"Stand Up, Rise Up, Join Forces With God - He's the Greatest Hero of Them All"  Theme song for Hero Headquarters

 We are in the middle of Vacation Bible School week here at the Geeseytown/Newry Lutheran parish and we have been having a great time. VBS this year runs from Aug. 2 – 6, and this year’s theme is “HERO HEADQUARTERS”. It has been a lot of fun and our VBS team did has done a great job of turning our fellowship hall at Geeseytown into a Super City where our heroes can gather. I can’t say enough how appreciative I am for everyone and all of the hard work they put in to making this week come together. We have great teachers and great crafts, games, snacks, and songs. We have had a lot of people come together to make this week possible and a lot of people who though they couldn’t be here for the week gave their support and donated items for VBS. It is a great week and it wouldn’t be possible without the support which all of you have given.

The main idea for this week is that this VBS program is trying to show us how we can all be heroes in our lives. The main idea being that a hero doesn’t have to be a super hero. But heroes are ordinary people who help others when they are given the opportunity. What this week is showing our kids is that all through the Bible we have examples of ordinary people who God uses to play a part in his story. We heard about the servant girl who God uses to tell the General Naaman about Elijah, and allows for Naaman to be healed. We heard about the shepherds who the angels appeared to and said Christ was born. These shepherds (whose names we never learn) visit the Christ child – and then go and tell that the Messiah is born. We learned about the Centurion whose faith in Jesus allowed him to say that if Jesus said his servant would be healed, he knew the man would be healed. We will hear about the little boy who gives his lunch of five loaves and two fish to Jesus so that our Lord could feed 5,000 people. And we will hear about the Apostle Paul’s nephew who God sends to tell the Romans of a plot against Paul’s life, and thereby saves Paul.

The important thing is that all of these people we learned about are not what we would call “Major” players in the gospels. They are individuals who are mentioned because of one thing they did, that one place where God used them in a very particular way. They were ordinary people who became heroes on that day , because God used them to be a part of his plan.

Our message to the kids is that, we too are part of God’s story. That God is using us to be heroes, to help those he wants to help, to aid and give comfort to those who need it. We are seeing that God uses ordinary people like us to do his work, God makes us heroes in this world who bring about his love to those who need it.

One way that we are helping the kids remember this is that each night they are invited to bring in a food item for our local food bank. As they bring them in, they are building what is fastly becoming a tower of food. So each day our kids are seeing how something they did is going to help others and how (when we all work together) we can do more than we might expect. The kids are collecting a tableful of food that will help people in this area. This is just one example of how the little things we do are helping to care for the world and people around us. That is what God calls us all as Christians to do. We pray that this little example can be a message that will stay with these children as they walk forward in their lives and will remind them of how our Lord is always using and guiding all of us to serve and love all that he has made.

Anybody want to read the Bible?

A disclaimer here is that some of you will hear this at the Parish Picnic on July 18th. However, I wanted to give you a head start to begin thinking about this idea, or challenge that I am laying before you …

Last year, on the day of my installation in the parish, I offered you a challenge. You may remember it was called the “Pastor Mike One a Year Challenge”. The basic idea was for each person in the parish to bring one visitor between the end of August 2009 and the beginning of September 2010. We have seen some fruits of this as we have had visitors, we have gained a few new members, and we have had the opportunity to worship with friends who you have brought with you. If we want to tally the results of this challenge, we can say that we have about four people who regularly visit and worship with us at Newry, and seven who are regular visitors with us at Geeseytown. Not too bad, and let’s keep going.

So now I have another invitation for you. If we wanted to give it a name it might be the, “Pastor Mike – New Testament in a Year Challenge and Bible Study”. Maybe not as catchy a name but I think you get the general idea. This is an invitation to join in a group of members from the parish who will taking on the discipline of reading and studying the New Testament over the course of one year. The reading is not that heavy actually, it requires that we read five (5) chapters of the New Testament each week. We would then meet, most likely on Thursday evenings, to study and discuss the chapters which we had read for the week.

What I would like to ask you to do is consider joining me and whoever else feels called to participate in this discipline, of walking through the Bible over the course of the next year. I believe there would be many benefits of participating in this study. Of course the primary goal is to get us engaged in Holy Scripture. But this process would hopefully give us more a feeling of the total landscape of the New Testament, and would give us the opportunity to read and explore large sections of scripture, each week, in their context. Unfortunately too many times we only get the small sections that are the assigned reading for that particular Sunday. When this happens we can miss the greater meaning of what one of the Gospels are trying to teach us, how Paul is framing his argument, or what image the vision of Revelation is trying to present.

