Divine Services
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10:30 a.m. Sunday School &
Adult Bible Class
These are the online postings of Pastor’s monthly newsletter articles.
Dear Friends in Christ, “How can I help?” Don’t we love to hear this question asked? This question gets at the heart of what it is to be a Christian. We teach and confess, from Scripture, that the Christian life is made up of faith toward God and love towards our neighbor. What we call…
Dear Fellow Beloved, 500 years ago, Martin Luther published his 95 Theses, challenging the medieval Roman Catholic system of indulgences and the authority of the Pope to control Christ’s treasury of merit. Over the next several years, Luther’s think and writing would reflect a deeper realization of the extensive corruption of the Christian Church in…
Dear Friends in Christ, I thought I knew how to pray. I thought I was good at bringing my needs and the needs of my neighbor to the Lord in prayer. How does the saying go? “Pride goeth before a fall”? Or, as St. Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians, “Therefore let anyone who thinks…
Dear Saints, I was thinking the other day that in October it will be 5 years since our Lord called me here to serve you with His Word and Sacraments. What a blessing it is to be here. It was a big change when I went to the seminary, a big change when I was…
Dear Friends in Christ, It’s summer (or just about), and that’s a time where we often enjoy vacations and time off. Organized youth sports are in full swing, even though it sure seems like that’s a year-round proposition nowadays. We have many wonderful summer activities planned here at Good Shepherd. The Families First Weekends are…
After the previous four months of writing about the Easter Vigil, it just seems wrong not to write something now, just a couple weeks after we’ve been blessed to go through it together here at Good Shepherd for the first time. (I promise, next month’s article is assuredly not about the Easter Vigil! 😉). The…
One of the most important and most sacred times of the Christian year is Holy Week and Easter. During this time we will walk the path of our Lord Jesus Christ as He entered Jerusalem, instituted the Sacrament of His Supper, suffered under Pontius Pilate, died, was buried, rested in the tomb, and then on the…
The Easter Vigil is intended to be celebrated on the evening of Holy Saturday, the evening before the joys of Easter burst forth in full bloom. As far as the “Easter” part goes, this draws us back to the great Hebrew pesach (in Greek, pascha); that is, the Passover. Celebrating the Old Testament Passover was…
This year we will do something new here at Good Shepherd: we will celebrate the Easter Vigil on Saturday, April 15th at 7:15 p.m. While the Easter Vigil may be new to us here at Good Shepherd, it is actually quite old in the history of the Church. In fact, the Easter Vigil has been…
Waiting and watching do not come easy for us impatient, busy, on-the-go Americans. But for our Christian faith and life, waiting and watching are good spiritual discipline and restore peace and order to our restless, chaotic lives. So I ask you: Can you “do the Vigil”? Now, I don’t mean some kind of new dance…