What’s your next step with Jesus? That’s the core question for all who would follow the Nazarene. For Simon Peter the answer to that question defined his faith journey just as it has for every disciple since. So when Anthony Zumbo, teaching elder for our Windsor Church in York County, PA, invited me to preach for their church’s fall services and I accepted, the Lord led me to Peter’s encounters with Jesus as a basis for the messages. Given this inspiration, the problem became what passages to choose given the many that recount Peter’s interactions with Jesus. |
There were to be five services Sunday through Wednesday, and I wanted each message to be part of a larger whole. I chose to use situations where Jesus called Peter into a closer walk and where the application would encourage deeper discipleship for believers today. The messages focused on following, worshipping, serving, witnessing, and persevering from Luke 5:1-11, Mark 9:1-13, John 21, Acts 10, and 2 Peter 1 respectively. The preparation and study, as well as the preaching/teaching of the Word, was a real boost for my own walk with Jesus, and I trust for the folks at Windsor as well. Sunday morning the church followed its regular order of worship, but the evening services were a bit freer. The piano and organ music certainly kept the singing lively. So everyone could track their decisions for a closer walk with Jesus we prepared a booklet with brief message outlines and a challenge for each service. The call for decisions focused on using the great commandment (Deuteronomy 6:5), calling upon each one to give body, soul, and spirit (will) in deeper dedication to Jesus in the five aspects of discipleship previously named. The booklet also provides an reminder of those decisions. |
Anthony and his wife Wendy, along with their daughter India and son Dante, came to Windsor in 2005 from a Methodist congregation in New Jersey. Anthony and Wendy both grew up in the Garden State attending the same church and local high school. Anthony is a very dedicated Bible guy which is what brought him into the Churches of God, General Conference (CGGC). It was a joy for Linda and me to get to know Anthony and his family a little better through these services. |
The Windsor Church dates back to the great revival of 1858 and the work of Jacob Keller. Because of the Civil War and subsequent economics the church continued to meet in homes until 1876 when the congregation built a schoolhouse-style bethel out of stone. It added a bell tower at the turn of the twentieth century. The church dedicated its current brick worship and educational facility on Manor Road in 1955 and the parsonage next door in 1959. The church also maintains a cemetery where the church triumphant awaits the great day of the Lord. |
The four days of services passed all too quickly, but we have hopes of a return visit, perhaps in 2015.
Ed
Soli Deo Gloria!