PastorPage
From Plymouth
Contents |
Pastor's Meditation
Pastor Marilyn Allen
Voyage of Renewal
Marilyn's Meditation
Notes from the Journey..... Psalm 121:3 "He will not let your foot slip." (At least not if you are careful to step over the boggy spots on the moor.)
Greetings from Iona, Scotland, though I hope to be safely back in Oregon by the time you read this.
The weather has been cool, windy, and unexpectedly sunny since this group of pilgrims arrived by ferry on the island on Saturday, April 12. The long pilgrimage hike to various sacred places on Tuesday has been the highlight for me, except for the occasional slip in the mud, once above boot-top (see the above reference to bogs.)
Among the 40 or 50 participants and staff are people from across the UK (England, Scotland, Ireland), from Canada and Australia, Holland and Germany, and several from the United States. We pray every day for peace, for an end to violence, for wholeness and reconciliation. Somehow it seems more possible when you are praying with people from around the world.
So let us all pray and work for God's true peace among us, within us, and around the world.
Shalom,
Pastor Marilyn Allen
Link to recent sermons by Pastor Allen
Interim Pastor Chuck Falconer
As some of you are aware, I brought with me when I came this time, a stitchery piece by Helen Purkerson. She created it in 1983 prior to the fire in Hutchison Hall and it hung in the office during my second interim here. We used it as a theme at the close of that interim time. It contains the text of Ecclesiastes 3:1 – “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” The Bible text continues – “A time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted…. A time to weep, and a time to laugh….”
My coming for the third time to Plymouth Church is another one of these seasons. It has been a season for Pastor Marilyn to pause in her ministry and reflect and renew. And I am grateful for the time that I was able to spend here being your temporary pastor. I have enjoyed getting reacquainted with those of you I knew from my previous interims here and getting to know those of you who have joined Plymouth Church more recently. We have shared some fun times and some sad times, some thoughtful learning times and some moments of prayerful decision making. I have enjoyed preaching and teaching and visiting and even the committee and session meetings.
Now this season is over. By the time you read this, Jan and I will be in Colorado enjoying old steam train rides on an Elderhostel program and then a visit with my sister. And Pastor Marilyn will have returned.
The season of life and the season of a church, come and go. Let us rejoice in them and enjoy them and find God’s purpose in them. May the Lord’s richest blessing be upon you and Plymouth Church!
Pastor Chuck Falconer
