News

As some amount of sanity begins to return in these “post-COVID” times, we are ready to resume Friar’s Forum. Since we’ve gained many fresh faces in our congregation over these last several months, an explanation of the event might be in order. Friar’s Forum was (and now will be again) a monthly meetup of men to enjoy food and drink and discuss anything and everything pertaining to the life God calls us to and the enjoyment of the bounty God has bestowed upon us. It also doesn’t have to be just the men of the St. Mark congregation, so invite a friend or two if you’d like. And in any event, we hope you’ll join us at 55 South in Brentwood on June 23 as we resume this monthly fellowship.

The next monthly hymn sing is also coming up next week and brings with it a new hymn of the month to add to our repertoire with a piece of music written in 1530 (words in 1632) called, “O Little Flock, Fear Not the Foe.” We will continue to sing and enjoy Psalm 148, of course. And as a hymn of the month, it was a great success. The writer of this newsletter has witnessed his children singing it randomly and at various times throughout the past month. When your children randomly sing the Psalms — the very word of God — well, you give thanks. We hope that’s been the case for you as well. One of the goals of the hymn of the month is to be a blessing to you. So let us sing and make music together!

Today is Pentecost Sunday and the liturgical color is red to symbolize the tongues of fire which descended upon the Apostles upon receiving the Holy Spirit. This marks the beginning of the Church’s ministry to the world. It’s significant that one of the gifts the Holy Spirit brought to Jesus’s followers was that of communication.

Generally speaking, we, of course, believe in the reformed doctrine of cessationism —simply put, that the supernatural gifts like tongues brought to the early believers by the Holy Spirit have been discontinued under ordinary circumstances. That does not mean we believe the Holy Spirit does not move and work among the church. On the contrary, the work of the Spirit is very much present with us today. And in keeping with the commissioning that the Holy Spirit enabled on this day we celebrate, we will also be commissioned — as we are each Lord’s Day — to go forth from our worship this day and communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ through our lives, our work, our actions, our speech, and our entire being. The Spirit working within us is what enables us to do this. And it is through the means grace, like the meal we share this day with Christ in the communion of His Body and His Blood, that the Holy Spirit works in us to fulfill our commission. And that is what we celebrate this day. So let us keep the feast!

You may recall that in previous newsletters, we mentioned the Pyle family who lost their home and possessions to a fire in the bad winter storm that swept through the country. One of the things that Eric Pyle supports and promotes is the mission work for multiple new Presbyterian church plants in Tanzania. These faithful brothers and sisters have recently left their previous denomination due to its liberal leanings and are seeking support from conservative, reformed churches. God is clearly doing a work as we received a report that a few Sundays ago one of their churches baptized 26 people!

Of course one of the ways you can help is to pray for them, for the gospel ministers involved in this work, and for the perseverance in the conservative principles God is calling them to. The deacons are also discussing ways we can help financially and you can speak with Brian for more information about that. They have several financial needs.

One of these financial needs you can be praying for is for restoration of the homes of those at Bweri Nyabange Presbyterian Church. Strong rain and winds caused significant damage to 3 family’s homes. Praise the Lord no one was hurt but they are in need of repairs. Pray for our brothers and sisters there.

This week concludes Brian’s Sunday School class based on the book, a Theological Interpretation of American History. This means, of course, that we needed to look for a new study topic for Sunday mornings. So we decided that for the next two weeks, Abe will lead our Sunday Morning Sunday School, and then on May 30th, Pastor Thacker will begin a Sunday School study into Covenant theology.

Because God relates to his people through covenant, we believe such a study brings many benefits and helpful understanding — particularly as our culture drifts further and further away from a covenantal understanding, and becomes more focused on God as having individual relationships with individual people only. And yet one of the most important aspects we see of God is that he has always had a people with whom he has established a covenant. This starts at the beginning of creation even with Adam as we see the first covenant promise given to him in Genesis.

