Victory Transformation

Immediate Opening. Looking for a Barn Worker / Manager. This position includes the opportunity to board your horse on site for free plus receive compensation f...or doing chores morning and night at one of Northern and Central New York's premier Equestrian centers. Facility is located in Phoenix New York. Contact Maureen Caprara today at 315-783-5400. See more

Rory Concannon was a beloved member of the Victory family and unfortunately passed away earlier this month. On Tuesday, January 5th we will be having a memorial service for him at Victory from 5-7. Please feel free to bring memories, a dish-to-pass, and, of course, guitars.

Follow the Science to Bethlehem For the 26 December 2020 edition of The Palladium-Times Respectfully submitted by Kit Swartz, Contributing Columnist Just belie...ve is a familiar refrain at this time of year. Christmas is all about believing but faith must have an object. Faith without an object is dead, being by itself. But then the object must be able to bear the weight of faith and the expectations that faith generates. Faith in Santa Claus must have its expectations fulfilled in presents under the tree on Christmas morning. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and you will be very pleasantly surprised to find out who he really is. Our culture believes in science because it fulfills our expectations of good things. We had faith in our medical scientists to develop a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus and they exceeded our expectations by developing numerous vaccines that are very safe and highly effective. We honor these skillful and diligent people and thank God for His gifts to them and to us through them. May we all gather together to sing the Lord’s praises long before this time next year. Science means knowledge and, more particularly, the method by which we know things. We know things by observation and scientists are those who observe things in a very focused way in order to know very particular things to a very high degree of confidence for many useful purposes. To have faith in science, observations must be confirmed by multiple, independent and trustworthy observers. And observations thusly verified must then be communicated in a faithful way to those who should believe in these results. Scientific journals accomplish such communication. In the natural sciences, faith requires peer review. Fellow scientists conduct the same experiments in the same manner and observe the same events in the natural world. If the same things are observed by all these scientists, then we may believe what they say they have seen. If different things are observed, we cannot yet have faith in the observations and the conclusions that may be drawn from them. In historical science, including law and journalism, faith requires multiple witnesses to the same past event, whether living persons, written documents or physical artifacts. Historians, lawyers, detectives and journalists seek multiple and various testimonies from original observers. Courts consider many and various witnesses of a crime so that a verdict (truth spoken) may be believed to be true and a sentence may be believed to be just. Christmas is all about science. It is not an empty call to just believe in anything or nothing. It is not a call to believe in a fictional character or story, however uplifting, instructive and entertaining it may be. It is about hearing the testimony of multiple witnesses so that we can reasonably believe the truth that Jesus Christ came into the world to take away our sins by His death and to give us His righteousness by His life, all of this begun in His extraordinary birth. All of these things about Jesus have the testimony of multiple, independent, trustworthy witnesses faithfully documented in the whole of the Bible. Bearing false witness was strictly prohibited (eighth of the Ten Commandments) and severely punished in the Bible. This biblical rule and practice are classically scientific: on the basis of two or three witnesses, every fact is established. Eyewitness testimony is much more reliable than is often allowed, nevertheless, when you have three different eyewitnesses saying the same thing about the same event, you can believe that what they say is true. Follow the science like the magi followed the star. St. Luke is widely regarded as an excellent historian. He declares his intention to be so in the first chapter of his Gospel and demonstrates it very fully therein and also in his second volume, The Acts of the Apostles. At the end of John’s Gospel, he explains that he has recorded all of it so that his readers would have reason to believe in Christ for salvation. Peter is explicit when he says that he and other apostles did not tell clever stories about Jesus but things that they observed; they were eyewitnesses of the majesty of Christ. The Christmas narratives at the beginning of Matthew and Luke and, in a different form at the beginning of John’s Gospel, are the results of faithful historical science; the faithful testimony of faithful witnesses faithfully preserved for us so that we would believe in Christ and be saved. The Bible is the assured results of historical science worthy of faith that leads to hope that results in love. Follow the star to Bethlehem; follow the science to Jesus. Know Him, trust Him, love Him, serve Him. Joy to the world! Come, let us adore Him! Merry Christmas! Questions about Christian faith and life, comments about this column and prayer requests are welcome at oswegorpc@hotmailcom or (517) 630-6325. Kit Swartz served the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Oswego as Pastor-Teacher for almost forty years. Join our congregation for worship, 10 AM Lord’s Day (Sunday) mornings, 154 City Line Road and meet our new Pastor-Teacher, Gabriel Wingfield. Pandemic hygiene is practiced and required. See www.oswegorpc.org or Google rpcna1 for streaming worship services and other resources.

If someone is in need of winter hats, coats, mittens for their children. This is an amazing store and community.