Category: Blog Posts

VBS Next Week!
27 Jul
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VBS Next Week!

Our VBS begins next Monday August 3 and continues through Friday August 7 from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM each night. Our theme this year is Operation Space.    See ‘Our Announcement’ page for details for the week and items which are needed to be donated by our people at CHCC for the crafts.  God reaches His people at any and all ages and we at CHCC are making every effort to proclaim the greatness and worth of God to even the youngest.  Please consider bringing your children next week for our space adventure! God loves your children and so do we at Center Hill.

New Children’s Sunday School
22 Jul
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New Children’s Sunday School

We are excited for our children at CHCC.  This Sunday morning we will begin a new ministry targeted toward our children from age 3 through 6th grade.  We are committed to God’s glory and greatness being declared to all ages and to that end we have chosen Children Desiring God curriculum for our new ministry.  Below is a break down of the classes, the age groups, teachers, and beginning series of lessons.  We trust that you will consider committing to having your children at our new Sunday School classes as we are committed to providing your children with the consistent teaching of God’s Word and proclaiming His worth to their generation. He Established a Testimony Themes from the Old Testament for Young Children Ages  – 3 through 6 Teacher – Brandi Rafferty Theme: God has testified of His glorious deeds and mighty power. This curriculum explores God’s greatness by noting key themes found chronologically throughout the Old Testament. Bible stories are not written out; teachers prepare the lesson through the study of scripture using a list of key themes, opening illustrations, and application questions to acquaint children with a great God whose character never changes. The ABCs of God A Study for Children on the Greatness and Worth of God Ages – 1st grade through 3rd grade Teacher – Tammy Felmlee Theme: Right thinking about God is essential for the life of faith. Using the alphabet as a framework for teaching the attributes of God, this study explores the delight that God has in Himself as the source, means, and purpose of all things. Each lesson asks and answers three key questions, “Who is God?” “What is He like?” and “How should I act toward Him?” as it presents a theology of God for children. To Be Like Jesus A Study for Children on Following Jesus Ages – 4th grade through 6th grade Teacher – Sharon Haag Theme: What is salvation? How does someone become a Christian? What does it mean to become like Jesus? This curriculum helps answer these important questions by explaining elements of the Gospel message, its purpose, and promise. A major portion of this study focuses on the doctrine of sanctification – the process by which a Christian becomes more and more conformed to the likeness of Jesus. Come and grow with us in grace and knowledge of Him at Center Hill.

Gideons International with us
21 Jul
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Gideons International with us

This past Sunday morning at CHCC, we were privileged to have a representative of the Gideons International with us for our morning worship service, our own Duane Rishel.  Duane spoke during the morning service sharing the vision and mission of the Gideons.  We are privileged to have Duane as one of our members and to have him be a part of an organization which exemplifies the great commission.  The Gideons are committed to personal evangelism and distribution of God’s Word.  What a lasting ministry having been founded in 1899.  The Gideons have realized that this world will pass away but the Word of God will not pass away, lasting an eternity.  What better place for each of us to be investing our time and resources than in that which will last forever?! Thanks Duane and Gideons International.

NYC Ministries
21 Jul
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NYC Ministries

One of our members, Sharon Haag, is currently on a missions trip to New York City.  She and her sister are serving through the NYC Ministries organization from July 18th thru 24th.  Sharon is involved this week with street evangelism, prayer booths, and sharing the gospel through a ‘religious questionnaire’, literally ‘taking her faith to the streets’.  What an honor for her and an encouragement to us to be involved in sharing and living our faith.   One of the posts on their web site just quoted, ‘ministry is the person in front of you’.  This should be the heart beat of each of us here in our local churches.  May we be so gripped by the grace of our Lord which He has extended to us personally that we find ourselves compelled to speak of that which we have seen and heard. You can check out daily reports from the streets of New York by logging in to NYC Ministries.

How does the heat effect you?
13 Jul
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How does the heat effect you?

