P. Kale’s Page
July 2022
I remember standing up with my light held in the air, looking around at thousands of other lights that were also held in the air in the darkness of San Antonio’s Alamodome. I had just finished my freshman year of high school and was with my church at the National Youth Gathering. We were at the mass event one of the evenings of the Gathering, and I remember coming away from that event and from the full Gathering itself with an important realization: I am not alone. And as a high school student, that was an important thing for me to realize.
As I reflect on it now, I think the importance of that youth gathering for me was it taught me that I could find community in the church. It wasn’t a perfect community of course. My own congregation experienced some upheaval when I was in the youth group. But looking around at upwards of 26,000 other lights, I think the message that sunk in to me was whatever struggles or challenges or doubts or roadblocks I faced, there were people all across the country who were in the same place in their lives as I was and who would also be sitting in pews on Sunday mornings in Lutheran churches to bring those struggles to the same God.
Our high schoolers are headed to Houston this July for this year’s Gathering. And as they join thousands of others from around the country, they’ll grow closer to each other, they’ll meet people who will struggle with the same things they do, and they’ll connect with other Christians who are in the same place in their lives.
Much has changed since the 1995 Gathering. The theme in ’95 was “River of Light,” and this year it’s “In All Things.” We’re headed to a different city. And in our world the internet and our phones have given us limitless places to find community. We have means of connecting to people that are unprecedented. And yet people still struggle. People still feel alone. In fact studies have shown that’s truer now than it has ever been. So pray for our high schoolers. Pray for their safety. Pray for their experience. But most of all, pray that they find community with other Christians this summer in Houston. Because much is also the same as it was in 1995. The God of the church still brings our young people together. He still works in hearts at the Gathering. And He is still with us in all things.
June 2022
Mark your calendars for the afternoon of June 26th, 2022! That is the weekend that we will install Pastor Brandon as our Associate Pastor of Family Ministry! This is one of the most exciting times in the life of a congregation, because it means that God has brought to Zion a man to serve us as pastor. Like every pastor that has served Zion in the past, Pastor Brandon will fulfill many roles in the life of the congregation.
The foundational role, the most important one, is to properly proclaim the word of God and rightly administer the sacraments of baptism and communion. That’s the bedrock of the church, it’s the fundamental thing that a pastor does, and really it’s the reason we’re all here as a congregation. As Lutherans, we call those things the “means of grace.” They’re God’s chosen avenues through which his Holy Spirit works in our lives and in our hearts. Word and Sacrament are the way the Holy Spirit brings us into the faith, keeps us in the faith, forgives our sins and shapes us to be more Christ-like in our lives. A seminary recruiter once told me they’re “where the rubber meets the road” because these are the things God uses to reach his people. In fact the Augsburg Confession, (which is a very important statement of what we believe as Lutherans), defines the church as simply “the assembly of saints in which the gospel is taught purely and the sacraments are administered rightly” (AC VII). The reason
the call of a pastor stands out to the church is that his basic job is to do exactly that, carry out these “marks of the church.”
But there’s a lot more! Calling a new pastor also means calling someone who will be with us in our lives in the most joyful moments, like baptisms of new babies, confirmations of our young people, graduations, marriages and many other times we celebrate together as the people of God. It also means that Pastor Brandon will be invited into some of the most tragic moments of our lives. Illness. Loss. Sin and suffering. And he will be an instrument God uses to bring his Word, his comfort and his grace to his people. We’re also looking forward to Pastor Brandon’s work with the families of our congregation and our school. It’s a tremendous blessing that the congregation values families enough to call a pastor to guide the ministry to them, and it’s also a great blessing that Pastor Brandon has such a heart and talent for this kind of ministry. God knows what he’s
doing in the call process!
So again, mark your calendars for June 26th! That afternoon we will install Pastor Brandon as our new pastor and we’ll welcome the Metcalf family back to Zion!
May 2022
This May is another exciting month with lots going on at Zion! For one thing, it’s a time of goodbyes. We’ll say goodbye to Zion’s eighth graders as they graduate and head off to high school. We’ll say goodbye to our seniors as we celebrate their graduation and bless their blankets on the 15th. And we’ll say goodbye to the time of Easter because our Ascension service at St. Paul’s in Wood River will take place on May 26th and then the last Sunday of the season falls on May 29th this year.
But this is also an exciting time of hellos. We’re all very excited to welcome our former vicar, Brandon Metcalf, back as our pastor! Look for more information coming on his installation at Zion, the welcoming of his family to our congregation and the time when his official duties begin! We also get to say hello to summer camp toward the end of the month, one of the most exciting outreaches of our school. We’ll have all kinds of students here who don’t come to Zion for school, but who will hear the message of Jesus from our staff and volunteers.
With all the transitions that happen during this month, I’m reminded of the changeless nature of God. You find this idea in a lot of places in the Bible. Sometimes it’s referred to when the author is talking about blessings, as in James 1:17: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” God is unchanging and he’s gracious! It comes up with biblical writers are trying to assure us of God’s faithfulness as in Numbers 23:19: “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” No matter what happens or changes in our life, God will do what he says he will do.
Or my favorite, Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” It’s simple, and sometimes those are the best things, the simple ones. They remind us that every thing can change for us in a split second. Our lives can be turned upside down, but even if they are we have the same God in our corner every step of the way. I am looking forward to what our God is doing at Zion
April 2022
This month is packed at Zion!!! As you probably already know, Easter is coming up on April 17th, that means a whole bunch of great and unique services in the week leading up to it! Here’s what’s happening:
Saturday, April 9th, 3:30pm – Youth Confirmation! In this service our confirmands will do questioning, take their confirmation vows, receive communion for the first time and get their confirmation verses. Keep them in your prayers!
Saturday, April 9th and Sunday, April 10th – Palm Sunday services! These services we have palms and we celebrate Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. Because this is confirmation weekend too, we’ll also be thinking about our own membership in the church.
Thursday, April 14th, 7pm – Maundy Thursday Service! This is the service when we commemorate the Last Supper, Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet and his betrayal. At the end of the service we strip the altar and leave in silence.
Friday, April 15th, 7pm – Good Friday Tenebrae Service. If you’ve never been to this service, make this the year you try it. “Tenebrae” is Latin for “darkness” and this service gradually gets darker as we read Jesus’ words from the cross. We leave in silence with the lights low, reminding ourselves of what Jesus did for us in his death.
Saturday, April 16th, 6pm – Easter Vigil Service. This is another service to come to if you’ve never been before. It commemorates the time between the crucifixion and the resurrection, and it reminds us of how our God rescues us in the darkest time. We read some of the most familiar
passages in the Old Testament from various places around the sanctuary to creatively tell the story of salvation.
Sunday, April 17th, 6:30am, 9am, 11am – Easter Sunday! Today we celebrate the resurrection. My favorite part of this is before the 6:30 service we begin in the cemetery at 6:15, reminding ourselves that one day these graves will be empty!
The last Sunday in April is also an exciting time! In the Sunday morning services on April 24th, we’ll confirm all of our new members who came through our last ZionConnect. Welcome everyone! We’re glad you’re here!
Also that weekend is our school’s golf outing and annual auction on Saturday April 23rd.
Lots of ways to get involved and connected this month! See you at church!
March 2022
When March begins this year, Lent begins also. It’s March 2nd when we celebrate Ash Wednesday, marking our foreheads with ashes, and marking the beginning of our 40 day journey to Holy Week. When you walk up to the front of the church on Ash Wednesday, we’ll say to you, “You are dust. And to dust you shall return.” You may already know that this is a quote from Genesis 3:19, as God is speaking the curse to Adam which has come into all creation as a result of sin.
