Morning worship services are set to resume on Sunday, May 31st at 11am. We are encouraging congregants and visitors who are immunocompromised to worship along with us live from home. ...
The session of our church met on Wednesday of this week. I felt like for the May newsletter it would be prudent for me to update you on our church. This will seem a little scattershot, but there is much to say....
How do we think about plague, sickness, and potential economic devastation? What is it that the Lord could be doing?...
Physical services at Pearl PCA have been suspended for the month of April, including morning worship. The session will re-evaluate whether this suspension of services continues into the month of April. In the meantime, we will be posting new sermons each week and sending family worship guides as well as offering mid-week Bible studies and Sunday School lessons. Please read for more information....
Pearl Presbyterian Church will be instituting changes effective immediately to help mitigate the potential spread of the COVID-19 virus....
Our church is instituting a thorough Child Protection Policy in 2020. Not only do we need to know what those changes are, but we need to know why this is a good and precious thing....
But we should be careful to put music in its place and maintain a healthy perspective on its relationship to our own hearts. The ordinary means God has given us to grow are prayer, the sacraments, and the reading and preaching of the Bible. Let's start there, and build our spiritual health around those things first and foremost....
We as church members may have become accustomed to it, and for many of us it may be the norm, but all of us must admit, the use of grape juice in the Lord’s Supper is an innovation that was introduced by man and not by God. Not only has it been the historic practice of the church, but it is mandated for us in Scripture that we use wine in the Lord’s Supper. What then should we do? ...
Back at the end of September I decided to delete my Facebook account. I hope to mention a few reasons why this was the right decision for me, and then I’ll conclude by reflecting on what I’ve felt and experienced since quitting. I won’t say you should do the same thing, but I will challenge you to consider it....
Yes, the preacher has a responsibility to open the Word of God and say truly what is there, and to do so in a way that doesn’t put you to sleep. And yes he has a responsibility to make the text make sense and to make an earnest application of the text. But we as the sermon listeners also bear a responsibility as well, and it’s a responsibility that I wonder whether we consider all that often? ...
For many of us, the first century time of the Apostles is the most that we really know about church history. We know the book of Acts, and then we know today (and probably a lot of talk about the Reformation)! However, a lot has happened in the remaining 1900 years up until today! And those things that have happened are far more impactful, interesting, and important than many of us may realize....
There is more communication going on in our own day and age than ever, and yet people are also probably reproved less than they've ever been. But true reproof is something that the Bible tells us we should welcome. ...
We are all far greater worshipers than we may give ourselves credit for. The sad truth though, is that it’s often all the wrong things that we delight in and worship. ...
“Every single moment of life that we experience on this planet is tied to eternity.” ...
This month, then, is the one-year anniversary of my installation as the Pastor here. In that time a lot of things have happened in our church family....
We don’t know the full reality of the devastation or the damage. In fact, the roadways are still flooded and impassible in most of the Houston area. FEMA is already talking about the work they will be doing in the Houston area in terms of years, and not months. What can we do, as a church? I’m already getting phone calls and messages from people asking what we, as a church will be doing to help the suffering. ...
Let me suggest that, as a church, there is no quick fix for us to solve the racial problems around us. I do want to suggest, however, that the first step is the same first step that the Apostles took in Acts 6, and that’s listening. When our brothers and sisters tell us that they’re hurting, let’s listen. Let’s hear that. Let’s take it seriously. ...
Most experts seem to agree that an economic boom-bust cycle is not ideal, but it is what we’ve lived with for the last hundred years or so in the United States. I wonder how many of us as Christians have decided to live with a boom-bust cycle in our spiritual lives....
One thing I have noticed is that when a Christian is challenged on the subject of sexual morality, one of the responses that is most common is for the other person to say, “Well the Bible says you’re not supposed to mix threads together, but your shirt is a polyester cotton blend. So you’re a hypocrite and you just pick one rule out of your Bible and ignore the other.” What are we to make of that command?...
Thomas Watson shares seventeen ways that Christians can glorify God in their lives....
Is the author of The Shack right? Is the cross really abuse? Is that a fair way to talk about penal substitutionary atonement? ...
Christian education does not exist in order to just keep the kids (or adults!) busy or even to create a knowledgeable group of people in the church. Rather, Christian education, with discipleship as its goal, exists to produce spiritual unity, knowledge, and holiness among Christians....
We will never fully plumb the depths of God and Who He is. We will never run out of questions. He is an infinite well of joy, pleasure, and mystery....
The year 2017 will be a year of warfare for our souls, as we tangle once again with our old enemies: the world, the flesh, and the Devil. Central to that warfare is the Word of God. ...
Luther was once asked by one of his parishioners why he kept preaching about the Gospel. Why not move on to other things? Luther is said to have responded, "I keep reminding you because you and I keep forgetting."...
Ernest Cline's best-selling book Ready Player One tells the story of a dystopian near-future in which the world has fallen into such depressingly hopeless disrepair that people have no hope for joy in the real world....
"The Lord said to Gideon, 'The people who are with you are too many for me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, staying, 'My own power has delivered me'" (Judges 7:2). As I was working on an upcoming sermon on the book of Judges I found myself amazed by God's power that he showed in crushing the Midianite army with a force of only 300 Isr...
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