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Malibu Presbyterian Church Update
By Mark D. Roberts | Friday, October 26, 2007
On Monday I asked for prayer for Malibu Presbyterian Church because their building had been destroyed in one of the Southern California fires. Today I want to update you on what’s been happening with this church.
First, the Los Angeles Times ran a wonderful story on Malibu Presbyterian, including the picture to the right, which shows a communion chalice discovered in the ruins of the sanctuary. (This photo was scanned and sent to me by a friend. I can’t find it online. Too bad. It’s a great picture taken by Ken Hively of the LA Times.)
The Times article mentioned that on the night before the fire, Pastor Greg Hughes and his congregation had pledged a half million dollars to an inner-city teen center. They plan to honor this commitment, even as they now have to raise lots of money to rebuild their church campus. What a fine example of faith and faithfulness!
Pastor Greg also wrote an open letter that appears on the front page of the church website. It’s a fine letter, and I encourage you to read it. Here is an excerpt:
Our church remains a vibrant community of faith, alive and well in the Spirit and grace of our God. We cherish our resurrection faith. We believe that in the midst of darkness, God brings forth hope and salvation through Jesus Christ. The Lord will make something beautiful out of the ruins and ashes of our church building. I believe we will mature and grow stronger as a result of this challenge.
Amen to that. Way to go, Greg!
Let’s continue to pray for this fine church as it faces many challenging days ahead. By the way, if you live anywhere near Malibu, the church continues to meet for worship and fellowship. Check out their website for the details.
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4 Responses to “Malibu Presbyterian Church Update”
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October 26th, 2007 at 10:08 am
[…] Found this on Mark’s site. Continued prayers for the Malibu […]
October 26th, 2007 at 10:32 am
What an unbelievable photograph. It says so much on so many levels, I don’t even know where to begin. WOW. Quite interesting as I looked at this photo and read your post a song began playing on my computer (I keep iTunes open most of the day with songs just playing randomly - and I have a lot of random music) by Michael W. Smith called Come See. What an amazing backdrop to this photo — some of the lyrics are:
Come see, Come see with spirit eyes
Come see, The door is open
Come near, Come weary and ashamed
Come near, His arms are open, His arms are open
What an incredible invitation to come to the table, all who are weary, broken, caught in the rubble of life, those who have lost everything or those who have plenty. Come near - His arms are open.
October 27th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Mark, any way to get a hi-res version of the photo? This is definitely a keeper; it seems to have the message that the faith is not conquered by persecution and despair. Maybe you could ask the friend who scanned the pix to scan it in hi res?
Thanks.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:40 am
I’m the one who sent it to Mark, though I’m sure lots of SoCal Times subscribers have it, too. I don’t know if my scanner has a hi res option, but I’ll certainly check into it. I can email it to you directly if you like.