PBPC Announcements

PBPC Family, I recently purchased a book filled with prayers from the early church titled Fount of Heaven: Prayers of the Early Church.  It is both beautiful to read and pray these ancient prayers and discover new language for speaking to God. The following is a prayer attributed to Synesius (c. 375-413) Hymn of Heaven, Take My Song We will sing to you, Deathless One, God himself and God's great Son, creator of endless generations and son of many creations. You are the God of infinite wisdom, standing among the angels. As man, you mourn among your people. And the magi wondered: Is this newborn child God, or king, or mortal? We bring our gifts! In the tomb you purified our earth and the rolling tide, the depths below the deep, and even the paths of nations. You are the God who rescues the dead. Take my music as an anthem from heaven's songs.  Amen . One final note: I will be out of town July 1- July 8. I will be back in the office on July 10 and will respond to emails then. If y...

PBPC Family, My guess is at some point in your life, you've probably heard the adage, "Faith is caught, not taught." This phrase is often used to speak of how our lives communicate what we believe much more than the things we may say. Others, especially our children and grandchildren, will see and remember our lives of faith (hopefully!) much more than they may remember our witty aphorisms or erudite teachings. I'm also struck how faith is "caught" through music. It's not uncommon to continue to sing songs and hymns from Sunday's worship service; rarely do we repeat the main points from a sermon. Even for me, I often forget what I have said come Monday or Tuesday. But as I bustle through my day, I find myself humming "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" or "How Great is Our God." And the lyrics of these songs aren't just words to sing - they inform our beliefs about God. In our weekly singing, we are catching faith through our songs...

PBPC Family, As we begin our study of Romans, last week I provided a few suggestions and resources to aid you in our journey. I want to provide those once again (as a friendly reminder) with a few more. I encourage you to memorize  Romans 1:1-7 . Print it out, write it on notecards, put it on post-its in your bathroom mirror, or record yourself reading it and listen to it while walking/driving/cleaning (or ask someone else to record it if you don't want to listen to your own voice). If you can memorize Romans 1:1-7, you will get the overarching themes that Paul addresses throughout his entire letter. For a simple overview of the major themes and topics within Romans,  HERE  are videos by The Bible Project. They have other great resources on how to read and study Scripture - these videos are a great starting place. If you'd like to get your own commentaries or dive deeper into the theology of Romans, I'd recommend  Romans by James D.G. Dunne . It is academic but is a rich re...

PBPC Family, On Sunday, we begin our new sermon series in the book of Romans. We will jump around Romans (following the lectionary's selected readings) until October. Romans is beautiful, complex, deeply pastoral, theologically rich, and incredibly challenging! My hope is that God will encourage, challenge, and transform us through our study of Romans. This Sunday, we will do a little experiment. Instead of preaching on a specific passage of Romans or providing an overview, we will listen to Paul's letter (or as much as we can in 20 minutes). Most early Christians did not read Romans - they listened to it as it was read aloud in church. So we will seek to hear Scripture, without commentary, and see how God speaks to us and meets us. I hope you'll join us for this experiment. As we dive in, here are a few suggestions and resources to aid you in our journey. I encourage you to memorize Romans 1:1-7 . Print it out, write it on notecards, put it on post-its in your bathroom mi...