2012.05.21 Monday Morning Message

Greetings and best wishes from Pilgrim Presbyterian Church in Vinita, Oklahoma. 

Founded in 1871, Vinita is the intersection of several railways. It is the second oldest town in Oklahoma, and is the oldest incorporated town along historic Route 66. If you are visiting on a Sunday morning, please worship with us at 10:00 a.m. If you can't be with us in person, say a little prayer for our worshipping congregation.

Do you ever feel lonely? I was stunned to read a report of an AARP survey which states that 35% of adults over the age of 45 are chronically lonely, up from 20% a decade earlier.

Sixty million Americans are unhappy with their lives because of loneliness!

I am sure that there are many reasons for people feeling lonely. Could the modern social media be one? Facebook and Twitter, exchanging 'clicks', avoids human face to face conversation. Some studies report that one in four Americans have 'zero close friends'.

Why do you think there is so much loneliness in our society? Let me know.

Are you conscious of the presence of God in your daily life?

With all good wishes,
Richard

Announcements:

• Our minister for Pentecost Sunday, May 27 will be Craig Kilgour. He is the minister from New Zealand.
• The next Sunday, June 3 we will have a family meal and welcome Ken Bailey and his wife Jeannie. Ken is the brother of Bow Bailey and they live in Kentucky.
• Red Morris will be barbecuing pulled pork and the congregation is asked to bring salads and desserts. The rest of the meal is provided.

2011.10.17 Monday Morning!

Greetings and best wishes from Pilgrim Presbyterian Church, located in the heart of Vinita, Oklahoma. 

If you are in the area any Sunday morning at 10:00, come worship with us. If that's not possible, please say a prayer for us wherever you are. Thank you.

I want to tell you today about a good friend who was a professor of New Testament studies. He had escaped from his beloved Hungary during the uprising in the mid-1950's. More than a quarter million Hungarians left their homes at a time when Communists were oppressing dissidents, including Christians.

My friend, and a group of anti-Communists, captured the Communist headquarters in his home town. They held it for only a short time before being crushed. In that brief time he and his friends discovered a list of 'informers'. On the list was the name of my friend's best buddy.

When my friend confronted him, the man broke down and through his sobs asked, "What would you have done when the Communists threatened your wife and children?" The next day the informant committed suicide.

Life is complex. Evil is powerful. It is not easy to be a Christian in all circumstances.

When we become too smug in our faith and are tempted to find fault in how others respond to horrific situations, we will do well to hear the haunting question of that Hungarian informer: "What would you have done in my situation?"

With blessings and fond regards,

Richard

www.pilgrimpresbyterian.blogspot.com

2011.9.26 Monday Morning!

Top of the morning from Pilgrim Presbyterian Church, located in the heart of Vinita, Oklahoma.

Today, I want to share a story about God's embracing grace and my young college friend, Bill.

Bill and two good friends from his dorm pooled their resources so they could tour Europe "on the cheap." They traveled light, slept in youth hostels, and enjoyed the unique characteristics of every country and village they passed through.

The amazing part of Bill's story didn't happen during a visit to the cathedral; it happened in a pub in Ireland. The thee young travelers were enjoying a meal in a quaint Irish pub when they heard a loud groan. At a nearby table a man struggled to heave himself out of his chair. They saw immediately he had only one leg. He reached for his crutch, but lost his balance and began to fall. Instantly his companion at the table jumped up and caught him.

The man with one leg muttered, "Thanks! I'm as crippled as a blind man."

His friend steadied him while replying, "Well now...come to think of it, who of us here isn't crippled?" A hush fell over the pub as the friend continued, "to lend each other a hand when we're falling is maybe the one kind of work that really matters in the end."


With love, peace and affectionate regards,

Richard

Pentecost Sunday Fellowship

Hello to Everyone!

We have received pictures from Jewell Morgan that were taken in the new kitchen during a fellowship on Pentecost Sunday.  Each picture should have a description below them.  I hope you will enjoy these pictures.

Also I would encourage you to send pictures!  I am not the only one who loves to see pictures about our church.  We always have a big jump in visits after pictures are sent in!  Which means that I am not the only one who enjoys seeing everyone having a good time as well as getting glimpses of our church.

Thanks Again to Everyone and enjoy the photos!

- Brian

Pentecost cloth made by Meryle Duncan, Dianne Rapp's mother.

The Osborn family with Pentecost balloons.

