Audio Archives of 
Worship Services

We invite you to listen to our services online.   Click the Audio Archives link and then select the service by date. Enjoy the music, scripture lessons, mission moment and the sermons.  You can listen to them once, or download them to your computer to keep them so you can listen to them over and over.    Please note:  Resources for semon lesson may have been borrowed from various places but to maintain integrity of the sermon they may have not been referenced or credited. Contact the minister for more information. Audio Archive Link

Church Activities for Week of June 28   Monday Prayer Time - 10a Budget Committee - 7p   Tuesday Administration Committee - 7p Book Club Discussion - 7p   Thursday - July 2 Ecumencial Food Pantry   Friday T.O.P.S. - 10:30a Office Closed

Pastoral Letter to Parents When I was a little girl growing up in Edgerton, Minnesota, I do not ever recall waking up on Sunday morning and asking, “Are we going to church today?”  I don’t ever recall hearing my parents discuss on Saturday night any option other than Sunday School and Worship for the following morning.  It was the expected norm.   Now, to be sure, I do not remember much of what I heard during my childhood years in church.  Some of it sunk in but the vast majority of the time was making dolls out of my peppermints and the hanky that carried them, counting all the planks in the wood cathedral ceiling, poking my brother, getting wilting looks from my mother when we giggled too much.  It really wasn’t until high-school that I started thinking about my faith and what it might mean for my future life.    What fashioned and shaped me in the faith was not so much the content I received but the context in which it was given.  When the time came for me to wrestle with issues of my own faith, I didn’t have to do it in a vacuum.  I had years of seeing the scriptures opened and reverently read aloud each Sunday.  I had years of hearing and singing church music; everything from Dutch Psalms to modern Hymns.  I had years of sermons preached, not so much for their content, but for the model that God had a word to speak to us.  Add to that Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, Christian School, Youth group and I had a pretty good storehouse to draw from.    I have to admit that I am confused by the lack of children in worship on Sunday.  Some come to Sunday School and then leave immediately after.  Some are not coming on Sundays at all.  I wonder, why are children’s spiritual lives are less important than their mental and physical lives.  How are children supposed to make sense of the deepest stirrings in their souls?  Now I know some of you are thinking, “Bonita…children don’t have the cognitive skills for worship.  They cannot understand the complicated concepts in scripture, they can’t read hymns and basically church is boring for them!”  I agree.  But whoever said that worship is a purely cognitive experience?  Who says we are here for entertainment?  Where did we get the idea that worship needs an adult mind?  Jesus welcomed children.  He took them into his arms.  It doesn’t say he taught them anything!  He just made a connection with them.  That was all that mattered.    I am concerned because our children are not in church.  We are short-changing their spiritual future.  We also are short-changing our future.  I woke up this morning feeling a great burden for the children.  I cannot get them off my mind.  I wonder why they don’t come.  I cannot change society.  I cannot give parents more time or energy.  All I can do is encourage parents to get involved in developing the spiritual part of your children.  Check your priorities.  Come to church.  Communicate with the worship leaders on how we can help.  What do you need that is lacking now?  I need your input.  Let’s work together so our children are not deprived.   In Christ, Pastor Bonita