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Stewards, Not Fearmongers! By Retired Pastor Lee Hemen July 3, 2023 Ecclesiastes paints kind of a depressing picture of humanity and an individual’s moroseness, however, it also teaches us a lot about ourselves, the world around us, and our God. In his musings the writer states that “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9 NIV84) The Bible Knowledge commentary states that “Solomon did not intend by this to deny human creativity but to deny the complete newness of people’s accomplishments.” However, “the constant repetition of previous accomplishments - is in essence true of the activity of people and is included in the observation that all things produce only indescribable weariness and lack of satisfaction…” Solomon was in a mental funk. I can relate. In this day and age, it is easy to become depressed. Sadly, there are those who use people’s tendency to be depressed to foster greater fear in things the...

Ramblings from Retirement - No Starfleet Future Awaits Humanity By Pastor (Retired) Lee Hemen March 28, 2022 I’ve been watching the latest installments of “Picard” on Paramount+ and have just gotten a huge dose of Hollyweird’s notion of what it thinks of the world at large and mankind in general. Picard and his crewmates have to go back in time to the year 2024 to fix the timeline. While there Picard meets up with the character Guinan, an alien being that lives a long time and is affected by time. Anyway, she is saddened by what she is witnessing here on earth and is getting ready to bug out when Picard enlists her help. She sees humanity’s hatred, pettiness, and greed but nowhere is the real reason given: Mainly mankind’s sinful nature. The Apostle Paul related that the only fix for mankind’s problem of sin was the righteousness found in Jesus Christ. He writes, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have si...

Ramblings from Retirement - Do Not Fear By Retired Pastor Lee Hemen August 13, 2021 Are you fearful? Are you afraid? Some people like being scared or the feeling of fear. They will even do things in life to make themselves feel fear. Like bungee jumping from high places, climbing cliffs without any pinions or tie downs, or skydiving. Some will go to horror movies but then there are also those who keep themselves in a constant state of fear simply because they do not trust themselves, others, or Jesus to keep them. This is truly sad. Today is Friday the 13th and some folks are fearful of the date; kind of silly, if you ask me, but they are. Perhaps it is because they would rather live in a state of fear rather than peace. The news brings in to our lives a constant barrage of tragedy, horrors, and dismal happenings. My advice is to turn the news off and go read your Bible or listen to some good music. The world is full of fear and will not change until we go to our eternal rest or Jesus ...

Ramblings from Retirement – The Bigger they Are By Pastor Lee Hemen May 30, 2021 Have you heard the old saying “The bigger they are the harder they fall.”? Did you know that it is a reference to what occurred with a young shepherd boy and a military giant? His name was David and his advisory was Goliath. Recently there has been a real attempt at rewriting the history of our Nation. I was dismayed to recently read a story about how WWII would have been won within several months without D-Day or the USA getting involved. This simply is not true. We were a nation in the throes of Democratic socialism that introduced some of the largest budgets ever seen, until Presidents Obama, Trump, and now Biden. In fact, only WWII would bring us out of the malaise of a flat economy and joblessness we were suffering. It was the USA’s ability to retool, manufacture, and rebuilding so quickly that brought about the destruction of both Japan and Germany. Russia could not have stood up to the Nazi onslaugh...

 Ramblings from Retirement – Find Your Peace By Retired Pastor Lee Hemen May 6, 2021 For me there is nothing better in the morning than to sit listening to the squirrels chattering outside, the red-winged blackbirds singing, and the sounds of people mowing lawns while I begin my day drinking a black cup of coffee. I grind some Guatemala Antigua beans, make four cups of the smoothest tasting dark nectar there is. My mother taught me to drink straight black coffee. Except her coffee was often boiled in a pan of water on the stove and had the consistency of crude oil. Instead of pouring it you cut off a chunk and swallowed it whole. She would often let it cook on the stove or in her newfangled peculator all day as she wandered back and forth getting a new chunk in her cup. She learned to make coffee as a young girl in Wyoming cooking for cowhands. Lest you think it had a detrimental effect on her, she lived into her early 90’s and continued to drink plain black crude oil of coffee all...