Ash Wednesday is often understood as a very traditional service, but one that is kind of drab and a downer. And, to be honest, there’s good reason for this. The quote is from the curse, and the service reminds us of our sin as we begin a season of penitence preparing us for Holy Week. You may
also know that dust and ashes often go along with sackcloth in the Bible as something people do when they’re humbling themselves before God. This is also part of Lent.
In fact, the word “dust” appears eight times in the book of Genesis. What might surprise you though, is that only half of those times it’s used for something negative. 3:14 and 3:19 are both in the context of the curse of sin. (It’s used three times in those two verses.) It’s also used to denote
humility before God when Abraham is interceding for Sodom and Gomorrah in 18:27 (“Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes”). These we expect.
What’s unexpected is the use elsewhere in Genesis. 2:14 explains the creation of Adam from dust, certainly an act of God’s grace! But even more amazing is the use in 13:16 and 28:14. Between these verses “dust” is used three times to explain the covenant God makes with Abraham! He says his offspring will be like dust on the earth, meaning they will be as numerous as the dust, which ultimately points us forward to Jesus, from whom the Gospel goes out, making children of Abraham in the church all over the world.
Perhaps the takeaway here is God’s ability to bring the best things out of the worst. Even dust, which is used in the curse and reminds us of sin, ultimately points us toward Jesus. And really, that’s what Ash Wednesday does too. It’s never meant to be an occasion to only reflect on our sin. Any
time God does that in Scripture, he’s ultimately pointing us toward Jesus. So also, our reflection on our sin and our time of humility which begins on Ash Wednesday ultimately leads us to Good Friday and Easter Sunday, our celebration of how God took the dust and made it beautiful through creation
and through the cross.
February 2022
We often think of these cold months at the beginning of the year as a bit of a “lull” in the life of the church. Christmas is over, Lent hasn’t started, and we work our way through the season after Epiphany together. This February is a busy one at Zion though, with lots of exciting things happening!
The first week of February holds some very exciting things. Sunday, February 6th, we’ll gather together and reflect on the reading that we’ve done since the beginning of our “Bible in a Year” push. The next day we’ll gather again to vote on issuing a call for our Family Ministry Pastor. Later in the month, we’ll have our ZionConnect class, welcoming new members and refreshing our memories as existing members on what we believe, how our church is organized and how to get involved. Then we wrap up the month with the return of our annual sausage supper, which is not only a great meal, but an excellent time to get involved!
All this is to say that there’s a lot of ministry happening at Zion right now, and a lot of opportunities to get involved in the life of the church. Of all the things that are happening though, the voters meeting to discuss the Family Life Pastor call is a very unique opportunity in the life of the church. The process has its roots back in Jesus’ commissioning his disciples in Matthew 10 and Luke 9. In John 20, after the resurrection, he establishes the disciples as ones who carry out the Office of the Keys and forgive sins on earth.
During the book of Acts, the disciples have to fill offices in the church, and so we see the beginnings of the call process as we know it, where the church itself selects people for service within it. There are numerous examples in the New Testament of this, (see Acts 1, 6), and it’s important to note a couple of things. First, the process always includes a great deal of prayer. Second, it is assumed that God is at work in the process. Third, the selection process takes place through normal, earthly means. The Lutheran Confessions, which are the documents written during the 16th century that contain much of our theology, emphasize the Scriptural truths above, and remind us that pastors are not self-appointed, but are brought to a church through a call process. Indeed, this is an important point because the Confessions are clear that no one is to preach, teach or administer the sacraments without being “rightly called.”
One major question is exactly what it means to be “rightly called.” I could spend plenty of time talking about what that might mean, but I think a good, simple way to understand is that a pastor should be called according to the agreed upon order of the church. Our Synod has procedures, our district has procedures, our seminaries have procedures and we as a congregation have procedures we’ve agreed upon to bring pastors, DCEs, principals, teachers, and other called workers to our congregation.
But the key in all those processes comes down to what happens in our meeting on February 7th, when the congregation gets together, prays together, talks together, and ultimately votes together on calling a man to come to Zion as a pastor that will guide our congregation’s ministry to families.
It’s a big day. Come be a part of it!
January 2022
Happy New Year everyone! 2022 is going to be an exciting time here at Zion! We have two big staffing calls that are in the works right now, one for our principal position, (currently being filled by Mrs. Koch on an interim basis), and one for an Associate Pastor of Family Ministry. Sadly, Vicar Jarod’s time with us will end in the summer when he heads back to seminary for his fourth year. Suffice it to say, it’s a year of changes for Zion!
Another thing that’s changed this year is what we’re preaching on. We’ve set aside this church year to go through the Bible in a year as a congregation. Nearly every service will have a different book of the Bible preached on. As I’m sure you know by now, there’s a podcast that goes along with the books, helping you prepare for your reading.
Beginning on the first Sunday of February, we’ll add a third element: gatherings to discuss what we’ve read. Sunday afternoons we’ll have gatherings for everyone at church to come, talk about our reading (and whatever else comes up), and, most importantly, snack. These will be focused on having a good time together and talking about the Bible in a casual setting. Haven’t started reading with us yet? No problem. The beauty of the way we’re doing this read through the Bible isthat you can start at any time. Since the books aren’t in chronological order, as soon as we get finished, (which willbe in November 2022), just start over from the beginning and you’ll still get the Bible done in a year!
Last but not least, I continue to pray that we can work together to move Zion toward having a culture of welcome and a culture of mission. It’s been a real blessing to see more visitors coming to Zion. (We had six separate visitor forms in a single weekend not long ago!) Keep your eyes open as we work on establishing a culture of welcome
here in 2022. On the subject of missions, the board at church has teamed up with the teachers to do joint mission focus. You’ve seen this in the canned food battle between faith families at the school and between the church and school as a whole. The result of that, by the way, was that we donated over 2,500 canned goods to the Hope Center! Amazing job everyone! That’s what a culture of mission looks like!
I’m excited for what this year holds for Zion!! May your 2022 be tremendously blessed and fully centered on our Lord Jesus!! See you in church!
December 2021
This month draws us to the close of 2021, but it also means the beginning of something I’m extremely excited about:
Zion’s Bible in a Year. The goal here is for us to spend this entire church year, from this past Sunday through the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2022 working our way through God’s word together.
If you haven’t listened to the introductory podcast yet, I encourage you to take a few minutes to do that. It’s quite an interesting story how this came to be. I won’t ruin the story for you, but this essentially grew out of the desire of one of our parishioners to understand the word of God more thoroughly and have a place to ask questions and express
reactions to reading.
I’m particularly excited about this because of the idea that we’re reading Scripture together as a community of faith. It means we have a chance not only to learn about God’s Word, but to react to it together. There are essentially four parts of what we’re doing.
First, there’s the podcast episodes. There’s some good preparation for reading, but most of each episode is simply a conversation between one of us from the church office and someone from the congregation who has just finished reading the book. We talk about high points, challenges, and blessings that come from reading.
Second, there’s the actual reading of the book. This will be quick and easy sometimes, and it’ll be tough sometimes too. But even when it’s a bit of a slog, remember that the words on the page are the words through which God speaks to you. With that in mind, I encourage you to do this before coming to church when we’re preaching on it.
And that’s the third part: preaching. Each service we’ll be focusing on a reading from whatever book we’re reading as a congregation. This is a chance to hear the Law and the Gospel as it comes from the book we’ve been reading as a community. But more than that, it’s a chance to hear the Law and Gospel from this book applied to us as a community.
Finally, there are the gatherings. In January, we’re going to start getting together as a congregation and discussing what we’ve read. It’ll be a great chance to ask questions, talk about what resonates with us, and be formed by one another as we read God’s word.
I pray that this will be a good beginning to your Christmas season. I hope you’ll come to the Advent services this year as well. We’ll have the 5-8th grade Christmas program during the first week and during the second week Metro East is giving their Christmas concert here at Zion. It’s an exciting month! See you in church!