There is much to learn and we hope you’ll make plans to join us each Sunday in June and July (tentative length of this study) as we look at how covenant shapes our understanding of scripture and how God relates to his people in history, and yes including even us, His people now.

As we renew our singing efforts today with the hymn sing and hymn of the month, we wanted to provide you with tools for continuing to learn and practice and grow in your singing and learning parts. So on the website, in a “members” area, we have both the music sheet and some practice tracks for you to download. As we move forward, we’ll try to provide these for each hymn of the month, but based on copyrights and licensing terms we may not always be able to do that. This month, we can because the licensing agreement from Crown and Covenant for Psalm 148 from the Book of Psalms for Singing permits it. However, we do ask that you keep this within our congregation and not share it with others.

All that out of the way, here is where you can get these tools:

stmarkreformed.com/members

On that members page, each month, hopefully, more resources will be posted. Hymns of the month are organized by month so just follow the links.

We hope the music and practice tracks will be a blessing to you in whatever way you and your family can use them as we put in the work to sing to the Lord and to one another both joyfully and skillfully.

Today is the fourth Sunday of Easter. We often think of Easter as that one Sunday in the year that follows Good Friday where we have flowers in the sanctuary and take pictures of ourselves in our nice clothes, and we (rightly) say to one another, “Christ is risen,” and hear (again rightly) the refrain, “He is risen indeed!” However, Easter is not over. During the rest of the Easter Season, we continue the story of God’s magnificent salvation of His people. Right now in the story, Christ has not yet ascended to the Father and we, knowing the rest of the story, look forward to His ascension and commissioning of His people with great anticipation. In the meantime, we remember the glorious days that changed everything as we recall with awe that Christ rose from the dead. This was, no doubt, a source of continued joy for Christ’s apostles, who had only just a few days ago considered Him dead and gone. And now, here was Jesus, the Lord, with them for forty days.

Of course, like every Sunday, we celebrate Christ’s presence with us, even today, in the body and blood, the divine food Christ shares with us. And Easter made this possible. Christ is, indeed, risen! Therefore, let us keep the feast. Alleluia!

We’re excited to announce that in two weeks time, on May 2 at 9:45 AM during our Sunday School time, we’ll be resuming our monthly Sunday morning hymn sings. In the past this time has been vital to our congregation as we learn and prepare new material to add to our arsenal of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We are told in many places in scripture how vital singing is. See, for instance, Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3. In fact, Colossians 3:16 says: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Singing, and singing well, is important in the life of God’s people.

To that end, we’re introducing a new element to our hymn sing: the hymn of the month. The way it will work is this: at the end of every hymn sing, we’ll take some time to learn the hymn of the month, breaking down the various parts. And we’ll give you a good handle on how to sing it. Then we’ll also sing it at the end of Sunday School each week to keep it fresh. We’ll also provide printed copies of the music so you can take it home with you and sing and practice as individuals and families as you are able and desire to do so.

Over the coming months, we believe this will equip the congregation of St. Mark for our duties to God in worship and praise.

If you follow Jamie Soles on Facebook, you may have seen a video he shared of the RCMP (Canadian police) taking over and physically fencing off Grace Life Church — a Reformed Baptist congregation in Edmonton, Alberta Canada — to prevent access since they have been meeting “in an unsafe way.” Needless to say, this is of great concern to our Canadian brothers and sisters in Christ. Please keep this congregation (and others in Alberta) in your prayers as they seek guidance and direction from the Lord on how they should act, when they should act, what they should say, and more.

This week, we’d like to draw your attention to the ministry Hope Russia. We’ve had Founder & President of Hope Russia, Rev. Blake Purcell, speak at St. Mark more than once and the ministry is one we encourage folks to support. The last time Rev. Purcell was with us, the Drapers had him in their home, and Denise McLain was able to record a video of some of the stories he shared about the work they are doing. You can go to stmarkreformed.com/blake-purcell to be taken to that video to hear and learn more. The work and ministry is worthy of your support if you are so led. And certainly support them in your prayers as they pursue the work of making Christ known in this largely Godless country.

