Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
Listen to the news, watch just about any reality TV show, or just watch a weekly detective or mystery series and you will hear and see people using mean language toward each other, talking and acting vengeful and judgmental. We don’t often hear about mercy, forgiveness or hope. Whether it is our politics,…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
As we heard in our gospel text last week (Luke 4:1-13), life is filled with temptations; temptations that entice us to turn from God and God’s ways. And this week, our gospel text (Luke 13:31-35) continues this same theme. Jesus had been going about his ministry and talking about the coming of God’s kingdom.…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
Have you ever felt like you just weren’t good enough? I know there was a point in my life where I felt that way. When I was young, I was overweight, and I was never part of the “cool” group of kids. I loved sports, but I was never good enough for the coaches of my teams to play me much. Other kids…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
Believe it or not, next Wednesday, February 10, is Ash Wednesday which means the Season of Lent is about to begin. But before we get to Ash Wednesday, we will celebrate Transfiguration Sunday. On Transfiguration Sunday we read about how Jesus took Peter, James and John up a mountain to pray and while they…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
Well, we had our annual meeting this past Sunday and, yes, we all survived. Oh, it was a long meeting, but it went really fast (at least I thought so!). Our leaders reviewed the finances, both last year’s and the 2106 budget, we talked about our facilities and our facility needs, we elected our new Council…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a blessed week.
Well, here we are entering our third week in the Season of Epiphany. Epiphany is that time of year when we read about the various ways God revealed to the world whom Jesus really was and is. “Epiphany” means a sudden realization or awareness. It is an “Oh, now I get it!” experience. An epiphany is…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a happy and blessed New Year.
In the church, we love to talk about being saved and we Lutherans love to talk about justification by faith. That is, we proclaim we are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. We all learned that in confirmation and it is true, but for many of us the real question is, so, what is grace?…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a happy and blessed New Year.
As I wrote in my letter last week, the Season of Christmas ended this past Tuesday, January 5, and that means the Season of Epiphany officially started on Wednesday, January 6.
Now the word “epiphany” comes from the Greek word epiphaneia, which means “disclosure” or “unveiling.”…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a Merry Christmas.
Well first I want to thank my wife, Jill for helping me out the past couple of weeks. I hope you enjoyed her notes with news from Salem as much as I did. And secondly, I just want to say that I pray you all had a very blessed and merry Christmas.
I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to believe…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week!
In our gospel text for this coming Sunday, John 15:9-17, Jesus says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (15:12). Jesus actually commands us to love. It sounds so simple “go love each other,” but to be honest, don’t you find this really hard to do? I mean, sometimes,…