 | Reverend Dennis Paschke is the senior pastor at Evangel Holton United Methodist Church, in Holton Kansas. Evangel church is a vital and growing congregation full of life that is changing lives and our community one person at a time. Dennis’ family emigrated from North Dakota to Alberta, Canada to homestead when his father was just a young boy. Rev. Paschke returned to the United States and has lived in many parts of the country. His life has afforded him many blessings before answering God’s call to full-time ministry, including being a vice president of a Fortune 100 company, serving as a chairman of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games and holding a U.S. patent. His greatest blessing in life is his walk with Christ! He believes strong faith always engages the heart and mind. EDUCATION: BSEE from the University of Calgary, Canada, and a Master’s of Divinity from Saint Paul School of Theology. FAMILY: He is married to wife Dawn and they have three sons Corey, Kyle and Marc. The family also includes one “wonder-dog” named Tucker! You can reach Reverend Paschke via email dpasch01@gmail.com. |
Religion
2011-12-27 10:28:52
Do you have to go to church to be saved?
Q: My brother says that one does not have to go to church and tithe to be saved. He says as long as you live a good life, believe in God, and treat your neighbor right, you will be okay. I say there’s a lot more to it than this. Who is right?
A: What you associate with the church will define who is right. Do you associate the church as the services, the clergy or the building? But the church is much more than any of these. It isn’t a building or a service. It is the tribe of Jesus living and moving throughout human history to transform the world for God’s purposes and with God!
Church is not a place. It is all those united by God’s Holy Spirit. The church is the people of God, a community of the people that belong to God. Imperfect and messed up people seeking to be filled with God’s power, presence and potential in their lives through belonging to God and one another.
The Church is where we prepare our hearts to be in this unique and beautiful journey as a force that is engaged in shaping human history for the One who created every one of us and all things. Those who grow deep and flourish in the promises of God are the ones who understand that God created you to be in a relationship with Him. God did not create you to simply inform you about Him, but to form you through that relationship for the fullness life was meant to be.
Tragically everything that has ever been done wrong under the umbrella of the church has been used to brand what the church stands for. This is not accurate. The church will never be perfect; it will always be messy because people are the mess. Yet the church does so much good in and for people and the world! The world desperately needs us to come together and show what human community is meant to be all about. This is clear simply by turning on the news. The church is God’s gift to us and our gift to the world because we were created to belong to one another – this is the hope for our world.
The church is God’s engagement in human history to bring us back to each other. It is the place where God meets us to show us He would do anything and everything to make us one with Him and one another. You simply cannot become one with God without also becoming one with each other. Each of us chooses to be spectators or participants but -you cannot belong to God and not belong to one another!