It’s summer time but here in western Pa. we haven’t had a ‘hot’ summer yet.  If I have my say, it wouldn’t get above 75 degrees.  So I’m enjoying these temperatures this year, thank you.  However, usually by this time, we’ve seen muggy, thick, humid days that just want to make you stick your head in your freezer and breath deep.   It’s amazing how the heat of summer puts some people, me included, into a lethargic state, longing for the crisp air of autumn. As I thought about this and our new Wednesday night study, How People Change, I realized there is a great metaphor between the summer heat and the spiritual heat of life.  The folks at CCEF, writers of the study guide and book, use a counseling model, taken from scripture, represented by the HEAT-THORNS-CROSS-FRUIT diagram. You must see the diagram to appreciate the fullness of the model but in short the central idea is this. The HEAT is stressors of life i.e. bad drivers, rain on golf day, cancer diagnosis, job promotion, selling or buying a house, anything that causes stress in our life.  The THORNS are the reactions to those stressors, i.e. worry, anger, anxiety, murder, theft.  This is how the natural man, when left to himself, will ultimately react.  When pushed to the limit, we act in accordance with our nature.  The CROSS, is the cross of Christ, which represents the heart transforming grace which God pours out on His children upon our salvation.  The FRUIT is the reactions to life’s stressors after God has transformed a person’s heart, i.e. love, patience, kind words, benevolence. One of the most striking truths about this biblical concept is that the HEAT is the same for all people.  The stressors of life are no respecters of persons.  Everyone faces trials and hurts of life.  We each get the unwanted phone call from the Doctor’s office.  All of our vehicles break down at the most inopportune time.  Every parent has felt the sting of a child’s rebellion.  We all pay taxes.  The HEAT effects all of us alike.  The questions is do we allow the heat to produce thorns or fruit. My neighbor advised me the other day that our tomato plants were not doing well because we haven’t had any hot nights yet.  They love the hot humid nights.  Not so, for yours truly.  The same hot nights that produce red ripe tomatoes also cause irritation in me.  You see the heat is the same, the results are different. So it is with our response to daily HEAT of life.  Are the results of HEAT in your life THORNS or has the heart transforming grace of Christ enabled you to produce FRUIT?  You’ll produce one or the other. Our study continues on Wednesday nights.  Won’t you join us or contact us for more information.

Living Stones
08 Jul
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Living Stones

In our recent sermon series on Sunday Morning, in Ephesians 2, we have been looking at the images that Paul paints of the universal and local church.  One of these images in particular has grasped me, a building or specifically a holy temple for His presence. Also in 1 Peter 2:5-9 we are called ‘living stones’ being built up by the great Builder Himself.  The imagery is unmistakable, God is about the process of building Himself a spiritual building consisting of the saints of old and now, so that we become the manifested pinnacle of His glory to a chaotic and sinful world. ‘Living stones’.  Have we ever considered ourselves as that?  Parts of a larger structure, not drawing attention to ourselves but to the whole.  When the workers were completing Solomon’s temple, the stones were actually cut to shape and size at the quarry and then taken to the temple and placed into position so as not to have noise of the stones and the iron tools at the temple itself.  The stones weren’t making any noise, drawing attention away from the structure.  ‘Living Stones’, each unique in it’s size and shape, being chiseled by the Great Builder and having been placed in position by Him.  The stone doesn’t tell the builder where to place it.  The stone is precisely placed in position beside, under, or above other stones for the purpose of completing the structure.   ‘Living Stones’, shaped and formed to be in exact conformity to the Cornerstone.  The cornerstone of any building is not only the integral part of the foundation but also the basis of all measurements and calculations of every part of the structure; walls, arches, roofs, and doorways.  Without a perfect cornerstone, every angle or cut is wrong, effecting the entire structure adversely.  Ephesians is clear, our Cornerstone is Christ.  We are shaped and conformed to His image. God has chosen in times past to manifest His glory in different ways.  Aside from the manifestation of His eternal power and divine nature in creation (Romans 1), He has chosen His church to be the pinnacle of His glory today.  We are to work out our salvation with trembling and fear and this can only be done in the continual ongoing interaction of His people with one another and with the lost.  How we fit together, how we treat one another, how we draw attention to the Builder and His glory may be the only testimony that many will see of the greatness and supremacy of our God.  How are we doing as a spiritual structure being built by God to display His attributes of grace, mercy, love and truth? Our look at images of the church continues this week as we see the church as a ‘body’.  Won’t you be in prayer for this series and your church, as a reflection of God’s glory to a fallen world?

Outdoor service was a great time!
29 Jun
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Outdoor service was a great time!

Our outdoors service and belated father’s day outing was a great time for everyone.  Thanks to all who made food and homemade ice cream.   Wow, people were eating from noon until 3:00 when most folks were packing up to leave.  Check out the “Our People” page for pictures of the day.  What a great group of people, gathering around God’s word and having as Helen said, ‘good fellowship’. As they say, “we are experiencing technical difficulty” with our online sermon from yesterday but hopefully the experts will have it for us in the next couple of days.  If you are looking for part 2 of the Ephesians 2:19 sermon, it should be up by Wednesday. This is Fourth of July week.  Remember our Independence Day as a nation but also reflect this week on our individual freedom from the bondage and guilt of sin through our Lord, Jesus.  It is He that truly makes us free.  Have a great week celebrating!

