October 20, 2008

Bill Peterson and I joined the Pocono Grace Church plant on a beautiful Fall Sabbath. The happy occasion was the service where this Church plant was officially organized as a congregation of the Pennsylvania Conference. We will be presenting them to the next Constituency Session in October 2009.

The leaders of the church invited the Lutheran Pastor of the church they are renting from and expressed their appreciation for the Lutheran Church’s willingness to provide them the space to worship in.

As in any Church Organization service, I went over the complete fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church with the entire audience of members and guests. Later, the Lutheran Pastor remarked that she now had a better understanding of the Christian and Biblical beliefs of Adventists, and there was no doubt in her mind that the Adventist Church was not a cult.

The Lutheran congregation has dwindled down to the point that the congregation is being folded into other Lutheran congregations in the area, and this church family will cease to exist.

The church building is being sold.

Our Adventist church family would like to purchase it. Although two other church groups came forward and offered quite a bit more money for the building than our church was able to offer, the Lutherans were very favorable toward our Church group and have indicated their desire to sell the building to us. The purchase will need to be finalized in December, 2008. Please keep Pocono Grace Seventh-day Adventist Church family in your prayers for the purchase of this building.

If you would like to contribute to this building purchase, you may send a contribution to the Pennsylvania Conference and mark it, “Pocono Grace Building Fund.”