By Pastor Mark Combs I am sitting here by the ocean in North Carolina, on the Day of Pentecost, and I have been thinking. Dangerous stuff, I know. Becky always has a look of trepidation on her face when I start with, “I’ve been thinking. . . .” I don’t know if I was inspired …
Category Archive: From the Pastor’s Desk
From the Pastor's Desk
May 28
From Vicar Amanda’s Desk – June 2013
By Amanda Highben Living in God’s Time: Amazing Grace 2014 “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3.1 Although you might think of yourself as someone who is pretty familiar with St. John’s Amazing Grace Day Camp program, especially as we prepare for our 15th year—which could …
May 08
From the Pastor’s Desk – May 2014
By Pastor Mark Combs Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! You can always tell that Easter has arrived when you hear these words. I am writing this with the memory of the celebration of this past Easter Sunday fresh in my mind. I always feel an electric thrill run through me on …
May 08
From Vicar Amanda’s Desk – April 2013
By Amanda Highben Once you receive this issue of The Chimes, the Church will be more than halfway through the forty days of Lent. Palm Sunday and Holy Week will be near and, with them, Jerusalem and the cross of our Crucified Lord. If you’d hoped and planned to practice a spiritual discipline this Lent-such …
Feb 28
From the Pastor’s Desk – March 2014
By Pastor Mark Combs There is a story that has been around for a very long time. It will occasionally be sent around again on e-mail and internet sites. While I know that we have all heard it before, I have used it before in Chimes articles, it bears repeating. The story goes: A professor …
Feb 10
From Vicar Amanda’s Desk – February 2013
By Amanda Highben “Love is the active outpouring of one’s whole being into the being of another.” - Martin Luther King, Jr. One of the reasons why I appreciate our partnership in Downtown Churches Youth Fellowship (DCYF) is that the leaders work together to develop and implement ideas. As we brainstormed service opportunities for the …
Dec 28
From the Pastor’s Desk – January 2014
By Pastor Mark Combs Frederick Buechner is quite a skilled writer, and several years ago a book of excerpts of his writings was compiled as a daily devotional. I often go to it when I am looking for ideas and illustrations. I would like to share this one with you. It is called Epiphany. The …
Nov 27
From Vicar Amanda’s Desk – December 2013
By Amanda Highben Waiting in Hope “So it is that Advent is not about Mary’s pregnancy but about the church’s continual prayer that God will come (the root meaning of ‘advent’) to us, bringing life to a dying world. Advent in the northern hemisphere is a time to meditate on the darkness in the universe, …
Nov 27
From the Pastor’s Desk – November 2013
By Pastor Mark Combs I have learned along the way that we have some definite expectations of what subjects are acceptable to talk about and which subjects are not acceptable. In public discourse, we are often told that the off-limits subjects are money, religion and politics. We know how often that rule gets broken, but …
Sep 27
From Vicar Amanda’s Desk – October 2013
By Amanda Highben Greetings sisters and brothers in Christ! It’s good to be back in your midst again now that Zeb and I have made it through our first seven weeks of caring for a newborn. Cecilia has blessed and enriched our lives in ways we never imagined, but we’ve also discovered just how much …