November 2021
Just about every year in the November Herald I write about All Saints’ Day because I think it’s one of the most important holidays of the entire church year. The reason it’s so important is it puts two things before us: grief and hope.
First, grief. As you may know, All Saints Day is a difficult day for many people. It’s not easy to hear the name of someone you’ve lost in the last year. It’s not easy to feel alone all over again. It’s not easy to remember loss. But the real blessing of All Saints Day is that when we hear the names and the toll of the bell and grief does come back, we do it differently than everyone else. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” When Christians hear the names of other Christians who have died in faith, we have hope that no one else has. All Saints Day is a celebration of Jesus’ death and resurrection, which means that those who have died in faith live in Christ. Or, to use Jesus’ words, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26). This is a day when we mourn loss, but we also sing in defiance of death because we know it has no power over us or over the names we read.
This All Saints Day is particularly important because we’ve had a great deal of loss lately in our congregation and among those connected to our congregation. Our hope comes to us in the Word of God, but God also joins us together to console one another. In fact, just a few verses later in 1 Thessalonians 4:18, Paul says, “Therefore encourage one another with these words.” He also says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Cor. 1:3-4) In other words, the Christian community is the people we do life together with, when it’s great and when it’s hard.
With that in mind, I’d encourage you to take some time to come to our “Surviving the Holidays” event on November 14th at 3pm. If you’re grieving, this gives some tools to make it through a very difficult time. If you know someone who’s grieving, this will help you know something about what they’re going through. And if you don’t know someone who’s grieving right now, you will, and when you do, this will help prepare you to be there for them. Most of all, this helps all of us put grief, loss and even death itself in the context of God’s ultimate victory. May that victory carry you through your November, the remainder of the year, and every day after.
October 2021
“Hier Ich stehe. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen.” This year marks the 500th anniversary of these words, spoken on April 18th, 1521. They’re in German, and they’re probably the most iconic of Luther quotes. Here it is in English: “Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”
That’s what Luther said when he was asked to recant his work or face an almost death sentence. And Luther chose the death sentence rather than betray the Gospel of God’s grace through Christ. The Catholic Church wanted Luther to return to the theology of salvation by what we do rather than by what God has done for us in Jesus’ death and resurrection, in effect putting the work of salvation on the individual Christian rather than on Christ. He knew, as we do, that this is the core of the heart of God, the very bedrock of all theology, that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. It’s a love worth dying for because God decided you were worth dying for.
This month we’ll celebrate Reformation day on the final Sunday in October. Luther’s example shows us something about our faith: that it’s not only worth dying for, this Gospel of grace is worth living for as well. Sound backwards? Usually we think of dying for something as the ultimate test of one’s devotion, and for good reason. Those who have died for the faith going all the way back to Stephan have shown their faith in the face of death itself.
But sometimes the harder question is how one will live that faith. How will you say “Here I stand” in your daily life? This is not a question for only times when your faith is threatened (though it certainly is a question for those times). It’s also a question for every single day. How will you live your confession of faith in the way you interact with fellow students or co-workers or family members? How will you live your confession of faith in how you choose to spend your time or what content you choose to consume? How will you live your faith when you start your day and when you end it?
Let me leave you with some more words of Luther, this time from the “Daily Prayers” section of The Small Catechism: “In the morning when you get up, make the sign of the holy cross and say: ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen’…Then go joyfully to your work, singing a hymn, like that of the Ten Commandments, or whatever your devotion may suggest… In the evening when you go to bed, make the sign of the holy cross and say: ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen’…Then go to sleep at once and in good cheer.’”
September 2021
Three big things happen in September this year, and they all bring to mind the idea of vocation. First, there’s our celebration of Labor Day, a day dedicated to the contributions of America’s labor force to the nation’s development, achievements and success. It’s a day when we celebrate the hard work of those laborers in whatever their vocation. As Christians, it’s a reminder to us of the way God provides. Shelter and safety are God given blessings which he delivers through the hands that hold the hammers, pave the roads, and lay the bricks.
That same weekend we celebrate the Bethalto Homecoming. Most of us are probably excited to walk through the park munching on an elephant ear, but I’ve been (rightly!) corrected in the past when I’ve called the Homecoming a “fair” or a “carnival.” As you probably know, we have those things at Homecoming, but this weekend was founded as a celebration of soldiers’ return from World War I. A reminder of the vocation of our soldiers, those who put themselves in harm’s way for our safety. Not only is this a means by which God provides safety for us, but it’s also a very tangible demonstration of the love of God who put Himself in harm’s way on the cross so that we might live.
The following week we’ll celebrate Patriot Day on September 11th, a national day of remembrance of those who died in the September 11th attacks 20 years ago this year. On that day we remember all 2,977 people who died in the collapse of the towers. With the idea of vocation in mind, it’s important to note that 412 were emergency workers. People who ran into the buildings in an attempt to save lives.
This day is another solemn reminder of how God works through human beings to provide safety and security and save lives. The message for us? What you do in this life matters. How you live springs from who you are, and demonstrates who you are to everyone around you. This month our readings will go through the book of James, a book that reminds us that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26). Our faith as Christians always results in works that we do in our daily, ordinary lives. But this September as you do those works which we think of as most ordinary or as “just our jobs” I encourage you to remember that you are a tool God uses to provide for those around you.
July 2021
July is going to be a month of transition for Zion. We’ve just said goodbye to Tim and Julie Muther, members who taught at Metro East Lutheran High School and at Zion’s preschool respectively. This coming month we’ll be saying goodbye to Vicar Brandon who is returning to the Seminary for his final year and wishing Joe Snyder, our principal, blessings in his retirement. This means new faces as well! We’ll be welcoming Vicar Jarod Fenske and his wife Emily to our ministry team as Jarod continues his Seminary education as our new vicar! Jarod will begin in the office on July 6th, and will be installed on July 11th. Make sure to come and say hello to them that weekend!
Transitions like this always mean change. God brings people to us who share different talents, different passions and different emphases in ministry. But Hebrews 13:8 reminds us of the thing that isn’t different. It simply says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” The same Jesus who was present at creation, who laid in the manger, who rose from the grave Easter Sunday, who ascended into heaven and who sits at the right hand of His Father is watching over our church and is present here in it. That same Jesus sends his Holy Spirit to work in our hearts through the Word and the Sacraments to bring us back to him and make us more Christ-like.
And I have to tell you, that’s probably never been more evident to me than it is right now. There are some really amazing ways that God is blessing Zion right now. Our school enrollment is looking better than it has in the years I’ve been here thanks to God blessing the hard work of many, many people. We’ve been able to get back to some sense of normalcy as COVID numbers have decreased, and people are becoming more and more comfortable coming back to church. God is blessing all of us with so many opportunities for ministry right now, and as he does, the same Jesus is in our midst, working in our hearts and working through all of us, staff and members, that our congregation might be a place where people hear the Gospel for the first time or for the hundred thousandth time. Even in a time of change it’s a great time to be a member of Zion. In us Jesus works. And from us, God shines forth!
June 2021
June will be a month of farewells at Zion. We’ll be saying goodbye to three members of Zion’s staff, and praying for their success in the next part of their journey.
From our school, we’ll be saying goodbye to our preschool teacher Julie Muther. Mrs. Muther has been with us for 5 years, and in that time has been an amazing blessing to our staff! Julie and Tim are moving to Wisconsin to be closer to their families. Tim is a science teacher at Metro East Lutheran High School, and has taken a call to Living Word Lutheran High School in Jackson Wisconsin. We’ve been blessed to have the Muthers as a part of our church and school families these past years. Personally, I’ve found Julie’s humble, cheerful way of going about the work of ministry to be inspiring. Thanks for all your hard work and contribution to Zion’s ministry! We’ll miss you guys!
