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Prayer
Lord, open our hearts today as we celebrate your everlasting love for each of us, all of us members of your family, sisters and brothers whatever our differences, walking each other home to you.
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About Us
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Montpelier is a small church of caring people in the Presbyterian tradition who are seeking to be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ as God’s children by:
worshipping God,
loving one another,
and welcoming others.
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We are a part of the Presbyterian Church (USA). We believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and God’s only begotten Son who died on the cross to save us by HIs grace and was raised from the dead to prove to us God’s power over sin and death. We believe the Bible to be the sacred Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit. We believe in the Trinity of God the Father, Jesus Christ His Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God in three persons. To find more about our beliefs please go to pcusa.org.
What you can expect on Sunday morning: You will be greeted at the front door and receive a warm welcome and a service bulletin. Coffee hour is before church at 10:30 in the church library right off the sanctuary.
Our worship service is traditional with
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prayers,
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both traditional and modern hymns,
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scripture readings
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a children’s sermon complete with coloring and puzzle pages
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a sermon based on that day’s readings with an emphasis on living out our faith in our every day lives.
We do not take up an offering although there are plates available on our communion table in the front of the sanctuary..
Dress is casual and there’s even a rocking chair in the back of the sanctuary if one is needed.
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You’ll find information on our Bible study and children’s Sunday School under Faith Development.
What our members say: “A great group of sweet folks who care and reach out whenever there’s a need…” Will M.
“I’ve been a member for 53 years. It’s home to me. Pastor Pat always finds ways to keep us engrossed in the Bible to strengthen our faith.” Debbie N.
“I’ve been a member for less than a year, but one of the things I like about it is the sense of intimacy.” Leigh-Ann M.
Our Pastor: The Rev. Dr. Patricia Ramsden is known to us all as Pastor Pat. She is in her third year as our part-time pastor and lives in Scotia Village in Laurinburg. She has been ordained for over 34 years and has always served small churches rediscovering who God was calling them to be. Among all her other duties at the church she also teaches our adult Bible study on Sunday mornings. She is single and loves her garden and HGTV as well as storytelling and acting. Before entering the ministry she was an Associate Professor of English and Drama and an academic dean in the University of Kentucky Community College system. She is the author of two books: The Power Of Their Voices and For Such A One As I.
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Community Ministries
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Church Community Services: Each Sunday we collect food for our local food pantry in response to Christ’s command to feed the hungry and meet the needs of those less fortunate than ourselves.
Scholarship Fund: Founded in 2007, the estate of Johnsie Patterson McFadden from Wagram, NC set up a scholarship fund through Montpelier Presbyterian Church to be given to any Scotland County High School Graduate to further their education with preference given to those associated with the congregation. This year we gave 11 scholarships to deserving students. Contact the church for more information on this program and how to apply.
Partnership With Wagram Public Schools We reach out to students in need by donating through the media center to buy books for those who cannot afford them and we do an annual collection of gloves, scarves, hats, and socks as well as providing backpacks stuffed with needed school supplies.
Special Offerings Throughout the year we collect special denominational offerings such as the One Great Hour of Sharing, the Pentecost Offering and the Joy Gift Offering.
Spring Hill Cemetery Memorial Fund. “Blessed are thy who mourn for they shall be comforted. “. Mt 5:4 Our church, in partnership with the Spring Hill Baptist Church, owns and maintains the local cemetery. The Memorial Fund goes to support the upkeep. For more information on making a donation or buying a plot, please contact the church office.
Donations to the church may be mailed to P.O. Box 407 Wagram, NC 28396. If you’d like the donation to go to a particular cause, please note that on the memo line of your check.
News & Events
Presbyterian Women's Bible study will be on summer break until September
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Our Blessing of the Book bags will be August 26
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Fill our school box with supplies for teachers: kleenex, sanitizer, zip lock bags, etc.
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August 2024 Newsletter
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​Pastor’s Note; It’s hot out there. As I wrote this we are under an excessive heat alert and it made me think of the church sign that read: “You think it’s hot here? Wait till you see down there!”
I love church signs and so I thought I’d relieve some of the heat with their humor. ( warning: humor is there of the beholder.). We could all use a chuckle about now.
Too hot to keep changing sign. Sin bad. God good. Details inside.
The fact that there’s a highway to hell and a staircase to heaven says a lot about traffic patterns
Lord, help us be the people our dogs think we are.
Honk if you love Jesus. Text if you want to meet him
Under the same management for 2,024 years.
Just love everyone. I’ll sort them out later.
We may not be Dairy Queen but we have great Sundays.
Adam and Eve: the first people not to read all of the Apple’s terms and conditions.
Hope you enjoyed these. See you in church! Pastor Pat
The Presbyterian Women’s Bible study is on summer hiatus. We’ll start again in September.
Sunday School for the adults and children is taking a summer break until September.
Pastor Pat will be on a pastor’s retreat beginning after worship on August 18 through August 20.
We will have a Family Night Supper Wednesday August 21 with hot dogs and ice cream to celebrate the end of summer.
Session will meet immediately after worship on August 11.
The Blessing of the Book Bags will be Sunday August 25. We will be praying for students, teachers, and school employees as school begins August 26.
Load up the box! We will have a box at the front of the sanctuary to fill with kleenex, hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, zip lock bags, etc. for teachers to use in their classrooms. (Teachers generally pay for these necessities out of their own pocket so let’s be generous and show them how much we care!)
