PBPC Announcements

PBPC Family On Saturday, we will have a service to ordain and install me as the Designated Pastor at Park Boulevard (see below for more information on the service). This is an exciting day - not just for me, but for the whole church. In the service on Saturday, we will be reminded that, Today, we celebrate, not just one individual's call to ministry, but that God calls all of us to follow Jesus, wherever we may find ourselves. Some into vocational ministry, but all of us into a reconciled relationship with God through Jesus Christ, for the renewal and restoration of all creation. I think this is a profound truth that we often miss. It is easy to fall into the thinking that pastors and ministers are the ones called into ministry - they are the ones who work at the church, have been trained to study Scripture, and are truly qualified to do the work of God. But that's not how God operates. God calls all people to follow Jesus; in following Jesus, we are called back ...

PBPC Family, A huge thank you to everyone who came out for the Project Peace Day of Service on Saturday. I just received word from Project Peace that on Saturday over 100 volunteers from 16 different churches invested $9,540 of time and resources at 8 different sites! What a gift and blessing that we participated in this Kingdom work! Project Peace is just one opportunity for us, as God's people, to rub shoulders with our neighbors in service to our community. I know that many of you are already giving of your time and talents in our community; this church has, and continues to be a blessing to this community. As I said on Sunday, as your pastor, I will always be on the lookout for opportunities to serve our neighbors and the broader community. I don't do this to guilt people into action - the church has a solid track record of doing this and I think it's well and good that stays in the past. I will put opportunities for service before us so that our faith can be further r...

PBPC Family, On Sunday we jumped into the book of Revelation, where we'll be living for the next four weeks (til Pentecost). As promised last week, I want to reiterate some of what was said on Sunday on how we should read and make sense of Revelation. Revelation was written by John (we don't know if it was John the Apostle or a different John) while on the island of Patmos. The whole book contains a vision he received while in the Spirit. The book of Revelation is 3 types of literary genres. It is apocalyptic literature, which was a well known type of ancient literature, in which current events were described in dramatic, vivid, and symbolic literature. The greek word for apocalypse literally means "to reveal" or "unveil". Thus, apocalyptic literature sought to reveal to its readers the true nature of reality. It is a prophecy, in that there are sections of the book that offer a picture of future events (fore-telling). But prophetic writings don't ju...

PBPC Family, It's good to be back after a week "away" on study leave. I've had a number of people ask me what I was studying last week so I thought I might use this email to share a few things. Angel's Have No Knees As I said on Sunday morning, I discovered there is an ancient Jewish tradition that angels don't have knees (rooted in Ezekiel 1:7 which says, "their legs were straight."). They believed that the angels were always standing in the presence of God, a posture of worship and reverence, and had no need for sitting, thus no knees. I initially found this humorous but, in thinking more about it, I love how the angel's very form is determined and shaped by the presence of God. Since God is worthy of glory and honor and power and blessing, the angel's bodies (or whatever we should call them) are fashioned to best serve and worship God! The Primacy of God I finished reading With the Grain of the Universe by Stanley Hauerwas. It was dense ...