Welcome to the Yorkshire Church Blog

9 April 2021 Good Day Yorkshire!

Well, it’s Friday, just over a week since our Easter festivities began with our Maundy Thursday Fellowship meal. What an incredible weekend we had. What incredible fellowship we shared as we praised our Father in Heaven, through His Son, Jesus Christ, with the power of the Holy Spirit!

I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to share in the times of worship that we celebrated. I am also appreciative of all the effort that goes in behind the scenes. We have a great staff at Yorkshire.
Each Tuesday, we spend a few hours discussing the happenings at Yorkshire from Worship to Preschool, activities to future planning. It is a time of reflecting on what happened the previous Sunday, to visioning ideas for what is to come. We share ideas and brainstorm possibilities. We laugh. This team makes things happen. I look forward to this time each week with Alison Sutherland, Julie Mann, Megan Krusemark, and Matt Monticchio. Although she is not present at the meeting due to her work hours, input is received and discussed from Brittany Mowrer, as she works to keep our facilities in tip-top shape.

Another team that is so valuable to our worship is the Media Team. The tasks of this team begin late in the week once our Worship plans are in place. Paul Shoff spends hours of his time through the week ensuring that song lyrics are entered into the software that displays them in the sanctuary and for those of you on the livestream. This past weekend, instead of two services, there were four that required a great deal of effort. This takes time, especially with our very creative Worship leader Matt who brings new musical liturgies to us each week. Watch out when our collaborations give him the opportunity to select music for special worship services! (umm, are these words in Latin, Greek, Hebrew…?) I am also thankful for those who put Paul’s work into motion on Sunday morning. This past weekend, Al Mink, Frank Herron, Josh Webber, Brayton Kominsky, Paul Shoff, and even Pastor Megan (lighting) were working diligently to bring great sound, lighting, and graphics to the fellowship. On other Sundays, we appreciate the efforts of Ashley Berman and Debra Why who round out the team.

In close support to these folks, is Debra Why. Many of you watch our livestream recordings at times other than our standard worship times through our website. That is only possible as a result of Debra’s work following our services to archive and load each service’s videos which include the message notes, weekly announcements, and even the What’s Brewing correspondence. Her time in these tasks can be quite extensive. Her time is appreciated! If you enjoy access to this data and information online, make sure to say “thanks” to Debra Why when you see her!

This past weekend, we enjoyed a time of fellowship between our services. What an awesome array of food and snacks that were available. This was especially appreciated during our worship as it is my discernment that the influx of sugar consumed had something to do with the energy in the sanctuary! Maybe coffee and honey buns can be our new strategy for inspired and energized worship! This effort was led by Susan Workinger as a part of our new Missions/Outreach team, of which the Jerusalem effort of outreach is focused on our fellowship. Thanks to the family Ivie, Focht, and my wife Holly for their efforts in supporting this part of our ministry, as well. There may have been others involved here with

ongoing assistance, and if I missed you, I will acknowledge next week! For all of your efforts and the time of interacting and sharing in all that was provided, I say “thanks much!”

Our time of Sunrise fellowship had a special element to it in that we were outside. The sounds of the birds, St. Joe’s church bells (on cue) and Springettsbury Township emergency services offered their unique blend to our time of worship. I would like to thank David and Nancy Lloyd for their work on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in ensuring that we had seats to sit in for this special time. They were the first on the scene on Sunday morning- setting up the chairs in the dark of the early morning by light of a street lamp, well before 6AM. That is dedication! That is appreciated!

I also want to call out Jim Valentine and Alison Sutherland for their efforts as part of our newly resurrected greeting ministry. One of the first impressions that a church makes on those who attend our worship is the greeting they receive as they enter the church. This past weekend, we added this role back to our ministry which will be of great support to our usher team. It was great to watch how the enthusiasm of Jim and Alison quickly spread to others, and at times, it was hard to tell who the official “greeters” were as everyone seemed to be greeting everyone! This is an area of our ministry that we will continue to build. As many folks are returning to worship, there are also those that are seeking a place to worship. So, as new folks come into the church, we have to be sure that we recognize them and do all we can to assist them in navigating our facility as well as understanding how we go about worship.
Although the “greeters” have the primary responsibility, it is really a key element of the fellowship of Yorkshire Church for all of us to make every visitor feel as though they are a part of our family! Sometimes, we tend to get so engaged in “catching up” with one another, that we allow new visitors to slip right past us. If you would like to join us in our “official greeting ministry,” please let me, Jim Valentine, or Alison know. This will be helpful as we determine how we will coordinate this effort.

And then there are our musicians. We are so appreciative of Matt and Michaela Monticchio, Nasei Adjei-Kordei, Jackie Linsey, Beth Gross, Steve Glover, Thomas Wakeland, and those that rounded out our Choral ensemble on Thursday evening including Jim Valentine, Barbara Hudock, Norey Lucash, and Janice Hoffman. The music was unbelievably, incredibly, awesome!

Additionally, I thank the participants of Friday evening’s service. Jim Valentine, Ashley Berman, Steve Spangler, Austin Fry, Susan Herron, and Holly Kominsky. Your part in reading the scriptures, in the dark, with a spot light in your eyes added a special element to our time of reflection. I know simply reading scripture does not sound like any difficult task, but, when you do it in the location that we placed them, it was quite a challenging endeavor. For your efforts, I am thankful!

