Faith Presbyterian Church

09/04/2026

A House Divided: Part 2
“No city or house divided against itself will stand.”
-Matthew 12:25
A note to the reader: the following letter was inspired by C.S. Lewis’ work: The Screwtape Letters. In that work, Lewis writes a series of imagined conversations between an older demon and a younger demon. The older demon Screwtape serves as mentor to the younger demon Wormwood. In such a conversation, values and ethics are inverted: up is down, and down is up. If the reader is encountering this kind of writing for the first time, it may take a bit of adjustment. In the following letter, I have imagined a conversation that may happen between two demons today, some 80 years after Lewis wrote the Screwtape Letters. In this conversation, Wormwood, formerly the younger demon, is now the older demon mentoring a new apprentice.
Dear Vilescum,
After our discussion of the family, I’ve been thinking about the church. The family is the main problem, but the church is troublesome as well. That being said, once we divide the family during the week, it won’t seem so strange to them to be divided at church on Sunday.
Start small. Get them used to going to different classes for Sunday school. Get them used to the idea that when the family arrives at church, the parents drop the children off to do their thing, and the parents go and do their own thing before picking the children up later. From here, it will feel very natural for the same principle to be applied to that most heinous of all things, Sunday morning worship.
If we can divide the family for the hour of Sunday morning worship, we will have won a great victory. For you see, we will communicate to the children that what happens in the sanctuary during worship is not for them. They will rightly understand that they must be carted off somewhere else and kept away, and so when they grow older, they will stay away. Better still, children will be unable to see the value that their parents place on worship and therefore on the Enemy. They must come to believe only in some abstract way that because their parents go to this place called church, they must value it. But never let them see their fathers and their mothers singing raptly or paying careful attention to the reading of the Enemy’s Word.
Note that you must not stop short in any of these efforts. Special times of ministry to children are a tool of the Enemy. It was He who said, “Let the little children come to me.” Such times are useful to our cause only in so much as they move towards dividing the family in public worship. Divide the family at home. Divide the family at church. This must be our strategy.
Sincerely Yours,
Wormwood

08/28/2026

A House Divided: Part 1

“No city or house divided against itself will stand.”

-Matthew 12:25

A note to the reader: the following letter was inspired by C.S. Lewis’ work: The Screwtape Letters. In that work, Lewis writes a series of imagined conversations between an older demon and a younger demon. The older demon Screwtape serves as mentor to the younger demon Wormwood. In such a conversation, values and ethics are inverted: up is down, and down is up. If the reader is encountering this kind of writing for the first time, it may take a bit of adjustment. In the following letter, I have imagined a conversation that may happen between two demons today, some 80 years after Lewis wrote the Screwtape Letters. In this conversation, Wormwood, formerly the younger demon, is now the older demon mentoring a new apprentice.

Dear Vilescum,

Your idea about dividing the family is a wonderful one, although you won’t be able to start at the extreme place that you mentioned. Of course, it would be good if, down the road, we could get children to completely cut off their parents. We could call it something like “going no contact,” but we won’t be able to begin there. We’ll have to begin dividing them in much more subtle ways.

I’ve always had great success turning good things into useful things for our cause. If we’re going to divide the family, we need to start in the home. We’ll want to get children out of the home as much as possible, and we can use good things to do that. I suggest getting the children involved in as many activities as possible: sports, music, theater. Fill up the calendar. Do everything you can to make sure that parents and children have no downtime, no quiet time together, and especially no time to eat meals together at their family dinner table. Make it so that even if a man wanted to pray with his family and read scripture with them, he would be too tired to do so at the end of the day. In other words, make it impossible for parents to follow those dangerous instructions given by the Enemy in Deuteronomy 6. Cell phones are particularly useful in this case. They make it so that even when the family is unfortunately all in the home at the same time, they’re not really all together. They can sit at the same table or in the same room and yet be in their own worlds. Do your best to get cell phones in the hands of children at as young an age as possible. If you can’t do that, work on the parents. If they look at their phones more than their children, nearly the same result is accomplished.

Sincerely Yours,

Wormwood

08/21/2026

The Exchange Zone
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.” -1 Corinthians 9:24
I'm fairly sure the Apostle Paul was a runner. If he didn't run himself he was certainly a fan of the sport. Paul uses running as an illustration or metaphor at least 7 times in his New Testament writings.
Of all the track and field events, I’ve always found relays to be the most exciting. The running portion of a relay race is largely the same as a non-relay event. The added element and the added excitement come from passing the baton. When the first runner finishes his leg of the race, he enters the “exchange zone” - the area on the track where he must pass the baton to the next runner before that runner can start his leg. The exchange of the baton is crucial. It must be performed as quickly as possible and as accurately as possible. If the runners slow too much while passing the baton – they will lose the race. If they drop the baton during the exchange – they are disqualified and lose the race.

The chart below (taken from Ryan Burge at Graphs About Religion) illustrates the age distribution of Christians by denomination in the United States. Our denomination is not listed – but I can tell you that we fall on the upper end of the range and are most similar to the PCA. As you can see, the church has a bulge between the ages of 60-80, meaning the vast majority of our members fall within that age range. The black line represents the average age of members in those denominations.
Why does this matter? The chart illustrates that our church is in the exchange zone. If you fall in the 60-80 age range, you are in the closing section of your race. Many of you have run hard and run well. The church exists today because of God’s faithful work in and through you. The time has now come to pass the baton. As in a relay race, the baton must be passed quickly and it must be passed accurately. We can’t pass it too slowly and lose the race, for as Paul says, we are running to win. Nor can we drop the baton, for then we will be disqualified.
Passing the baton well is a highly rewarding experience. If you’ve ever watched a relay, you know that the fans cheering most loudly for those running are the athletes who have already run their leg and passed the baton. May we pass the baton well. May those who have finished their leg of the race cheer exuberantly. May the next leg of the Christian race be run hard and well.

