Bruce's Thoughts

March 2026 By now you know that one of the major points of my ministry is to remind us that change is happening right now and will continue to happen in our lives. This change is physical, spiritual, emotional, mental, economic, … you get the point. We can’t help it, it is the way we were created, created by a God who loves us and only has good in mind for our future. We have kicked off our Lenten Season in the church and now it is time for us to buckle down and get some internal work done. If you aren’t sure what that means perhaps you can come check out the Bible Study which meets at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesdays or you could try the Men’s Group which meets at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesdays at the Valley View Cafe on Blake Street. You know that many of us meet up twice a month for a shared meal first and third Wednesday evenings at the church. Jesus calls us to follow him. What does that mean? Do we have to give it all away and live      in the desert, no. But we do have to be intenti...

Choose Love During Lent Lent is a season on the church calendar-this year starting February 18 and ending April 4. The purpose of the season is to help Christians prepare our hearts for Easter. Our observance of Lent is part of how we experience God. Of the many different practices observed over the years, some are helpful and some are not. Perhaps in the past you have ‘given up’ something, maybe a pleasure of some sort. However, theologically speaking, there has been a shift recently from punishing ourselves because of sin toward honoring ourselves and our neighbors as the hands and feet of God. Seeing God either as loving or as punishing is a personal choice.. You can find scripture to back both of those viewpoints. During Lent this year I hope that you will take a chance on viewing God in a positive light.  You are blessed! Bruce 

  Happy New Year! Sometimes when we are preparing for a new adventure we get out all our old gear to assess its functionality and condition. I propose that we need to do the same thing when we cross over from one year to the next. It is important to see how things went last year, were we happy with the way things happened to us? When we make an honest assessment we might find that some of our understanding and responses don’t work the way that they used to. Maybe we need to make some changes. I always say that we are better together and studies show that when we interact with our communities we live healthier lives. If you want to increase your HQ (health quotiant) this year find a way to become better connected. We have several on-going offerings available. Sunday mornings at 9:15 the choir meets to work on new material and you would be welcomed with open arms. I mean it, no matter if you are a singer or if you can read music, we would be happy to work with you to find a place...

    It’s Stewardship time again in the church. This is a touchy subject, lot’s of people don’t want to be told what to do with their money. That’s fair, the church isn’t telling you what to do with your money, at least not this congregation. We would, however, love to have you make a pledge so that we can do some forecasting about what kind of giving we might be able to make use of over the next year. If you are familiar with church budgets you know that the budget offered by your Session is based on what our expenses have been over the last couple of years. How does a pledge help, you might ask. Your Finance Committee will tell you that if they can put in one column on their spreadsheet a tally of numbers that they can count on, it helps them plan for any large expenditures that come our way. When an organization is caring for two buildings and doing missions, that can keep our margin razor thin. We have been blessed over the last few years in that much has been donated thr...

  Do you recall this refrain; "To everything - turn, turn, turn. There is a season - turn, turn, turn. And a time to every purpose under heaven. " In 1965 the band The Byrds took this scripture set to music to the top of the Billboard charts. This Advent season we will turn to ‘a time to dream.’ There are several ways to think of dreaming, I want to offer to you the idea that dreaming is to imagine a future filled with hope, peace, joy and love. We know that the next few weeks will slip past us quicker than a blink. There is so much to do as we prepare ourselves for this upcoming holiday season. Advent will begin on November 30 and that will give us four weeks to prepare ourselves for the arrival of the Christ. We can help ourselves by doing a bit of pre-preparation by considering what we find in the world around us and what we can dream about as we look to the future. We have been called to be present in each moment of our lives and that takes practice. Use the month of Nove...

I’m sure that you have heard all the talk about change, how it is happening now and will continue, and how it can be difficult to deal with. Change has been so natural in your life that you probably don’t give it a thought. Well done! As we grow and mature how we see the world is different and that seems natural to us. So also is the life cycle of the institution of the Church. The early church, like from the time of the book of Acts, was based in peoples homes. There were no large buildings for hundreds of years and how the administration of the church worked was different also.  When we think about change we should consider that there are two different types of change. According to the experts, Continuous and Discontinuous are the types of change that happen in the world.  Continuous change is that which we expect, like as you age you expect a change in your mobility. Some of us will change from the crawling stage to the standing and walking stage, others will find that th...