For Such A Time As This 051220 – John Grace
To the Good Folk of the Palmyra Church of the Brethren
Looking Ahead to Graduation Sunday!
We are gearing up for our 2020 Grad Sunday Service on June 7! This year we will be recognizing not only our high school and higher education graduates, but also our 5th and 8th grade graduates as well! As a virtual service, it will be a little different, but we are being creative!
If you or someone you love is graduating this year, we would love for you to be a part of this special service! Please take a moment to fill out this short informational form. https://forms.gle/DGLmKDBGHLCbXA5H7
Forms are due no later than Sunday, May 24. Thank you! Questions about the service may directed to Bethany Hoffer or Rachel Witkovsky.
Annual Conference Cancelled for 2020
The Annual Conference Standing Committee announced last week that this summer’s gathering, scheduled for July in Grand Rapids, MI, has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All booking penalties with the convention center and hotels have been forgiven with an agreement that we return to Grand Rapids in 2024. All 2020 business items will be on the 2021 conference agenda, to be held next summer in Greensboro, NC. For more details you can visit the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference website.
Joys and Concerns
If you have a joy or concern you would like us to share and pray about, please call, text or email it to me. If you would like it included in our Sunday Worship sharing and prayer time, please share it with me that week by Friday morning.
Thank You:
To all who call others to check in on them and share our emails and devotions.
Today’s Devotion:
I am thankful to John Grace for providing today’s devotion. John shares some gardening wisdom to help us cultivate a positive spirit. If you wish to respond to John directly, his email address is djgrace@comcast.net.
Shalom,
Dennis
Scripture – Colossians 1:11-12 (NSRV)
Colossians 1:11-12: May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.
Thoughts:
I started writing this on the day I planted my tomatoes and peppers…inspiring me to think about patience. Since it is later than I usually plant, I will probably not have ripe tomatoes by July 4 this year. I will have to be patient, joyfully and gratefully looking forward to the time I will eventually have them. There is a passage in James 5 that says: “The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.”
Paul in his letter to the Colossians asks them to wait patiently with joy. My online dictionary says that patience is “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.” Paul goes even further than that, asking his readers to wait with joy and thanksgiving. It is not easy to have that kind of patience during these days of waiting for the world to begin to become closer to what it used to be. But the more we practice patience, the better we become at it. In addition to patience, we need its tolerance aspect to accept the fact that some things may never be entirely as they once were.
We are to keep faith in God while we wait patiently and joyfully in anticipation of what God might have in store for us.
Prayer:
Gracious and Merciful God, as we wait, help us to be not grudgingly patient but joyfully patient, hoping and trusting in you. Amen.
Looking Ahead to Graduation Sunday!
We are gearing up for our 2020 Grad Sunday Service on June 7! This year we will be recognizing not only our high school and higher education graduates, but also our 5th and 8th grade graduates as well! As a virtual service, it will be a little different, but we are being creative!
If you or someone you love is graduating this year, we would love for you to be a part of this special service! Please take a moment to fill out this short informational form. https://forms.gle/DGLmKDBGHLCbXA5H7
Forms are due no later than Sunday, May 24. Thank you! Questions about the service may directed to Bethany Hoffer or Rachel Witkovsky.
Annual Conference Cancelled for 2020
The Annual Conference Standing Committee announced last week that this summer’s gathering, scheduled for July in Grand Rapids, MI, has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All booking penalties with the convention center and hotels have been forgiven with an agreement that we return to Grand Rapids in 2024. All 2020 business items will be on the 2021 conference agenda, to be held next summer in Greensboro, NC. For more details you can visit the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference website.
Joys and Concerns
If you have a joy or concern you would like us to share and pray about, please call, text or email it to me. If you would like it included in our Sunday Worship sharing and prayer time, please share it with me that week by Friday morning.
Thank You:
To all who call others to check in on them and share our emails and devotions.
Today’s Devotion:
I am thankful to John Grace for providing today’s devotion. John shares some gardening wisdom to help us cultivate a positive spirit. If you wish to respond to John directly, his email address is djgrace@comcast.net.
Shalom,
Dennis
Scripture – Colossians 1:11-12 (NSRV)
Colossians 1:11-12: May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.
Thoughts:
I started writing this on the day I planted my tomatoes and peppers…inspiring me to think about patience. Since it is later than I usually plant, I will probably not have ripe tomatoes by July 4 this year. I will have to be patient, joyfully and gratefully looking forward to the time I will eventually have them. There is a passage in James 5 that says: “The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.”
Paul in his letter to the Colossians asks them to wait patiently with joy. My online dictionary says that patience is “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.” Paul goes even further than that, asking his readers to wait with joy and thanksgiving. It is not easy to have that kind of patience during these days of waiting for the world to begin to become closer to what it used to be. But the more we practice patience, the better we become at it. In addition to patience, we need its tolerance aspect to accept the fact that some things may never be entirely as they once were.
We are to keep faith in God while we wait patiently and joyfully in anticipation of what God might have in store for us.
Prayer:
Gracious and Merciful God, as we wait, help us to be not grudgingly patient but joyfully patient, hoping and trusting in you. Amen.
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