Sermons
Jesus’ Healing Ministry Mark 7: 31-37; 8: 22-26 Patricia Ramsden
This morning, we are doing a special service of prayer for healing. In a little while, you will have the opportunity to come forward in the privacy of the communion table to share your concerns for yourself or for those you love, and we will pray for healing --- for the healing of the body, for the healing of the spirit, for the healing of the mind. We will pray for relationships and marriages, for grief and for addictions. We will pray for people to be made whole again. No one will know the requests; no one will hear the prayers, but you and me and God.
Why are we doing this? We’re doing it because God hears our prayers, and we’re doing it because there is power in praying together.
But is this the only way? Is this the only way God will hear us --- the only way God will heal us? Is this the magic formula, the secret recipe that will make ourselves and the people we love whole and well again?
No. It is not.
I only wish it were that simple. I wish it were that easy.
While I believe in the power of prayer, I also believe it is a mystery how God heals. I believe God uses medicines, surgery, doctors and sometimes even death as the ultimate healing.
I was watching a tv faith healer once, more out of curiosity than anything else, when he said that only those of great faith can be healed by God; so if nothing happens in his healing services the fault is never with him, the fault is always with the petitioner ---- his or her faith was simply not great enough, not strong enough in order to be healed.
And then right after his shows, I saw yet another tv service that starred this gut wrenching testimony by a young, successful couple who had always proclaimed themselves to be hard core atheists --- that is until their daughter was healed of cancer by the prayers of that congregation. They talked about how God used that miracle of healing to turn their lives around and make them powerful witnesses for Jesus Christ. And the message was subtle but clear --- your chances for a miracle are better if you’ve never believed before, because then God will use your healing to bring you – and others – to faith.
One teaching will insist you pray once and only once for healing, because to do more than that is proof that you don’t really believe God will heal you, and so God won’t. And the next one will say, “No. That’s all wrong. You must storm the gates of heaven and pray without ceasing.”
One will insist that the responsibility lies with the sick, while another will say its the community of faith that makes a difference and that the entire church must be united in prayer.
Some will say it’s the power and the faith of the preacher, who God has anointed to be a healer; and others will say it’s not that at all but the holy anointing with oil and the laying on of hands that does the trick, and still others will say no it’s the formula of prayer you use that really does the work.
And all of them, without exception, have scripture to back them up. All of them, without exception, have beautiful, tear-jerking stories that prove the truth of what they are saying. And all of them, without exception, make me feel incredibly guilty and inadequate, because in the end I’m left saying “Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I haven’t prayed long enough, hard enough, or maybe I haven’t used the right words. Maybe I should have tried a different doctor or a different treatment, or maybe I shouldn’t have tried the ones I did. Maybe I don’t have enough faith. Maybe I don’t go to the right church. Maybe …..Maybe…Maybe.”
In my mind this is the greatest fault in the healing ministries we find in churches today. Healing has ceased to be a miracle in the hands of God and it has become something we are in charge of, something we can control by our secret formulas and prayer is the way we manipulate God into doing things our way on our terms in our personal time frames.
But it doesn’t work like that. Healing is a mystery. How prayer works in healing is a mystery. We don’t, we can’t control how God works.
You see Jesus did not heal in just one way. Scripture shows us in story after story different ways that Jesus healed. He healed through touch, the laying on of hands, the spoken word, the faith of the one in need. He healed the believer and the unbeliever. He even healed through his spit. Sometimes the healing came suddenly. Some times gradually. Jesus meets the person’s need in the way they need it.
Today, I believe that Jesus still heals. I believe he heals through the power of modern medicine, through the skill of doctors and nurses and medical teams. I believe he heals through the power of faith we have in the possibility of healing. I believe He heals through our faith in Him and through faithful prayer.
There doesn’t seem to be one way --- one RIGHT way – to approach God for healing. So what does that mean for us?
It means several things. One is that our God does have the power to heal in miraculous ways, to break in to the laws of nature and suddenly make the blind see, the lame walk. But when that happens what we are witnessing is a miracle --- something outside the norm --- and so it is not what we should expect each and every time we pray. We need to be open to a miracle, but we shouldn’t feel that somehow our prayers have failed if a miracle isn’t what happens. For while I believe miracles are possible, by their very nature they are not probable.
The truth is, healing is most often a journey, a process that uses our faith, our prayers, our doctors, our nurses, our medicines, our surgeries, and the touch of God. Each and every part has an important role to play in healing. More and more our scientific research is showing the important role of faith and prayer in speeding healing, in allowing healing, which goes beyond the efficacy of modern medicine and amazes the medical experts.
But rely on prayer and faith alone? I don’t think so. We should never allow our faith in prayer – our faith in God -- to ever limit the ways God chooses to heal us.
So we should come to the throne of God in prayer, asking for His strength and His wisdom, asking for His courage and His love, asking for His healing power. But then we must be open to whatever way He may choose to heal. He may choose to change our attitudes and our behaviors. He may choose to use medicines and surgeries. He may choose painful therapy or not so simple acceptance. And yes, He may choose miracles that may not be dramatic, but miracles nonetheless
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If you desire a word of private prayer this morning for yourself or for a loved one, for the mending of relationships or the healing of the past, for physical or mental illness, for a battle against addiction, for courage to face tomorrow, please come forward and we will pray together for courage, for strength, for wisdom in your private situation and that may mean a healing we may never see on this side of eternity in the way we want, the way we pray for. Or it may mean the courage to deal with your situation with wisdom and love. Don’t expect to throw away your proverbial crutches but expect for you to have the love to meet your situation and have God participate in whatever healing will look like for you on your journey. Come as we take time for private prayer.
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For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but so the world would be saved through Him. John 3: 16-17
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See You In Worship Sundays 11:00
San Pedro