Families and Faith Communities

This has been a great summer! We spent a week in North Carolina at Jean’s family reunion. We also travelled ‘up north’ to my internship congregation in Oconto, Wisconsin to see Pastor Rick before he retired and visit with friends. And we spent a few days in northwestern Wisconsin visiting with our good friends from seminary.

Good times! But what made them good, was not so much the places we visited as much as it was the people we spent time with. Reconnecting with family and friends is a great joy and something I look forward to. Even though we may not get together as often as we would like, we’re always able to pick up where we left off. Especially the kids—they just take off and go with friends and cousins as if they hadn’t even been apart.

Good, strong relationships are like that. And I see a lot of those good, strong relationships here at First Lutheran. The strong community and joy of friendship was especially evident at the 150th anniversary dinner and worship service in July. It was wonderful to see so many people, gathered together in friendship: people who came back after many years and people who have never left; people from places far away and from places close by—all coming together to reconnect with friends at an event that was important to them.

The occasion was special, and the people made it even more so. And the thing we all have in common—the thing that gives us the relationship that bonds us together—is what made it extraordinary. That thing is--the faith we share in Jesus Christ.

Faith is a relationship thing. It requires trust, and trust requires a relationship between someone who trusts and someone who is trustworthy. Our faith then, is an expression of our trusting relationship with God, made real for us in and through Jesus Christ. But, it is not a relationship we have only on our own (although each one of us is invited into a personal relationship with Jesus). It is a relationship we share with others in community—a 'faith community.'

Every week, when we gather for worship, we have a family reunion. We gather together with family and dear friends around that which we hold in common, our relationship with Jesus. We sing together, pray together, hear God's word together, share the meal together. And we talk and laugh and cry together.

And no matter how much time has passed, no matter how far we may have wandered away, we are welcomed back and get to pick up right where we left off. With the people of faith who truly care about us, and with God, who loves us just as we are. Families, and faith communities, are like that.

Gathered in Christ… together,
Pastor Roy+

Blessing of the Animals

On Saturday evening we moved our worship service outdoors and had a blessing of the animals. We had our best Saturday worship attendance ever--79 people (and 29 pets). It was a great service and we intend to make it an annual event on the first Saturday in August. Thinking about having Saturday worship outdoors on several more occasions during the summer too.
Hopefully it will attract more people and increase awareness of the service time and the casual atmosphere for this service. We have begun to promote the Saturday service as "No dress code. Bring the kids," with sandwich board signs out front and articles in the local newspaper and our newsletter. Hopefully an alternative to the 'high church' setting on Sunday will be attractive to people who have been avoiding coming on Sundays or who are not familiar with Lutheran worship and are just checking us out. The goal, of course, is to reach more people with the good news of salvation by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. Things like blessing pets may seem a bit wacky to some -- but think it's being faithful to the mission of the church -- reaching out to more people with the life changing Word of God. And we had a lot of fun. Joy in worship! What a concept!

Trusting God. Following Jesus. <><
Pastor Roy+