Your Pastor and Friend,
John Knox Foster

08/17/2026

Faith Family,

We are happy to announce that audio recordings of Sunday sermons are now available on the church's YouTube channel. We hope these recordings will allow you to catch up on sermons you may have missed while traveling, sick, or providentially hindered from attending worship in person. Ordinarily, sermon audio will be uploaded to YouTube on Monday. In the near future, sermon recordings will also be uploaded to the church's website.

P.S. - We are aware that this week's audio is less than ideal in several ways and we will be working to clean up future recordings.

Your Pastor and Friend,

John Knox Foster

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

08/14/2026

The 80/20 Rule

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter.” -Exodus 20:4

The 80/20 rule, popularized by Richard Koch, states that “80% of the results come from 20% of the causes.” For example, 80% of the health and fitness gains that you need to make would come from making the simple decision to work out five or six days a week. 80% of your retirement portfolio is held up by 20% of the companies you invest in. 80% of the work in our church is done by 20% of the people in our church.
As far as I can tell there's no use fighting against the 80/20 rule. It seems to be baked into the reality of the world as God made it. The good news is that once you know the 80/20 rule, you can use it to your advantage.
It's no secret that families today are struggling. 50% of millennials (born 1981-1996) report going “no contact” with a family member – meaning they completely cut that family member out of their lives and have no contact whatsoever with them. 60% of Gen Z (born 1997-2012) report the same. 40% of marriages in the United States end in divorce. 34-35% of children in the United States live in a household headed by either a single parent or unmarried parents.
What can be done? We can apply the 80/20 rule. Families - commit wholeheartedly and unreservedly to following two (20%) of the Ten Commandments. Which two? The First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). And the Fourth Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). We can reduce these two Commandments further. If you keep the Fourth Commandment, you will also keep the First. Unless providentially hindered, to be absent from worship on the Lord's Day is, by definition, to place some other God before the true God.
Fathers, the future of your family is at stake. The statistics are clear – we have a problem. The solution is clear also. Put the Lord first in your family's life by being in Sunday morning worship every week. This is 80% of the solution. By contrast you can do everything else right but miss Sunday worship and only get 20% of the way to what your family truly needs.
See you Sunday.

Your Pastor and Friend,
John Knox Foster

08/07/2026

Family Vision
“Revelation is out to undermine our confidence in the evidence of our own eyes.” -Paul Spilsbury

The best defenders in football watch a quarterback's eyes. A quarterback's eyes tell the story. His eyes tell the defenders what play has been called and where he's thinking about throwing the football.

When I turned 16 and took my driving test, my instructor criticized me for turning the steering wheel when I turned my head. If I looked left, the steering wheel went left. If I looked right, the steering wheel went right. I have to admit that nearly 16 years later I still drive that way.

Your vision controls your action. Where your eyes go, your body will soon follow. What is true physically is also true theologically. The way you see Jesus will determine the way you live your life. More importantly parents, the way you see Jesus will determine the way your children live their lives.
Our culture will do everything in its power to direct your eyes away from Jesus. Our culture will tell you that work, school, travel sports, birthday parties, and baby showers are more important than corporate worship on Sunday. We believe that lie because we are constantly shown images of successful athletes, businessmen, and socialites. Think about how much time you spend watching TV, on social media, and on the internet versus in church or reading your Bible. For almost all of us the images of this world are before our eyes far more often than the images of Scripture.

So parents, fathers, let me ask you a question that I've been asking myself. Where are you looking? What vision do you have for your family? What images are most often before your eyes and before your children's eyes? Do you see Jesus as he really is? Do you see him as supremely valuable? Or are you beholding some lesser good as supreme?

If you turn your eyes to the left or to the right, your family will follow, like the steering wheel in my car. Where are you looking?

Your Pastor and Friend,
John Knox Foster

07/21/2026

Faith Family,
Be sure to join us tomorrow night at 5:30 p.m. for hamburgers and hot dogs and the conclusion of this week's Vacation Bible School! No cost!

07/14/2026

Back in time to 1989? 🤪 Due to an unfortunate episode with a utility pole - our internet, phones and several other systems are down. Email is available but maybe slower than usual. Hope to return to 2026 by tomorrow. 😁

07/04/2026

Happy Birthday to our Associate Pastor Nate !!

06/30/2026

Do you struggle to trust the Lord? Are you wrestling with grief or anxiety? Is there unconfessed sin eating at your heart? The Psalms address the deepest human emotions and point us to Christ amidst suffering and pain. Join us in worship during July as we open up the Psalms together and allow God's Word to speak into our hearts!

Since the Psalms are the hymns of Scripture, each week we will not only read and preach from a Psalm, we will also sing a modern version of that Psalm in worship! Keep an eye on your email and the Faith Worship Playlist on Spotify so that you can listen to these modern
Psalms and prepare your hearts for worship.

Your Pastor an Friend,
John Knox Foster