I Love Music

“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing.” Psalm 100:1

“Be filled with the Spirit as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs…, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts.” Ephesians 5:19

            OK, I am going to admit it: I love music. I love almost all kinds of music. I love to listen to music. I love to sing music. Music, more than just about anything, moves me—especially when music is combined with words.  And in the Bible there is this assumed connection between music, even singing, and worshiping God. The idea that you could be in relationship with the Lord without a song in your heart seems to be as foreign to the people of the Bible as is the idea that you going for a swim wearing blue jeans.

            Of course, here at Central, we are blessed with incredible music—a fantastic organ, abundant pianos, incredibly talented musicians who can play and sing, a congregation that likes to sing along. And on July 30, we’ll have the chance to spend our worship time singing the songs of the Church—favorite hymns set in the context of the Church year, which begins in November with the first Sunday of Advent, and concludes with the season of Pentecost—“ordinary” time, stretching from the day of Pentecost in the late spring through Thanksgiving.

            I hope that you will sing with us that Sunday. I hope that you will take this opportunity to tell us about some of the things you really like to sing. And I hope, as you go about your life this summer and beyond, that there is music in it—a song that makes your heart sing.

--Pastor Don Steele

United Community

I think many of us remember the Father's Day sermon that Pastor Don gave a few years ago after the shooting in a Charleston AME church- telling us that it was going to take a whole lot of fathers and mothers to change the world into a place where children of all backgrounds can be united together in friendship and common purpose.

Our Vacation Bible School was born out of that call and that purpose- a way for children from diverse churches to come together to experience God's love- learning to live into that diversity as the church. Some have called Sunday morning the most segregated hour of the week- we have worked with our partners from around Summit to make sure that VBS is one of the most inclusive. 

We are excited about our upcoming VBS- working with churches from all over Summit to teach our kids not only about the truths of the Bible in stories. We will be teaching children that they are created in God's Image to love and serve the Lord, God built them for a purpose, it is our Christian vocation to love God and to love others. We are also showing children that we are all made in the image of God. Because we are joining with historically black and Spanish language communities, as well as more evangelical traditions, children are coming from diverse backgrounds and ethnic groups- different traditions- but all united by our love of God. 

We are so pleased to be including Spanish language as part of our week- we will have our posters and rooms in two languages, some of our prayers and songs in Spanish and many of our leaders in kids adding a new voice and language to our VBS tradition. 

In a world where diversity is a growing value- where we recognize the need for diverse voices in business, academics and leadership, where we know that colleges and employees value diversity in every candidate they consider, we are so excited to also work together to build a church community where diversity is honored.  At Central Church we know that when we come together as a diverse people that we better represent God's image- all created in the image of God- it makes me think of how beautiful God must be. 

This year promises to be a great one in Vacation Bible School. We have fantastic music and stories, snacks, games, crafts and gizmos. We have decorations and Bible stories and little reminders of God's love that children will be able to carry with them throughout the year- but beyond all of that, at VBS this year we have a community- a community of churches from different backgrounds and groups- different traditions- all coming together as one to love our children and to teach them about God. 

Children from Kindergarten-5th grade are invited to register as participants, while youth and adults in 6th grade and up are invited to register as leaders. https://vbspro.events/p/events/1475c5

We cannot wait for VBS!

Pastor Deborah

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood! For those of us who grew up with Mr. Rodgers, we recognize the iconic ring of these words and appreciate, the warmth, optimism and assurance offered by Mr. Rodgers during our childhood. This summer we got a chance to travel to Mr. Rodger's neighborhood- to serve where he served, to worship and sing where he worshiped and sang and to meet the people he counted as neighbors in Pittsburgh. Learning to be a neighbor was the focus of our week's reflection and was the focus of our service and everything that we did in Pittsburgh. It was an amazing privilege to get to see how the work of the Pittsburgh Project has steadily worked to serve their neighborhood for the last 30 years. This Sunday at all three of our services we will be hearing from our youth about their experiences in Pittsburgh. 

-Pastor Deborah Huggins

INDEPENDENCE AND INTERDEPENDENCE

The Fourth of July! Independence Day! To be sure, it is a day set aside to remember an event in national history. And yet, so often it seems like we turn it into a statement about our individual lives. The rugged individualist who stands on their own, never needing any help from anybody else, independent—it’s a powerful myth in our culture, fed by stories of pioneers and settlers, entrepreneurs and self-made millionaires—stories that, when you scratch the surface, don’t really hold up as telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The pioneers and the settlers were given land by the government which then funded the development of canals and railroads that made survival possible. The entrepreneur and the self-made millionaire, more often than not, had parents who provided education and an inheritance and valuable connections; a government that provided security and favorable fiscal policies and infrastructure—all of which were necessary for their success. And so, despite the powerful, cultural myth, the truth is that we are not individually independent. 

But there is another story that begins with a declaration from God. “It is not good that the man should be alone,” God declared all the way back in Genesis 2, at the beginning of the Bible. “I will make him a helper as his partner.” And, as that story goes, God made the first woman. Or, in other words, according to this other story, God made us so that we need each other. God made us for community. God made us to be interdependent.

Which is something to remember and appreciate as you watch the fireworks—all the people who contribute to make our lives what they are—teachers and doctors, soldiers and first responders, farmers and bakers and fireworks makers—a human community in which the primary feature of any successful life must be the help that is given to others along the way.

--Pastor Don Steele             

The Birds of the Air

            It was a bit ironic that on Sunday, June 18, we began worship with a passage from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter six, in which Jesus reassures people that they do not have to live overwhelmed with anxiety because they can trust God. And the verse that we lifted up that morning was this one: “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them” (Matthew 6:26). And it was ironic to begin worship that Sunday with that verse referring to “the birds of the air” because during the preceding week, one of those birds of the air—a pigeon, to be exact had taken up residence in Central Church’s Sanctuary. We assumed it flew in through one of the open windows in the Sanctuary, and while we tried to help it to find its way back outside, it found its own way eventually into a large organ pipe from which it could not seem to escape. That Sunday, June 18, a number of organ pipes were still disassembled, removed on the preceding Friday so that the organ tuners could reach the pipe. They were able to set free the pigeon, which flew off from the Maple Street lawn, alive and well.

            Of course, in the passage in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus was trying to reassured people who were worried and anxious. They could trust God, Jesus told them, and he pointed to “the birds of the air” as an example of how God takes care of God’s creation. “The birds of the air” don’t worry. Indeed, “the birds of the air” are presented by Jesus as being pretty passive. God feeds them. God takes care of them. And yet, in many ways in contrast to what Jesus was saying in Matthew’s Gospel about “the birds of the air,” that week, we were not passive, waiting for God to take care of the pigeon. The pigeon needed our help, and so we did something.

            And that leads me to two thoughts. First, from time to time, we all need some help along the way, because we all can get trapped. And, sure, we can spend time blaming ourselves or listening to others blame us for the choices that we made that ended up in us getting ourselves trapped, but what use is there in that? When somebody is trapped, they just need some help, and all of us need some help from time to time, and there does not need to be any shame in that.

And second, from time to time, when somebody is trapped and in need of help, it is our hands through which God helps and feeds and sets free. Indeed, it seems to me that is usually how God works—not through some disembodied miracle, but through human beings, using our hands and our mouths and our minds to help each other along the way.

It is hard to know how the pigeon felt when it flew off that Friday, but I know how I felt. I felt relieved, truly glad that the pigeon was alive and well and free again.

--Pastor Don Steele