Charles Town Presbyterian Church

It is the beginning of December, and Christmas is coming.

When we think of Christmas, we often think of gifts. We give gifts and we receive gifts. Christmas itself is about gifts. God gives his one and only son so that we can have eternal life. And the response to that is to give. This year, there is one gift I would encourage our whole church family to give: An invitation. God invites us to eternal life through faith in the Son. This advent season is a wonderful time to invite people to church activities. Here are some of the events coming up over the next few weeks:

• Friday, November 30 Advent Festival 6pm
  A light dinner, Christmas carols, and then adults and older children decorate the sanctuary while younger children make Christmas crafts
• Saturday, December 1 Charles Town Parade
  The mission and outreach committee is giving away hot dogs, nachos, and hot beverages (donations for the steeple gladly accepted!), and we will be handing out invitations to our holiday services. The fun begins at 12 noon!
• Sunday, December 2 Holiday Dinner
  Following worship, around noon, the fellowship committee is hosting a holiday dinner for the congregation.
• Sunday, December 16 Christmas Joy Service 7pm
  The annual Joy Gift service highlights the outstanding music minis try of CTPC. This worship service is always a highlight of the advent season at CTPC. Vocal choirs, bell choirs, solos, duets and other musical surprises are awaiting us at this year’s Christmas Joy Service.
• Monday, December 24 Christmas Eve Worship 5pm and 10pm
  We will be celebrating the birth of Christ at worship on Christmas Eve. The early service is a family-oriented service with emphasis on the Christmas story. The later service will be solemn, with carols, readings and celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

We have so much to give. Of course, as Christians, it is our honor and privilege to share the good news of Jesus Christ with others. This holiday season gives us additional ways to share that love and to welcome people into the life of the church.

Blessings,

Pastor John

I came to faith in Christ when I was sixteen. A decade and a half of being dragged to church suddenly made sense! I started learning about my faith, reading the Scriptures, and doing all I could to grow. One of the central issues I faced, even in the early years of my faith journey, was that of calling. I wondered what God wanted me to do with my life.

After years of prayers, questions, and struggle, it became clear that God was calling me into ministry. At first, I thought that was youth ministry. I never thought that I was going to be a traditional minister with a traditional pulpit ministry. My, how things change!

When I went to seminary, it became very clear to me that contemporary Christianity has a book about everything. I resolved in my first year of seminary that I was not going to ever seek to write a book. There were people far better than I who could make greater contributions on the printed page.

This is what makes the recent release the book I’ve authored so weird for me. I never really saw myself doing this. The book came about because for almost two years, I put off a publisher who had heard my sermons online. He bugged me almost like clockwork. When I shared with some key friends what was happening, they encouraged me to at least have a conversation. And so, with great fear and trembling, I signed the publishing agreement.

My book is called “Walking with Conviction,” and it is a series of sermons, all of which I gave at CTPC in recent years. Two things convinced me to go forward with the publishing. First, I am giving the royalties away. I don’t expect there to be a windfall, but what does come will go to the steeple, and when that is paid for, I will give it to the pastor help fund, which is used to help people in acute, emergency food and shelter situations. The other piece of the decision is the publisher: Parsons Porch gives their proceeds to the poverty ministries in the community. The book is a win-win all the way around! If you are interested in obtaining a copy, feel free to stop by the church office, or ask me if you see me. The cost is $18.

Several people have told me I need to make a bigger deal about the book. Hence, I’m letting you all know how it came about. My hope for the book is that it enriches the lives of all who read it; that it would deepen or even introduce readers to a relationship with Jesus Christ. For me, that is what all of this is about, and I can think of no greater contribution than to be a small part of  helping someone else grow closer to Christ.

To him alone be the glory!

Blessings,
Pastor John

Wednesday night Bible Study has been a real eye-opener this fall! We are about five chapters into our study in the book of Acts, and I am learning about something I never realized before: There is an undeniable affirmation of ministry in the book of Acts. Every time someone new is introduced, as soon as they begin their ministry, something very interesting happens – they meet with challenge and hardship.

When Peter preaches on Pentecost, before he even opens his mouth, the Christians are called “drunkards,” because the working of the Spirit allows the gathered Christians to speak in many different languages to tell the many different people in the city about Jesus. The ones who misunderstood what they were seeing were quick to criticize. When Peter heals a crippled man, he and John are jailed overnight, then ordered not to speak in the name of Jesus. They brought joy to man who knew hardship his whole life, and for this they are punished. When the Church calls deacons, one of the called is a man named Stephen. When he begins his ministry, he is talking about Jesus, and this leads to charges and then the people execute him by stoning him.

