Author Archives: smcalhoon
Our Consistory
Pastor Rod, Duclie Crowther, Stacy Malone, Donna Koestner, Monica Ruhle, Jane Coles, Amanda Foltz, Glen Wells, Laurie Bohlke, David Russell, and Tom Calhoon.
Thank you for your service.
Volunteer the first Saturday of every month at the Animal Shelter
Thank you to the volunteers for helping at the Animal Shelter this month!
Join us for a campfire/potluck on Friday, May 6th
Join us as we welcome Rev. Amy Nyland who will be leading our Mother’s Day worship service on Sunday, May 8th.
http://amynyland.rcachurches.org/
https://www.rca.org/news/amy-nyland-new-synod-executive
Campfire stories included
Iron-Man Triathalon
Reminder:
Due to road closures for the IronMan Triathalon Sunday, May 1st our Church Service will be held on Saturday, April 30th at 5:30pm.
Special talk on the relationship between the faith community and climate change policy
What Does Religion have to do
with Climate Change Policy?
Sunday April 24th, 46 years and a couple days after the first Earth Day, Paul Chakroff will speak at the St. Croix Reformed Church on the relationship between the faith community and climate change policy. Paul’s research into the topic had its genesis with Pope Francis’ address to a joint meeting of Congress, which Paul attended among 10,000 onlookers who gathered on the West lawn of the US Capital last September 24th.
The talk and following discussion Sunday evening will consider several questions:
· Is religion even a credible participant in the climate change conversation?
· Shouldn’t our response to climate change be based on peoples’ knowledge of science and technology?
· Given that emotions, ethics and morality are clearly in religion’s wheelhouse, is the faith community taking up the challenge? And,
· Can the faith community be effective in meeting the challenge?
Research conducted by a sociologist in Norway on climate change denial and failure of people to take action will be explored, as will the interface between morality and socioeconomic systems, before turning to Pope Francis’ Encyclical Paper on climate change.
Finally, some of 26 faith-based policy statements on climate change will be presented. For example, a statement from American Catholic Bishops that includes: “Our response to global climate change raises fundamental questions of morality and justice, fairness and shared sacrifice. People living in poverty contribute least to climate change but they are likely to suffer its worst consequences with few resources to adapt and respond.”
And a Southern Baptist Declaration the includes: “When God made mankind, He commissioned us to exercise stewardship over the earth and its creatures (Genesis 1:26-28). Therefore, our motivation for facing failures to exercise proper stewardship is not primarily political, social or economic – – it is primarily biblical.”
Folks from all religions persuasions are invited to join in the conversation on the relationship between religion and climate change policy, Sunday, April 24, 5:30 PM at the Reformed Church, Kingshill, St. Croix.
Paul Chakroff, a 14-year resident of St. Croix, is currently a renewable resource and environmental consultant.
Lent Devotions
March 27, 2016: Christ Is Risen!
He is not here, but has risen (v. 5).
Everything we treasure most about the Christian faith hangs on the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus rose from the grave it is proof positive of all the staggering claims he made about himself and all those that have been subsequently made about him. If he did not burst the bands of death as the gospels report, then our treasured faith is as silly as a sitcom episode, our sins are in fact the controlling reality of our sorry lives, and those whom we have loved and lost are nothing more than smudges on the window of our fading memories. All of this was the logic of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins [and] those also who have died in Christ have perished” (vv. 17-18).
Think about this for just a moment. The women who first came to the tomb finally grasped the significance of the new life that was breaking in on them when they remembered what Jesus had taught them: “Then they remembered his words” (v. 8). You might say they moved forward by looking back. Christians interpret their experiences through the word, and not the other way around. Remember that, please, the next time your personal experience is at odds with the expressed teaching of scripture. Revelation always trumps experience.
Prayer: Give us the grace to interpret our lives through the promise of your word.
Today’s devotional was written by Tim Brown, president and Henry Bast professor of preaching at Western Theological Seminary. This Lenten series comes from Words of Hope, whose mission is to build the church in the hard places through media. To learn more about the organization or subscribe to Words of Hope’s daily devotions, visit www.woh.org.
Lent Devotions
March 26, 2016: Buried
I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you (John 14:18).
All four gospel writers tell us that Jesus was buried. Our most prominent creeds, the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, do the same. Why? Why is it necessary to be reminded that the lifeless body of Jesus of Nazareth was buried? On one level this fact is emphasized to underscore that Jesus actually did die. Early critics of the resurrection of Jesus argued that he did not die, but instead fell into a coma from which he was later revived. His three-day burial disproves that theory.
There is another reason why his burial is an article of the Christian faith, one that brings enormous comfort for anyone who has stood at a loved one’s graveside. Jesus Christ has been even there. One of the funeral prayers of the Reformed Church says: “Almighty God, by the death of your Son Jesus Christ you destroyed death; by his rest in the tomb you sanctified the graves of the saints…” Jesus was laid in Joseph’s borrowed tomb, and in so doing he made even our darkest and loneliest place holy ground.
This, at least in part, is how Jesus makes good on his promise: I will not leave you orphaned, I am coming to you. (John 14:18)
Prayer: We bless you, Lord Jesus, for even going to the grave with us.
Today’s devotional was written by Tim Brown, president and Henry Bast professor of preaching at Western Theological Seminary. This Lenten series comes from Words of Hope, whose mission is to build the church in the hard places through media. To learn more about the organization or subscribe to Words of Hope’s daily devotions, visit www.woh.org.
St Croix Reformed Church 
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