E-pistle shares a portion of a weekly email sent to friends and members of Park Presbyterian Church in Beaver, Pennsylvania, from Pastor Bill Teague. Bill will be leaving Beaver and Park Church on January 7, 2008, as he accepts a call to become pastor of Langhorne Presbyterian Church in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. You'll find the Langhorne version of the e-pistle here
Gone in a Flash
The pastor’s study here at the church is beginning to look a little bare. The books are off the shelves and into cartons ready to be taken to a new place. The desk and file drawers are empty and pictures have come down from the walls. The children’s art from the gallery just outside the door has been carefully stowed and will be a precious reminder of one of the very good things about being pastor at Park.
I’m leaving with fewer packed boxes than when I arrived in June of 1998. I’ve culled some old books from my library, but mostly the fewer boxes are the result of fewer files and folders. In fact, copies of all the sermons preached, all the classes taught, all the meetings moderated and mission trips organized; every ABC booklet published and funeral planned are stored on a single flash drive.
i. 2007: God at Work
ii. 2007: An Uneasy Feeling
i. 2007: God at Work
I began sending e-pistles to all of you in August 2000. Each year since, I have spent some time on the last Friday of the year looking back over the posts for that year, and every year I find in the prayer lists, announcements and reflections evidence of God’s work among us. It’s fairly easy to see; you don’t have to be an ecclesiastical CSI to figure out what happened. God didn’t leave us alone. He didn’t ignore our prayers and he wasn’t unmindful of our need for constant direction and help. And, he continued to surprise us with his grace.
Our year began with the sad news of the tragic death of Lois Anderson , who was gunned down in her beloved Kenya. We celebrated Mabel Miller’s 100th birthday in February and then mourned her death and rejoiced in her life in August. George Harry, Olive Huberman and Will Logan were among others for whom we have a sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. They are missed, but the witness of their faith continues to remind us of what life well-lived looks like. God at work.
Joy to the Heart of God
The coming of joy is one of the great claims of the Christmas story. The baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy when the Virgin mother draws near. The angel brings the shepherds a message of great joy to all the people. The Wise Men “rejoice exceedingly with great joy” when at last they arrive in Bethlehem. “Joy to the world,” we will sing at both services on Christmas Eve. Surely joy broke into our world when the Son, refusing to cling to his royal prerogatives, emptied himself and took on human form (Philippians 2:6-8).
I wonder if there is a way in our celebration of “joy came down” that we can join the angels’ song and, like an antiphonal choir, make our voices heard in heaven’s throne room.
Our Gigantic Secret
G.K. Chesterton called it the gigantic secret and C.S. Lewis says he was surprised by it and that his search for it finally led him to Christ. It is the content of the good news the angel proclaimed to the shepherds who had been keeping watch over their flocks by night. It is joy.
I’ve been thinking about joy. The news flashes that will crawl across the bottom of our TV screens tonight and be splashed, hysterically, on the front page of tomorrow morning’s Beaver County Times will have to do with steroids, mud-slinging in Iowa and Britney Spears’ legal problems. Not so the news alert brought by the army of heaven’s angels that night outside Bethlehem.