9/27/2021 11:07:25 AM
Pastor Joel Leyrer - The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost - Sunday, September 26, 2021
Dear Friends in Christ, What were your immediate impressions when you heard this lesson read from the lectern a few minutes ago? If you thought to yourself “there is a lot going on here,” you’d be right. There are a number of story lines that could be pursued.
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9/21/2021 11:29:29 AM
Pastor Eric Schroeder - The Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost - Sunday, September 19, 2021
Do you sometimes feel like these are dark days that we’re living in? Jeremiah would certainly understand. If we do a quick comparison of our situation and his, we’d find that his days were probably darker than ours (not that it is a competition anyone wants to win); there is a good reason why Jeremiah is often called “the weeping prophet.” When God first called Jeremiah, God warned the young man that his ministry would be characterized by the daunting task of calling God’s people to repentance for abandoning God…and not just his fellow countrymen, but the people in power: kings, officials, priests—in other words, the kind of people who could make life extremely difficult for a young man like Jeremiah.
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9/13/2021 12:02:27 PM
Pastor Kyle Bitter - Unity Sunday - Sunday, September 12, 2021
On Unity Sunday, I suppose a question worth asking is this: what unites you with other Christians? Of course, the obvious answer is shared faith in Jesus as our Savior, but what about beyond that? What unites you with other Christians? Maybe for many it’s what we are doing right now – gathering together to hear God’s word, to receive the sacraments, to see our Christian friends and join together in learning and praising God. Maybe for others the connections made through our school. Maybe you have attended, or your kids have, or in some cases both! Perhaps it’s the sense of shared purpose that comes from working together with other people. Those are all good examples of the kinds of blessings that come from membership in a congregation like ours, but today I’d like you think about an even bigger one. When you look at scripture as a whole and observe some of the things that are the same for people in all kinds of different times and places, you start to see a number of common themes emerge. One such theme that can be seen in the context of today’s first lesson is the theme of captivity and freedom. You find it all over scripture, and even though it might sound odd, it’s something we can identify with even amidst the freedoms we enjoy in our society.
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9/9/2021 9:41:19 AM
Pastor Joel Leyrer - The Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost - Sunday, September 5, 2021
Text: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Dear Friends in Christ, In the early 1930’s a husband-and-wife team of historians named Will and Ariel Durant took up the rather ambitious project of writing a history of the world. Forty years later the end result was a monumental eleven-volume set of books entitled, “The Story of Civilization.” Each of the volumes had their own separate title corresponding to a period of time, many of which used the same formula: “The Age of…” (Faith, Reason, Napoleon, etc.).
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