Also from our school, Joe Snyder, our principal, has announced his retirement. Mr. Snyder has been with our school for six years, and during that time has moved our school in some great new directions. It isn’t easy to summarize the ways Mr. Snyder has changed our school because his focus has been so holistic that he’s worked on improving virtually every aspect of Zion’s ministry, from the curriculum to the enrollment to the campus to the connection between church and school. For me personally, I will miss talking with Mr. Snyder and envisioning together where Zion is going. Thanks for all you’ve done!!
And lastly, from the church side, we’ll be saying goodbye to Vicar Brandon and his family. It’s been a great privilege for our congregation to have been a part of Vicar Brandon’s ministry and his journey toward the pastoral office. Many of us have only gotten to know Vicar Brandon through livestream, but it’s been a tremendous blessing to have him here and to get to know Dana and Benjamin, to grieve with them their daughter Lydia and to rejoice with them at the news that they’re expecting another child this summer. On a personal note, it’s been nice to have another mega -nerd in the office to quote Lord of the Rings and Star Wars with. Metcalfs, you guys are awesome. We’re going to miss you.
It’s times like these that we remember and celebrate the bond we have in Christ. Paul writes in Ephesians 4, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” His message to the Ephesian Christians is that their unity comes through their faith. So when Christians are separated, Paul reminds us of two things. First, no matter how much distance separates us, we have a unity deeper than any on earth because it’s not our location or our common interests or anything else earthly that unites us. We’re bound together by God himself, who makes all of us one in the body of Christ.
May 2021
May means that we wrap up yet another school year here at Zion which is exciting but also usually bittersweet. At school we say goodbye to our eighth graders. At church, our confirmands have concluded their classes and finished confirmation and are now full fledged members of our church. We begin to look toward summer and possibly toward some of the travel that we were unable to do this past year.
Regardless of where you’re spending your summer, here or away, God goes with you. And I know we say that a lot, but think for just a minute about that with me. In the Old Testament, Israel spends the second half of Exodus dealing with the presence of God. We know the stories of the plagues and the Red Sea and the Golden Calf, but what we don’t usually spend much time on is the specifications for the Tabernacle in Exodus (because they’re not very exciting reading!). We shouldn’t miss the fact that the whole point of the Tabernacle is that God wants to dwell with his people, but they’re sinful. He puts in place the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16) as a means by which sin can be atoned for, but ultimately its purpose is to point us forward to the God who dwells among us on the first Christmas, and who dies for our atonement on Good Friday. It’s no small thing that God is with you.
Normally we think of that as comforting, and it should be. But it should also remind us that we walk around as God’s people. And as God’s people, we bear witness to the God who is with us, no matter what we’re doing. The only real question is do we bear witness to who our God is well or poorly? We’ll never do it perfectly of course, but a big, big part of bearing faithful witness to who our God is comes when we’re simply aware of it. For example, the Zion sticker on the back of my car advertises the school. It also helps me remember to be a patient driver because it means I’m bearing witness. I’d encourage you to keep in the forefront of your mind that you are a missionary wherever you are.
The other thing we look forward to in May is our next Zion Connect class. We’ll gather on May 8 to talk about this congregation, who we are and what we believe. We’re tremendously blessed to have people coming to join us in this little corner of the kingdom of God, and I would encourage you also in May to make sure the people around you feel welcome. This is more challenging as we deal with COVID, but let me tell you, simple greetings go a long way even if you can’t shake hands or see a smile.
May your May be blessed everyone! And may God continue to grow us into a welcoming, missional church that clings to the grace of our crucified Lord!
April 2021
First and foremost, something very important is happening in April. I can’t believe it’s this time already, but we will
find out if we’re getting a vicar next year in April. We applied for a vicar, and the Call Days for our seminaries are
April 27th (Ft. Wayne) and April 28th (St. Louis). You can watch the Call Day services on the seminary websites and we’ll have more information as the time draws nearer.
April will begin on Maundy Thursday this year, which means we’ll kick off our Sundays in April with Easter, our
celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. This is the point in salvation history where we begin to move out of Jesus’ time
on earth. After the resurrection, Jesus spends his time preparing his disciples for what comes next: carrying out
the mission of the church by carrying the message of the Gospel to all nations (Matthew 28:18-20). Following our
celebration of Easter, we’ll be doing the same thing: reflecting on ourselves as those who carry the message of the
Gospel to all nations, our nation and our neighborhood.
Following Easter Sunday, we’ll spend four weeks in a sermon series looking at ourselves as “Witnesses who witness.” There is no high point like Easter Sunday in the church year when we celebrate the great victory of sin, death
and the power of the Devil that Jesus wins when he leaves the tomb on Easter morning. Mark 16:8 says of the disciples, “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” even after so amazing an event. But Jesus changes their
group from a culture of fear to a culture of mission.
What does a culture of mission look like? It looks like a church that knows and prays for the mission opportunities
that God sets before them. It looks like a church that is involved outside the walls of their building in projects to
relieve suffering and spread the Gospel locally, nationally and internationally. And it looks like a church whose
members make their faith visible in their lives, speak the hope of the Gospel to their friends and family when
they’re struggling or suffering, and bring the people around them along to worship to experience our community of
faith.
In addition to the sermon series, I’m very excited about the coming partnership between the board of missions and
the school. Each month in school chapel we support a different mission, and the school staff will be working together with the missions board so that we as a church can support that mission as well. For all of us, it means we’ll
have more missions in front of us and be much more aware of what our church is supporting, how you can be involved, and what missions speak to your heart.
God’s blessings on your month!!
March 2021
At Zion, God’s love works in and through his people. As you probably know, that’s our mission statement. To some, it seems a little strange that a mission statement would be something that happens rather than something we do. But I have to say, I think that’s what I love about it. In our mission statement, the action is all God’s. God works in us to change our hearts, and God works through us to change the hearts of others.
The way he does that is pretty specific, he does it through the Word and through the sacraments of Baptism and Communion. Those are the places that God works in us. Baptism and communion are self explanatory, but the Word comes to us in many different forms. We read it in the Bible of course, but we also hear it in the sermon, in Bible study, and even from other Christians in very informal settings. Over coffee, at the dinner table, when a parent reads to the children or sings them a song about Jesus.
There are a great number of ways that God brings his word to people, and God has blessed us with a great deal of technology through which to get his Word out to his people. You may have noticed throughout February that there were some technology upgrades at Zion (and some you may not have noticed). We were blessed with some designated funds to upgrade our livestream system and our sound board, which allows us to stream in high definition, and better control the many different microphones and devices we use for worship, and more effectively get the word of God out to you and others who can’t leave home. Our church body is currently offering technology grants, and we’re working on a few other ways to make the church service available for those who are less familiar with technology.
So I write this Herald article to say “thank you” to everyone. First and foremost, thank you to all of you who utilize these technologies to join us in worship, in Bible study, listening to our podcasts and connecting via social media. We are tremendously blessed to be able to stay in community even while we’re distanced. As you may know, there is always a learning curve when we upgrade technology, which means glitches as we figure things out, and I very much appreciate everyone’s patience while we transition.
Living in the parsonage means my windows look right out into the parking lot, and I get to know people’s cars very well. Believe me, the cars of the staff and congregational volunteers who are installing, learning and teaching our new technology have been there for some long hours lately. If you’re one of those people, (or a member of their families), thank you, thank you, thank you for your time. Your work is an amazing blessing to the congregation.
One thing I’ve learned in this pandemic is the Word of God cannot be stopped. At times like this the means of delivery might change, the packaging might look a little different, but Jesus isn’t stopped by pandemics or anything else for that matter. Thank God that he’s blessed us with these means to get his word to his people and the world!
February 2021
February 2021 is a big month for our congregation because this month Zion begins a journey that will carry on through the next years of our congregation’s life: United in Mission III: The Mission Continues. If you’ve been a member here for a while, you probably know something about the UIM campaigns of the past. For me as a relative newcomer, I know it mainly as the campaign that built our ministry center.
