Cherokee Presbyterian Church

03/20/2026

Please plan to join us for worship this Easter!
Good Friday Service 4/3/26 at 6PM
Easter Sunday 4/5/26
Morning Worship at 10:30am, Evening at 5:30pm

02/26/2026

Join us as we celebrate our risen King!

01/30/2026

Pastoral Letter- Counting Our Blessings

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in an evening sermon about counting our blessings. The Lord has been good to us in many ways. Surely, we can’t number them all. However, it is a good thing to name some of the blessings we have kindly received from God. We have been blessed with family members and friends and jobs and provision. And our chief blessings are found in Christ through his life, death, resurrection, and intercession (Eph. 1:3-14). The Lord is the giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17)—the greatest being Jesus our Savior.

As it pertains to our church, in 2025, we experienced many blessings. CPC continued to grow. We saw conversions and a baptism by profession of faith. We had numerous children born into our visible church, along with covenant baptisms. We started a fuller Wednesday night ministry with a meal for fellowship, instruction for kids and youth, and we continued our weekly prayer meeting. We made our way through almost 40 sections of the Gospel of Luke in the morning service, along with a brief Old Testament series in the summer and an advent series during Christmas.

In the evening service, we heard sermons through 1 Samuel and started 2 Samuel. Our Sunday School activities included lots of teaching for our children, and instruction for our youth and adults on the book of Exodus, the Westminster Confession, Martin Luther, and the Nicene Creed. Our small groups and men’s and women’s studies met for fellowship, time in the Word, prayer, and instruction in theology. Our corporate witness was blessed through the ministry at the Phoenix Senior Living. Our individual witness saw many visitors to the church. CPC had several folks join the church in 2025. Our congregation is expanding downwardly in the Word, inwardly in love and service for each other, outwardly in evangelism, and upwardly in worship and communion with God. May we excel even more in these areas as we continue in 2026.

In addition, we were also blessed through our giving. Our tithes and offerings substantially exceeded our expenditure, leaving us with a large excess for the year. The session dispersed some of that to our existing missionaries that you see on the back of your bulletin, and we gave to other works as well. The reminder will be placed in the building fund.

Another area of blessing has been with our intern Trey Weaver and his family. Trey continues to work hard at seminary and with his presbytery responsibilities moving towards ordination. Lord willing, we will have a congregational meeting this Sunday for the purpose of electing the session to be the search committee, which in the weeks ahead will recommend that the congregation elect Trey to be an associate pastor at CPC. God has blessed us in many ways. Naming some of them one by one gives us perspective on the goodness of God. Counting these blessings makes us thankful and spurs us on in love and good deeds. Considering God’s blessings in Christ and in providence encourages us to keep growing in unity, maturity, ministry, and purity, all with our eyes on Christ.

—Pastor Clif

01/24/2026

Schedule Change- Sunday, January 25th

Due to declining weather conditions, the Session has decided to cancel all services at CPC tomorrow, January 25th. Please stay safe in your home. In lieu of our usual in-person worship services, here is a list of churches, with their livestream links, that you can watch online for morning & evening services.

~Christ Church- Charleston SC
(Morning Service 10:30am, Evening Service 5:30pm)
Access livestream via any of their media platforms. Click link below.
https://www.youtube.com/

~Westminster Presbyterian Church- Jacksonville FL
(Morning Worship 10:30am, Evening 5:30pm)
Access livestream via the link below.
https://www.youtube.com//streams

~Westminster Presbyterian Church- Fort Walton FL
(Morning Worship 10:15am, Evening 5:30pm)
Access livestream via the link below.
https://www.wpc-pca.com/live-webcast

~First Presbyterian Church (Jackson, MS)
(Morning Worship 11am, Evening 6:00pm -ALL CENTRAL TIME)
Access the livestream via the link below.
https://fpcjackson.org/livestream/

~Second Presbyterian Church (Pre-recorded the Service)
https://spcgreenville.org/weather/

Updated 1/23/2006 11:45 PM Due to the forecasted winter storm, all services and activities for Sunday, January 25 are cancelled. Thanks to our pastors, choir members, and many church members staying late this past Wednesday evening, the morning worship service has been pre-recorded and will be broad...

