2019 ECSJ: Bridgewater Church Montrose; Endless Summer in the Psalms!!!

Another glorious Worship Sunday in the Valleys of Spiritual Growth! This time I headed ‘south’ down through the Susquehanna Valley to Montrose and attended the 10:45 am Worship Service at the Bridgewater Church! ‘South’ because the Susquehanna River flows West to East near Binghamton but takes a huge bend southward upstream at Afton to Great Bend, PA (imagine how that town got its name!) not far from Montrose, PA where the Bridgewater Church started and has grown to 5 locations in the Southern Tier of Pennsylvania and New York!

Located in the ‘Endless Mountains’ of Northeast Pennsylvania they appear endless from the scenic spot where the Bridgewater Montrose Church is located. Though not endless, they appear to be as they lead one to the Delaware River and beyond to the Catskill Mountains. Like this experience worshiping, the Spiritual Growth of the Valleys of the Chenango & Susquehanna Rivers is indeed endless, Scripture-wise, time-wise, and inward-wise leading us to a growing, loving, intimate, spiritual relationship with Jesus, The Holy Spirit, and God!

Other than its location in the Valleys of Spiritual Growth I was attracted to Bridgewater for the Kickoff Sunday of their Psalms and Proverbs Series called ‘Summer in the Psalms.’ Which is, coincidentally or not, where I am in my Biblical Review and research for the spiritual book I am writing as part of TROML 2020. TROML Baby (an exclamation of JOY)!!!

This was no coincidence. What a powerful spiritual experience it is to worship at Bridgewater Montrose Church!

Montrose Campus Pastor Bob Kadlecik immediately drew us into his ‘Worship by Design’ sermon with familiar commercial slogans that we all knew… Give me a break (Kit Kat; I wish I was… (Oscar Mayer Weiner); I don’t want to grow up (Toys R Us but they are no longer) Plop, plop, fizz, fizz (Alka Seltzer); I like to teach the world to sing… (Coke); and You deserve a break today (McDonald’s and two all beef patties, special sauce…).. We try to forget those ‘ear-worms’ but cannot.

Music is powerful as it connects to our mind and emotions simultaneously and is a way to praise God! Bionically music goes all the way back to a young shepherd David playing the harp for King Saul.

Pastor Bob’s first point is that worship is in our DNA; is in God’s design of us and human life. We have desires and look for satisfaction. But there are spiritual desires that have no physical satisfaction. As my Dad would say in his later years: “Everything is temporary!”

Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 speaks about there being an “appointed time for everything” (3:1) and that we will find no permanence in this world: “All came from the dust and all return to the dust.(3:20).

The point being we need to first worship the right things!

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.” (Psalm 95:1-2)

Pastor Bob’s second point was that Worship is a whole life experience to God’s greatness!

Enter, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the Lord who made us. For he is our God, we are the people he shepherds, the flock under his care.” (Psalm 95:6-7)

For the Lord is the great God, the great king over all gods.” (Psalm 95:3)

Pastor Bob shared another perspective from C.S. Lewis (who incidentally died on November 22, 1963, the same day President Kennedy was shot and killed): Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”

One thing I ask from the Lord; this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord’ all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to see him in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4)

All the days of my life… The Rest of My Life… T—R—O—M—L… TROML Baby (an exclamation of JOY)!!!

Final thought was that Christianity is counterculture to the secular, material-driven world… our faith should be personal, but not private…

PS: You gotta love a church community that has a Tebow jersey and Notre Dame sports memorbillia in the men’s room… and slices of watermelon going into and out of church!

(Andy Reistetter; 7/8/19; Facebook Post with 30 Pics)

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