Longest Night Service, Wednesday, December 21, 7:00 p.m. All are welcome on the winter solstice – the longest night of the year – to celebrate the coming of the light into our darkest places. With songs, candles, and prayers, we acknowledge the complexities of life’s journey, while celebrating light and hope that comes in the birth of Jesus.
On the liturgical clock, this Sunday, traditionally called Christ the King, is the Church’s equivalent of 11:59 PM on December 31. Next Sunday, November 27, we begin the new Church Year with the first celebration of the season of Advent, the season of hope.
St Luke’s is providing 200 gift bags for RefugeeOne children. In response to RefugeeOne’s request for us to provide a gift bag with items rather than gift cards, this year we are collecting money to support filling the gift bags. The Christmas parties will be in-person for the first time in a several years and will be held at RefugeeOne’s new location. Santa will be in person this year handing out the gift bags to each child.
“It is indeed right, our duty and our joy, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks and praise to you, almighty and merciful God, through our Savior Jesus Christ.” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 130) These words from the Great Thanksgiving Eucharistic prayer give us a wonderful summary of the life of a Christian steward. Duty and Joy.
Spirit Matters meets on Monday, November 21 at 7:00 PM. This month, we are delighted to have a special guest, Anne Krentz Organ, Director of Music Ministries. As the church year comes to a close, Anne will lead us in a time for reflection with a tour of piano music through the church year.
A pandemic wreaking havoc across the land. Social unrest leading to fires and violence in the streets. A politically divided people, seemingly on the verge of fracture. New information technologies bringing radical changes to mass communication, causing people to question what is true.
Early in October Judy and I took our Miata on a 16-day, 3200-mile road trip we referred to as the “Southwest Tour.” Our route included stops in Hamilton, Missouri, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Corrales, New Mexico, and McKinney, Texas.
Some Lutheran Dimensions of Faith:
1. Vocation is sacred. Being a student, a friend, one’s job, an adult member of a congregation, are all vocations. The “priesthood of all believers” strengthens the fundamental dignity of the rhythms of our lives as our arena to praise God and love our neighbor. To help “flesh out” the vocation of church membership I stressed five tangible things when I taught confirmation:
1. Regular worship and reception of the sacrament.
2. A regular money offering.
3. A piece of ministry all their own (taking an elderly neighbor shopping, teaching Sunday School, etc.)
4. Some form of continued growth in the word (at home, Bible class, etc.)
5. Daily prayer for the ministry of the church and those in need.
You are invited to join with members of the North Carolina Synod of the ELCA in a study of Pastor Bouman’s book titled, They are Us: Lutherans and Immigration. Through stories of crisis and hope, They Are Us helps Christian communities understand themselves and their ministries as part of God’s narrative of love and hospitality for the little, the lost, the last, and the least.
In the Gospel for Reformation Sunday in John, chapter 8 Jesus says to us: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Those who are grasped by the truth of the Gospel have the freedom to be for the world, to serve the neighbor. That, finally, is the power of the reformation. What began as a crisis in pastoral care, in a concern that we not seek to escape from a confrontation with our mortality and a life apart from God (which we call sin), is a powerful word to us: the Gospel sets us free for truth, for service, for living for others. That alone authentically renews and reforms the church. St. Luke’s future will not come through schemes for survival, but from the truth that we are set free to serve in an always renewing and reforming mission.