For Such A Time as This - Bethany Hoffer, August 13, 2020

To the Good Folk of the Palmyra Church of the Brethren,
 
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.
 
A Concern:

• Lori Faiola asks for prayers for her father, James Hite, who has been hospitalized at Hershey Medical Center.

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 Bethany Hoffer for providing today’s devotion.  Bethany first shared this devotion on July 26th in her weekly Connect post on our website Youth Page.  Bethany’s devotions to the youth this summer are connected to their upcoming virtual Sunday School lesson for that week.  If you wish to respond to Bethany directly, her email address is bhoffer@palmyracob.org.
 
Shalom,
Dennis
 
Scripture - Psalm 16:6
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage.
 
Thoughts
Our congregation was formed in 1892... sort of. We are actually just a segment of a much larger
congregation that went through multiple splits as it grew and grew. In 1724 the Conestoga church in
Lancaster county was started by missionaries of the Germantown church, the first church in the country. As Conestoga grew in size, it split into three churches, one of which was the Swatara church in 1772. Almost 30 years later, the church split into two more churches – Little Swatara and Big Swatara. Big Swatara then split again creating the Spring Creek congregation in Hershey. As Brethren continued to join from the Palmyra area, the congregation split one final time, developing the Palmyra Church of the Brethren in 1892. It’s pretty impressive that we have the ability to track our lineage back to the beginnings of the Brethren.
 
Just as learning our family heritage can be beneficial for our understanding of who we are as a family, learning our congregation’s heritage can be beneficial for our understanding of who are as a congregation. Knowing when and where our churches were planted, we can learn from the cultural influences of the time. This may help us to understand some of the deep-seated values and traditions and maybe even quirks and nuances of the congregation.
 
As you read through the Bible, you are certain to also find mention of lineage and heritage. Innumerous places throughout the Old Testament you can find genealogy lists. And perhaps most notably, you can find Jesus’s genealogy at the beginning of both the Gospel of Matthew and Luke. Who and where you came from was important for our Jewish ancestors, while in today's age, many people wouldn’t be able to name their great-great-grandparents.
 
Genealogy gives value to family. The fact that it is shared in so many ways throughout the scripture shows us how much emphasis God put on family. We can learn from our ancestors, the good and the bad. The same is true of our church families. As we learn more about where we came from, what things were like, and who we were, we are able to learn from our struggles, sacrifices, and blessings. And from there, we can continue to grow in faith and love.
 
Prayer
God of the past, the present and the future, thank you for those who came before us, creating the history that has helped to form us.  Be with us as we grow and mature in faith, knowing that the generations yet to come can be blessed by the history we are creating today.  Amen.