It's coming, its coming, its coming. Ready of not, Christmas is coming. It will be an unusual Christmas in a most unusual year. Christ comes to us amid the disappoints and discouragements of life and Christ will meet us this year wherever we may be found. Sunday's worship service will include the participation of some younger members of our church family. Whether you tune in on Sunday at 10:30 or later in the week I hope the service will fill you with love, hope and joy. Go

Barnes and Noble and I are on a first name basis. They are BN to me, and I am JB to them. I am one of their best customers. I treat myself to a book or DVD on a fairly regular basis. I am counting on receiving books and videos from Santa this year. I know that Mike and Linda and many others of you make use of the local libraries. I am hooked on owning my favorite books. My Father said that money spent on a book is never wasted. Dad would be proud of me. How do you 'treat' you

Last month many of you sent in expressions of your thankfulness. These were heartwarming to read and to share with the congregation in our Thanksgiving Worship Service. I trust they sparked your own sentiments of thankfulness. One of the items a parishioner sent in was, "I am thankful for the joy of music and its healing and transformative power". I say, "Amen!" to that. Each Sunday several vocal pieces are included in the worship service for congregational singing. Even thou

We were not able to gather as a church family to celebrate the great feast of Easter and a great Easter Brunch with our members and friends. We missed sharing a Thanksgiving Feast following worship last Sunday. There will not be any luscious Christmas treats to share on our fellowship table this month. We have not been able to have any fellowship events. We have missed being together, worshiping together, working together, and enjoying one another's presence. Let's do somethi

This Thanksgiving will not be the day you or I initially planned. COVID-19 has intervened, and we are all now making Plan B for the holiday. I received the following quote from Leslie Carr and it pretty well covers the day and the times we are in. Every situation in life is temporary. So, when life is good, make sure you enjoy and receive it fully. And when life is not so good, remember that it will not last forever and better days are on the way. — Jenni Young — God ha

In case you have not been out, the stores are decorated for Christmas. The holiday advertisements are already flooding the television and Hallmark and others have dozens of Christmas-themed movies for us to watch every hour of the day and night. I, too, am looking forward to Christmas with planning and possibilities in mind. First, I reiterate my call for Thanks-Giving Blessings. How has God blessed you in 2020? We would like to share in the celebration of that blessing in ou

Once the calendar is turned to November, I start looking forward to Thanksgiving Day. We all know we cannot safely celebrate the day as we have in the past or would like to in this year where we have experienced isolation and quarantine. I am sad that we cannot share a Thanksgiving feast with one another as we usually do following the Sunday Service which occurs before the Thanksgiving holiday. Let this not dull nor deter our thanks-giving! For our service of Thanks-Giving I

Sunday will be the first of the month. Therefore, it is our traditional Communion Sunday. When I first thought about celebrating Holy Communion via a "telecast" I thought it sounded a little un-natural. After all, I am here and you are there and never the two shall meet in pandemic time. And, even if you come to worship in person on Communion Sunday, I cannot share the bread and cup with you due to health restrictions. Some of our neighboring churches are not having virtual C