Faith Presbyterian Church of Valley Village

5000 Colfax Avenue • Valley Village • CA • 91601 • (818)766-8103 • Fax: (818)766-2937

Pastor Kim Strutt's Perspective:

It's Springtime, and There Are Many Reasons to Praise the Lord

Picture of Pastor Kim Strutt

As we are now well into Springtime, I want to praise the Lord for the new members who joined recently and more who will join in the near future, for a new baby baptized and a shower for another to be born soon, for newly planted flowering plum trees and flowers in the courtyard, for new faces in the chapel, and most of all for our risen Lord who continues to make all things new!

Praise the Lord too for compassionate people.

We are so blest by the way the people of Faith Pres respond to need.

This week the church got a call for help from a family. The family lives out of the area and they didn’t know us at all, but Brieanna, their outgoing and athletic 14-year old daughter had just died and “might we be able to help with some little service in her memory”.

The family somehow found Faith Pres in the phone book and showed up on our doorstep. Within minutes our people began to respond, and in less than 24 hours Brieanna’s family and friends (some of whom flew in on a “red-eye” from Kansas!) joined us for a memorial service in the chapel followed by a lovely reception in the fellowship hall.

A heartfelt “Thank you and God bless you!” to all our people who responded so quickly and compassionately to help that grieving family in their time of crisis.

Julie and I have another “Praise the Lord!” Friends in the church in South Africa have invited us to let us see what God is doing in that great country. We were stunned to find out their invitation was real and they were paying the expenses! We prayed about it, told our family and the Session about the opportunity; so in May we are somewhere in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. We return May 24, and you will be in good hands while we are away.

Pray for us, and for the Church, here and in South Africa, and pray that we all will be strengthened and guided by God’s Spirit during these days in May.

God bless you as remember the promise of God in Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”

Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Kim Strutt

It Still Is Winter, But Easter Is Coming!

For the past couple of months, we have been drawing closer to Jesus Christ as we journey together in the Gospel of John. Now we are on the threshold of Holy Week … Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter and the glorious celebration of the Resurrection. The first Christians staked everything on the Resurrection, so much so that the Apostle Paul told the Corinthian Christians, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”

When I was growing up in North Hollywood, Easter was always an enjoyable time for our family, but it didn’t seem to have much of a connection with the Resurrection of Jesus. The connection came later for Julie and me after we came to faith in Christ as young adults. Today, we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus primarily because, in scripture and in life, we have gotten to know God better, and we have experienced his work in our lives and in the lives of others.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 11, we read that Jesus goes to the tomb of his friend Lazarus and calls Lazarus from death to life! Then, a short time later, “Jesus is crucified, dead and buried, … and on the third day he rose from the dead! ...”

God has given us great hope in the death and life of Jesus Christ with the promise “that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life!”

God bless you and yours as you draw closer to Christ in these days!

Join us for Holy Week, and in the days ahead, as we continue to celebrate the life that God has given us, bring a friend to church.

Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Kim Strutt

Happy New Year!
Ready or Not … Here Comes 2008

Here at Faith Pres, following a lovely Advent-Christmas Season, we are moving with vigor into the new year.

On January 6, under the theme “All Things New”, we will again celebrate communion at our first worship service in 2008.

On Friday the 11th, at 7:00 p.m., we will have a training time for our new elders and deacons, followed with an all-day Elder, Deacon, Staff Retreat on Saturday, January 12th.

On Sunday the 13th, during worship we will install our new elders and deacons. Following worship on the 27th, we will have our Annual Congregational Meeting.

In January we will begin a sermon series from the wonderfully rich Gospel of John. Please be in prayer for this series. John’s Gospel is much more than a life of Christ; it is a powerful argument for the incarnation, a conclusive demonstration that Jesus was, and is, the very heaven-sent Son of God and the only source of eternal life. I am really looking forward to our spending time together in this marvelous book as we go deeper in our relationship with Christ. We are also talking about having an adult education class in tandem with the Sunday messages to help us gain even more from this marvelous book.

I encourage you to take some time this week and read through this Gospel in one sitting, if possible. Pray that God’s Spirit will be guiding you during your reading … and He will!

Another favorite promise is God speaking (Jeremiah 29:11): “For surely I know the plans I have for you, plans for your good and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”

Reach out to a neighbor and bring them with you to worship, and keep all of us in your prayers, even as we pray for you and yours.

May God bless you and those close to you as we move into this new year!

Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Kim Strutt

“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”
(1 Corinthians 12: 27)