This phase of UIM is different because we aren’t looking at a building project, but rather at a campaign to maintain the facilities God has granted us. Throughout the life of the congregation, our volunteers have done an outstanding job of maintaining our facilities, but the time has come for some of the bigger projects that need to be done.
It’s fitting, I think, that we are taking time to think about the gifts we’ve been given and how we practice good stewardship of those gifts as we move into Lent. Ash Wednesday will fall in the middle of this month, and what is our Lenten season if not preparation for our celebration of the most important gift: the life of Jesus, given in our place? As we enter this time of reflection, we consider our sin, and our desperate need for a Savior. And when we do, I hope our thoughts also turn to our baptism, the time and place where God gave the gift of Jesus to you, personally and individually.
For some of us, it was at the very font that we see in church every Sunday. For others, it was at the font that now sits in the chapel. And for others still, it was at a baptismal font in another church, situated in another town as another place where people come to meet God, and where God meets his people.
So, this is where the threads come together. It’s very difficult to reflect on the gifts of God without turning thoughts in one way or another to the place where we receive those gifts. And that’s not a bad thing. It emphasizes to us that the gifts of God take place in a community of faith. The church is not a building, but the building, or the meeting place, is an important facet of the church because it’s where God meets his people in Word and Sacrament. We are truly doubly blessed, with both the salvation of God and the location where God brings us that salvation and touches our lives.
Whether you’re joining us in person or online, may God bless your Lenten season in this place.
January 2021
Happy New Year! As we move into 2021, I’m going to throw out a challenge to us as a congregation, because it was put before me in an excellent Bible study Vicar Brandon did on “Adiaphora.” If you’re among the 99.9% of the world’s population who have no idea what that word means, it simply means things that aren’t commanded or forbidden in Scripture, which, frankly, is most of what we do. (E.g. God doesn’t tell churches to start schools, but we chose to start one and it continues to be an amazing ministry of our church!)
The question is always how do we decide things like this? In other words, when we can do any number of things, how does an individual Christian or a group of people decide what they should do? 1 Corinthians 8 provides us with some important guidance. In this chapter, Paul is dealing with the issue of food sacrificed to idols and whether Christians should eat it. Paul’s first point is that we can (1 Cor. 8:8), but he then asks the question whether we should. In other words, he says you have the right to food sacrificed to idols, but the key question is how should you exercise that right? Paul answers with the attitude of Christ. He says you think of others first before yourself (1 Cor. 8:13). Paul and the other Christians have every right to eat food sacrificed to idols. But they focus not on their rights but on their responsibilities to the people around them. In other words, in making decisions about things not commanded nor forbidden, the Bible tells us the first step is to think of other people.
So here’s the 1 Corinthians 8 model for making decisions as Christians:
What does God command or forbid?
What is best for others, particularly those weak in faith or outside the church?
What is best for the congregation?
What do I want?
Far too often, all of us reverse the order of these questions completely. (Question 1 is too often a last-ditch effort to make the answer to question 4 happen!) But God challenges each of us to think in these terms. Certainly, I hope we’ll ask these questions in this order in boards and committees that meet at Zion from this point forward. But I also hope as individual Christians we’ll take this to heart. After all, Paul is writing to a church but he’s talking to the individual Christians within the church. God calls each of us to this Christ-like attitude of putting God and others first in our actions, and in so doing we model Jesus’ self-sacrifice (see Philippians 2).
The 1 Corinthians 8 model is one step in moving us toward two things I’ve resolved to keep in front of myself throughout this calendar year: creating a welcoming culture at Zion and creating a missional culture at Zion. Culture is different than strategy. Culture is your deep sense of “that’s the right way to do it” when you can’t really explain why. When culture changes, you just do it without thinking about it. That’s where we need to get as a congregation. Our vision statement says we want to “eat, sleep and breathe mission” and that’s where Jesus points us too (Mt. 28:19-20).
There are already some steps moving us in that direction. I’m writing this a week before Christmas, and at the time of writing, people have really done an excellent job of spreading out between the services and choosing some of the service times that are not our standards so that people who haven’t been to church in a while and aren’t aware of the sign-up system won’t be put off by a jam-packed sanctuary if they simply show up at the normal service time. And people have even said in phone calls to the church office that they’re trying to think of the people who aren’t normally here. That’s awesome and it’s exactly where we need to head. May God bless us as we model Christ this year, putting others before ourselves and putting his mission first. May his love work in and through us this year. Out of Zion, may God shine forth! (Ps. 50:2)
December 2020
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Christmas decorations go up so early. I don’t mean in the stores. Retail stores had Christmas stuff up as soon as Halloween was over, and no surprise there. I mean on and in homes. I was driving around Bethalto in the evening a couple of days before Thanksgiving and I was shocked at how may houses had Christmas lights and trees up already. Maybe it was just people who are usually on the ball, maybe it was just a spell of nice weather, but I’m guessing for some of those people they shared the attitude of a close friend of mine who explained his early decorations by saying, “We’re just trying to get rid of 2020 as quickly as possible.”
Who can blame him? I don’t remember any year when we collectively looked so forward to putting a calendar year behind us. 2020 has become synonymous with mayhem and crazy things happening, especially bad things, and we’re collectively ready to be done with a year that’s been really rough on all of us. In fact “because it’s 2020” has become a way to explain anything unusual or terrible that happens. The fact is, 2020 has made the brokenness of this world very visible to all of us. It’s not often that a calendar year holds in our face so blatantly the fact that we live in a sinful, broken world.
And what better time than Christmas to give us the thing we really need in a very bleak time? Because what is the message of Christmas apart from a message of hope in the bleakness of our world? This isn’t the first time people have reached out toward Christmas for hope in 2020. All the way back in March we had people putting up Christmas lights as a sign of hope and cheer during a challenging and difficult time.
As Christians, we know the Christmas decorations point us to more than family togetherness, more than the fun of giving presents, and more than holiday traditions. Those are all things that people draw on to cope during years like this. But God gives us more than coping methods, he gives us victory. 2020 is nothing if not an illustration of how broken our world really is, and how much Satan would love for us to simply and quietly lose hope. So when you put your Christmas lights up this year, I encourage you not to simply think of them as a way of adding cheer, but also to think of shining your Christmas lights as an act of defiance against the darkness of 2020 that has threatened to take our joy, our peace and our hope. Put them up this year as not just a reminder, but also a message to everyone who sees them that the Light of the World gives us victory over pain and pandemic, sadness and separation, loneliness and loss. After all, what is Christmas if not a celebration of the fact that light always breaks the darkness?
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.” -Isaiah 9:2
November 2020
The Beginning of the End
November is one of my favorite times of the year in the church. Right after Reformation Day, which we celebrate the last weekend of October, we kick off November with All Saints Day. That’s the Sunday we read the names of all the members of our congregation who died in faith during this past year. That takes us into the final part of the church year where our readings focus on the return of Christ, or what is sometimes called the End Times.
With all the events of 2020, there has been no shortage of speculation on end times prophecy. You may have seen some of this yourself, so I wanted to take a few minutes to clarify a few points about the Biblical view of the end.
Here are some important things to remember:
No one knows the day or the hour. Jesus says this. In pretty much those exact words. It’s in Matthew 24:36. When people say they know, they don’t.
The end times are now, but not in the way that many people think. The end times, began at the crucifixion. The Bible talks about them as the “Last Days,” and they begin at the crucifixion and resurrection, when Christ reveals God to us. (Heb. 1:1-2; 1 Pet. 1:20; Acts 2:17, which quotes Joel)
Christ is coming to bring us into the New Creation. The main passage used for the idea of the rapture, (where Christ comes and takes all Christians to heaven), is 1 Thess. 4:13-17. The specific focus is usually that we go to meet Jesus in the air, and the assumption is that we then go to heaven. However, when you go to meet someone who is returning, you don’t go off somewhere else, you come with them the rest of the way to wherever they’re going. (An easy example is the Prodigal Son. Remember, his father goes out to meet him, but then they return home together, they don’t go off somewhere else.) When the Bible talks about the return of Christ, it talks about him coming down to earth (e.g. Rev. 21:2).