There are so many others that served this past weekend that I know I have missed. It is a great joy to be a part of this church we call Yorkshire and the people that make it what it is. I will close with two words, Thank you.

Be blessed and have a great day!

-pastor dave.

dkominsky@susumc.org

125 Edgewood Road, York, PA 17402 • (717)755-4952 • www.yorkshirechurch.org

1 April 2021   Greetings and Blessings to each of you!

As I begin this divulgence of what I am thinking about, I can’t help to consider what will I write to take advantage of April Fool’s Day?  What fun can I have to offer some sort of shock value only to then reveal at the end of the document, “April Fool’s Day!”  Well, I’ll lay it out up front… I’ve got nothing.  I have been waiting for the “Happy Fool’s Day” for over a year now as I am sure many of you have been.  But I haven’t yet heard it.  Oh well, right?

In regards to having an April Fool’s joke pulled on me, I’m not sure that it is possible anymore as I tend to not take anything that I hear to heart until I take time to vet it out, research it, and determine if it is discernably true or false.  Maybe this is a good thing, or maybe living in times that cause us to doubt just about everything is not so good.  I had a discussion with a close connection this week about differences in what we believe about certain things.  The basis was his angered response to another person that is close to me regarding differences between what they both consider truth.  Hostility developed based on an argument that neither had any type of objective evidence to base their position.  Each was based on what they heard, or saw on TV.  Each was based on what they chose to believe.  Being a neutral party, I made the point that I live my life understanding that there are a significant number of people that don’t believe in what I do.  After all, faith is a difficult thing to objectively argue to a non-believer (which he is).  But what was interesting is that his emotional anger towards the other person was due to the fact that what the other person did not believe in could negatively impact his life.  The point that he wanted to make was that the other person had to do something or believe something so that he could live safely.

But, when it came to what I have attempted to discuss with him about what he needs to “live,” he has no time for it other than the courtesy of appreciating my thoughts (we have always gotten along well).  I have realized that there is nothing that I can do to change what it is that he has chosen to believe, or not to believe, and I tried to let him know that this is true for him and the other person as well.  We all have the choice to believe what it is that we want to, for the reasons that we want to.  But, in the past, our differences of beliefs could be contained within our own hearts and minds, yet what our culture and our media is doing today (my opinion), even what we choose to believe or not believe can be weaponized against others.  As Christians, though, we are called to be different.  We are called to a fellowship that builds each other up, even in our differences.  During this season we call Lent, we have enjoyed the singing of the hymn, “They Will Know We are Christians by Our Love.”  And this is love for one another, our Christian brothers and sisters.  

This week we celebrate (or will have celebrated) a Maundy Thursday Fellowship Communion meal to reflect and remember the Last Supper, a time where Jesus brought His disciples together for a time of fellowship.  During this time, He shared much about what was to come in the next few days.  But He intimated fellowship, caring for one another and loving one another.  During this meal, he stated, 

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-34, NIV).

The love for one another was stated to infer those who were in Christ.  If you love each other as disciples, then those who are not yet disciples, or maybe even believers, will recognize you as different.  I believe the premise here is that our love for one another is what will draw those that Christ seeks into our fold.  It is the fellowship of believers that may be the strongest evangelism tool that we have.  

When I consider this in light of the conversation that I was having with my close friend, I realize that I will never get him to believe what I do by telling him what I believe or what I don’t believe.  But I also know that he is intrigued by the relationships that I have built and am constantly building through this “belief system” that I adhere to.  I know that he recognizes those that I interact with as “good people,” and I hope that what he witnesses in “my love for one another” of you, is something that the Holy Spirit uses to open his heart.

I had a wonderful opportunity to visit with one of Yorkshire’s longest living members this week as she celebrated her 98^th birthday.  It was a wonderful time where we shared Communion with her daughters.  As we shared and she reflected on some of her memories, they weren’t about the events or happenings of her church.  It was about the relationships.  She was able to articulate many of your names, and it was in the simple acknowledgement of your names and others that are now with the Savior that she found her peace.  These were all relationships that developed through her relationship with Jesus; relationships that developed in the church.  What a special blessing for me to witness the joy that radiated from her eyes as I could see how God’s love for her was manifested in her love for others.  At 98 years old, this is what mattered to her most.  I can honestly tell you, if I were not a part of the fellowship of Jesus and a part of the fellowship that obviously means so much to her, seeing the spark in her eyes would have definitely encouraged me to find such a relationship!

There is nothing I could ever do to tell someone what I witnessed during my visit this week.  I could share it with them, tell them about, and probably be moved to joyful tears in remembering it.  But, I’m not sure my experiences would do more than have them recognize how meaningful it was to me.  But I know that anyone who witnesses this love in the heart of another person, or experience what Jesus was commanding in His words recorded by John (13:34-35), will seek the source of such love.  See, I don’t think we can convince anyone of things they choose to believe or not believe only by our words.  People choose to believe things today that I simply don’t understand.  But, when we personally witness something special, something wonderful such as that which exists in the fellowship of believers, the Communion of Saints, the decision to believe (or not) is not based on hearsay, but personal experience.  

I can honestly tell you that the fellowship of Yorkshire Church continues to bless the wonderful woman I spent time with this week, even though she can no longer be here in person.  Your fellowship in Christ is the source of this blessing.  I am certain that she is not the only one that your love for one another has touched.  It may also be just the thing that God may be using to help others choose what to believe!

Be blessed and have a great day!  In Christ’s love, 

-pastor dave.

dkominsky@susumc.org