All are welcome to join us for Church at 10 am on Sunday, September 29.  Sunday School is offered during the service.

This week we are celebrating baptism and new membership. We hope that you can join us.

Here are Rev. Marlene’s thoughts on the upcoming service.

“Prayer is to be Reckoned With”

The title for this week’s passage in James 5 is rather fascinating. I have heard the phrase “reckoned with” used as a threat, but never in regard to prayer. Yet, “believing-prayer” is radical. It “will heal you and Jesus will put you on your feet!” proclaims the Book of James. It has been suggested, that the reference to healing should probably be regarded as a spiritual, and not only a physical blessing.

Christians are encouraged to turn constantly to prayer, whatever the circumstances of their life may be.  The habit of prayer should be, and indeed is, one of the most obvious features of any Christian’s life.  Our God extends to us a standing invitation to draw near, which no experience of joy or sorrow, and no condition of prosperity or adversity can withdraw.

If we ask why James should have chosen Elijah as his sole illustration of the power of prayer of a righteous man, the answer would seem to be that Elijah had come to occupy, in Jewish thought, a unique position among the characters of the Old Testament.  He was regarded as the prototype of the prophet who would immediately prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah; and it is as a second Elijah that John the Baptist is portrayed in the New Testament (for example: see the reference to him in Mark 9:13).

As the earliest of the great prophets of Israel his name had become representative of the entire prophetic revelation, just as Moses was representative of the revelation embodied in the law.  So, it is Moses and Elijah who are found talking with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.  Plus, the fact that Elijah went direct to heaven, without passing through the normal channel of death, had greatly impressed itself upon the imagination of the Jewish people.

Rev. Marlene