Weekly Article

Derry’s 300th anniversary year is coming to a close. We’ve learned, traveled, sung, gathered, served, worshiped, and celebrated. Thank you all for the ways you have made this year such a success through your participation and giving. I have memories that will last a lifetime from this year. I hope you do, too.

I especially want to thank Pam Whitenack for her planning and leadership of the Derry 300 Committee. This year has been an enormous undertaking and she has led with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love. Many others contributed to the success of our anniversary year: I’m grateful to the Derry 300 Committee, the Heritage Committee, the Session, and many volunteers.

This 300th anniversary wasn’t just about Derry’s past, because Derry isn’t a church of the past. It isn’t something we’ll just look back on and remember. Derry is alive and active now, and Derry will be alive and active in the future. We have been celebrating Derry’s long history, its present, and its future. I’m just as excited about Derry’s 301st year of ministry in 2025 as I have been about this year, because good things are happening and will continue to happen.  

In just a few days we will celebrate the anniversary of God coming to us in the flesh to dwell among us. We don’t just remember that Christ came to earth long ago. We celebrate that Christ still comes to us and is present among us. Christmas isn’t a was, but an is, and ever will be!

So, while we remember that something wonderful happened in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago, we also remember all the ways Christ has been alive and active in this world throughout those 2,000 years — including the 300 years that Derry Church has existed. And we will give thanks that even as Christ is with and for us today, he will continue to be with us tomorrow and in the new year.

I wish you one more happy 300th Derry anniversary and a very merry Christmas. May we continue to celebrate and give thanks for Derry, and for Christ, through the end of this year, into next year, and throughout our lives. 

God is with us and God is for us. Love comes to us. That’s the message of Christmas. 

It’s still real, it’s still relevant, it’s still a promise, and it’s still true.