Pastor’s Corner – April 2011
About 1930, the Communist leader Bukharin journeyed from Moscow to Kiev. His mission was to address a huge assembly. His subject, atheism. For a solid hour he aimed his heavy artillery at Christianity, hurling argument and ridicule. At last, he was finished and viewed what seemed to be the smoldering ashes of men’s faith. “Are there any questions?” Bukharin demanded. A solitary man arose and asked permission to speak. He mounted the platform and moved close to the Communist. The audience was breathlessly silent as the man surveyed them first to the right, then to the left. At last, he shouted the ancient Orthodox greeting, “CHRIST IS RISEN!” The vast assembly arose as one man and the response came crashing like the sound of an avalanche, “HE IS RISEN INDEED!”
The last twelve months have felt like we have been hit with a bombardment of uncertainty. The pandemic, political unrest, anger, riots, bombings, and brutal killings could have left us all in the smoldering ashes of our faith. And yet, the St Peter community has not only survived, but has thrived as we have refused to yield.
We dutifully shut down to “flatten the curve,” as we were told, but we didn’t stay down long. We were one of the first churches in our conference to re-open. We opened our doors after much planning and preparation, we followed many safety protocols to provide a safe place to worship.
In the meantime, we kept on reaching out to the community through online worship, food drives, drive-through fish fry’s, all the while slowly working our way forward, trying to discover our “new normal.”
By the way, as I finished writing this, it’s important to note, our Sunday School was in session today, and we had 102 members present in our Palm/Passion Sunday worship! As you witnessed this, I hope you took notice of all those who participated today to make this wonderful service happen.
I am so proud of our council, the Brotherhood, the Woman’s Fellowship, and all the ministry teams who have stepped up to make ALL of these things happen.
I feel like we are the one who has stepped on the stage to shout to this whole town, “CHRIST IS RISEN,” nothing can stop us, “HE IS RISEN INDEED!”
Easter blessing to you all!
Pastor Cory