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Boulder City
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Pastor John and Kitty
A Message from the Pastor--
Kitty and I are blessed to be in Boulder City as part of this truly remarkable congregation of people. All of us are bound together by God’s grace and the joy we find in being a faith community. Elsewhere you can read about our core values of grace, prayer, worship, diversity, fellowship, community, discipleship, and stewardship; they do truly represent us. The power of the Holy Spirit to bring together people from Roman Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, agnostic and many Protestant faith traditions has created a wonderful sense of God’s grace and love
This is my story as pastor of Boulder City United Methodist Church. This is why I love this church and all those who have come and are still to come from such diverse life experiences and faith journeys.
I look back and I know that God, the Holy Spirit first touched me when I was eighteen, at a Billy Graham crusade held at Soldiers Field in Chicago. But I did nothing because it just seemed so emotional. I was raised in a Presbyterian home, doing all that a young Christian was supposed to do, but it would be eleven years later that I understood why we use the term ‘born again’. In those intervening years I married, completed college, and two daughters were born. I served a tour in Vietnam, and became a National Park Ranger. Had I been asked my religion, I would have checked the “Christian” box. By God’s prevenient grace, the grace we receive before we know who he is, I did not die.
God puts a spiritual hunger in each of us - we long for a relationship with a God that is greater than us and greater than all that we face. To fill my spiritual hunger, I was looking at Yacqui medicine men and other spiritualists. No one had ever clearly told me what Jesus said about himself: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” When I did understand what these words meant, when I chose to accept them as truth, and when I chose to receive them as applicable to me, I knew that the old me, the ‘old man’, passed away and I was made new. I apply the scripture “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see" to myself.
This happened in the Tolmie Peak Fire Lookout in Mount Rainier National Park. In the midst of that beauty and majesty the reality of God as Creator set the stage for a man who loved the Bible to show me, in God’s own words and through the example of Christ Jesus, how much God loved me and my family (now with a third daughter). That man faithfully opened the Bible and shared that I am part of the “world God so loved” that he sent his son, Christ who died, paying the price for my sin, and breaking the power of sin in my life. That was 1973, but my ministry didn’t begin until after I retired from the National Park Service.
My daughters married and began families of their own. On Good Friday, 2001, all my dreams and visions died when my wife of 35 years died of cancer. The loneliness was overwhelming.
Later that same year, I met Kitty through an introduction by our children. Kitty’s husband had also died of cancer. Kitty’s Christian faith has been strong since childhood, and we soon discovered that we shared the same vision of putting our faith into action. We were married in 2002, and now share seven children and 19 grandchildren.
Thirty-one years later, in 2004, I began to serve in Boulder City, my first church appointment. I had grown in my faith through worshipping in mission, community, charismatic and denominational churches. Each seemed to emphasize a portion of the mystery that is our triune God: God our Father, God our Savior Christ Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit. God graciously took his time, never leaving me nor forsaking me, but always transforming me on toward the image of his Son
I believe that as we understand God’s grace we become instruments of His grace. Having been “saved” by being exposed to God’s word I have great faith in the ability of His word to convict and change us from the inside out. This church does not have to tell anyone how to live. Our desire is to be a safe place for people to come to question God; he will do what ever is needed. His desire is for our good. With Jesus as our example--if we can love even a little bit like he does--we can change our lives and the lives of others.
I believe Christians worship Christ as God. I believe we are God’s children by God’s choice; through no effort on our part. This is grace; God’s unmerited favor. This faith community is a wonderful and exciting place to be. My desire is to help you feel as at home and blessed here as Kitty and I do.
God Bless Us All,
Pastor John