Happy Birth-Month C@PC!!!

Happy Birth-Month C@PC!!!

Sunday, February 5th, 2012 was the last day of an unforgettable kind of weekend. On Friday the 3rd, C@PC'ers Eddie & Jeannine Pennington exchanged marriage vows to become the official first couple to get married in the church! (Happy Anniversary Eddie & Jeannine!) Then, on Saturday the 4th, we had our first funeral, out at the "101 Club" north of Park City, and celebrated the life of an amazing woman (and sister in sobriety) named Annette Kerr. Then, it was on the next day that we actually opened our doors for our first "Official" Worship & Connection time on Sunday the 5th, and then later had our First-Annual "Super Bowl" party that evening.

What had initially started 6 years earlier as a "gnawing" burden for the Park City Community (that had first been placed on my heart as I drove through Park City to do marriage counseling and home visits with a couple that had moved from Benton, Ks, into the Chisholm Creek Mobile Home Park here in Park City) had finally become a real church, with an actual "open" door... And, even though we were meeting in a formerly bankrupt "Movie Gallery" building, in a foreclosed-on Strip Mall, in a space that looked more like a "bar" than a church, in a community where three churches had recently closed down in the past three months, we actually managed to scrape together 121 humans to come to our very first service... (Though I'm pretty sure we had to count expectant mothers as "2" to get that number!)

Looking even farther back, it was in February of 2011, that we had actually started meeting illegally (unbeknownst to us at the time) in this same (then unheated) building (in the only corner of it that was not under major renovation). Initially we met as a small group of 15 adults and 9 children who gathered together on Sunday evenings for Worship, Friendship, and to Study Francis Chan's book and DVD curriculum "Crazy Love". And, it was from that "small beginning" that we were first given the verse that would become our theme verse ("Despise not the day of small beginnings..." Zechariah 4:10a) and an understanding of who we were to be and what we were to become as a church. A place that focused on Worshipping God, Loving People and Following Jesus... where people could reconnect with God, and with one-another.

This month, we will be celebrating our "First Birthday" on Sunday, February 3rd, by having an Early Worship "Preview Service" at 9AM, hearing a testimony from Keith Thomas (1st Svc.) and Kristena Hoover (2nd Svc.), enjoying Birthday Cake before and after services, and then having our 2nd Annual Super Bowl Party and watching the game on a 16foot High-Def Screen here at the church. (Thank you Don Neff!)

To all of you who know that God has brought you to this place, to jump in and become a part of C@PC, thank you so much for your faith and faithfulness. Wow! You guys truly blow me away! Knowing each one of you has both touched and changed my life forever. I am deeply indebted to you, and I consider it the highest honor to be your pastor, and to call you a friend. Thank you to each one of you who have become such a special part of this amazing adventure!

May we all... Keep on Keepin' on In Jesus... Because I truly believe that the best is yet to come!
(1 Corinthians 2:9)


Rob Schmutz, Pastor
The Church at Park City
Zechariah 4:10a

www.facebook.com/TheChurchAtParkCity

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A Gun Dog’s 23rd Psalm

I got the chance to do a funeral for a friend of a friend last week, an awesome guy named Roger Duncan, who passed suddenly and who will be missed by many. 

Though I did not know Roger, I was blessed to talk to so many who did and to then have the honor of officiating at his Funeral.  His life impacted mine even though it was through what others told me about him and not from having been well acquainted.  As I thought about the words God wanted me to share at his funeral, knowing that Roger was a dog trainer, a dog lover, a hunter and an outdoorsman, the Lord led me to re-work the 23rd Psalm... from the eyes of a hunting dog...  Here is my best effort...

"My Master is my provider,

I trust Him to give me everything I need.

I lie down, and I rise up at the sound of His voice.   He teaches me to seek, and to point the quail and the pheasant hidden in the fields, the meadows, and the hedgerows, and along the creeks where we venture.

My soul is most alive when He leads me along the well-worn paths that take us to all of our favorite places, and my heart soars at the rush of the wings as the birds rise from my point.  Hope bursts from my chest at the sound of his shot, and it is for His Names sake that I proudly retrieve the birds that are downed and place them into His hands.

Even when I grow fearful, or weary, holding point in dense cover, seeing Him in my memory, His shotgun in hand, remembering the sounds of his approach through the grass, I am comforted, and I am strengthened, knowing that my Master will find me again, no matter where I may be.

Water, food, a warm bed, all this… He prepares for me, and He speaks my praises in the presence of lesser dogs and of their Masters.  I am certain he is proud of me as he pats my head and says “Good boy…”

Great memories, of the best of times, that only a Gun Dog can know, will be treasured in my heart… and those memories will follow me all the days of my life, knowing that, in my Master’s Soul… I will dwell forever and ever.   And He… by me… will never be forgotten."

-          Pastor Rob Schmutz