This is an exciting time for St. Peter’s! Church leadership has spent the past several months discerning the direction in which we think the Lord is calling us, that we might fulfill, even more deeply and faithfully, our vision through a mission campaign. In order to consider launching a campaign, it is important for leadership…
We could not have a worse Gospel Lesson for this morning’s service than the one I just read from Luke, chapter 20. On Annual Meeting Sunday, I was hoping that maybe the First Lesson would be from the First Book of Kings … recounting King Solomon’s temple building project in Jerusalem, and how he paid…
New Day Sermon pentecost 4 In today’s Gospel from Luke chapter 10, Jesus sends his followers out on a mission. If this mission were to be a TV series, maybe it would look something like this: Now, for the rest of the sermon, about “The A-Team”…
“The Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.” -Luke 10:1 Close your eyes and picture Jesus and his followers together. Most likely we either picture Jesus sitting around with the twelve disciples or standing in the midst of…
Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing the Mission Giving Plan for the 2019 church year presented in a different way than the typical congregational budget. This “narrative ministry budget” presents our congregational mission in the context of 11 major areas of ministry in St. Peter’s congregation, noting a few of the various…
As we approach the end of the year, our council and committees are busy preparing our budget for next year. A portion of our budget each year is devoted to mission support for our national church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. What is Mission Support? ELCA members in more than 9,300 congregations in the…
This week in our Gospel story, the writer Mark gives us two stories back to back. One is disappointment and the other elation. One is rejection and the other acceptance. One looks like failure and other looks like success. The first story is Jesus returning to his hometown of Nazareth. In my time, I’ve heard…
