Message from our Sr. Pastor

“This is a big old ship, Bill.  She creaks, she rocks, she rolls, and at times she makes you want to throw up.  But she gets where she’s going.  Always has, always will, until the end of time.  With or without you.”  These words are from a novel called Wheat that Springeth Green by J.F. Powers, a story that centers around a priest whose earnest zeal for God and the church in his younger years gives way to a comfortable and somewhat cynical complacency as he ages in a mundane suburban parish.  The quote expresses fairly well how many experience church today. 

The church like “a big old ship” can lift and fall, creak and strain her way along.  There has perhaps never been more palpable disappointment with the church in American society than today.  But the church is also where Jesus is and that means the big old ship will arrive where she is destined, a safe harbor at the end of time.

And yet: “with or without” you?  If not for that vital personal pronoun in Acts 9 she might not make it with me aboard: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”  Jesus was the questioner.  Saul was persecuting people not Jesus, only Jesus didn’t see it that way.  “You are persecuting me,” He said.  He identifies that closely with His church, “always has, always will, until the end of time.”  And because He does I do too.  I want to be where He is, and He is with His church.

We come to church seeking the depths of the abundant life Jesus holds out to us and yet the reality of Christian experience in community is sometimes shallower than our expectations—and His.  Malcolm Muggeridge said as God looks at His creatures through the eons it is “disappointment without end weighed against inexhaustible love.”  The church will disappoint in ways.  Ours is no exception.  But our Savior is exceptional, and Jesus never will disappoint you.  And where do you find Jesus?  Always with His church to the end of time and beyond, so we can’t abandon ship.

I’d like to invite you aboard with us.  First Evan is an old ship—70+ years of existence.  Sometimes we creak.  Sometimes we strain.  But we also know what it is to be lifted on waves of grace and used for His glory.  He has taken us through every storm.  We know whom we have believed (2 Tim. 1:10), that He is ever faithful, with us always. 

The best thing we have to offer you is not our services or programs or fellowship, though we strive to do all things well.  We have a superb staff and many godly members.  But the best thing we offer you is the gospel of Jesus Christ: His life for you, His life in you.  We don’t know Him perfectly at First Evan but we do know He is perfect.  “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28).

Thanks for visiting our website.  We hope to see you here on our campus some Sunday, and that you’ll find Jesus here too.

Grace and peace to you,

Cole Huffman

Senior Pastor