Month: February 2023

“I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray; no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died.” (D.B., Life Together)

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Here are two pictures from the Chattanooga Community kitchen sent to me by Richard Johnson. Our church regularly helps the homeless with food preparation. However, this month we helped the Kitchen with a new steam deck. Richard sent these photos with a brief comment:

So here it is! Mission Accomplished! Thank you, church, so much for all your help and support for this ministry. 

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Our Pathfinder Club led during both services last week. Look how great they looked on the platform:

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Clifford Goldstien, adult Bible Study Guide editor and host of Hope Channel’s “CIFF!” will be our guest speaker this Sabbath. Clifford, who grew up a secular Jew in Florida, accepted the Adventist message in his early 20’s and has now worked at the General Conference Seventh-day Adventist Church Headquarters for 35 years as an editor of various church magazines. Goldstein has authored hundreds of articles and multiple books on religious liberty, prophetic interpretation, and creation vs. evolution, among other topics.

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Unfortunately, I will stay home as I have not fully recovered from the flu which has also caused me to lose my voice. I do not want anyone else to get sick. Thank you for your prayers and text messages. I appreciate each one of them.

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Our pre-nominating committee has not yet finished its task. Names, recommended for the Nominating committee will be in the bulletin next week.

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This week our children had an early (Stacey will not be here in March) celebration for Galena’s 60th birthday. Galena had a blast with all of her grandchildren at High Point in Chattanooga. See her jump off one of highest points in the kid’s section 🙂

Happy Sabbath, everyone!

pastor Peter

A new born baby comes into this world to grow and to learn. As Christians we are to be born of the Spirit of God. With this new birth comes our spiritual growing. We learn how to walk as the children of God. We learn how to act in a Christ-like manner. Our “new born” life is now controlled by the genes of the Spirit. We show kindness, love, and grace. These are the indicators that our old nature is gone. A new person is born. Babies fall as they learn to walk. They may have black bruises on their heads because of their painful learning lessons. However, they never stop learning. They keep growing and changing. Are you seeing the signs of the genes of the Spirit growing in you? “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor. 5:17)

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The Oaks seventh-grade classroom and the Discipleship Sabbath School Class had a wonderful time
celebrating Valentine’s Day together! Since our Sabbath School class meets in the 7 th grade classroom,
we have “adopted” these students as our prayer partners; sharing time together, getting to know them,
and encouraging them.
In the Fellowship Center today the Discipleship class members got together with the seventh grade class
for a fun time. We provided the supplies for the students to make special hand-made Valentine’s Day
cards. Each student selected a few individuals they felt would benefit from a special note of love and
encouragement, such as grandparents and some of our older members who are unable to come to
church. They made cards especially for them. It was great to be with our prayer partners as they had fun
making the cards.
After making the cards, we had haystacks, cookies, and cupcakes. There surely was not much food left
over! The Discipleship Class has had a grand time getting to know our prayer partners better. We hope
that each student knows that we care about their concerns and that we are praying for them. (Mike Harrell)

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Our ministry at the Chattanooga Community kitchen is active and growing with every month. I am excited to let you know that our church purchased a new steam deck for this ministry. Here is what Richard Johnson shared with me a couple of days ago:

So first of all, I received good news this morning that the steam deck is in and I have to figure out if it will be tomorrow or next Monday to deliver it to them. I want to thank the church for the strong support for this outreach to our community. They are just overwhelmed by this act of kindness and I pray it plants good seeds for the future. And I also distributed 10 blankets and 18 care packages and had to sadly turn people away. I also had a talk with a man and learned what they really need. He said any thing to repel rain like a shower curtain or any type of material to stay dry. 
… These people were so thankful for these gifts of which I put literature of love and hope with in. 

So I just left from going down and handing out rain ponchos and shower curtains. The Lord led me to two individuals. One was a worker who said that the service center there needed shower curtains. She needed 8 which I gave her. 
The other was a gentleman who was at one time on the streets but has a burden for them. He really gave me a lot of insight on what goes on there. 

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Last Sabbath we celebrated Don’s and Joshua’s baptism. It was truly touching to see a father and son joining the Lord’s family together. I forgot to mention during the service that the day before, Joshua celebrated his 17th birthday!

