From the Pastor: Sept 2025

Dear Friends, 

The evenings are starting to cool off.  We’re in the last throes of summer vacation, and some of us feverishly cling to the final hours of our seasonal recreation.  I remember once when my daughter Rachel was 15, at the end of August we saw an ad on TV that showed ecstatically happy children reveling in their Target school supplies, eager to return to school, and Rachel rolled her eyes at that bit of fiction. I reminded her that commercials for kids’ school supplies are actually aimed at parents, not kids, and we may very well be ecstatic about shipping the kids back to school.  But whether you’re mourning the decline of summer or anticipating a few hours’ respite when the big yellow bus arrives, it’s good to remember that our summer recreation and our fall recreation can continue here in church, because we know that recreation is all about RE-creation—being renewed and revitalized; and one of our favorite reminders from the Bible is that “anyone in Christ is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).  That doesn’t just refer to a linear moment in time when we may have committed ourselves to Christ—in fact, at any moment of any day when we turn our focus towards the in-dwelling Christ, we are reborn, from above—over and over and over.

What a joyous, freeing realization!  Whenever we are tired or disheartened, or burdened by sins and bad choices, we have a choice to allow God to work a miracle within us, giving us renewed strength and hope.  Years ago, I remember a sleepless night full of tossing and turning.  Finally, I gave up, got out of bed at about three a.m., and drove to my office to try to get some work done.  Needless to say, I was not in a particularly joyous mood.  But in the stillness of that night drive, the car windows down so that the cool damp wind was in my face, the moon and the stars shining brightly, and the night sounds quietly chirping, I couldn’t help but turn from feeling frustrated and tired to being grateful for experiencing this beautiful time of night that I usually sleep through.  

Our church year is about to start again.  On September 7 we’ll celebrate our annual Homecoming celebration, welcoming everyone back from whatever fun places they visited over the summer.  We’ll have Sunday School, choir, food, fellowship and fun—and no supplies from Target are required for you to help us in recreating a new year at KPC, unless you want to donate a backpack to kids in need, which we will pray over.  Join us.  Let’s come together in hope, faith and the energy of belonging to God and each other.  We have an opportunity for a fresh start, a bright new year of revitalization.            

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) As the ordination vows for our ministers and officers say, let us serve one another with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.

Love and light,

Martin