Having COVID stinks. There I said it. My heart goes out to all who suffered much worse and to those families who lost loved ones to this horrible virus. 

Yes like most people, I was wishing 2022 would be different somehow. Maybe it will be, but not quite yet.

Instead of wishing, I need to turn my attention towards hope.  Wishing is a time waster. Last week when I was sick, I spent some of that time wishing that I felt better. Honestly, that was not going to change a dang thing. Instead, I focused on resting and taking care of myself. (That is way more productive than wishing my way through life.)

Wishing for a better year will have no effect on our future whatsoever. However, I do have hope! That is way different than wishing. 

What is hope you ask? The author of Hebrews defines it quite well.

This is what they wrote…

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. Hebrews 11:1-2

If hope (according to the author of Hebrews) is being sure of what hasn’t happened yet (but promised) and confidence in that which we do not see, then we have reason to be optimistic!

Let’s be clear, we can’t have hope in everything. The scope of hope is limited to the realm of God. Everything outside of that is wishful thinking no matter how probable something might be.

I cannot hope for a better year because that is not promised. However, I do have hope that the Church will do great things in Jesus’ name in 2022 because Jesus promised this…

…and on this rock (of a truth that Jesus is the Son of God) I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Matthew 16:18

I have hope that we can do great things together under the banner of God’s name in the most difficult of circumstances. If we can prevail over the gates of hades, we can overcome a lot!

We can’t control much, but we know who does… Jesus! I put my trust and hope in the one who rose from the dead. He promised he would rise in three days and guess what? He did! 

Whatever this year will bring, I will trust him. We will keep Jesus the number one thing at church and in our lives. He will never steer us wrong, especially when the future is uncertain. 

God bless,
Pr. Ben

May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance. 
2 Thessalonians 3:5 

The verse above appears to be a blessing bestowed upon the church of Thessalonica by Saint Paul.

I need both of those blessings. First to be guided into God’s love and then to persevere like Jesus, especially in 2022.

Like you, I was hoping we were done with COVID after the vaccines became available. Not that it would prevent COVID entirely, but that it would minimize another massive wave of infections.  Unfortunately, the new variant meant new infections. Yes, I naively thought this would mostly go away in the new year. I am weary from all the illness and COVID related death we have experienced in our church family.

Sidenote: I am so thankful for the vaccine and the countless scientists and researchers who helped make this a reality. I understand this would be a lot worse without vaccinations. 

I need the same spirit of perseverance that Jesus employed to finish his mission to forgive and reconcile humanity. It certainly took a great deal of persistence and determination to die prematurely for our benefit. Jesus followed through so that we might gain the Kingdom and be claimed as forgiven children of God.

I need that same perseverance to move forward and not retreat to my bed and pull the comforter over my head and say to Rachel, “Let me know when it is all over.” 

Yet, I know there is work to be done. Important work. Work that has eternal significance. Last week, I told everyone who worshiped with us, “You will encounter someone this week who needs this church.” Not just this week, but every week. That thought gets me out of bed in the morning, in spite of the struggles we are facing. 

Paul also wrote that he hoped our hearts would be directed “into God’s love.” It is easy to become cynical which leads to a lack of perseverance. Love makes all things possible including how we live in society. If we cease to care, everything falls apart. 

No matter what the year brings, I am not giving up…with God’s love, we will persevere and share the love of Jesus to this city and beyond.

Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:4 

God bless,
Pr. Ben

Well, we step into a new year on Saturday. I know, I know, dates are a human creation, but this is the way we mark time, and a new year is upon us. 

I don’t know what the new year holds for us as individuals or as a church, but I am sure of one thing. I am sure of the promises of God.

Isaiah the prophet spoke the words of God during a time of great conflict and even unfaithfulness. God’s grace didn’t depend upon how good the people were back then, and it doesn’t now. 

This is what God said to the people of Israel back then and to us today…

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? 
I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:18-19

Whatever the new year holds, I will look to God who is the giver of all good things, and I will do my best to cling to Jesus in all situations. 