Isn’t it interesting that in the modern era, we have come to equate a life of obedience to God with ease, prosperity, and happiness? How did that happen? It certainly wasn’t the experience of the early disciples, and it was most definitely not what the prophets experienced!

So why do we do this?

I think it is because we want the hope we have in Christ to have some tangible, tactile and immediate benefit. If you do a job for someone, you get paid. If it is your birthday, you get gifts. And so on. Coming to faith in Christ, following him, is good. So why wouldn’t good things follow?

Well, good things do follow, but not in the way we think. Eternal life in Christ is going to be amazing, but that is for later. The world we live in today doesn’t go after Christ. And so, they will resist us, and they will resist the message of the gospel. That might mean hardship. It did for Jesus, it did for the apostles, and it might for us. Hardship doesn’t mean failure; on the contrary, it may mean we are right where God calls us to be!

Blessings,

Pastor John

Pastor John Bethard has published a collection of sermons entitled,

Walking with Conviction: Sermons about Trouble and Grace

Signed copies of the book are available from the church office for $18, with all proceeds dedicated to the Save the Steeple fund.    Please contact the church office if you are interested in purchasing a copy.

November is here! That means later this month, we will celebrate the most American of holidays, Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is an important holiday. The original purpose of Thanksgiving was to pause and give God thanks for his blessings, especially those blessings that were related to harvest, which is why the holiday is celebrated in late November.

Now that we’ve made it past Halloween, I have no doubt that the endless playing of Christmas music is right around the corner. When you couple this with that fact that retailers started decorating for Christmas after Labor Day, it is a miracle we remember to celebrate Thanksgiving at all!

I want to propose a remedy to this. Long ago, I a swore I would never participate in any of those “Thirty Days of Thanksgiving” postings that have already started popping up on social media. I have several reasons for feeling this way, the most important being that I am not always convinced it is appropriate to share everything with everyone. However, I do think the intentional pause to give thanks is what will stay the temptation to skip right to Christmas. Remember, giving thanks to God is much different than thanking someone for something they did for us. That’s just good manners.

When we are thankful to God, there is always a “for.” There is always something or someone for which we are thanking God. In what remains of November, I want to encourage you to start keeping a list – begin or end each day with a prayer of thanksgiving. “Lord, today I thank you for __________________________.” It’s up to you to make that list as short or as long as you like.

Thanksgiving is a very important discipline. Thanksgiving keeps us humble, because the more we thank God for, the more we realize we have more and more to thank God for! This, in turn, keeps us more mindful of God’s presence in our lives, and who among us does not need that?? Let’s agree to be intentionally thankful each day this month. Let’s agree to not rush the holidays and pass over this all-important day that can teach us so much. Let’s agree to look for what God is doing among us and give him praise and thanks!

Give thanks to the Lord Almighty,
for the Lord is good;
his love endures forever (Jeremiah 33:11b)

 

Pastor John

October 31 is here, and that means one of our most important holidays will be upon us. No, not Halloween, but rather, Reformation Day!

The Reformation was kicked into high gear on October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed a list of grievances on to the door of Wittenburg Cathedral in Germany. This list came to be known as the “95 Theses,” a list of complaints Luther had about the church. He named instances of greed, immorality and corruption which compromised the witness and mission of the Church. Thus began the Reformation!

Were it not for those events in 1517, we might not even know what it means to be Presbyterian. Luther’s willingness to stand up to the leadership of the church and demand greater accountability and more fidelity to God’s Word inspired a generation of leaders like John Calvin, Jan Hus, John Wycliffe and others.

Were it not for the Reformation, we would not have seen great advances in learning. The notion that the Word of God was for all the people of God led to more and more printing, and that made God’s Word accessible to many. The printing press – a major tool
of the Reformation – has had a dramatic impact on the world ever since.

This weekend we will give out candy, welcome trick-or-treaters, and maybe even have a little fun dressing up ourselves. But don’t forget how important October 31 truly is for Christians the world round. A simple act of frustration and rebellion – a nail, a paper
and a door – changed the world and brought the good news of Jesus Christ to many.

Have a Blessed Reformation Day!

Pastor John