Hello!  I am Kenneth Alden.  Let me tell you about some of the blessings in my life.

As you know by now, I am the pastor of the New Church at Boynton Beach.  When I came to this church, there was already a great bunch of people here.  Sure, you see some gray hair and wrinkles when you walk into the social room for the first time, but don't let that deceive you!  The people inside those bodies are not old at all.  In fact, Emanuel Swedenborg reported from his frequent visits to the spiritual world that in heaven, everyone is young, no matter how many thousands of years they have lived there.  That is because the bodies of people in the spiritual world take after the mind and heart.  Good people--the people who become angels in heaven--are young at heart and youthful in intellect. They have a joyful outlook on life and are always willing to inquire and learn.  So their bodies are as young as their minds are youthful.  One of my blessings is being in a church where we see a lot of that youthful outlook in our senior citizens.  If you share that youthful outlook, whether you have some years behind you or are just starting the adventure of adulthood, I think you'll find yourself at home here.

I count it as a blessing that I was born in a family with long roots in the New Church.  Why?  I find the depth and variety of truths to be stimulating and satisfying, both intellectually and emotionally.  I remember thinking, while attending a New Church high school, that if it were not for the teaching of the New Church, I probably would have been some sort of atheist or agnostic.  But the things we were being taught made SO MUCH SENSE!  No matter which subject you turned to, the truths we were taught came together in patterns that testified to the handiwork of God.  Nor is the truth just an intellectual thing.  Putting it to use in life gives satisfaction, contentment, and a positive outlook that spells happiness.  I feel blessed to have been raised in a family, community and school system that had its culture built around the truths of the Heavenly Doctrine.  A large part of my calling to be a pastor was to have the opportunity to share those truths that have been such a blessing in my life.

Highlighting a few blessings in my life would not be complete without mentioning my wife, Kim who has continued as my best friend since we were courting well over 25 years ago.  She has been a lovely companion in our life's journey together, and has given birth to our nine children, one of whom was taken to heaven within months of her birth.  As you may guess, Kim loves children and does a wonderful job as a mother with all the roles that go into that title of honor.  Marriage is a precious gift from the Lord.  It is so reassuring that the Heavenly Doctrine makes it clear that it is a blessing in heaven to eternity, as well. 

You may have some questions to ask about the New Church.  Let me suggest a few, and if you have more, send me an email at the link below.

Answers to Questions you may have:

So "The New Church" does not refer to a new building?

Yes, it takes more than a new building to make the New Church new. We have taken the name "New Church"  because we look to personal renewal, and indeed, to a spiritual renewal of human society from the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who said "Behold, I make all things new." If Jesus Christ is making all things new, He is also making His church new, and we would like to be made new, as well. In fact, our official name is taken from the New Jerusalem which John saw in vision, coming down from the New Heaven to the New Earth, as recorded in Revelation 21:1-5 along with the sentence, "Behold, I make all things new." It does not matter how long the New Church has been around: if it is true to its calling, it will always be made new by the Lord.

I'm uncomfortable with organised religion. Will the New Church be any different?

A church is the coming together of people and God. Without people, a church is no church. Without God, a church is not worth anything.

On the people side, the organization we call "the New Church" is similar to other religious organizations. People are people and they have their bad moments along with their good ones. As individuals, we cannot claim to be fundamentally different from others or any better. But then there's the God side.

On the side of God, the New Church is wonderful! Imagine that God has at last shown His loving nature to people in a way that is clear and consistent, Divinely uplifting and Humanly close. Imagine that He has removed the contradictions from the Word of God without changing the Word of God. Imagine that He has provided a basis for faith that is consistent with eyes-open thinking, and is so universal that it unveils the harmony between religion and science, and even between diverse religious traditions. "It sounds too good to be true," you may be thinking. We agree. That is part of the reason we conclude that the teachings of the New Church are from God, as Swedenborg claims, and are not the brain-child of Swedenborg. From the side of God's input, the New Church is outstanding.

With all that the Lord has done from His side, the potential is great for transforming the people side of the New Church. The teachings of the New Church challenge people to flee from evil motivations and evil actions. They urge people to serve others, and to do so without thinking "what's-in-it-for-me?" They make clear what it takes to be an angel-in-training, here on earth. Shouldn't that make a difference to the kind of people you find in the New Church? Many who have discovered the New Church have said that they see a difference.

If marriage is, as you say, a blessing the Lord give to eternity in heaven, how come most wedding vows say, "Until death do us part?"

Many people have supposed that marriage ends at death because of an understandable misinterpretation of Jesus' words.  Think, for a moment of the common misconception about the nature of spirit.  Most people think their spirit is something ghostly and insubstantial.  When Jesus was responding to what was intended as a trick question, He said, "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven."  Supposing resurrected people to be ghostly and without a body, it didn't take much to suppose that there was not much there to bond a man and woman after death.

Emanuel Swedenborg testifies from all his visits to the world of spirits that everyone in heaven is married.  In fact, when God created man in His own image, He created them male and female.  It takes both together to make an image of God, because neither the masculine mind and heart nor the feminine mind and heart are complete without the other way of thinking and loving.  That is why God said "A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."  And so it is with the people who become angels: they are whole angel when they are married to one person of the complementary sex.

So, if all the angels are married, why did Jesus say, "They are neither married nor given in marriage?"

The trick question posed to Jesus concerned a widow who was given in turn to seven different men in order to raise up offspring in the name of the first of the seven, who died before they had children.  To the Sadducees who posed the question, "marriage" was simply an arrangement for having offspring to carry on the family name.  When Jesus answered them, he was speaking to the ideas behind their words.  In saying they neither marry nor are given in marriage, He was saying "Unions in heaven do not produce children".  If you consider that many of the brothers that took the dead brother's wife were probably already married, then you can see that Jesus was also saying, "Polygamy is not marriage" - something He had taught earlier.  In answering as He did, Jesus was not misleading Christians about the fact that angels are joined one man to one wife in a bond of mind and heart and life. Rather He was accurately stating that as to the kind of marriage the Sadducees were talking about, none of that exists after death.