Welcome
Each week one of our pastors or staff members writes a column observing what is going on in our congregation, the Church and the world, and offering reflections on the Christian life and faith. Through this series of columns, we hope to connect your and our story to the enduring story of Christ; to offer pastoral reflections on our ongoing congregational life and mission; to report on news of the Presbyterian Church and Church universal; and to invite further reflection and deeper discipleship. We welcome your comments and suggestions. In other words, our words here are an invitation to continue the conversation.
The poet David Whyte writes that gratitude “is the understanding that millions of things come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege, that we are miraculously part of something, rather than nothing.”
BMPC Youth Ministry seeks to be an inclusive youth faith community that connects, engages, and equips youth to discover and live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The way we gather matters. Gatherings consume our days and help determine the kind of world we live in, in both our intimate and public realms. Gatherings – the conscious bringing together of people for a reason – shape the way we think, feel, and make sense of the world.
September 6, 2022 is a self-declared holiday in our home. Of course, similar to Easter it’s not a holiday on a fixed date. It’s just whenever the first day of school falls. In celebration of our astonishing conquest over another summer as parents, there will be champagne, victory speeches, sparklers, and probably a parade. O death, where is thy sting? Not even the grave, or as I call it, “the never-ending month of August,” could destroy us.
I remember getting ready for the first day of sixth grade. I had a backpack packed and my outfit picked out — a bright yellow sweatshirt and purple shirt with coordinated bow. I needed to be ready because it was my last year in elementary school, and I knew it would be a “BIG year.”
It has been almost three weeks since I returned from a three-month sabbatical that I took this past spring and summer. Many of you have asked how it is being back in the office, back in worship, and back to the busy work of the church. It is good to be back. But it was good to be away. I spent the majority of my sabbatical alone in Northern Minnesota where my husband Joshua’s parents retired almost 20 years ago. My days were filled with long walks, long paddles on their lake and creeks, long stretches of reading books or listening to audiobooks, and long days of reacquainting myself with some of my more artistic hobbies that have taken a back seat during the past few years.
The summer in between my junior and senior years of high school, I participated in a trip to Malawi, Africa, with about 50 others from the Pittsburgh Presbytery as the first of what would become many exchanges between Presbyterians in Western Pennsylvania and Presbyterians in Malawi.