God will make a way in the most desperate of situations and will present new opportunities as we step into 2022. 

Let us not dwell on the past as God reminds us in Isaiah. Instead, let us learn from the past so that it informs our decisions as we step into our future. 

I pray the struggles we have faced in the past two years will subside but even if they don’t, we trust God will watch over us and make a way.

May we all have a blessed New Year as we draw closer to Jesus.

Pr. Ben

A week from today (Friday) it will be Christmas Eve. What will you be doing that day?

All the planning of the worship staff and pastors will be complete and we will be ready to celebrate Christmas together as a church family.

For some, there is a danger of being too busy. Rushing to finish this and that in order to achieve the perfect Christmas. 

For others, it will be quiet. Too quiet. The loneliness is deafening and a pining for Christmases past. 

Or maybe you are somewhere in between?

Whatever you may or may not be doing, remember “the reason for the season.” Take some time to connect with God. 

Make time for Jesus. Whether you come to church or worship online, carve out a moment for God.

I am reminded of what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth…

As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. 

For Isaiah says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” 

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation. 2Corinthians 6:1-2

Let’s not take God’s love for granted. Christmas is the reminder that salvation has arrived in the person of Jesus.

God’s favor rests upon his children. We should celebrate that.

Make the time.

Come near to God and he will come near to you. James 4:8a

Merry Christmas!

Pr. Ben

Advent is a time of waiting. Waiting for Christmas and waiting for Christ’s return.

I am really good at waiting… because I have no choice in the matter! Honestly, I am not a patient wait-er. 

Over the past two years, I’ve ordered a lot more stuff online than I ever did in the past. I find it easier to have stuff delivered to the front door than going out and hunting it down in a store. 

Once the order is complete, I often get a shopping confirmation with a tracking number. I proceed to track that order several times a day until the package ends up on my welcome mat. Like I said, I am not patient when waiting- but I am good at it! 

Life doesn’t stop when we wait for stuff, nor should we sit around waiting for Jesus to return. There is too much that needs fixing or help! The best way to wait is to show our love for God by loving our neighbor.

The love and kindness we receive from Jesus should overflow to the community around us.

Remember what King David wrote in the 23^rd Psalm, “You prepare a table before me 
in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”

King David reminds us that there will be times in our lives that will be less than ideal, if not unpleasant. (Who wants to eat at a table full of your enemies?!?) Even when bad things happen, we are reminded in Psalm 23:5 that we are still chosen children of God (you anoint my head with oil) AND we have more than enough (my cup overflows). 

Let us not waste that which overflows our cup! Love is not a finite quantity! There is always enough love to go around.

While we wait for Christmas and Christ’s return… let’s not wait impatiently, we have too much loving to do.

Love often looks like:

• Peanut Butter for Lutheran Social Services
• Turkey or mashed potatoes for our senior food program
• Wrapped children’s gifts for Angel Tree
• Free quilts given to veterans at the VA hospital
• A Christmas Card to someone who lives alone.

God bless you,
Pr. Ben

For the past two weeks I have been sharing our core values at Community Lutheran Church.

Some might think, “Big deal. More words for the website.”

Others might be wondering, “What about those other words we use? Words like: Real People, Inclusive God, Radical Grace and Inspired Growth.” Are those going away?

Yet a few more might be thinking, “What do we even need core values for?”

What I have been sharing with you is way more than words on a website! And no, what we believe about ourselves, and God has not changed. We still believe that we are REAL PEOPLE who follow an INCLUSIVE GOD who gives RADICAL GRACE and puts us on a path of INSPIRED GROWTH. 

We literally spent time defining ourselves. We can now state who we are without ambiguity. 

We are and we strive to be:

Loving
Caring
Compassionate
Joyful
Friendly
Fun

These are benchmarks for us! We can do a heart check at any time! Just ask yourself the question, “Am I being…” and fill in the blank with any or all of those words above. 

