Second Church Steps

“Oh there’s no place like home…” Christmas music could be heard in my house, growing up, the day after Thanksgiving.  This signaled the start of the Advent/Christmas season. You see, Christmas music was forbidden until after Thanksgiving; even today from Texas and Kansas City my children are the enforcers of my mother's rule!  More often than not that first song would have been Perry Como’s   rendition of   Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays…   As Second Presbyterian Church transitions from the theme of “home” into the holiday season—we decorate our Second Home early.  We do this because we are preparing to take the Good News of the Advent/Christmas season out into the world through the Christmas Benevolence church wide program. The  Deacon’s Christmas Benevolence , CB, works with social service agencies to select 140+ families, that's 700+ people, to serve.  The entire church works together to make it possible for...

I was a Girl Scout in my early years, and yes a Brownie before that; there weren’t Daisy Scouts back then. Each meeting started with the Girl Scout Promise, “On my honor, I will try…”  That was probably my first introduction to promises and promising.  There were many to follow.  From family commitments to childhood secrets we learn how to hold promises and make them part of ourselves. Later, the college I attended had an honor code requiring us to “pledge” every test and paper saying that “on my honor, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized assistance on this test/paper.” This pledge, or promise, was bound by a promise to live and to learn in a particular way according to a particular set of guidelines for the community.  Font, Word, and Table Second Presbyterian Church Indianapolis, IN  Our lives as Christians begin with hope and a promise.  Our parents hope for us, and pray for us. More than likely, our church family does, too! So...

Autumn is my favorite time of the year in Indiana.  The trees seem to be painted overnight with reds, yellows, rusts, and browns.  As instantaneous as it may seem, the colors have been there all along.  The daily work of growing, seeding, and shading generated the greens that made summer lush and bright.  However, the shorter days, the cooler weather, and those rainy summer days which we bemoaned have  fed the colors that lay just underneath the leaves’ skin.  The leaves turn, and colors emerge. It is a vibrant festival to the glory of creation where the tree’s true colors are revealed. These shorter days with brighter colors turn the church school calendar to stewardship.  In the Children’s Ministry Program area, the children wonder about how they can help, share, and care for the people and places around them.  Every day that they remember whose they are and the promise they have within them, they are being stewards of God’s creation—the...