Churches

This is to notify anyone who may be interested, that the Starrucca Baptist Church (First Baptist Church of Starrucca) will be closing its doors. The last service will be at 10:00am on November 1, 2026. There will be a business meeting after the service. If any active member or past member wishes to attend, they would be welcomed. Any questions or concerns you may have, contact 570 727-2807 or 570 727-2403.

Christ Episcopal Church, Forest City will conduct its annual Blessing of Pets on Sunday, October 4, 2026, from 12:30pm to 1:30pm. The annual blessing will be a drive thru with each pet individually blessed inside your car. The location is the Browndale Fire Station, 620 Marion Street, Route 247, Browndale.

ALL pets are welcome to be blessed by Father McGinty. Donations to Dessin Animal Shelter are welcome. Dessin is in need of the following items, please donate at the Blessing or drop off at Dessin directly: kitchen garbage bags, bleach, Hefty Contractor garbage bags, assorted sizes of Martingale collars, clumping cat litter, non clumping litter, Purina Cat Chow, Friskies canned cat and kitten food, dog toys- Benebones and Jolly Balls specifically for our super chewers, laundry detergent. We welcome and serve all in Christ’s name. Faith, Food, Fun – join us on Sundays at 9:00am. Check us out on Facebook.

Good day Dear Hearts, I Love You. There is a quiet danger that can settle into a human heart without much fanfare. It does not always announce itself with drama or scandal. Sometimes it arrives wrapped in something perfectly ordinary a relationship, a career, a screen, a bank account, a bottle, a dream, or even a fear. But over time, that ordinary thing grows larger and larger in our inner world, until one day we realize it has taken a seat that belongs to someone else entirely.

The Bible has a word for this. Idolatry. And it is more common in rural Pennsylvania kitchens and front porches than we might care to admit. God's very first command to His people was a boundary drawn around the heart, “You shall have no other gods before me,” Exodus 20:3-5. He is not a jealous God in the petty sense, He is jealous the way a good father is jealous for his child's well-being when he sees them being led astray. He knows what obsession does to a soul and He will not share the throne without consequence.

The Apostle John, writing to believers he loved like children, closed his letter with a gentle but urgent word, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). Paul echoes the same urgency, commanding the Colossian church to "put to death" whatever belongs to earthly obsession greed, which he calls idolatry and to stop being conformed to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of the mind (Colossians 3:5; Romans 12:2). The battlefield, Scripture makes clear, is not just behavior. It is the thought of life. “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ,” 2 Corinthians 10:4-5. What we dwell on shapes who we become. Paul's prescription is beautifully practical: "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely think about such things" (Philippians 4:8).

The consequences of ignoring this counsel are woven through some of Scripture's most sobering stories. Samson was a man of extraordinary gifts who allowed one obsession, Delilah to blind him in every sense of the word (Judges 16). David, a man after God's own heart, let one lingering look become lust, lust became adultery and adultery became murder (2 Samuel 11). Jesus himself warned that no one can serve two masters, that the eye of the heart illuminates the whole body and that where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:19-24). He told the story of a rich fool who filled his barns to the brim, never gave a thought to eternity and called it foolishness (Luke 12:16-21). Paul warned that those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap, and that the love of money, not money itself, but the love of it is a root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:9-10).

The road to obsession is rarely a sudden fall. It is a slow drift, beginning in the heart. “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it,” wrote Solomon (Proverbs 4:23). Genesis tells us that sin is crouching at the door, desiring to master us but that we must master it (Genesis 4:7). James traces the arc with painful honesty: each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own desire. Desire conceives and gives birth to sin. Sin, when full-grown, brings death (James 1:14-15). Paul pleads, “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires,” Romans 6:12-14. But here is the grace at the center of it all, God does not call us out of obsession and leave us empty-handed. He calls us into something better. “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you,” writes Peter (1 Peter 5:7). The psalmist cries from the wilderness, “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you” and finds satisfaction in that seeking (Psalm 63:1). “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you,” Psalm 55:22. Jesus invites us to stop worrying about what we will eat or wear or have, for our Heavenly Father already knows our needs, and to "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well,” Matthew 6:25-34; Matthew 6:33.

Paul, who knew what it was to be consumed first by religion, then by Christ counted everything he had once obsessed over as loss, garbage even, compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus. He pressed on, forgetting what was behind, straining toward what lay ahead: a life fully surrendered, fully alive (Philippians 3:7-14). Friend, whatever has taken the throne of your heart today it is not too late to give that seat back. The King is patient, and His door is open. God bless.

Lord watch over us as we enter this fall season. While there is much fun and beauty to see, watch over us as we fire up our chain saws and other equipment we use as we prepare for winter. Join us Saturday, Sept. 19th from 12:00pm to 1:00pm for a complimentary dinner of pasta, meat sauce, salad, bread and dessert. 570-853-3988.