Jul 2009
Pastor Rick Hudgens | Living Grace to Grace
Monday/Jul/2009 18:07
A Churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of a
newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to
church every Sunday. "I’ve gone for 30 years
now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard
something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I
can’t remember a single one of them. So, I think
I’m wasting my time and the pastors are wasting
theirs by giving sermons at all."
This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher: “I’ve been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: they all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today.”
Pastor Rick adds an epilogue to this series of messages through the book of First Peter. We will look at how past experiences of life can cripple us, like the Churchgoer who wrote the letter noted above, or, can help mold us to live our lives from “grace to grace.”
Listen
This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher: “I’ve been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: they all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today.”
Pastor Rick adds an epilogue to this series of messages through the book of First Peter. We will look at how past experiences of life can cripple us, like the Churchgoer who wrote the letter noted above, or, can help mold us to live our lives from “grace to grace.”
Listen
Pastor Rick Hudgens | A Congregational Code of Conduct
Wednesday/Jul/2009 18:06
In what the news called "The Miracle at Quecreek," at
8:50 p.m. on Wednesday, July 24, 2002, nine miners,
trapped for three days 240 feet underground in a
water-filled mine shaft, decided they were either going
to live or die as a group.
The 55 degree water threatened to kill them slowly by hypothermia, so when one would get cold, the other eight would huddle around the person and warm that person, and when another person got cold, the favor was returned.
"Everybody had strong moments," miner Harry Mayhugh told reporters after being released from Somerset Hospital in Somerset, Pa. "But any certain time maybe one guy got down, and then the rest pulled together. And then that guy would get back up, and maybe someone else would feel a little weaker, but it was a team effort. That’s the only way it could have been." (As reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.)
They faced incredibly hostile conditions together and they all came out alive together. What a picture of the body of Christ!
In the closing chapter of First Peter we read words of encouragement and see the antidote for dealing with stress. Peter develops for us a congregational code of conduct.
Listen
The 55 degree water threatened to kill them slowly by hypothermia, so when one would get cold, the other eight would huddle around the person and warm that person, and when another person got cold, the favor was returned.
"Everybody had strong moments," miner Harry Mayhugh told reporters after being released from Somerset Hospital in Somerset, Pa. "But any certain time maybe one guy got down, and then the rest pulled together. And then that guy would get back up, and maybe someone else would feel a little weaker, but it was a team effort. That’s the only way it could have been." (As reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.)
They faced incredibly hostile conditions together and they all came out alive together. What a picture of the body of Christ!
In the closing chapter of First Peter we read words of encouragement and see the antidote for dealing with stress. Peter develops for us a congregational code of conduct.
Listen