Why do we exist? What is our purpose? How are we to act? These are questions that I have been asking over and over again for the last dozen years after I encountered God as Jesus Christ through the Bible. I did not rationally come to this conclusion that God is Jesus Christ. One could argue that is an absurd thought. The Holy Spirit revealed this to me. I then learned that I was not alone. I have come from a tradition that believes the only way we can know God is when God reveals Godself to us. This is not to say that Christianity is irrational and illogical. In fact, Christian theology attempts to logically think through its beliefs.
These kinds of questions and thoughts are what you will hear if you get to know me at Newlonsburg through my preaching and if we have the opportunity to have dinner together. I hope we have dinner.
Knowing God as Jesus Christ leads me to believe the only reason we exist is because God desires to be with us and desires us to be together with God. So community is the purpose of the church. My wife Hope and I grew up together in a Christian community at Upper Buffalo Presbyterian Church, outside of Washington, PA. She graduated from Seton Hill University with a Bachelor of Science degree in dietetics. I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a dual major in history and economics, then went off to Princeton Theological Seminary. We married. She moved to Princeton and began a Masters program in public health nutrition at Columbia University. We both finished graduate school as I was beginning my first call as a Presbyterian minister to the First Presbyterian Church in Metuchen, NJ. She began working full-time as a Registered Dietitian and I served that church for four years. I then received a call to Newlonsburg. Hope is now working as a dietitian for Weight Watchers. We welcomed a son into our family, Curtis Lane Paul III (but he goes by the name Lane), in January, 2012 and our second son August Philo in June, 2014.
God created us knowing that we would experience pain and suffering. God then blessed us with the freedom to create. The idea of experiencing love and sharing life inspired us to create life even though we know that our sons Lane and August will experience pain and suffering. What I have just said is the biggest mystery in the Christian faith, in my mind. Yet the beauty of Christianity is that God shares life with us as Jesus Christ and is willing to share pain and suffering. Not only that, God bears the ultimate consequence of our mistakes so that we can remain as a family.
I pray that you desire to be a part of the Christian community here at Newlonsburg. If you do not feel welcome and receive warm hospitality when you come, then we are not being the church who confesses, Jesus is Lord. My only goal is to share the same grace, forgiveness and love that I received from God through Jesus with you. If that is not what I share with you then you have met my character. If it is what I share, you have begun to meet God by the power of the Holy Spirit through me.
I hope to meet you soon.
Pastor Curtis
