PHOTO OF THE DAY: PREACH IT!

Part of Menno’s Independence Day celebration every year is the Menno/Olivet Ministerial Association Patriotic Worship Service held at the city park the Sunday closest to the July 4 holiday. This year’s service took place on July 7 and featured a sermon by Rev. Ryan VanderWees of the Peace Christian Reformed Church (pictured), who framed his message titled “Walking in the Truth” around 2 John: 1-13. “This is where the letter of John is helpful to us,” VanderWees told those gathered in lawn chairs, on benches beneath the picnic shelters and seated in their nearby vehicles. “It gives us a benchmark to look at — to compare it to our own Christianity to see just where we truly stand. What John’s letter is telling us, to put it quite irreverently, is that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it is duck. If one walks like a Christian and talks like a Christian, one is a Christian. So the question we have to ask ourselves is, are we actually walking and talking as Christians? We can look at this letter as a benchmark to our own claimed Christianity.”

Sunday’s worship service included music and an offering for the Menno-Olivet Care Center. In addition to VanderWees, it included participation from the following: Tom Ulmer and Dale Weiss on sound and music; Sandra Schaeffer on accompaniment; Rev. Michael Hecht of the Salem Reformed Church, Darrell Hora of the Grace Lutheran Church and Rev. Arlyn Coalter of the Olivet Christian Church. PHOTO BY JEREMY WALTNER