This Sunday August 14 we gather for the Shepherd of the Valley 50th Anniversary Celebration Picnic on the church grounds from 4:00-6:00 pm. The 50th anniversary team has worked very hard to organize this event so that it is a time of food, fun, and fellowship for everyone. Please invite your friends and family to join you on the lawn at the church, bring a side or dessert dish to share, and a say a little prayer for good weather. There will be a bouncy house for children and the Reams family singers from Zion Lutheran in Corvallis will share their Blue Grass and Gospel musical talents including some sing-a-longs.
Our Gospel reading this Sunday reminds us that every day God gives us life and joy that is a blessing beyond measure. So let us gather and give thanks to God for all our blessings, especially for the blessing of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who sustains and equips His church by the Holy Spirit in this and every age.
When people talk about God’s supposed role in disasters, whether natural or human in origin, I think we sometimes ask the wrong questions. We want to know if God is being “fair?” The answer of course is, thankfully, no. God is not fair. If God were fair we would all end up like Sodom and Gomorrah.
There is only one who lived a life free to self-justifying behaviors and words, and that is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is what we mean by saying that Jesus is the sinless Son of God. He is sinless in that He gave up Himself, allowed Himself to suffer, be rejected, and tortured to death. Jesus refused to ever put Himself first. Not one of us can say the same.
The Christian movement has been gathering for public worship and in small groups, often at member’s homes, from the very beginning. In the Book of Acts Paul tells us that his ministry was conducted his ministry is this twofold fashion. “…I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house,21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Acts 20:20)
There is a “nasty word” in the life of the church and it starts with the letter “c.” It is a word that can get people angry, and make them resent the pastor or other church leaders. It is a word we seldom, if ever, hear pastors in our part of the church talk about. That word is COMMITMENT.
Many in our nation and world are continuing to try to come to terms with the horrendous act of violence that occurred in Orlando, Florida early last Sunday (June 12). The shooting of a hundred people for no good reason should give us all pause to stop and reflect on the kind of world we live in and the kind of people we are trying to be in that world.
Shortly after the creation of Adam out of the dust of the ground God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” And so God created a helper fit for him. Have you ever wondered who God was talking to in that primeval conversation?
The church calendar says this is the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, but the calendar on our refrigerators or wherever yours might be hanging, says it is Memorial Day weekend. Some pastors argue the secular calendar with its national holidays should be ignored altogether by worship planners. After all “church” is “church” and we go there to focus on God’s Word, not a holiday that for many marks only the beginning of summertime festivities and events which were not the original intent of Memorial Day.
As we contemplate the love of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity we rejoice that the Holy Spirit has blessed us with the Holy Trinity as a beautiful image of the God of the Bible who invites us to be in relationship with Him, as He is in relationship Himself, and to see our relationships with one another as echoes of the Trinity in human life where we love, care for, forgive, and are present with one another in the name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.