12/22/2025

Our annual Christmas Eve service is Wednesday at 5:30pm. Join us for a service of lessons and carols as we celebrate the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. All are welcome!

10/30/2025

Pastoral Letter

Not everyone is gung-ho about church history. And yet, there is much to learn from it. Hebrews 12:1 tells us we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Rom. 15:4 and 1 Cor. 10:6 teach us how these witnesses from Scripture, and by extension outside of Scripture, are given for our instruction. Therefore, we can gain much from history, especially periods like Reformation. What do we learn?

We might benefit from facts such as Martin Luther died in the same city he was born. His first and last breaths were taken in Eisleben. We also might learn how Luther had multiple near-death experiences. In 1503, he almost died from a severed artery caused by a sword he was carrying. And two years later, he was nearly struck by lightning in an awful storm. In that moment, he cried out for help from Heaven above, and if received, he would become a monk. (Be careful what you promise in lightning storms.)

We might see how Luther’s first set of theses was one with 97 not 95. It was called A Disputation on Scholastic Theology. Luther’s hymn A Mighty Fortress is Our God was not sung to the tune of a popular pub song. Luther wrote it between 1527-1529, as the plague was bearing down on Wittenberg. These are all facts we can learn from the Reformation. But what is the significance of the Reformation for us? That’s a deeper question to consider. One answer concerns the need for right doctrine.

The Need for Right Doctrine

Scripture testifies to the importance of doctrine. Paul sent Titus to the island of Crete, and he described the people as, 1:16, detestable, disobedient, and unfit for anything good. What did Paul want Titus to do given their wretchedness? Create a Behavior Intervention Plan? Send them to Corporate Sensitivity Training? Titus 2:1, Paul said, teach what accords with sound doctrine, because Bible truth is what God uses to transform lives.

Martin Luther understood that. Think about Luther as a young man. In the late Middle Ages, a Latin phrase had become the primary theological model of the day—Facere quod in se est. Literally it means, “Do what is in you.” And the idea was, do your best and God will take care of the rest. Do what you can in obedience to God, and he will grade your efforts on a curve, and you will be saved. Luther was theologically raised with this works-righteousness perspective, and it nearly killed him. Luther struggled to know ‘what was his best.’ He wrestled with his own wickedness, and he saw God only as the righteous punisher of sin. When Luther conducted his first Mass, he was so overwhelmed with the mysterium tremendum, “the mystery that repels,” he spilled the wine—problematic for a transubstantiationalist, who believed the wine was the literal blood of Christ.

Luther said of himself during this time, “I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God.” What changed? Doctrine. He agonized over, “Is there a gracious God?” The answer he learned was, “Grace is found in the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ.” Specifically, Rom. 1:17 impacted Luther. For in it (that is, the Gospel of Jesus Christ) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” After meditating on Paul’s words, the lights went off in Luther’s mind and he said, “There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith … namely, the passive righteousness with which the merciful God justifies us by faith … Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.” Luther met the God of grace at the foot of Christ’s Cross.

Over time, Luther saw acceptance with God not as based on grace-empowered deeds, but as a declaration by God grounded in Christ’s work on behalf of the sinner. Eventually, Luther saw how ‘being justified by God’ was not determined through the culmination of works at the end of life. Justification was an act of God’s grace to bring the sinner into a new position. The Believer was ‘declared righteous,’ all because of Christ. Saving grace was received by God-given faith.

For Luther, this was doctrine people needed, because this was doctrine that would change lives. That’s what Bible truth does. By the power of the Spirit, doctrine changes us. Let us receive what “accords with sound doctrine” and be transformed.

—Pastor Clif

10/23/2025

Pastoral Letter

Haggai 1:1—In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest:

Have you ever found yourself driving through a neighborhood when out the corner of your eye you see Christmas decorations in someone’s yard? And it’s June? And you think to yourself, why are they still up? What are they waiting for? Or it’s 10pm and you’re working diligently on a 10-page paper for a class, except it’s due the next morning. When we are talking about blinking lights or big essays, what do we call this kind of behavior? Procrastination. The lingerer’s slogan is, “Why undertake today, what I can put off and do tomorrow.” Perhaps some of us struggle with putting things off.

