Pastor’s Corner: Difficult Times

August 21, 2019

We’ve known for a while that these are difficult times. How will we live in them?

I will be working with the church boards to create some times when we can share what we know of how to live with challenges. We have a lot of wisdom in our congregation, and we can share that with one another. Some of have lived through wartimes. Some have lived in poverty. Some have experienced racial or gender prejudice. Some have known the effects of impersonal, systematized repression.

Others have known personal loss and grief. Some have been rejected. Some have suffered serious illness or injury. Some have lived with chronic conditions. Some have sought to cope with the chronic conditions of loved ones.

We know what it is to live in hard times.

I hope that we can have one, maybe even two, gatherings in September to share some of the skills, ideas, practices, and prayers we’ve used to “make it through” each day. Look for announcements in The Messenger, The Weekly Chime, and the Sunday bulletin.

It’s also come to my attention that some haven’t heard much of the history of the Christian Church. It’s been nearly two thousand years since Jesus’ followers started gathering in worshiping communities, and they were almost nothing like what we see today. How did we get here? What choices did our ancestors make for us along the way?

We’ll have a four week series on Church History Thursday evenings in September, beginning on September 5. Join us in the Pastor’s Study at 6:30 pm for an hour’s tour of the early and medieval Church, the Reformation, American Protestantism, and the Church in Hawai’i.

There will be a fifth session on October 3 to look at our United Church of Christ: our beliefs, our commitments, and the ways in which we work.

With aloha,

Pastor Eric