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Dear Friends,

How do you know when sour cream has gone off? This has been an ongoing discussion (aka “argument”) in our house for as long as I remember. Our children don’t agree on this either. It’s a regular discussion because we always have it in our fridge. It would be a remarkably rare occurrence if you opened the Kennedy’s fridge and didn’t find at least one container of sour cream in there. Each and every time we “discuss” if there’s a difference between “best-buy” and “sell-by.” What if it hasn’t yet been opened? And sour cream, by definition, is something that’s already ‘off’!”

Why are we talking about sour cream? One of the difficult things that the book of Amos raises for Christians and the Church is the reality that Israel, the people that God sent Amos to speak to, were “too far gone.” In the last main section of Amos (chapters 7-9), we move into a section that is more clearly stating that judgement and exile “are coming” rather than warnings that it “might come.” That is sobering. For us, 2,700 years later, Amos raises many difficult but important questions, like “How can we avoid getting to such a bad place?” and “How do you know when someone/God’s people are too far gone?”

Amos 8:1-10 gives us some answers. These answer center around three main categories:

• Self-centeredness
• Confession vs Repentance (not actually changing)
• Making God conform to our preferences

I encourage you to take some time this week to read and reflect on God’s Word in Amos 8:1-10. Sometimes God’s Word is hard, but it is always good and for our good. As you read and reflect, pray for yourself, your church, and the Church of Jesus Christ in this world. I look forward to worshiping with you on Sunday.

Yours in Christ’s love,

Pastor Ewan

Dear Friends,

Have you ever left home, the office, or a store only to discover you don’t have your cell phone with you? Or maybe you need to leave home, but you can’t find your phone anywhere. In those situations, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration or overstatement to say that “panic” or “dread” are emotions that many of us feel!

What’s fascinating is that many of us can remember life before cell phones were a part of our everyday life and experience. It used to be normal and stress-free to take a long road trip or go away on vacation without 24/7 access to a phone. Can you imagine now if you were an hour into an all-day road trip, or that you had just boarded a plane, only to discovered that you didn’t have your phone?

Growing up, our family owned a cottage on the remote Isle of Skye, and it didn’t even have a phone inside! We would go there regularly as a family for vacations – to a house that didn’t have a phone! But it gets better. When we, the children, were legally allowed to supervise ourselves (at 16 years old), my parents would regularly leave us at home and go there alone – with no phone! Can you imagine doing that today?Read More

Dear Friends,

I very much enjoy doing pre-marital counseling with couples. It’s a special privilege to be invited into a relationship like that and a real honor to help folks in such a big transition. During this counseling, I always have couples work through a “love-languages” exercise where they, individually, prioritize a list of 8 different options based on their preferences and personality. They also have to “guess” how their fiancé will order and prioritize the same list. In 2o years of pre-marital counseling, I think I have only had one couple who guessed the other’s answers correctly. 99.9% of the time couples get it wrong. This exercise and discovery are always rather unsettling to couples, but I always assure them that everyone does this and that this is exactly why pre-marital counseling is important! The error that everybody makes is to assume that the person they love (and want to marry) loves like they love. Of course, we know they don’t love exactly like we love, but still, we assume that it must be pretty close. This isn’t exclusively a marital dynamic. As human beings, we just have a tendency to assume that others think, love, evaluate, and see things just like we do. Read More