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Jack Phillips had a great seminar all day Sabbath. It was practical and Christ centered. The seminar continued last Wednesday and will go on for two more Wednesdays, February 22 and March 1.

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See you tomorrow.

pastor Peter

Many of us do not have friends or family living in Turkey and Syria. These two countries are far away from us. However, the events of these last few days made me feel very closely connected with the suffering people of these countries. From what we have heard so far the sudden earthquake killed close to twenty thousand people. Those who survived are devastated by the loss of their loved ones. Many of them lost their family members and their homes. This earthquake showed us once again how fragile this world is. We may be of different faiths, cultures and political systems, but the pain is the same for all of us. We have to learn to love, to support and to pray for each other. Politicians succeeded in dividing our world, but as God’s creation we need to learn how to stick together. Please, remember to pray for the suffering people of Turkey and Syria.

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The Widows Ministry had a wonderful event last Monday. Forty five ladies came together in the Fellowship hall of our church to eat, to talk and to encourage each other. I had the honor of speaking to the group about the power of God’s giving love. All the tables were nicely decorated with red and pink colors reminding us about the beauty of love. I wish I took a few more photos, but here is one:

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The Young at Heart group had their monthly lunch on January 31. Here is a brief update from Willis:

“We had 16 people at our luncheon today. I got some gift CDs and a book and the one thing that was requested for the future was witnessing tracks. Everybody thought that would be a really great gift to receive so we’ll pursue that. Thank you to the 16 people, we had a good time. Next month we are meeting at the Olive Garden just off of Gunbarrel”

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A big Sabbath is ahead of us. Our guest speaker from It Is Written, Jack Phillips, will preach two different sermons for our 9 AM and 11:30 worship services. You are invited to stay for Potluck after the second service.

An important practical seminar on friendship evangelism will take place right after potluck. I hope many of you will join the seminar and will benefit from it. Christ needs us as His disciples.

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This week our daughter Stacey, who lives in Arizona, is visiting us with her two precious sons. The photo below is just a glimpse of the great time we are having with all four of our daughters. (Not all grandchildren are in this picture.) I hope we’ll take a full family photo later this summer.

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Happy Sabbath. I plan on seeing you tomorrow.

pastor Peter

“The “show business,” which is so incorporated into our view of Christian work today, has caused us to drift far from Our Lord’s conception of discipleship. It is instilled in us to think that we have to do exceptional things for God; we do not. We have to be exceptional in ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, surrounded by sordid sinners. That is not learned in five minutes.”  (OCC)

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matt. 16:24)

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Crystal Janson, our Bible Instructor, is going full speed in her responsibilities. She has already engaged many of our church members into starting Bible studies with the people living in our local communities. This week she shared a story with me which I believe may encourage you to join our Evangelism ministry team. Here it is:

“I have a new prayer request. It is for a lady named Terri Moore. Jeanne Klinner and I went to her house last week and she told us she was Baptist and she wasn’t interested and she did not believe what Seventh-day Adventists believe, I was very pleasant with her, and gave her a book called “Four Winds” by Kenneth Cox, and I put my phone number in that book and said if she ever needed something or changed her mind to give me a call. She called me yesterday and said that she was very moved by my kindness, and Jesus told her that she needed to call me back and that I had something that she needed to hear, so Jeannie and I are going on Monday at 4 PM to start the first lesson with her.
Thanks, Crystal Jenson.”

This is not all…here is what Crystal shared with me a couple of days ago:

“… the next part of that story happened last night, Jeanie and I  went to Terri’s house last night and Terri was so open and friendly and genuine, we had a wonderful time together and she said that God had also reminded her that she had been asking Him for Christian friends, and He said to her “Well, I sent 2 to your door and you sent them away.” and then she said “I’m so glad you guys came back, see you next week!”

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I was honored to speak for the OAKS chapel this morning. We have a great school. Here is a couple of photos from this morning.

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Next weekend, February 11, we will have a guest speaker and our emphasis will be on Friendship Evangelism. There will be an afternoon seminar after the church potluck that Sabbath. Please note that there is NO POTLUCK tomorrow, February 4.

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Happy Sabbath,

pastor Peter