The whole church in heaven and on earth is waiting for the return of Jesus. This waiting is something we share with those people we name on All Saints Day. They are waiting with Jesus in heaven, we are waiting here on earth. We can and should rejoice that they are with Christ, in a place that is better by far (Phil. 1:23). But it’s important to remember that heaven isn’t the end of the journey. We’re all waiting for the final, ultimate victory of Christ over all evil where we get to live together in the New Creation with Jesus forever. That’s our final home.
Biblical teaching about the End (aka “eschatology”) isn’t meant to be scary it’s meant to be comforting. It’s meant to show us that no matter how bad things get in our world and in our lives, ultimately the victory belongs to Jesus, and we get to be a part of it. (Isaiah 25:6-9; Rev. 21:1-7)
My prayer is that these things will give you comfort in the midst of all the uncertainty 2020 has brought. It’s been a strange year, filled with all kinds of turmoil, change and unrest. But when the Bible teaches us about the Return of Jesus, it constantly reminds us that the God who loves us enough to send His Son to die for us is in control of all things.
October 2020
“Are we there yet?” My parents will often tell the story of a trip they took with a friend and her daughter from Kansas City to St. Louis before I was born. The friend met them at their house, they strapped the daughter into the back seat, and pulled out of the driveway. About five minutes later, they merged into traffic on I-70, and that’s when the question came from the back seat. “Are we there yet?”
The problem, I think, for kids on car trips is that they really have no idea how far off the destination is. For that little girl, she knew they were going to someplace called “St. Louis.” What she didn’t realize was the expectation for the trip shouldn’t be five minutes, it should be about five hours. She had no idea how far away the destination was.
So many things in our lives are that way, but I think this pandemic has brought us into that back seat once again. We have no idea how far away the destination is, no clue when we will get there. I remember sitting in the church office this past March, talking with the staff and saying something to the effect of “I hope we’re able to be back by Easter.” When I think back to it now, it sounds an awful lot like that first “Are we there yet?” that mom and dad heard from the back seat. Then it was, “I hope we’re back to normal by summer.” And then “by the beginning of school.” “Are we there yet?”
I’m writing this in my office at church, and on the tree right outside my window, I notice a few yellow leaves up in the branches. Waving yellow flags, heralding the approach of autumn and the downhill portion of this very strange journey we’ve all found ourselves on in 2020. And I find myself asking again, “Are we there yet?” Some things are moving back toward what we’d think of as “normal.” This month we return to traditional and contemporary services. We’ve been doing Bible classes on Sundays and have resumed some meetings at the church through the week. But the journey still seems long, and we don’t know how far away the destination is.
The other thing about being in the backseat as a kid is that you’re forced to trust the driver. I was there plenty of times. Even if you don’t have any idea how far you’re going, you trust that mom and dad are going to get you there safely, no matter how long or hard the journey is.
The blessing of our faith in the middle of all of this is that we know who’s in the driver’s seat. Romans 8:28 tells us, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” This has been a hard leg of the journey, and we’re all sitting in the back seat, looking forward to when it gets easier. But we do know that our heavenly Father is in the driver’s seat, and he’s taking us to this place called “New Creation.” We have no idea how far off the destination is, but we trust the guy in the driver’s seat. And we know that destination will not disappoint.
September 2020
I don’t really remember being a substitute teacher. I’m sure when I was teaching I would occasionally fill in for a colleague. Once when I was teaching in high school our art teacher quit with senior projects for our accrediting organization looming two months down the road, so I ended up in the art room a few times a week, guiding stu-dents through their projects. (Any confirmation student will tell you, me teaching art is not a good idea.) Some-how they got through. But I don’t remember being in a position where I was teaching for another teacher acting and taking care of their class for any length of time. But I’m sure if I had, I would want to make sure I did things in a way that the real teacher approved of. In that position I would be just a steward of their class after all.
Whether we know it or not, stewardship has been lurking in the background of most of the decisions all of us have had to make in the past six months. We’ve had to think about how we care for our bodies, our families, our time and our resources. School has started, and stewardship has very much been in the background of the many, many discussions we’ve had about procedures there as well. There’s stewardship of God’s Word, as we teach our kids about Jesus. There’s stewardship of our students. For a long time, (and perhaps still), the school was considered to be operating “in loco parentis” which is Latin for “in place of the parents.”
For the past few years, we have set aside September to talk about stewardship as a congregation. Money has been part of that discussion, but only one part. Rightly so, because the first task God gives to humanity is that we would be stewards not of our stuff, but of the entire world, operating “in loco Dei” or “in the place of God.” There’s hardly a broader topic in all of Scripture. As we move into September this year, we won’t begin a stew-ardship focus at this time as we normally would, but I’d like to do two things. First, I’d like to thank you for your consideration of Zion as you make stewardship decisions. Thank you for the time you spend working at Zion, praying for Zion and participating in the community here as best we’re able. Second, I’d like to challenge you to think in terms of stewardship, and not just money. How do you spend your time? How do you deal with your family? What do you say to your friends? These are people and things which are gifts from God, and we are simply the stewards. Do you use them in a way that the real owner would approve of? This September and throughout our lives, may we be led and encouraged by Jesus, who took care of us at great personal cost to him-
August 2020
Prayer is our side of a conversation with God. When the Bible talks about prayer, it talks about it as something that is typically done in solitude (Mt. 6:6, 14:23, Acts 10:9). We are aided by God in our prayers (Ro. 8:26). Prayer is something done by one Christian for others (Col. 1:3), but it’s also requested in times of need (Col. 4:3). Most importantly for us, when Jesus teaches us how to pray, he bases the entire practice of prayer on the relationship he’s forged for us with God the Father through his death and resurrection. In other words, because of Jesus, we can say “Our Father” when we pray.
This is no small thing. To be able to approach our creator as we would our father, though he is so far beyond us, is a privilege we too often take for granted. A privilege we are by no means entitled. But a privilege which is granted to us by grace, and so we are called, encouraged, even obligated to use that privilege.
This’ll sound weird, but I’ve always thought the bathroom mirror would be a great place to keep a dry erase marker and write down prayer requests. If you’ve got a fairly big bathroom mirror, you can put the prayer requests near the edge, and then everybody who uses the bathroom and stands there brushing their teeth in the morning can pray for whatever is written on the mirror. Not only would it remind you to pray, it might just keep you a little more connected with the other people in your household!
If you write prayers up there, I’d ask you to write a couple for Zion as well, especially the school. We’ve got a great staff at school right now, and they’ve been working hard to get everything under control for the start of a very unique school year. Please pray for patience, wellness and guidance for all the staff at our school as we work toward the beginning of our school year. Pray also for our call process and the members of our call committee. The call process is a very unique and special thing, and we as a congregation need to continually pray for God’s guidance to the committee and the voters. Finally, pray for the other members of the congregation, especially those we pray for on Sunday morning. Better yet, after you’re done praying, give them a call! How blessed we are that we can go to our heavenly Father with everything that’s on our hearts. Hope you have a great August!
July 2020
Every year around the beginning of May, third year seminarians gather in the Chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus at Concordia Seminary here in St. Louis and Kramer Chapel at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, (or online in 2020!), and receive placement to congregations around the world. In most years, (again, excluding 2020!), you hear your placement,
receive your envelope, open it after the service and meet your new District President. You get in contact with your new supervisor and congregation, and you spend a few months organizing housing, figuring out moving logistics, talking about employment, filling out paperwork, finishing
classes and wondering what this place and these people will be like.
