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Hi everyone! I trust that you’re all having a good week. The sun is shining bright through my window as I write this morning, which always brightens my spirits. May it bring joy to you as well, wherever you find yourself today.

The day is bright and busy, but in truth, I don’t have any exciting or interesting news to share from the pastor’s office this week. There’s plenty to keep me and the rest of the staff occupied as we gear up for this coming Sunday, manage the usual list of weekly activities, and work on plans for 2026. But not too many things that are funny enough, or surprising enough, or informative enough to fill a newsletter. Hopefully, that will change in the coming weeks, as plans for this quarter and the rest of the year start to come together.

In the meantime, there’s always plenty to pray about. So this week, let me invite you to join us in prayer …

  • Especially for the people of Iran, who continue to face very turbulent and dangerous days against a backdrop of long-term difficulty and governmental dysfunction. Pray for safety, especially for friends and loved ones connected to the Iranian members of our own community. Pray that the protests and broader social concerns will bring about a growing movement of change. Pray for those in power that there will be a softening of hearts and a commitment to what is true and right and just. Pray for the many who love Jesus in Iran, that they will be safe, wise, and a source of light, help and hope to others. And pray for those who are searching for hope but who have not yet found Jesus, that they will be led and drawn to Him.

  • There are many other places in the world where war, violence, disaster, and hardship are at the forefront. Ukraine comes to mind immediately, but we can all think of other lands at risk as well. Again, pray for the current leaders and, where appropriate, for the rise of better leaders. For peace, and provision, and help. Pray especially for our brothers and sisters who must function under such conditions, that they will be protected, provided for, and enabled to represent Jesus in powerful ways. And let’s be in prayer that winds of geo-political instability will calm down and not rise to create even more hardship in the vulnerable places of our world.

  • As always, there are plenty of needs right here at home, too. Everyone in us can name family members, friends, brothers and sisters, and other acquaintances who are dealing with sickness, challenges related to work, need for direction and open doors, practical needs related to housing, and more. Let this note be a prompt to bring the people who come to your mind to the Lord in prayer a little more frequently this week.

  • And please remember to keep our church, its many ministries, and its people in prayer. I’m so grateful for all of you who do this faithfully all the time—in your personal moments with the Lord and in various gatherings. I know we are a praying church. I sense it, and I hear reports about it. I’m so thankful for this! I’m very conscious that, though we all need to put in the appropriate work to make Sunday services and a host of other ministries and activities happen, in the end, these will have no eternal impact unless the Spirit of God is working in us, through us, and in the context all around and beyond us. When God works, there’s an impact. Without His touch, it’s all empty. So, we need to be in prayer about it all. Prayer doesn’t make God do anything. But He loves to respond to our prayers, and He delights in working through us when we realize how much we need Him. So, prayer is an important part of partnering with Him and seeing His hand at work in our community. Thanks for your ongoing prayer for me, for the rest of our staff team, for all our ministry leaders, and for the whole church as we seek to serve our Lord where He puts us.

Thinking of this coming Sunday, I should mention that we’re continuing on the theme of “putting off” the old life and “putting on” the new, from Colossians chapter 3. Last week, we looked at a list of 12 things Paul urges us to leave behind. This week, we have the happier topic of Christlike qualities for us to develop. We’ll focus on 3:12-17, which is a short passage but one that has enough applications to keep us going for a lifetime.

If you want to do some further reading for context, you might find it interesting to read Colossians 3:12-17 and then to compare with Ephesians 4:1-3, 11-16; 4:32-5:2; 5:15-21.   The verses I’ve picked here are the “put on” verses from the parallel section of Ephesians. If you just read straight from Ephesians 4:1 through 5:21, you’ll get a fuller picture of “putting off” and “putting on” in that book, which is similar to Colossians but more mixed together rather than separated into sections. The parallel between Colossians 3:16-17 and Ephesians 5:15-21 is especially interesting. Watch for the way that Colossians phrase “Let the message of Christ dwell in you richly” parallels the phrase in Ephesians to “be filled with the Spirit.”  That’s a subject for a longer conversation, but it’s an important parallel to notice.

Well, I’ve said a lot in a newsletter where I didn’t have much news. Have a wonderful week, and hopefully we’ll see you soon. Richest blessings!
—Pastor Ken