On a more serious level, this was a problem in the book of Haggai. People were waiting to obey the Lord. Their submission was not prompt. They were dallying to do what God had commanded. Sometimes we can find ourselves delaying our duty to God. We forget today is the time to obey. Haggai helps us to consider this point.

The book of Haggai begins by giving us a time reference, In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month. It’s the year 520 BC and Darius I is reigning over the most powerful empire in the world, which included the Promised Land. A previous monarch, Cyrus the Great, had already allowed the Jews to return there from Babylon, if they chose, and as early as 538 BC, thousands did. When they entered Jerusalem, they had high hopes Israel would be fully restored with a new king, from David’s line on the throne. Instead, Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel was governor. He was the grandson of Jehoiachin, former king in Judah, who had been exiled by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 24:15). Zerubbabel was of royal ancestry, but he did not lead the nation. The people were still under the power of Persia.

In addition, there had been hopes that the Temple would be rebuilt. After all, there was a high priest, Joshua the son of Jehozadak. His father served in that position when the Temple was destroyed in the 580s. Yet now, there was no Holy Sanctuary. The returnees had been commanded to rebuild it and had started about sixteen years prior to this book being written, but the Temple was still a pile of rubble, because they had grown lazy.

It was into these circumstances; God raised up a prophet—Haggai. We don’t know much about him. He was a contemporary with the prophet Zechariah, and he is mentioned in the book of Ezra a couple of times (Ez. 5:1, 6:14); but that’s it, nothing else. No birthplace is given. No genealogical information is provided, and no description of future ministry. We get zilch on Haggai, except for the four or so months that he prophesied. What we do know is that Haggai was called, he served, he obeyed, and he didn’t wait.

In some ways, Haggai was like Evelyn Holt. She was a godly lady, who lost her daughter, while she was young, and had to help raise her grandson, and she pointed him to Christ. She did it without a thousand eyes watching and without any recognition. She did what God called her to do. She was a faithful Granny ‘to me.’ What are we called to do? Where do we need to be faithful?

How about in our marriages, with husbands and wives encouraging, forgiving, and helping each other? Parents consistently do family worship with their kids and bring them to church. Singles, using their time not to serve themselves but to serve others. Employees, doing their job as unto the Lord, with joy and thankfulness in the heart. Christians, ministering in the church, witnessing to the lost, and pursuing holiness. Elders and deacons, spending and being spent for Christ and his flock. God has placed upon us various callings. Faithfulness is key.

It could be that we are struggling to do so, and that at times, we have failed miserably. Here’s some Good News. God knew that we would struggle with his call. And yet, he still called us anyway—to himself and to action. He did it knowing, “weak is the effort of our hearts.” You need to remember, great is the measure of his grace, especially shown in Christ. Find refresh strength and help in Jesus. He is grace embodied for you. Let that grace now stir you to heed his call and pursue faithfulness anew.

—Pastor Clif

09/24/2025

Pastoral Letter - Hearers and Doers

James 1:22 says, be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. And from this verse we learn; we must not only take in the Word but obey it. However, we can’t do that if we don’t listen to Scripture’s message. We must be good hearers before we can be good doers. 1 Peter 5:8—Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking to devour. Satan is at work to sn**ch the good seed of the Word from our hearts, that we might not benefit from it (Mark 4:15). He wants to destroy marriages, hurt families, tear apart churches, and ruin lives. How do we combat him? Be vigilant. Be firm in the faith. Be confident in the Lord. Be a worshipper of God. And be a good hearer of the Word. Give attention to the right preaching, teaching, and reading of Scripture.

What does being a good hearer entail? Christopher Ash provides a practical guide to listening to sermons in his excellent little book Listen Up! In it he gives “seven ingredients for healthy sermon listening.” I only mention 4 of them. 1) Expect God to speak. If the Lord’s Word is being faithfully opened, we are to faithfully give attention to it, knowing God will minister to our souls. 2) Admit God knows best. Scripture is the final authority for our lives. As it is rightly heralded, we are to have a submissive posture, even when it makes us uncomfortable. “Faithful Bible teaching will always cause offense.” Our perspective is to be, “God is God and I need to change.”

