Chuckie's Page

Chuck is the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Kingsville TX. He has served the church in Kingsville for the last 17 years. Below is the weekly newsletter, he hopes you enjoy it!

A fairly good-sized thunderstorm rolled through Kingsville a couple of Sundays back. Besides dropping a nice amount of rain early that morning, lightening from the storm disrupted power in certain parts of the city. One parishioner who lost power was concerned whether the outage had affected the church so he called to find out. The person who had opened up that morning answered the phone and the caller posed this question: “Does the church have power?” He answered in the affirmative.

When I arrived a few minutes later, he told me about the call. I thought to myself, What a great question! Not whether the electricity at the church was on or off, but rather does the church have POWER…

((Power to light the Sanctuary, to run the organ, to make the coffee, to run the air conditioner?)) Power to inspire the members who come to worship, power to recharge them and re-fit them to go out into the world as Christ’s ambassadors, endowed with the power to accomplish that which Jesus Christ has asked of us who are charged to continue building the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth?

In the second chapter of Acts, we read of the Holy Spirit breathing new life into the Apostles and setting their hearts on fire. Such was and is the power unleashed at Pentecost. 

So, the question really isn’t, “Does the church have power,” is it? That’s a no-brainer. The real question is: Does the Church USE THE POWER that it was and is still being infused with? The POWER with which we have all been anointed both individually as members and collectively as congregations of the Body of Christ.

“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20, 21).

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