The Elder Board of our church has given me 6 weeks a year called refreshment or enrichment weeks. These do not count as vacation but rather are weeks when I can step away from the normal activities of leading Grace Church and participate in activities that refresh and enrich me. The last enrichment week I took was the last full week of August. My intent was to not even be around the church that entire week but some transition in the office and a need in the school kept me around most of the week. But when the weekend rolled around I still had time to get in some “enrichment” so I walked out of my office, closing the door at 11:30am, and due to the Labor Day holiday, did not step back into my office until Tuesday morning.
Since Pastor Tim was preaching on that Sunday and I had no responsibilities as part of that morning, Laura and I decided to attend another church and just be “normal church folk” for a Sunday. On a typical Sunday morning I am up by 6:15am so that I can leave the house by 6:45, stop at the Hess station in town for a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee, and arrive in my office by 7am. The time between 7-9am is spent in quiet preparation for the morning and a meeting with Matt McElravy and the Media Producer for the morning to make sure that every aspect of the service is ready.
But on this Sunday I slept in and spent the morning watching the news on television, browsing through the Sunday morning newspaper, and even taking time to cook myself some breakfast. We didn’t even leave for church until close to 10am. We drove out to Palmyra and attended the morning worship service at the Palmyra Grace Brethren Church which is pastored by a friend of mine named Dan Travis (pictured). I didn’t give Dan any heads up that I was coming because I didn’t want him to ask me to preach as this was a Sunday I was committed to being part of the “normal church folk” crowd. Dan and his wife are the leaders of the Israel trips that we are part of and my relationship with him goes back to our youth pastoring days when I was youth pastor in West Milton, OH and he was youth pastor in Wooster, OH.
Dan is doing a tremendous job at Palmyra. Not many years ago the church was down to around 50 people. Today they are pushing 200 each Sunday. In fact, the Sunday Laura and I were there had 13 first time visitors. The service was both refreshing and enriching. Their worship was led by a worship intern who did a very fine job. The song selection was very focused on Jesus and the Scripture reading in between two of the songs was done very dramatically and really prepared us to worship the Lord through the beautiful song, “Worthy is the Lamb.”
Dan introduced his message with a powerful clip from the television drama series, ER. In the clip a dying man demands to talk to someone who can tell him how he can attain forgiveness in light of his imminent death. Dan than shared a powerful message on the fact that salvation is by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ. Afterwards, we went to lunch with Dan and his wife…a great way to end the morning as “normal church folk!”
Since Pastor Tim was preaching on that Sunday and I had no responsibilities as part of that morning, Laura and I decided to attend another church and just be “normal church folk” for a Sunday. On a typical Sunday morning I am up by 6:15am so that I can leave the house by 6:45, stop at the Hess station in town for a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee, and arrive in my office by 7am. The time between 7-9am is spent in quiet preparation for the morning and a meeting with Matt McElravy and the Media Producer for the morning to make sure that every aspect of the service is ready.
But on this Sunday I slept in and spent the morning watching the news on television, browsing through the Sunday morning newspaper, and even taking time to cook myself some breakfast. We didn’t even leave for church until close to 10am. We drove out to Palmyra and attended the morning worship service at the Palmyra Grace Brethren Church which is pastored by a friend of mine named Dan Travis (pictured). I didn’t give Dan any heads up that I was coming because I didn’t want him to ask me to preach as this was a Sunday I was committed to being part of the “normal church folk” crowd. Dan and his wife are the leaders of the Israel trips that we are part of and my relationship with him goes back to our youth pastoring days when I was youth pastor in West Milton, OH and he was youth pastor in Wooster, OH.
Dan is doing a tremendous job at Palmyra. Not many years ago the church was down to around 50 people. Today they are pushing 200 each Sunday. In fact, the Sunday Laura and I were there had 13 first time visitors. The service was both refreshing and enriching. Their worship was led by a worship intern who did a very fine job. The song selection was very focused on Jesus and the Scripture reading in between two of the songs was done very dramatically and really prepared us to worship the Lord through the beautiful song, “Worthy is the Lamb.”
Dan introduced his message with a powerful clip from the television drama series, ER. In the clip a dying man demands to talk to someone who can tell him how he can attain forgiveness in light of his imminent death. Dan than shared a powerful message on the fact that salvation is by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ. Afterwards, we went to lunch with Dan and his wife…a great way to end the morning as “normal church folk!”
2 comments:
Hi Pastor Scott,
You don't know me, but we kind of know of each other. Our dear friends the Burgharts just arrived at your church. Shawna and I have been part of the same home school group for about 5 years now and our girls have been friends with Courtney and Jessica since that time--doing the same birthday party circuit, park days, the beach, and just being kids. It gives us such joy to know that they're under your covering in PA and that they're part of Grace Brethren. See, we were part of Grace Brethren in Atlanta under Pastor Dan Travis b/n 2000 and 2002. Grace Church in Mareitta, to be exact, was a blessing to us. People didn't know us from Adam yet they opened up their homes to us. We did things with our pastor. So opposite of California. That's why we're so excited for Steve and Shawna to be there with you. So, all this is to say, thank you for blessing the Burgharts with this new adventure in their lives. Ever since we found out it was a Grace Brethren church that Steve was interviewing with, we were stoked. Keep on doing what you're doing. And, who knows. Maybe one day the Lord will reunite us all again in PA...our oldest daughter wants to go to Penn State. :) And, congrats on doing the opening prayer at the McCain-Palin rally in Lancaster. My daughters and I volunteer for the OC Republican headquarters here.
under His amazing grace,
Lizz Mishreki
Mission Viejo, CA
Hi, Lizz! Thanks for stopping by and commenting. How wonderful it is that we can have a connection even though we have never met personally but because we both have come to know and love the same people in Christ. I think the world of Pastor Dan and his wife and I am so thankful to the Lord for answering our prayers by sending us Steve, Shawna and the girls. I hope you will come to visit the Travis' and Burgharts some time out here in PA so that my wife and I can meet you as well! Blessings
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