Christ Church Amherst

Christ Church Amherst Seeking to Make Connections and Offer Opportunities for Faith, Love and Service

06/23/2026

Come explore this Sunday’s Scripture!
We will be exploring the scriptures for this Sunday, June 28, 2026 - Genesis 25:19-34, Romans 8:1-11, and Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23.

06/22/2026

It’s Monday, June 22, 2026 - officially summer! So let’s use this season as a time to get equipped for where we are being called in ministry in the year ahead.

The yoke is easy and the burden is light. Come and worship!
06/21/2026

The yoke is easy and the burden is light. Come and worship!

Make a Joyful Noise As I stepped out the door for the morning walk with the dog, this musical clef greeted me. I listen...
06/18/2026

Make a Joyful Noise
As I stepped out the door for the morning walk with the dog, this musical clef greeted me. I listened to the birds singing their morning song, the sounds of the neighborhood waking, and my own breath. And this just felt like a reminder to get prepared, to tune in, tune up, lift my heart, and to sing to the Lord through the work of my day.
While John Wesley gives explicit directions for singing (see page vii in the front of the United Methodist Hymnal), the first verse of Psalm 100 expresses more leniently and gently to simply “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.” I think we all need reminder dropped in our path or hummed in our ear from time-to-time to refocus and encourage us to once again find our tune and sing. That melody for some may truly be with voice or instrument, while others may share their joyful song in cooking, visiting a friend, or immersed in the natural world. We would be keen to look and listen for God who is actively dropping little notes along our journeys to lift our hearts and spirits that we would join the chorus of the faithful and make a joyful noise to the Lord. As we discover them, we are encouraged by them to find the beat of God’s heart in Christ, to pickup the rhythm through the movement of the Holy Spirit, and then as Wesley says in his directions, “Sing lustily and with a good courage.”

-Pastor Daven

To Do I have a standing list I keep on my phone of things which need to be done. Some of the tasks are small, but t...
06/18/2026

To Do

I have a standing list I keep on my phone of things which need to be done. Some of the tasks are small, but time consuming while others are larger undertaking which will span several days to complete. It seems that no matter how hard I try, this list never grows shorter. In fact, often as I manage to tackle some of the tasks, more are added almost as a result and consequence!� I’ve written before about the importance of rest and spending time resting with God. Heaven knows that the pressure of all those things we need to do can make that seem like a far-flung reality. I sometimes feel, though, that we can turn our faith into another task or series of tasks that stand on our list and which always grow. Reading scripture, prayer, worship participation, giving, service …� A life of faith is a journey and not a destination. When we reduce it to another task, we also limit the meaning it gives to life. While lists are good and help us to stay disciplined, maybe we need to remake the list particularly surrounding our faith. Maybe its time to look at what we receive from it rather than what it demands of us, instead of ‘to do’, ‘to receive and give.’��-Pastor Daven

06/17/2026

Feasting on the Word links us to an ancient Christian discipline of meditating on God’s word. It employs a small passage of scripture read four times in four different translations interspersed with silence to engage with scripture more deeply. This devotional act lets God’s word speak to us. It is a great meditative practice which only requires a little bit of time!

Today’s passage is 1 Chronicles 29:10-13.

06/16/2026

Come explore this Sunday’s Scripture!
We will be exploring the scriptures for this Sunday, June 21, 2026 - Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67, Romans 7:15-25a, and Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30.

06/15/2026

It’s Monday, June 15, 2026 - I was thinking of going back to a gratitude journal when I just started to reflect on how grateful I am for this faith community …

When we welcome others, we welcome God. Come and worship!
06/14/2026

When we welcome others, we welcome God. Come and worship!

New Life I was out riding my bike northeast of the Tonawanda wildlife refuge among the farms and fields when I came ...
06/11/2026

New Life

I was out riding my bike northeast of the Tonawanda wildlife refuge among the farms and fields when I came upon this lady. Right there beside the road didn’t seem like the safest of places, in the sunshine with no cover. And yet it was here that she found the optimal place in the soft shoulder along the side to lay her eggs. I don’t think she appreciated my gawking at her or spying at her clutch, but she was so busy about her business that I was able to admire this miracle. And a mere five miles later, I encountered another doing the same.
This seems to be the ministry of Jesus and those whom he called disciples. Whether it was the baffled crowd at Pentecost unable to understand how they could be experiencing what they were experiencing from a bunch of uneducated Galileans, or the many that Jesus encountered and healed in the towns, villages, and along the roadways of his travels. It wasn’t among cover or in the safety of places of power that the beginnings of new life were laid. It was on the soft shoulders along the hazardous roads of life. That’s where opportunity and ministry take place, at the fringes.
Where are the fringes where we are being called to go and risk among the hazards? Are we willing to be bold and courageous, knowing that sometimes the best opportunities are where we least expect it? We are still being called today to the highways and byways to plant the possibilities of new life. Others, like I did, may stop and gawk at our work when we take the risk. But it will be with the same admiration of the miracle of new life that will come.

-Pastor Daven

Address

350 Saratoga Road
Amherst, NY
14226

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 2pm
Wednesday 9am - 2pm
Friday 9am - 2pm
Sunday 9am - 12pm

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