Troupsburg United Methodist Church

IT’S BACK! Troupsburg UMC will be having a chicken barbecue on Saturday April 24th from 11:00-12:30 (or until sold out). Drive thru only. Halves will be $7 each. (Sorry, no dinners at this time.) To pre-order call 525-6382 by 4/21. Also mark your calendars for our next chicken barbecue around Memorial Day!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Today I read the following verse: Show respect for all people. 1 Peter 2:17a I honestly wish more people would remember this. As I think back to 20 years ago or even 10 years ago, people seemed to be much more respectful of each other than they are today. We used to be far more understanding of each other...even if we disagreed. Now if people disagree, sadly it is common to see them get downright nasty or even resort to violence. People stop speaking to each other for reaso...ns that, in the grand scheme of things, are trivial. SO WHAT if we disagree? SO WHAT if people are different? I was always told while I was growing up that if we were all the same then the world would be a pretty dull place. There is strength in diversity in many forms, including ideas. Resorting to an attitude of tribalism only hurts everyone and comes from a place of fear and anger. Saying or displaying things that are disrespectful and beyond rude may be within a person’s constitutional rights but that doesn’t mean it is the decent or respectful thing to do. That kind of thing used to be frowned upon by society and I believe for good reason. Now all too many people think it’s perfectly ok to be rude, disrespectful and vulgar and even think it’s funny to do so to antagonize others. WHY? Is that REALLY the kind of world we want to live in? What good can come from it? There is far more good that can come from people respecting each other and being decent human beings. After all, that is what God calls us to do. See more

This week I will be preaching about ways we can all show love to our neighbors. Jesus tells us the greatest commandments are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). This opens up the question: who is our neighbor? Different people would offer different answers to that question. That’s understandable, especially in a world that is so incredibly polarized as ours is today. We’d like to think of our n...eighbors as being only the people who are like us. Jesus tells us otherwise. In the eyes of Jesus, EVERYONE is our neighbor. Perhaps if we started treating each other as our neighbor the way Jesus wants us to, the polarizing hatred that is poisoning our nation would begin to go away. Maybe civility would be more common again. Maybe we could take a drive without seeing signs and flags with vulgarity on them that our children also see and read. Maybe we could turn on TV or social media without hearing constant bashing and mudslinging of other people. Maybe, if we treated each other as neighbors the way Jesus calls us to do, people wouldn’t feel so full of anger and resentment all the time. How different would our world be then? We have nothing to lose by trying it and everything to gain. Try it by doing something kind and helpful for a neighbor (remembering our neighbor is anyone we meet), see if God surprises you with the results. See more

Here is something to ponder: As of today, over 431,000 Americans have died from Covid-19. If every single name appeared on television for one second each, that would be over 431,000 seconds. That is 7,183 minutes, which in turn is over 119 hours. That is 4.98 DAYS if the names were shown 24 hours per day. Each person was someone’s parent, grandparent, child, sibling, cousin, spouse, or friend. This is not a political issue. It never has been. This is human decency issue. Every single one of us needs to do all we can each day to rid the world of this pandemic. Ignoring it or pretending it isn’t a thing simply because we are tired of it or don’t want to be inconvenienced won’t make it magically go away. Let us pray for the compassion we need to love and care for each other the way God intended.