Pastor Weekly - 8/12/26
Hello ICC Family!
What a great time of worship and fellowship we had on Sunday! Thanks to all of you who contributed to our International Sunday celebration - whether by sharing Scripture, prayer, or food. Or by helping to clean up afterwards!
We looked at Psalm 67 throughout the service which reminds us that while it is good and biblical to pray for blessing and revival for our families and our church… we ask for those things so that other people - all peoples - will also be blessed and come to know our Lord and Savior. We are blessed and healed and saved so that God can use us to bless and bring healing and point to Christ for salvation. As we lose sight of that, we drift away from being obedient to the Great Commandment and Great Commission. The following is a story that I was going to use as an illustration in the service, but we were running a little long…
Parable of the Lifesaving Station
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves, went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Some of those who were saved and various others in the surrounding area wanted to become associated with the station and gave of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little lifesaving station grew.
Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so
crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully because they used it as a sort of club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in the club’s decorations, and there was a liturgical lifeboat (symbolic rather than fully functional) in the room where the club’s initiations were held.
About this time a large shipwrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat
loads of cold, wet and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, some had skin of different color, some spoke a strange language, and the beautiful new club was in chaos. So, the property committee immediately had a shower house build outside the club where victims of shipwrecks could be cleaned up before coming inside.
At the next meeting, there was a split among the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station. So… they did.
As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.
Originally written in 1953 by Theodore Wedel.
---
As the Lord brings blessing and revival to ICC, let us not forget that we are to then bless others…
Blessings to you all!
And know that I am praying for you!
Pastor Aaron
What a great time of worship and fellowship we had on Sunday! Thanks to all of you who contributed to our International Sunday celebration - whether by sharing Scripture, prayer, or food. Or by helping to clean up afterwards!
We looked at Psalm 67 throughout the service which reminds us that while it is good and biblical to pray for blessing and revival for our families and our church… we ask for those things so that other people - all peoples - will also be blessed and come to know our Lord and Savior. We are blessed and healed and saved so that God can use us to bless and bring healing and point to Christ for salvation. As we lose sight of that, we drift away from being obedient to the Great Commandment and Great Commission. The following is a story that I was going to use as an illustration in the service, but we were running a little long…
Parable of the Lifesaving Station
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves, went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Some of those who were saved and various others in the surrounding area wanted to become associated with the station and gave of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little lifesaving station grew.
Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so
crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully because they used it as a sort of club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in the club’s decorations, and there was a liturgical lifeboat (symbolic rather than fully functional) in the room where the club’s initiations were held.
About this time a large shipwrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat
loads of cold, wet and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, some had skin of different color, some spoke a strange language, and the beautiful new club was in chaos. So, the property committee immediately had a shower house build outside the club where victims of shipwrecks could be cleaned up before coming inside.
At the next meeting, there was a split among the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station. So… they did.
As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.
Originally written in 1953 by Theodore Wedel.
---
As the Lord brings blessing and revival to ICC, let us not forget that we are to then bless others…
Blessings to you all!
And know that I am praying for you!
Pastor Aaron
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