

There was an old bachelor who at age 90 moved off his farm and into an apartment. He was hardly ever at church and so I was surprised to hear this story. When he set up his new bedroom he had to have a dresser at the foot of his bed with a picture of Jesus on it. He said, “The last thing I want to see at night and the first thing I want to see in the morning is the one who died for me.” That was one of the things he did because he was a Christian.

What do we do as God’s people? It seems to me that thinking about this question is a helpful way to become more aware of how we live and how we make decisions and what motivates us and directs us. These five words can help us think about it…share, rejoice, fellowship, pray, worship.

May you catch a big fish or make a hole-in-one.

Pastor Eric