Ideally, I would hope that you would both read and participate in our weekly Bible study. However, if you would like to simply sign on as a reader then that is okay too. I have found, however that when we join a discussion group we are much more likely to do the reading and keep ourselves focused on the task.

So please consider this. I will introduce this idea at our Parish Picnic and if there is interest in anyone joining this project, we would most likely begin our study after Labor Day.

God bless and I hope all is well for you and yours.
In Christ,
Pastor Mike

God is the source of all things, God is the one we come from and what will be once all things have faded away. God is the beginning and the end, the source of all that is and that which will continue. From our God from the eternal one we receive all that we have – meaning our possessions, our relationships, and the gifts that we bring into this life. All things come from God.

As such our relationship with God should be our primary relationship. It is what we are reminded of by our Lord Jesus when he is asked what the greatest commandment is. He replies that we should, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind …. and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27). It is God first, everything of us should be turned and devoted to God. This is not to the exclusion of the love we have for others or the relationships we have in this world. Love of God does not hinder those relationships but only makes them better, because when we have God – our creator, the light, and the truth – at the forefront of our lives, all other things both prosper and are kept in perspective.

But the thing is we don’t keep God first. We don’t make God the primary relationship in our lives. We should but we so easily get distracted, we get turned away, other things catch our eye and cause us to forget the one who is life for us.

What causes us to turn away is - SIN. Sin is that which pulls us away from that which is primary – our relationship with God. Because what we should do in our lives is turn to God, turn to Christ, pray to the Holy Spirit and listen for where God would have us go. However our own desires, passions, feelings of what we feel like we ought to do and what WE WANT TO DO – pull us away in different directions. That is sinful. Usually this leaves us following our own will and desire rather than listening for the guidance of the one who is truth.

That is a bad thing. Who do you think makes better choices. You and I who have our few decades of experience on this earth. Or the God who made heaven and earth? Do you think that you and I are so smart that we can figure everything out so that we don’t need the one who hung the stars and who when the time is right will cause them to fall?

My answer is, unfortunately, sometimes I do think I know better. Isn’t that awful? I am wrong of course, but sometimes even I think that I can figure it out on my own. Thankfully God has taken the time to prove me wrong several times in my life. God has been gracious enough to let me see how I did on my own, and usually that meant ending up frustrated, unfulfilled, in the wrong, and generally a lot worse of had I listened to where God was leading me in the first place.

What it boils down to is that God is always leading and guiding us – so much so that we don’t always know it. Because of all that God is doing we start to think how great we are. God doesn’t (usually) rip open the clouds and reveal himself. God works subtly and whispers his presence in and around our lives. So if we allow ourselves we can fall into thinking that all that we have and accomplish is because we are so great. But in truth all that we have is only because God has allowed it to be.

What I am trying to say is that we all need to take some time and remember and reflect on what the true source of our life is. Our life is a gift from God, we are sustained by the grace of God, we are made because somewhere in his divine wisdom, God believed that it should be that way.

So when those things hop up or pop up and attempt to turn us from God, or when temptation tries to get us to fall to those things which we even know are not good for us or others. We can realize that they are what they are – they are sin. Sin which is trying to distract us from the one who is light and truth and all that is.

Think of it this way too. God is eternal, sin isn’t. When we are tempted to turn from our Lord we can remember that in turning from God we are turning from the one who is all that is. We are turning from life to nothing. If it is good for us, if it is what we need, if it is wholesome and true – God can and will be in the middle of it. Let us try in all that we do to make sure that we turn first to our Lord, loving him with all that we are – and then shaping our lives first and foremost by that relationship.

That’s the thoughts for today
God Bless You
Pr. Mike

June 25th is the 480th anniversary of the presentation of the Augsburg Confession (AC). You may think that is great, but what is the Augsburg Confession. The AC is the first and primary confession of faith put forth by the Lutheran Church in 1530.

Primarily it was written to demonstrate to the powers that be, primarily Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, that the Evangelical (Lutheran) movement of Reform was orthodox and faithful in its understanding of the apostolic faith of the church. Essentially charges of heresy had been lobbed at Luther and all of the Reformers since the movement began – the AC was to demonstrate that what the Lutherans believed was absolutely in line with the traditional teachings of the wider church.

The AC was presented in hopes of demonstrating that the Lutherans were good and faithful Christians. It would probably be accurate to say that the Lutherans believed that they were more faithful Christians – but such was the divisive nature of the time. The central tenant of the Lutheran movement was that over the centuries the church had gotten distracted from what was really important. What is really important is Jesus, and the salvation we are offered by him. However, in the middle ages the church got very much distracted by a message of personal works righteousness. This is the belief that somehow, out of our own works and good deeds we can EARN our way into heaven. It is important to note that this was never official policy within the church – however it was very prevalent in popular piety and the church did little to steer believers away from this.