It’s a little different for congregations that have vicars frequently. There’s a rhythm to being a vicarage congregation. Every year in the summer, a new man gets introduced into the life of our congregation and each of us as individuals. We get to know this man and his family. We grow to trust them, learn from them, learn about them and make them a part of our Zion family. We invite them to share some of the most personal moments of our lives: the joys and the sorrows. And then about the time school gets out for the summer, we begin the process of letting them go because the rhythm is about to start all over again for a new man and his family.
Why put ourselves through this rhythm of getting attached and letting go? Because vicarage is an education program and being a part of it doesn’t just help our church, it helps the Church. The vicars who spend their year of education with us take the things they learn from us and carry it with them into their ministry wherever God places them after seminary. They also bring different strengths, different joys and different experiences with them when they come our way. Vicar Brandon will be different from Vicar Ben. We will bless him in different ways and he will bless us in different ways. The real beauty of our congregation being a part of this program is
that we all get to be blessed and grow together for a year, look forward to what God has in store for all of us next, and do so in the joyful knowledge that, through our shared experience in Christ, God will strengthen his church!
June 2020
Summer is here, and the strange nature of this year continues. Last year we began the month of June with “Church in the Park” and we all got together outside to worship, eat and play games as an entire church body. That, unfortunately, isn’t possible this year. Who could have predicted when we moved to an online format for services back in March that we would still be doing this as we moved into the summer?
God. That’s who. Our God knows what’s coming before it gets here. He knows what’s going to happen before we have any idea. He knows the depth of our joys, he knows what our job will be, he knows how many kids or grand kids we’ll have, he knows what grades we’ll get this year and next. And he also knows the depth of our sorrows. He knows what heartache feels like. He knows what loss means. He knows what it’s like to be alone. He knows when we’re going to feel those things long before we do.
And most importantly, he knows how he’s going to get us through it. That’s the key. He not only knows what we’re going to go through, he knows how he’s bringing us through. And this should really be no surprise for us. Long before sin came into the world (Genesis 3), he knew that he would send Jesus to die, to rise, to ascend and to return so that you and I might have eternal life. Everything else is small compared to the problem of sin that God overcame. That’s not to say our problems right now are small problems. They’re not. Unemployment. Uncertainty. Unrest. Fear,
pain, anger and anguish, these are not small problems. But when you bear in mind that God has already found a solution to the most serious problem, sin, then you come to realize that he can definitely handle anything the world throws at us.
So take comfort with God’s people. Even though we can’t hang out in the park together, even though we can’t gather for normal worship, even though we have to deal with service on our computers or in our cars, we know that God has this well in hand. He knows the day that we’ll get back together. And he knows the joy tha will ring out in our songs on that day.
May 2020
Normally, this is a month where a lot of things happen. We have a bunch of stuff going on at the school, including 8th grade graduation, kindergarten graduation and the musical. Our teachers and staff are working hard to stay connected to the students and continue learning remotely, and school families are working together with students to continue remote learning through the end of this school year. On the church side, we are normally working on sending off our seniors to whatever their next step is and preparing for the beginning of summer. We’re not able to gather to do those things at this time, but the church staff is working hard to ensure we still get God’s word out to people. Things are quieter than they normally are in the buildings this year, but there’s still a lot going on.
As we move through the Easter season and into Pentecost, I think that idea is an important one for us to remember: things may look quiet, but God is at work. Our sermon series for this month is called “Encounters with Jesus,” and the focus is on the encounters people had with Jesus after the resurrection and before the ascension. It’s amazing to me how Jesus gives people what they need in these encounters.
But this is also a time of transition both in the history of the church and in the church year. During this time, Jesus prepares his disciples for the time after his ascension when he is no longer physically and visibly present with them. After the ascension things may look quiet, but God is at work. Following the ascension, the 11 disciples meet together, and they get going on the calls process for the first time in the church, calling Matthias to replace Judas. Not long afterwards the Holy Spirit comes to them at Pentecost, and the preaching of the word becomes their main activity. There are church plants throughout Acts, board meetings (Acts 15), and issues with division of labor in the church (Acts 6), but through it all the word is preached, the church grows and the faith spreads.
Things may have looked quiet, but God was at work. And he is now as well. We don’t know how long this will last, but God continues to work in and through his people here, even when his people can’t gather. We’ve got plenty of opportunities to hear God’s word together on Sunday mornings and dig deeper into the Bible together as a congregation. Our youth have begun meeting virtually. We’ve started having coffee and doughnuts together on Facebook Live following the services. If you haven’t joined us yet, please do!
And here’s the other thing: it’s never been easier to share your faith. Click the “Like” button on Facebook. Send streaming instructions to someone who’s been thinking about church. There’s never been a more non-threatening way to reach out to people or for guests to check us out and see what we’re about. Do you have somebody on your fridge? Do you know somebody who needs to hear some good news? We have the kind of God who makes obstacles into opportunities. There’s no better time to reach out. Things may look quiet at the church building, but God is at work in his church in and through his people.
April 2020
Have you ever been to Easter Vigil service? It’s one of my favorites in the year. It happens on the Saturday before Easter, right between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We end our Good Friday Tenebrae service in deep darkness, and we begin our Easter Vigil service in that same darkness. This service takes place on the day we commemorate Jesus’ three day rest in the tomb. In other words, it’s a service that asks us to reflect on a time of perceived absence. And in this service we go back to some of the most familiar passages of Scripture to reflect on and remember the promises of God while we wait for the end of the absence that comes in Jesus’ resurrection on Easter morning.
Easter Vigil service is April 11th this year, and there’s a possibility that we’ll still be in a time of absence when we’re not able to meet together in the same room for worship. In addition to being separated from the church, many of us may be separated from friends and family members as well. And so, we take our que from the Easter Vigil service. We go back to the most familiar passages of Scripture to reflect on and remember the promises of God while we wait for the end of this absence.
Why the most familiar? I think for two reasons. First, because the most familiar Scriptures tend to be the ones that most clearly proclaim the grace and mercy of God. John 3:16, Romans 8:28-38, Psalm 23, and so on are famous precisely because they’ve spoken to Christians in their day to day lives for years. Second, because the familiarity of these passages provides us with a sense of comfort when everything else is changing so quickly. Think, for a minute about Psalm 23. (Have you memorized it yet?) The contours if this psalm are so familiar, but our circumstances change so that what jumps out to me in this reading of the psalm on this day may be very different than what jumped out to me last year, or even yesterday. That’s how the Spirit uses the unchanging Word of God in our lives. It meets us where we are and gives us what we need.
I’m not sure what Easter Vigil service will look like this year. I don’t know what Holy Week will look like this year and I don’t know what Easter Sunday will look like. What I do know is that the Lord of Hosts is with us, and the God of Jacob is our fortress no matter where we find ourselves. And I know that I‘m looking forward to the day when we can see each other again face to face. Until then, see you online!
March 2020
February, much of the church staff attends a conference in Phoenix Arizona called “Best Practices for Ministry” (BPM). This year, Vicar Ben, DCE Kristen, Preschool Director Mrs. Koch and I went to the conference and spent three days learning from and participating in conversations about what other churches have done in their ministries that has worked well. After three days filled with learning and encouragement we came back with our heads full, and are spending time in the distilling process right now. Much of what people share there are nuts and bolts presentations about how they’ve been successful in a certain aspect of ministry, and that’s much of what we’re thinking about, but I’d like to share with you some overall impressions I took away.
We are not alone. Every year, this is the theme of the conference. It’s very easy for me, and probably for all of us, to get the impression that our congregation is an island because we get very focused on pulling off the next event, rolling out the next program, or looking through the next budget. But getting together with 2500 other people who are devoted to ministry in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) shows you that you’re not alone. The issues we face here are faced by churches all over the country. But we’re also connected in Christ with people from Fairbanks to Ft. Lauderdale who are working to proclaim the Gospel to the people in their community. That’s encouraging!