AnnaBelle Mitchell back to church after a long illness.

2010.02.01 Monday Morning!

Top of this Monday Morning, and best wishes from Pilgrim Presbyterian Church in Vinita, Oklahoma.

I've been thinking about many who were brought up in the church, who attended Sunday School and Youth Fellowship and sang in the choir, and who now are drifting away from the church altogether. Oh, I know most of the reasons why...sermons are long and dull...hymns are ancient, and often drag...and it's just comfortable staying home to enjoy a relaxing Sunday morning, or to catch up on household chores.

Nevertheless, I'm old fashioned enough to believe that worship, within a community of faith, provides an experience of joy that comes from a personal fellowship with God and from meeting friends who share that fellowship with you.

Worship is a rich privilege! If you don't believe that consider the plight of Christians living in a place where they are forbidden to gather for worship. They risk their lives by worshipping in what we call "underground churches".

Worship offers an opportunity to withdraw from the haste and speed of our modern world and to be enriched by God's Spirit. From that experience flows a renewed desire to serve the wants and needs of the neighborhood and world.

To give up on worship means, in the long run, the loss of a priceless gem of the soul.

Richard

PS: I'm glad to say that about 70% of the resident members of Pilgrim Church regularly find their way to Sunday worship!

2009.04.27 Monday Morning!

MONDAY MORNING greetings and best wishes from Pilgrim Presbyterian Church, still located in the heart of Vinita, Oklahoma. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10 o'clock. Come and worship with us if you can. If you can't, say a little prayer for us! A number of Presbyterians, with second homes on Grand Lake, have found us and we are glad to welcome these friends to Pilgrim Church, "a friendly church of faith".

Hear this urgent message for all of us: we need to learn that speed, and more speed, are NOT solutions to everything!

There are things that cannot be hurried: the acquaintance that deepens into friendship, the mind that seeks knowledge and wisdom, the healing that follows bereavement, the time for memories stored up from a lifetime of experience.

Perhaps this prayer by O.L. Crain will help slow us down:

Remind me each day that the race is not always to the swift and that there is more to life than increasing its speed. Slow me down, God, and inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life's enduring values, that I may grow toward the stars of my greater destiny.

In friendship,
Richard

2009.02.23 Monday Morning!

From this small congregation with a big heart, located in the heart of Vinita, Oklahoma, Pilgrim Presbyterian Church sends greetings and best wishes to each of you.

This congregation, which has been around for 126 years, is a good model for all small congregations. Its outreach, in cooperation with another small church in Vinita, St. John's Episcopal, and its ministry to Burroughs Manor, a retirement home for people who can't afford the costs of most high-flying retirement havens, is as close to the heart of the gospel that any "church family" can get.

Congregations that don't squabble can do ordinary things in extraordinary ways. That is why these "Pilgrims" in Vinita are so effective in their ministry inside and outside the walls of their beautiful sanctuary.

Well done you good and faithful disciples of our Master.


With a thankful heart,
Richard

2008.12.08 Monday Morning!

Advent greetings and best wishes from Pilgrim Presbyterian Church, located in the heart of Vinita, Oklahoma. The hope of Monday Morning, these weekly messages, is to keep in touch, and responses received indicate that is being achieved.

Do you ever read the comic strips? I've been an avid fan of "Pogo" no longer with us, and "Peanuts", still appearing though its creator, Charles Schultz, is dead. There is a lot of sound theology in the comics!

I remember when Charlie Brown and Lucy were leaning against a tree and Lucy asks, "What do you think security is?"

Charlie, or "Chuck" as Lucy calls him, replies: "Security? Security is sleeping in the back seat of the car when you're a little kid and it's night. Your parents are in the front seats and they've done all the worrying. They take care of everything."

Lucy smiles and says: "That's real neat."

"But," Charlie Brown says, "it doesn't always last. Suddenly you're grown up. And it can never be that way again. Suddenly it's over and you'll never go to sleep in the back seat again. Never!"

Lucy gets a sad and scared look on her face and says: "Never?" Then Charlie, who has scared himself with this terrible truth, says, "Never."

In the last picture Lucy, aware of the real world, reaches over to Charlie and says: "Hold my hand, hold my hand!"

We can't hold one another's hand over the miles, but we can "keep in touch." Isn't that what the gospel teaches?

"Keep in touch", my friends...keep in touch with loved ones, with friends, and with the God whom we know in the face of the Babe of Bethlehem.

Peace,
Richard