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen! The grave could not hold Him and because that is so, He has secured the forgiveness of our sins so that we may live forevermore with Him!

A very special thanks goes to the Sadlers for our floral arrangements this morning to help brighten up our worship area.

And we’re also happy to report that Phil and Leslie did close on their home in a timely fashion as we prayed would happen. And now comes the fun part: moving. They’re looking for volunteers to help with the moving on Saturday, April 17. We hope to have more details as that date approaches.

As some of you may know or remember, just before all the COVID craziness, we had started a men’s choir but had to drop that for a while during our time looking for a place to meet and our transition to TCA. As we look to the future, now more than ever our warfare through music is of great importance. With that in mind, we will be picking up men’s choir rehearsals again starting on April 11.

We hope you have a happy Easter with your friends and family as we celebrate the resurrection of Christ!

Today on Palm Sunday we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry. In Bible times, palm branches were a symbol of victory and could be found on coins and important buildings. We read in 1 Kings 6:29 that Solomon carved palm trees into the walls of the temple. It was symbolism the Jews were well aware of when they spread the palm branches on the road before Jesus. We know the rest of the story: how Jesus’ triumph looked very different from what those spreading the branches pictured. Nevertheless, we celebrate the triumphal entry precisely because of Jesus’ triumph over death.

This week is known as Holy Week as we lead into the Easter celebration. We will hold our traditional Maundy Thursday Agape feast on April 1. “Maundy” comes from the Latin word mandatum, or commandment, reflecting Jesus’ words “I give you a new commandment.”

We then proceed to the Good Friday Service of Darkness as we “tell the story” of Holy Week and enter into this dark period between Jesus death on the cross and His rising again from the grave that could not hold Him.

Holy Week culminates with the celebration of the resurrection of our Savior! We celebrate this every week, but we mark this time of year in the Church calendar to culminate the telling of the story. Christ is Risen!

Every now and again, we like to highlight some ministries so that you might know how to be praying, and if God lays it on your heart, where you might direct any gifts above and beyond the tithe. This week, we’d like to draw your attention to Peru Mission. They plant churches, provide Christian education to children, help at-risk children, and much more in Peru. They are a commendable ministry and you can learn more about them at perumission.org.

Ministry and mission happens both abroad and nearer to home. The church in Bristol, TN continues to wage both spiritual, and unfortunately a somewhat physical battle with the forces of evil bent on destroying unborn human life. Erica, who helps lead a lot of the protests of abortion, was attacked and thrown to the ground some time back. The lawsuit to bring justice to this situation was, unfortunately, dismissed. A case involving violence against another in their ranks, Sammy, is ongoing. Pray that justice can be brought out of the clearly corrupt court systems there in Bristol.

And to end this newsletter out on a more positive note, we’re thankful to hear that Phil and Leslie are nearing the closing of their new home purchase. Pray that the process will continue without problems and will go smoothly for them so that the closing can proceed at the end of March, as planned.

We’re thankful for the report that Jim and Misty are recovering well from COVID and are getting back into the swing of things and their normal routine. Sickness of any kind can be disruptive to life and means of income, and COVID carries it’s own set of challenges. So we’re thankful for this report.

We’re also thankful this week to have a few of the Sensings with us. Before they moved away from the area they were members of St. Mark and a big part of the life and work of the church here and we’re happy to worship with them once again this week.

Speaking of the life of the church, the Drapers will be hosting their monthly fellowship and hymn sing for March on the 26th. This event starts with food and general fellowship at 5:30. You’re welcome to bring a dish to share, or just come and enjoy the food provided. The singing begins around 7:00 with a mixture of psalms put to tune from various sources, and the great hymns of the faith from the church’s rich musical history. And occasionally, there’s also a chant pulled from the Sunday liturgy.

And just a bit of housekeeping so we can be good guests at TCA: remember to keep any food or drink in the large room we worship in, or in the foyer just outside the room. Classrooms should not have food in them and should generally be considered off-limits. This will help us keep TCA in good shape.