Set Free
Welcome Back!
This Sunday, we’re back to several things at Canonsburg UP Church. We’re back to worshipping at 8:30a and 11:00a – two services each Sunday morning. We’re back with our Chancel Choir singing at 11:00a (practices are back tonight for both Bell Choir and Chancel Choir at 6:30p & 7:30p respectively). We’re also back with our Children’s (Sonshine Station) and Youth Ministry programming between services at 9:45a – with a kick-off presentation in the Sanctuary for students and parents alike.
We’re also back looking at Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia – while we looked at a passage there several weeks ago, we’re now going to go through the entire book over six weeks, one chapter at a time, and I think it’s going to be very valuable. After all, Martin Luther points to this little letter (only 150 verses) as the reason for his conversion and the beginning of the Reformation. And believe it or not, I’ve never preached a series on Galatians before!
One thing to note is that Galatians isn’t written to just one person, or one single church, but to the “churches in Galatia” – it’s written to an entire group of churches in a region. This group of churches were known to Paul and he to them. He had been instrumental in their formation on an earlier missionary journey – they responded to his message and they experienced powerful signs and miracles by the Holy Spirit. People came to faith, worshipped together, and formed communities (churches) that Paul is now writing this letter to.
It’s not all that different from 250 yrs ago, when an eager minister by the name of John McMillan rode out to this Appalachian valley to preach to the early farmer settlers, many of Scottish descent, right here. Not long afterwards, they sent letters back East, asking that they be recognized as churches (Presbyterian, specifically) because of their heritage and ancestry. As it turns out, that’s the same ancestry as the Galatian people that Paul was preaching to and wrote this letter to. Even though he was in modern day Turkey, this “Galatian” people were Celts, having migrated their 285 years before – just like the Celtic (Scotch & Irish) who originally formed the backbone of Southwestern Pennsylvania.
When you think about it that way, you see the parallels, and you can see that there might be even more value for us, at this time, to read this letter and see what God might have to say to us.
And that’s the part we cannot ever forget. Ultimately, we’re not just curious about what the Apostle Paul said to a group of ethnically Celtic people in Turkey, two thousand years ago. What we’re really interested in is how God might use those same words to speak to us, right here, TODAY.
I want to encourage you to take up this little letter this month and beyond. Read the chapter ahead, or read the entire letter each week to give you the full idea, and see how God speaks to you. I’m a big believer that it won’t just be on Sunday morning while I preach for 20 minutes. And even more, that when we put in some time and open ourselves up to God speaking to us, that time gathered together will be even more fruitful and valuable to you and to us.
God’s grace and peace to you as we read Paul’s letter to the Galatians together this Fall!
Welcoming You to Grow in Jesus together,
Pastor Don