3) Check that the preacher is saying what the passage says. Be a ‘good Berean,’ “examining the Scriptures” to see if what the pastor proclaims is biblical (Acts 17:11). Know thy Bible. 4) Hear the sermon in the church. There are certainly times when we can’t do that, but our normal diet of sermon intake needs to be with God’s people. “There is no such thing as a virtual church.” The Bible has no category for it. We are shaped by and accountable to the preached Word together. Being at church will help us hear the sermon well.

There is no question that other things can help us be good hearers. On Saturday night, we can ask the Lord to help us to humbly receive the preaching and benefit from it for repentance and greater faith in Christ. We can get a good night’s sleep, so that we are less likely to nod off. We can take notes and then review those notes throughout the week. As the Puritans would say, we can improve upon the sermon, by meditating on it and then applying it to our lives. To you personally, if the sermon is dull or not up to theological s***f, don’t plan how you will have ‘roast preacher’ for lunch. Plead with God to help you hold onto one important truth for your life. Benefit where you can, and humbly pray for the preacher. We are to be doers of the Word, but that starts with hearing. May the Lord help us to be good hearers.

—Pastor Clif

09/16/2025

Dear CPC Flock,

In 1 Peter 5:7, Peter called his readers to cast “all your anxieties on [God],because he cares for you.” The Apostle Peter wrote these words to a struggling church. In addition to the difficulties of living in the 1st century—plagues, barbarians, and recessions—Believers were also being persecuted. Death and despair was everywhere. And Christians were not immune. Their anxieties were many. In the face of trying times, what did Peter tell them to do? Literally, throw their cares upon God. Like you might heave a saddle on a horse’s back, that’s what these struggling Christians were to do with their concerns. Let them rest upon the Lord and not themselves.

We live in a world where people are naturally disquieted due to health concerns, economic difficulties, relational tension, and more. The events over the past few week sat CPC and more nationally may have filled many of us with doubt and distress. In recent weeks we have lost one of our youngest members and our oldest. And then, the assassination of Charlie Kirk has affected many. And that doesn’t include other burdens we bear. We can find ourselves crushed under the weight of a thousand issues—our own and others. However, Peter tells us to hoist these things upon the Lord. The cares we have about our futures, finances, and feelings of uncertainty, we are to give to God. The worries we have about our nation, we are to let him bear them.

Why are we to do this? Peter declares, “… because he cares for you.” The Apostle is saying, “Lay your burdens on the Lord, because not only is he able to carry them, but he is willing. Your cares are his cares. He loves you and will gladly take them. He will support you in the whelming flood.” Do we need proof that God will do this? The Father loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10) He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things. (Romans 8:32)

The question is, do we believe God warmly attends to us? Do we believe it when troubles come our way? Do we believe that God cares when personal or national tragedy hits? Look no further than the Cross. See on Golgotha’s Hill the reason why we, as the people of God, can throw our worries upon the Lord. God in Christ bore our sins. He wants our burdens also. Since Christ can take our sins, surely, he can take our sorrows and struggles. Brothers and sisters, let us be faithful to cast all our cares on Christ’s strong shoulders.

Your Pastor and Friend,
Clif

06/05/2025

Pastoral Letter

Dear CPC Flock,

In 1 Peter 5:7 Peter called his readers to cast “all your anxieties on [God],because he cares for you.” The Apostle Peter wrote these words to a struggling church. In addition to the difficulties of living in the 1st century—plagues, barbarians, and recessions—Believers were also being persecuted. Their anxieties were many. In the face of trying times and uncertain futures, what did Peter tell them to do? Literally, throw their cares upon God. Like you might have a saddle on a horse’s back, that’s what these struggling Christians were to do with their concerns. Let them rest upon the Lord and not themselves.