We all need self-evaluation occasionally… even me.

However, the most exciting thing for me in all the data the congregation provided me was that you told me very specifically what INSPIRED GROWTH looks like at Community Lutheran Church. I didn’t ask for that, but you offered it up anyway! 

So far we have talked about the importance of:

Embracing WELCOME

Community in WORSHIP

Seek to LEARN

And there are two more we will cover in worship this weekend! (I don’t want to let the proverbial cat out of the bag!)

Each one of these practices will help us mature as Christians which in turn will help us grow as a church. 

Soon, our staff will gather to talk about each of these practices and define them even more. 

We now have a roadmap that tells us where (and who) we are and we have clear directions towards our destination! 

A person may plot out their course, but it is the Lord who directs his steps. Proverbs 16:9

It is an exciting time to be at CLC!

Show up this weekend and discover our last two practices that will complete our pathway of growth!

God bless,
Pr. Ben

Self-Reflection is good. It is helpful. Growth follows reflection. 

Self-reflection and self-awareness go hand in hand. 

In the 5^th century, an ancient Greek playwright by the name of Aeschylus first wrote these words, “Know thyself.”

If you know yourself, you will know what makes you mad, sad, and so on. This is good advice.

Even as Christians, it is helpful, on occasion to look inward. We can look inward for a whole host of reasons. 

Maybe it is time to make some changes in your life. Jesus talked about that. 

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:3-5

Jesus is talking about getting your own house in order before worrying about someone else’s life. That takes reflection. 

The Babylonians sacked Jerusalem in 586BC and Jeremiah the prophet wrote the book Lamentations in the midst of this tragedy. In the 3^rd chapter of this book he wrote…

Let us examine our ways and test them and let us return to the Lord. Lamentations 3:40

More self-reflection. 

Is there something that needs to change in your life? Do know why you do certain things? It is good to take time to look inside yourself and even ask some questions. Jeremiah even reminded us to test our actions. Do our actions reflect our intentions?

We recently did this as a congregation! I asked everyone to reflect on our core values as a church and with a little work, we know what is most important at Community Lutheran Church!

Starting this weekend, I will share with you what we discovered. I hope you make time to worship with us over the next several weeks to hear what we hold dear.

God bless,
Pr. Ben

Today this verse popped into my head…

Jesus said, But seek first God’s kingdom and the Lord’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33 

I believe when verses come to me, they are given for a reason. Inspiration shows up when you least expect it!

When I took a moment to ponder the words of Jesus, it struck me. This is what we are pursuing at Community Lutheran Church. Seeking God’s Kingdom is what we do! 

There are some who think we might be chasing after other things, but let me assure you we not only want God’s Kingdom to be manifest among us but also the entirety of Jesus’ love to change our hearts and this city. 

See, at the center of it all is love because “God is love.” 1John 4:8 To seek God’s Kingdom is to seek the source of all love. 

We are also commanded to seek the Lord’s righteousness too. That sounds complicated, doesn’t it? It isn’t. Righteousness is what is given when we are in relationship with Jesus. Simply put, we should grow closer to God so that we may grow in righteousness. We want to grow in God’s way of living life. Righteousness is found when we love more. God’s way is the way of love.

That is exactly what we are up to at Community Lutheran Church!

If we keep the main thing the main thing, Jesus tells us that, “all these things will be given to you as well.” We are reminded that everything we worry about will be taken care of when we focus on what is truly important.

That’s what we are going to keep on doing… seek first God’s kingdom.

God bless you,

Pr. Ben

If you have worshipped with us in the past two weeks you heard me announce that we are doing work on discovering the Core Values of Community Lutheran Church. 

Our Core Values are separate from but complementary to our Mission Statement of: Real People, Inclusive God, Radical Grace, and Inspired Growth. 

Our Core Values already exist, and we are living into them, we just need to name them. Naming our Core Values will help us understand why we do what we do, as well as informing how we can best grow our faith and congregation in the future.