We can do all things through Christ. I know, it’s a Bible verse you’ve heard a lot. But one amazing thing about BPM is hearing the stories from churches that have found ministry areas that they’re passionate about. Sometimes in our home churches it’s easy to fall into the “that’ll never happen here” attitude, but there are hundreds of churches that show us that Jesus is at work in all kinds of contexts. It’s a blessing for us to be able to serve and grow together here in Bethalto.
Jesus is at work in his church and in our congregation. Have you had one of those moments where you’re really touched in church? Maybe it’s during the Service of Darkness on Good Friday. Maybe it’s singing Silent Night on Christmas Eve. One of those moments for me was at the end of BPM this year, on Saturday afternoon I stood outside a jam-packed sanctuary and sang with this amazing group of Christians “Lift High the Cross” as we all prepared to go back to our home congregations and re-enter the work of ministry. And I said this in church, but I want to repeat it here: I came to a realization the following Sunday morning when I came to work. The realization was that I am incredibly blessed because I got to stand up that morning with this amazing group of Christians here at Zion and sing “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” before we all prepared to go back to our places of work for the week and re-enter the work of ministry. It’s an amazing honor to serve with each of you in God’s kingdom. I pray all of you have a wonderful, edifying Lenten season.
February 2020
Christmas is over, now everybody in the church can finally relax.
Wait, what’s that???
EASTER!!!!
Isn’t that the truth? Every year Lent begins before we know it! We’re already only a few weeks away from Ash Wednesday and by the end of this month we’ll be in Lent already and on our way to Confirmation, Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
Even if you are at home, you probably do a great deal of preparation for Christmas, only to have Easter pop up out of nowhere and require more cooking, more planning, more travel, more arrangements.
In the church, there’s definitely not much recovery time between these holidays. Particularly in years where Easter falls toward the end of March, we barely have time to catch our breath! But I think there’s value in this rhythm into which we fall year after year.
As a matter of fact, I think this kind of rhythm is what God designed in us and in all creation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his study of the creation story, gets at the idea that we are designed for the rhythms of creation. He writes: “The rhythm—repose and movement in one—which gives and takes and gives again and takes again…thus eternally points towards God’s giving and taking, to God’s freedom on the other side of repose and movement” (Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, 29). We humans, Bonhoeffer points out, were built for rhythm and were created in the rhythm of creation.
The first half of the church year has just such a rhythm. It’s a blessed rhythm that follows the life of our Savior on the earth. We move from birth to death to resurrection: Christmas to Good Friday to Easter: the stillness of the evening in the manger, the darkness of the cross at noon and the bright, burning dawn where the Light of the World Himself breaks forth from the empty tomb. You and I are along for the ride, showered with the gifts of God in this rhythm of our salvation.
So happy February. Blessed Lent. And enjoy the rhythm!
January 2020
Happy New Year! I hope your 2020 is starting off well! I think this is usually the Herald when I write something about New Years resolutions. This year I’m going to write about a different kind of New Years resolution. Different because it’s not for you as an individual, but for us as a church. The resolution is simple: that, in 2020, we as a church think about our congregation in terms of the people we’d like to have here.
Here’s what I mean: it’s very easy to think about our congregation in terms of how it meets our needs. That’s not a bad thing because we really do come to church to receive. When you walk into church on a Sunday morning, you’re walking in to receive the gifts of God. You may walk out realizing what you’ve received. You feel different, changed, convicted, built up. You may walk out feeling like not much of the service applied to you. But regardless, you receive the grace of God when you come to church, so there’s good reason to think about church meeting our needs. That’s what God does here, his love works in you. You receive.
The thing is, it’s not the only thing God does here. He also sends us. He also commissions us to go out into the world. He changes us here so he can use us to change other people. Our mission statement has two very small but crucially important words. “In” is one. “Through” is the other. God’s love works in and through us here. I think we have the “in” down pretty well. The New Year’s resolution is this: In 2020, let’s work together to figure out the “through.”
We already took an important step in that direction in 2019 when we began to think about how we become a welcoming church. And I think that’s where we focus ourselves first in 2020. Early in the year we’ll have another meeting about how we’re doing as far as being a welcoming church. There are some exciting things happening with our greeter ministry as well. These things are important, but I think the most important thing is all of us seeing ourselves as vessels through which God’s love works. Ever noticed somebody alone in the Ministry Center who doesn’t have someone to talk to? If you don’t know them, introduce yourself! If you do know them, go check in!
And don’t forget that God’s commission goes beyond the ministry center walls. This is where you receive the only remedy for the sickness of sin. It’s free. And it’s the only thing that keeps you from death. When you head out into the world, you’re heading out among a lot of sick people. And you’ve got the cure. You know the One with the power to change everything and he’s called you to be the one he works through on those sick people around you. It might just save their lives too.
December 2019
Merry Christmas! I can’t believe it’s this time of year already! We got our early snow; we’re headed towards winter and hot chocolate and dinners and presents. What a great time to relax as we get together with our families!
Or is it? The idea that we get together with family for a peaceful time of joy, fellowship and express our love toward one another is a nice idea. But the things that we read in Christmas cards about family time don’t always play out in reality, do they? The fact is family gatherings mean a great deal of preparation for many of us. Hours of cooking, days of shopping, nervous looks at our budgets.
And that’s just what happens beforehand. When the gathering actually takes place, you may have hours of awkwardness to look forward to. There are old grudges and broken promises that come up. Personalities and political views don’t always mesh, even around the dinner table. Family members feel slighted or untrusting. Siblings fight. Spouses argue. Very often Christmas gatherings bring out hurt.
The families in the Bible are no exception. This Advent season as we lead up to Christmas, we’ll be looking especially at one of the most disastrously messed up families in the whole Bible: David’s. Israel’s royal family was constantly wracked with betrayal, scheming, and even murder. And yet, in the middle of all this mess, God is at work bringing about the first Christmas and salvation for all people.
In all the Christmases that follow, God brings our families together, the families of New Testament Israel: the church. And just like God’s people in the Old Testament, we have our share of strife and problems. And yet, in the middle of all this mess, God is working at bringing about something important. Even in spite of the problems, we bond ourselves to our earthly families because we have family ties in common. And most importantly God strengthens the bonds within his church, as we celebrate his coming on the first Christmas and his death and resurrection that shows us one day all strife will come to an end.
November 2019
November is the month when the Church turns its eyes toward the future. We begin the month with All Saints Day celebration, a Sunday where we remember all those who have gone before us in the faith by reading the names of the members who passed away since last All Saints Day. The purpose of this day is to recall and celebrate an amazing reality of the church: that we are still connected to those who have gone before us in the faith. The concept of connection with those we’ve lost fascinates people. You’ll often hear people tell you that we remain connected to our loved ones if we honor them in our lives by loving the people around us. Or people say that we’re connected with those who are gone because their family and their legacy lives on. There is, of course, some truth to the fact that our loved ones teach us things during their time on earth, and we carry those lessons along with us because they have helped shape us as people. But ultimately you don’t want the lessons, you don’t want the memories, you want to have the person with you. And that’s a desire that only the Gospel can solve. See, the message of All Saints Day is that we are connected to those who have died in faith not through our own thoughts or memories, but through Christ himself. The message of All Saints Day is that we are connected to the entire church as the body of Christ. That means the church on earth and the church in heaven. And as we turn our eyes toward the future in November, we’ll not only talk about our connection in Christ today, but we’ll turn our eyes toward the Last Day. Why? Because when Christ comes and raises all the dead on that day, our connection with the whole church will become a visible reality because the whole church will enter into the New Creation together.