We live in a world where people are naturally disquieted due to health concerns, economic difficulties, relational tension, and more. We are easily filled with doubt and distress. We can find ourselves bearing the weight of a thousand issues—our own and others. However, Peter tells us to hoist these things upon the Lord. The cares we have about our futures, finances, and feelings of uncertainty, we are to give to God, and let him bear them.

Why are we to do this? Peter declares, “… because he cares for you.” The Apostle is saying, “Lay your burdens on the Lord, because not only is he able to carry them, but he is willing. Your cares are his cares.” Think about the people Peter was originally writing too. They were weighed down. Emotionally, they felt crushed. However, here he exclaims, “Putt hose matters upon the Lord. He loves you and will gladly take them. He will support you in the whelming flood.” Is that true for us in our day and time? Do we need proof? The Father loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10) He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things. (Romans 8:32)

The question is, do we believe God warmly attends to us? Do we believe it when troubles come our way? Do we believe that God cares? Look no further than the Cross, and evidence is found. See on Golgotha’s Hill the reason why we, as the people of God, can throw our worries upon the Lord, and give him our hopes for CPC. God in Christ bore our sins. He wants our burdens also. Since Christ can take our sins, surely, he can take our sorrows and struggles. Brothers and sisters, let us be faithful to cast all our cares on Christ’s strong shoulders.

Your Pastor and Friend,

Clif

05/08/2025

Pastoral Letter

Romans12:13—“Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. ”

On June 13th,1525 Martin Luther and a former Catholic nun named Katherine Von Bora married. During their first week of marriage, Andreas Karlstadt, a frequent adversary of Luther’s, showed up at their door. He had been fleeing a recent battle in the Peasants’ War and was seeking shelter. What do you think Luther did? He invited Karlstadt into his home, and he stayed for eight weeks! For the Luther’s, this was not a random act of kindness. Throughout their marriage, they brought thousands of people into their home. Children, university students, weary travelers, and church members ate around their table, and enjoyed Christian fellowship—all without paying a dime. What led them to be so hospitable? Two things, God commands it, and he models it.

In Romans 12 Paul describes various marks of a Christian. A person who has received God’s mercy in Christ ought to hate evil and love good, sincerely care for others, be full of joy and patience even in suffering, be constant in prayer, bless those who persecute them, and be peaceable, humble, and forgiving. In view of God’s saving grace, they should not allow themselves to be overcome by evil but instead overcome evil with good. However, nestled within these various marks of a Christian, Paul proclaims,“13 seek to show hospitality.” As Believers, it is something we are called to pursue. Itis an expression of love for the church and for those outside our walls. We are to intentionally look and plan for opportunities to open our homes, share a meal, spend time with others, and speak of Christ. And what’s behind this command? God’s hospitable saving work in Christ. He is the exemplar for hospitality.

In the Bible, the very same language that is employed to describe how we are to engage inhospitality is also employed to explain God’s redeeming activity. Guest, stranger, invitation, welcome, house, feast, fellowship—all these words explain different aspects of hospitality, but they also are used to outline God’s saving activity. He is the ultimate and ideal host, because he has been hospitable on a much grander scale. After Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, they were removed east of Eden (Gen. 3:24). They were estranged from God, and we in Adam. But in Christ that estrangement has been overcome (Col. 1:21-22). Once strangers and aliens, we are now adopted and brought into the family God and nurtured in his household (Gal. 4:4-6). Because of Jesus we, who were once outcasts, are now guests at his banqueting table (Mat. 22:9-10). Therefore, we are to show hospitality to one another without grumbling (1 Pet. 4:9).

How we show hospitality can vary. The level of hospitality can be different depending on the circumstances of life. But the point is, a maturing church is a hospitable church. It is a church that seeks the fellowship of Believers, for mutual encouragement, outside the normal times of gathering. And as we will see this coming Sunday, a maturing church is one that uses hospitality as a tool for evangelism. A hospitable church looks for the visitor, young and old, and seeks to make them feel welcome. Paul said, Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. (Rom. 15:7). CPC is a welcoming church. May the Lord help us to excel all the more and grow inhospitality.

-Pastor Clif