This past week we offered 6 different Core Values sessions during which we gathered the thoughts and input of our members who are currently worshipping in-person. Today on the home page of our website and in our weekly email, we shared an electronic version of these sessions for anyone who calls Community Lutheran Church their church home but who couldn’t attend an in-person session.  We are still collecting input and hope every member will participate. The more input we have, the better!

I anticipate being able to report back on the results of these sessions by the end of October. I’m excited to dig into the feedback that we received in writing and during the group discussions. It will take some time to go through all the submitted responses (close to 300 of them already!) and recording that information into a spreadsheet so that we can do an in-depth analysis and summarize our findings. It will be a big project, but I promise to report back as soon as possible. Stay tuned!

This important project will help to uncover and articulate the Core Values of our church family at Community Lutheran. But what about our own personal core values? We all have our own values, of course. But have you ever taken the time to name yours or to write them down?

Even Jesus indirectly named his core values. 

After his temptation in the desert in which Jesus demonstrated his divine self-control (see Luke 4:1-13), Jesus went home to Nazareth and went to the synagogue to worship with the people he had known his whole life.

It just so happened that they asked Jesus to read the scriptures that day and make commentary on them and so this is what happens…

The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:17-19

Right there Jesus tells us what he is all about.

Preaching the good news of God’s love

Proclaiming freedom to those who feel boxed-in and captive

Bringing sight to the blind (physically and spiritually) 

Breaking the bonds of oppression for those who can’t see a way forward

And if you doubt those are Jesus’ core values listen to this…

Then Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:20-21

Essentially Jesus told those in the synagogue that day, “This is what I am about. This is my mission, and this is at the core of who I am.”

Now get this, when Jesus died on the cross for you, me, and countless billions, he accomplished all of that in the greatest gift given to humankind.

What about you? What are your core values?

Me?

I value … 

Connection with Jesus
Caring for my family
Consistency in my relationships
Commitment to my calling

God bless,
Pr. Ben

In the gospel stories about Jesus there are several reoccurring themes: God’s love for those who struggle, those who are sick, those who don’t have it all figured out and love for the outsider.

Jesus spent very little time with the religious leaders of his time. They thought they had it all figured out, including the very nature of God. Clearly, they didn’t, but these religious leaders never considered that they could be wrong about anything.

Jesus made time for real people. Not the pretenders or even the holier than thou types. If you attend Community Lutheran Church you know that we are real people! We struggle just like everyone else, and we don’t pretend otherwise.

As Jesus spent time with anyone who was interested, Jesus also mentored and taught his closest associates: the disciples. 

One of the things that Jesus instructed them to do was to go out and tell others of God’s love. This wasn’t a one-time command either. Jesus repeatedly reminded the disciples to go and share this message with anyone who will listen. 

This happened at the beginning, and this happened at the end of Jesus’ ministry here on earth. 

Early on Jesus told a fisherman he barely knew this, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch people.”Luke 5:10

Catch people with the love of God. 

Later Jesus sends out seventy-two people he had been mentoring to share the love of God with even more real people. 

Jesus even healed a man with lots demons (problems) and when he was set free, he asked if he could travel with Jesus. This was Jesus’ reply, “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” Luke 8:39a

Go and tell. And that is exactly what this man did.  So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. Luke 8:39b

And when Jesus ascended into heaven, he told his disciples one last time to go and tell others.

Clearly, this is important. 

If we believe that God speaks to us through the scriptures, then this encouragement to share Jesus with others is for us too.

Let me ask you this, are you just one of the crowd or are you a disciple? 

I don’t know about you, but I strive to be a disciple of Jesus and not just a part of the crowd. 

Jesus changed my life and I know that he wants to change others. 

I hope you will join me in sharing the love of Jesus and not just at worship. 

It is time to invite others to discover what we’ve been given.

Pastor Paul put it this way, How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Romans 10:14–15 

God bless you,

Pr. Ben