Passion and Compassion!
25 Jun
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Passion and Compassion!

God has been impressing me with the need for the local church to have a passion for Christ and His word and a compassion for the world.  Passion and compassion.  A balance which at times is hard to maintain, at least for me anyways.  However, it is not so with my friend, Pastor Keith Richardson.  He has led a team from the First Baptist Church of Clarion to Uganda on a short term missions trip.  They partnered with Alissa Cooper, a Clarion County woman, who has an amazing call on her life to minister to the orphans of Uganda and has dedicated herself to bringing God’s good news to this region of the world by building an orphan’s center. Keith and the team have had what is undoubtedly a life changing experience for them and the people of Uganda.  That is evident from Keith’s blog and his updates from there.  I would encourage everyone to read his posts at www.keithrichardson.com Passion for Christ and His Word and a compassion for people, that’s Keith. Read his posts and as Paul would instruct, ” What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things”.  Thanks Keith for the example.

New message series
22 Jun
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New message series

Today we began a most ambitious series.  For the next two years in our Sunday Worship messages, we will be looking at several different texts to expose God’s purpose, structure, polity, unity, purity, and love for his church universal and local.  We will be using portions of Ephesians, Acts, and the Pastoral Epistles to expose those passages and the truth about something which Christ felt so passionate about that He died for.  Christ is building His church and we labor in vain if we think that it is man’s efforts that are responsible for it’s success.    The church is to be the very pinnacle of God’s glory to the world.  We are to reflect that glory as we find ourselves in conformity to Christ’s likeness and in submission to one another in love. This being done in the community of the local church. Our first message in this  new series revealed that we are part of a new humanity and a new church.  We were dead in our sins and needing of nothing but life and destined to experience the full condemnation of God’s judgment BUT GOD, in His mercy made us alive with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenlies.   As a result, we are members of the church universal.  Upon our belief in Christ’s finished work,  we immediately are members of the church.  Citizens of a new kingdom, members of a new household and as we will see next week, living stones that God is fitly joining together in a building (temple) which He is building.  The church isn’t something we choose to join or not after salvation, it is immediate and as a consequence of our belief. We must always view the church as of highest eternal worth and not simply an organization which tends to man’s needs and is administered as such.  It is precious to our Lord and must be so to us.

Are we there yet?
20 Jun
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Are we there yet?

“Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” – the mantra every parent has come to hate while traveling with anxious kids.  Growing up, our two older kids were only allowed to ask once, if we were there yet or ‘how far do we have, Dad’.  That question just drove me batty and made the car trip longer.  I thought of that statement this week as I was contemplating this past Sunday at CHCC. Our church met with Keith Hillard of Village Missions for the Sunday School hour for an informational update from the mission and to explore a status change between the mission agency and our church.  Village Mission has supplied the last two Pastors at CHCC.  God has used both of the Pastors and the agency to bless the Jefferson County area.  The church has grown numerically and spiritually under their leadership and is poised to take a major step forward in it’s process of following Christ toward the great day of being presented to the Father as Christ’s bride.  To that end, our church has begun a two year building program to expand and update our current facilities. We are in need of class rooms and a larger worship center.  The current fellowship area and class rooms just do not allow us to minister to all those who call CHCC home and our weekly visitors.  It is with great excitement that we look to God for wisdom, provision and unity over the next 2 years.  Many questions have yet to be answered relative the expansion but know this, it is my intention to lead CHCC by seeking the face of God in every aspect of this exciting venture by preaching and teaching God’s Word as final authority and humbly submitting in prayer to His Spirit.   We will begin this week by preaching from Ephesians 2:19-22 and see the similes of our church as new citizens, a new family and a temple.  Christ will be finished with His church, His bride, when He presents her in splendor, blameless and holy without spot to Himself.  We haven’t arrived yet.  He is conforming us to His image daily as we submit to His Word and Spirit leading.  It’s a process. God is at work, not as if He ever stopped, but He is making Himself more and more evident in the local church here in the Brookville area.  It is exciting times to be a member at CHCC.  Won’t you join us or at least pray for us as we continue our journey being conformed to His likeness as indiviuals and His church, ‘cuz, we ain’t there yet.  Now quit your asking’.