Rambling from Retirement – Join the Flock By Retired Pastor Lee Hemen April 28, 2021 Today as I came home from our Men’s Prayer the birds in my front yard trees were singing so loudly you could hardly hear anything else. They seemed to be just full of the joy of being alive, free, and just being birds. Even though they were not all in sync or in harmony it was wonderful to hear and it got me to thinking about the Psalm we had just read and prayed about as a group of men. The Psalmist writes his listeners to “Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. (Psalms 95:1-3 NIV)” He invited others to join him in a cacophony of singing praises to God simply because He is God. The birds in my trees reminded me of the Psalmist’s words for us to join him in song. Like those birds who sing simply because they are birds ...

Ramblings from Retirement – Wisdom of the World By Pastor Lee Hemen March 24, 2021 Recently I learned that Canada is doing some truly horrendous and disastrous things with families and the law; all in the name of social justice. I learned from online news sources that: “The father and mother were not raising the child together, so it was only when his daughter was 13 that the father learned that the girl’s public school and his ex-wife had been working with the child to turn her into a boy. This included pushing the child to take hormones to mimic male sexual attributes such as facial hair and a deep voice. The father (who cannot be identified under Canadian law because doing so would also identify his daughter) went to court, saying that he needed to give parental consent before his child was permanently mutilated. Not only did a British Columbia court rule against him, saying the father’s consent wasn’t necessary, but the appellate judges also lectured him to understand gender dyspho...

Ramblings from Retirement – Make God Known! By Lee Hemen, Retired Pastor March 17, 2021 How do you let future generations know about God? Reading your Bible and praying are good for you personally but doing these things even daily do not get you active in actually getting out and letting those around you know about God. Now do not get me wrong because I do believe in prayer and reading the Bible but if that is all you do you could actually be hindering others from knowing about God. The Psalmist declared, “I will sing of the LORD's great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations. (Psalms 89:1 NIV)” He took a stand to verbally sing of God’s love. Now you may not want to sing in front of others and this is not the case I am making and others may not want you to sing to them, however as believers in God we are to about the business of letting the world around us know about the love of God. The Psalmist related that he would actually speak ...

Ramblings for Retirement – Do Not Allow Evil to Prosper By Lee Hemen (retired pastor) January 11,2021 When Jesus told the crowd that the “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5 NIV)” He never meant for the believer to roll over and allow evil to prosper. He was speaking to a crowd of people who understood what it meant to live under the hardship of Roman rule. The meekness He was referring to here was neither weakness nor spiritual blindness. There are those in the Christian community who are ready and willing to try to fool you into thinking that as a believer you should just roll over and pray and everything will be okay. This is simply not true and is frightening in its ignorance. Jesus went on to develop what He meant when He continued by telling the crowd that day: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And...

 Ramblings from Retirement: The most important time is now. By Lee Hemen (Retired Pastor) November 2, 2020 I went out to lunch the other day because I had been working at church trying to get our live video feed working properly. (It is still a work in progress.) I stopped by and got something and in the fast food place was a young man sitting there reading his Bible. Curious, I asked him which book he was reading from and he related it was Genesis. We had a short discussion about the Scriptures and I got my order and ate. This got me to thinking though about the words of Psalm 119:11 where the Psalmist tells God: “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. (Psalms 119:11 NIV)” These are good thoughts and I remembered how I was encouraged to do just that as a young Christian. In thinking about this however I realized that few looked at the words before this verse or those afterwards as well. So let’s take a quick look at what the Psalmist writes: “How can...

Ramblings from Retirement: The only thing we have to fear is… By Lee Hemen (Retired Pastor) October 24, 2020 There is a famous line from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, often referred to by his initials FDR who said in one of his speeches, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”; sounds pithy doesn’t it? It helped a lot of folks during the crisis of the Depression and looming World War II that they could face their fear and move on as a Nation. Yet in our day and age we have politicians who focus on our fears and try to scare us into voting for them or otherwise we will face doom, gloom, and even death! It is a basement mentality and I fear has a lot of folks fooled in our day into thinking that we’re all gonna die from something. Well guess what? We are. The writer of the Book of Hebrews in the Bible wrote that “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” meaning we will all die at some point and face that same judgment. However he doesn’t stop there but c...

