From your Pastor's Pen...

       FROM YOUR PASTOR
      
      "Fellowship In Christ"
       
       Different people have a different perception about the season of autumn. For some, it is a time to watch leaves wither and die, but for others it is time to prepare, sow, plan and look to the future. It is no wonder that as communities of faith churches, including IACC, set ourselves in motion and consider the autumn as starting point for a new church year.
       As the pastor of IACC, the Lord has burdened my heart with the topic of "Fellowship" in order to choose "Fellowship with Christ; Walk in the Light" as the annual theme for the 2011-2012 church year, based on the words of the scripture in I John.1:7.
       One of the privileges of being in a church with a small group of parishioners is the opportunity to have good quality fellowship with individual members and families. I see this reality in the post-worship service social hour of our church, where people yearn to stay and spend time with each other as much as time allows them to do so. People desire fellowship.
       I John 1:7 reminds us that our fellowship is going to be positive, constructive and productive when first we build a genuine fellowship with the Lord himself. People will look at our faces, our words and our lives and would know that we have met the Lord somewhere in our private moments and have been blessed by His presence. Our fellowship with the Lord will be reflected on our fellowship with each other. Our enlightened minds and our purified motives will shine on our paths and the paths of those who meet us.
       In his book "Outliers" Malcolm Gladwell tells about the small town of Rosetta, Pennsylvania. In Rosetta there was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction and very little crime and no one was on welfare. Some further research showed that in Rosetta no one under the age of fifty had ever died of a heart attack. For men over the age of 65, the rate of heart disease was less than half of the rate in the rest of the US. Although the people of Rosetta did not eat differently than anyone else and their smoking and drinking habits were also about the same as the rest of the nation, but somehow they were privileged to be healthier than many others.
        After weeks of study it was discovered that Rosetta was a unique and a wonderful place to live. It was found that the townspeople of Rosetta visited one another. When they passed people on the street they took time to chat. They often cooked for each other in their back yards. Many homes had three generations living under the same roof. Grandparents were highly respected in the town. The Rosettans were healthy because they had a sense of community. They looked beyond the individual, in other words, the people of Rosetta made a conscious decision to care for one another and make worship a central part of their lives.
       The community of faith to which we belong is another arena for spiritual and social fellowship. The church family is there to help us find the true us, the true we and the true Him, the Lord of the hosts, if we decide to walk in the light and reflect His light to others. Amen.
       
      Rev. Vatche Ekmekjian