1/29/2018 12:03:17 PM
Pastor Joel Leyrer
Dear Friends in Christ, Even if you have little or no interest in professional sports, most everyone in Wisconsin is familiar with the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi. Among the stories told about him is the very first practice he held with the team as their brand-new head coach. After he had gotten their attention and everyone gathered around him, he supposedly picked up a football and said: “Gentlemen, this is a football.”
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1/22/2018 10:48:27 AM
Pastor Kyle Bitter
Text: 1 Kings 19:19-21
There’s No Going Back There was a woman living in Nigeria. She was staying with a sick friend and helping her friend in a time of illness. But one night, this gracious act of friendship was interrupted when militants attacked the village. People fled – chaos and pandemonium everywhere! Most of the people in the house with the two women climbed over the wall in the back to escape, but the woman helping her sick friend was unable to do so because she was pregnant. She hid in an inner room where she was discovered, brutally attacked and left for dead. She did recover, but struggles to this day with some of her injuries. Why such brutality? Here are her words: “Christians in Nigeria are passing through persecution. They go and pick weapons and they hunt us in the night…if we agree to [convert] they will let us be, but because they see that we refuse, they keep on hunting us.” (vom.com.au/amina-nigeria/).
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1/15/2018 10:56:33 AM
Pastor Eric Schroeder
“I have a special job for you. I know I could ask any number of people, but if I did, I don’t know if they could handle it. Actually, I know for a fact that no one else could complete this assignment like you can. You have what it takes. You know everything you need to know going in, and you have the gifts, and I am confident that this is a mission that has your name written all over it….” What would you say if someone approached you and began a conversation like that? Most of us would wonder what this special job is all about—that seems reasonable, right? Some of us would be instantly suspicious, because no one has ever talked to us that way in our entire lives. Still others of us might feel so honored by such confidence that we might sign up without knowing what the task actually is. In the end, we could wind up just about anywhere on the spectrum in our response. I know it can be hard to think about what you would do in a hypothetical situation like that, but I am pretty sure that we would all agree on one thing: perhaps the biggest factor in our immediate response would be whether or not we trust the person who is calling us into his service.
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1/8/2018 9:24:02 AM
Pastor Joel leyrer
Dear Friends in Christ, today we are observing the festival of Epiphany. The emphasis for this day, and the season of Sundays that follow it, is the fact that Jesus Christ revealed himself (that’s basically what the word “epiphany” means in the original Greek language) as the divine Son of God and Savior by his words and deeds. A further (and natural) emphasis of the Epiphany message is “missional.” We celebrate that Jesus came to our planet not just to be the Savior of the nation into which he was born, but he came for all people from every nation, language, tribe and tongue. Those twin truths were evident as you listened to the second and third Scripture lessons for today. Writing to the Ephesian Christians Paul focuses his thoughts on Jesus and the Gospel message as a mystery that was not fully known in former, Old Testament times, but now has been fully revealed to us in New Testament times.
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1/3/2018 8:30:02 AM
Pastor Kyle Bitter
New Year in Jesus’ Name In 2018…I’m going to eat better. In 2018…I’m going to finish the daily bible reading challenge. I’m going to exercise more. I’m going to sleep more. I’m finally going to accomplish those goals at work that have been so long in coming. I’m going to spend more time with family. In 2018… New Year’s resolutions are popular, and New Year’s is a good time to make such resolutions, because a new year, in some ways, offers you a new start. It kind of feels like the slate is wiped clean and you can start over again, forgetting about the failures and challenges of last year. But alongside that, it’s easy to have some reservation. What does 2018 hold? How will your health concerns play out this year? What will happen to your child away at college? What’s going to happen after graduation? What will the economy and political situation of our country be like? This year, through the first lesson, as we look into the unknown future, God has a New Year’s resolution for you. He wants you to approach the New Year with confidence, because you’re entering the New Year in Jesus’ Name.
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1/2/2018 4:31:49 PM
Pastor Joel Leyrer
Dear Friends in Christ, Psalm 90 is the only Psalm we have written by Moses. Because of its tone and sweep scholars generally understand it to come from his later years. It is a reflective psalm that recognizes God’s eternity and man’s frailty. Moses talks about man’s mortality and the brevity of life. He reminds us that the real cause of death is not sickness or violence or “natural causes,” but sin. Man dies because man is sinful. And the wages of sin is death. But we know death for the believer is but the gate to life (thanks be to Jesus), and within this Psalm are also promises of hope.
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1/2/2018 4:17:37 PM
Pastor Eric Schroeder
Now that the wait for Christmas is over, and the day itself has come and gone, for some ofus it’s already meant time to go back to work. For others of us, it’s almost time to go backto school. It’s time to get back to life without Christmas all around us. And so, on more than one occasion, you may have already been asked—or you will be asked soon—“How was your Christmas?” We’ll have a number of chances to share and compare our experiences: what we did, where we went, what presents we opened and what presents we gave. Maybe you had a chance to do just that as you talked with friends on the way into church today.
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