Madison Ave. Church of The Brethren

From the Pastor’s Desk

Ever watched a water bug? You know, those little bugs that skate across the top of the water? They are truly amazing. They have long legs that splay out, supporting the weight of the insect’s long skinny body. The bugs never get wet; they simply skate back and forth, constantly searching for whatever it is that they’re looking for! Water bugs don’t live in the water; they live on it. Their world is the shimmering, glassy surface. Beneath them are the depths – of which they likely have absolutely no awareness.

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The Lamplighter
August  2009

From the Pastor’s Desk
I seldom read the comics section of the Sunday paper though there was a time when it was one of my favorite parts. I still like the old “Peanuts” cartoons, though there are only reruns now that Mr. Shultz is gone. I do remember one very old “Dennis the Menace” cartoon in which Dennis was kneeling beside his bed beginning his bedtime prayer. This is how he started: “God, you might want to pull up a chair. I’ve been very busy today.”
I’m not real sure, but I suspect that more than a few of us have had days like that. Well, at least I have! Sometimes I wonder at the extent to which I must certainly try my maker’s patience and His willingness to forgive. More than one day, I confess, I have to agree with Paul’s summation of his daily activities where said in Romans: “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the veil I do not want to do; this I keep on doing. ……what a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
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The Lamplighter
August  2009

From the Pastor’s Desk
I seldom read the comics section of the Sunday paper though there was a time when it was one of my favorite parts. I still like the old “Peanuts” cartoons, though there are only reruns now that Mr. Shultz is gone. I do remember one very old “Dennis the Menace” cartoon in which Dennis was kneeling beside his bed beginning his bedtime prayer. This is how he started: “God, you might want to pull up a chair. I’ve been very busy today.”
I’m not real sure, but I suspect that more than a few of us have had days like that. Well, at least I have! Sometimes I wonder at the extent to which I must certainly try my maker’s patience and His willingness to forgive. More than one day, I confess, I have to agree with Paul’s summation of his daily activities where said in Romans: “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the veil I do not want to do; this I keep on doing. ……what a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

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The Lamplighter
JULY  2009
Editor:  Lillian Geltz

From the Pastor’s Desk
What are our expectations of God? How do we perceive and understand God? Are our expectations and understandings influenced by our familiarity with the Bible or by our desires of how we want God to be and to act? If God doesn’t do what we expect or want, do we just stop believing or trying to get to know him? Have we formed or own opinion of who God is and what we believe by studying the Bible or just by our own wishes and what we want him to be?
Recently in Dallas, a “Husband Shopping Center” opened, where women could go to choose a husband from among many men. It was laid out with five floors, with the men increasing in positive attributes as one ascends the floors. The only rules: Once you opened the door to any floor, you must choose a man from that floor, and if you went up a floor, you couldn’t go back down except to leave the place, never to return.
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