How We Can Encourage One Another! – 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 By Pastor Lee Hemen June 7, 2020 We’ve been talking a lot about encouraging one another lately and I think it is something we all need to hear. And with all that has been going on in the news recently many think that this is the forerunner of the end of days, but I assure you it is not. Rather it is the outcome of a world that has turned its back on the holy things of God. As Christians we need to focus on the One who holds the world in the palm of his hands. We need to encourage one another! Paul wrote a young church about the concerns he had for its future. They needed to focus on whom they had put their faith and trust in, how they should walk in him, and how they could encourage one another to live as God desired them to in a world that seemed to be destroying itself. Let’s learn this morning how we can encourage one another… READ: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 The death of a young man at the hands of those in society we...

How we are to shepherd his flock! – 1 Peter 5:1-11 By Pastor Lee Hemen February 16, 2020 As look for a pastor to lead us it is vital that we find a man who can mentor and mature us as a church until Jesus returns. We live in a world where the church is dismissed, the gospel is seen as a truism, and Jesus as either a myth or at best a “good guy” who taught good stuff. Shepherding the church is tough task in today’s world and we need to look for a man who is up to the task. The title “elder” is used interchangeably for pastor in the New Testament and here in Peter’s letter we find him addressing the early church and its leadership. The church in Peter’s day faced troubling times due to Jewish leadership seeking to destroy the gospel and the Roman authorities who wanted to squash any dissent. The church stood out because its leadership and members were different because of their faith. Shepherding the flock properly was important let’s discover why… READ: 1 Peter 5:1-11 Michael Ray wrote ...

God uses the foolish things! – 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 By Pastor Lee Hemen January 26, 2020 When things change it can seem foolish to those who get used to the way things as they are. Yet we can be the “foolish” ones when we make demands like: “If they do not do it this way I will…” or “If it isn’t done the way I like, then…” We are like the petulant child who doesn’t like the way the game is going and takes his ball home. However, we learn that God often uses the foolish things of the world. The Jews had gotten used to being the slaves of whichever power marched through their homeland. While they mouthed their allegiance to God within their hearts they had truly stopped believing. And now God had sent himself in the form of a man bringing a different message than the one they were used to. It seemed as foolishness just as it does in our day and age that have gotten used to living their lives the way they want instead of following the Lord. We learn that God uses the foolish things. READ...

2nd Sunday of Advent - The peace of God - Isaiah 52:6-10 By Pastor Lee Hemen December 8, 2019 Last week we spoke of how the Messiah would be called by the names of Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. There were those who incorrectly thought that the Messiah would bring about the end of war or that everyone would find bliss. Interestingly, there are those in our day who still have misconceptions of who the Messiah is and the peace he brings. Isaiah introduces us to a Messiah who would bring peace to all mankind. He begins these verses by calling the nation of Israel to “Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor, O Jerusalem, the holy city. The uncircumcised (ungodly) and defiled will not enter you again.” Jerusalem’s pagan conquerors — the uncircumcised and defiled — would never again invade and pollute the holy city after the Messiah came. This is part of the peace he would bring when he came. Let’s disco...

In the Wild! – John 20:30-31 By Pastor Lee Hemen July 21, 2019 Life is filled with incredible encounters. As we go through childhood, we are constantly discovering everything about the world around us. When we make friends, discover the beauty of nature, and become more aware of everything around us, we begin to realize the world’s vastness. We also begin to grasp that an entire globe of opportunities awaits each of us! God made us to encounter his love and to enjoy a personal relationship with him that lasts not just for a lifetime, but for eternity. All through his Word, God introduces himself in incredible ways, showing himself to be perfectly faithful, true, compassionate, and merciful. Even though people aren’t perfect, God has a plan to forgive us of our sin and bless us with a relationship with him. As Jesus’ earthly ministry began, he made it clear that his purpose was to make a way for every person to have an opportunity to receive his forgiveness and to enjoy eternal life wit...

The rule to end all rules! – Matthew 7:12-14 By Pastor Lee Hemen June 2, 2019 In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy they try to take back a special ring called the One Ring. It contained an inscription that read: “One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them!” There are times when we all wish that life was simpler and long for one simple rule to guide us. The Hebrews had enslaved their people by interpreting over 600 volumes expanding on the Ten Commandments of God! President Obama on his last day in office signed into law over 30,000 pages of new laws! Is it any wonder we long for one rule to end all rules! Jesus understood that his people and all people had been subjected to self-imposed rules that were heavy burdens for them to bear. He desired to simplify their lives. In this he gave all of us the rule to end all rules. Let’s discover what it means for us today… READ: Matthew 7:12-14 In continuing on in his te...