The worst abuse of this was the selling of indulgences by the church to finance the completion of St. Peter’s basilica. The indulgence was a letter that one could buy, which stated that in buying this letter one’s sins were forgiven. There was no need of repentance, of confession, or of making any type of reparations - you simply bought the indulgence. This was the event that kicked off Luther’s attack on policies of the church and was the broken straw that set in motion the Reformation.

Basically the AC is was written to demonstrate that although the Lutherans had some criticism of the church’s practice, they were faithful in their beliefs and that they were hoping to bring about reform for the good of the entire church.

The AC was written as a series of 28 articles, or topics, which address the beliefs of the Lutheran movement. The first 21 address matters of faith: God, Original Sin, The Son of God, Justification by Faith etc. These present a traditional and orthodox view of faith as it would have been understood by the entire church. However articles 22-28 deal specifically with criticisms of the church, which were the primary things that the Lutherans were looking to reform and change.

As things will go in difficult times, the oppositions didn’t really listen to the first 21 but really focused on the last 7. What had been intended to be a bridge to hopefully make way for peace and concillation within the church broke out into more bickering and finger pointing.

But the AC remained the primary confession of faith for the Lutheran church. Along with these 28 articles there is a longer Apology (Explanation) which goes into more detail about the reasons behind the particular beliefs of the church.

Though Charles V, would not recognize the AC he could not do away with the Lutheran movement. He effectually ordered the German princes to recant their beliefs under pain of death. However he was not able to carry out this threat. The German princes stood united in backing the statements of the AC and presented a united political front. Part of what enabled them to do this was that at the time the German provinces had the most money, the most people, and the most soldiers in the Holy Roman Empire. Charles V needed Germany and their support because he was preparing for war with the Ottoman Turks on his eastern border. So even though Charles tried to reject this confession he had no power to enforce his wishes. The German princes said they would not recant their beliefs.

So the AC became the document that defined Lutheranism. From its presentation people who were followers of Luther’s reforms had something to point to which said, this is what we believe. It became a clear statement of Lutheran belief and stands today as a witness to faith in Jesus Christ.

Hello Everyone, just wanted to drop a quick note to let you know the results of our work to collect for Lutheran World Relief’s work in Haiti. Our grand total of money raised for Haiti earthquake relief is $964.01, this came through our collections during our Lenten Midweek worship and our Ascension service.

I think this is a good amount of money for our parish and it is a sign of what God is doing here. God is using us, the Holy Spirit is working, we are being led and used by our Lord to do his work and to help his people who need it. I also like to think about the fact that God is working beyond what we can immediately see. Because we see what for us is a good collection, but we don’t see how God is working with thousands of churches and millions of individuals to gather resources for his children who are in need.

I look at it and am amazed at what God has done, and is doing, here. I marvel at how God is working and moving in this world. This collection is letting us see a part of all that our Lord is doing for his world.

It is a little thing for which we can say thanks be to God.

W-I-G-I-A-T?
WHERE IS GOD IN ALL THIS?

The word above, WIGIAT (pronounced wig-ee-ot) is an acronym as you can see for the question “Where Is God In All This?”. This acronym was created by Dr. Daryl “Tony” Everett at my seminary LTSS – as a way for us to remind ourselves and always be asking and looking for where we see God active in and around our lives, and how we see God working and moving in the churches we serve.

Maybe this doesn’t sound like much at first, a cute little phrase to help you remember to be looking for how God is active – but here is the thing – have you ever done it? Have you ever actively tried to see how God is active and moving in and around your life? If you have you will probably agree with me that when you look you come to a rather startling conclusion. That where God is at in all the this of our lives is – Absolutely Everywhere.

You may scoff at this a little bit, and this I understand. Most of the time when we realize that God is working in our lives it is when we get surprised by some strange coincidence, some lucky break, or some way that we avoided pain, accident, and possible dismemberment by not pulling out in front of that tractor trailer. God reveals himself in the dramatic, but we have to remember that God doesn’t just show us to reveal himself to us in the obvious and the places where our attention is forcibly grabbed.

We need to remember that God is the one who revealed himself to the prophet Elijah - not in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, but in the ‘still small voice’ that was asking him what he was doing in that place. The same God, who we are told, led and guided Elijah to safety on the mountain of God by providing him food and leading him through the desert. God does choose sometimes to show up and reveal himself in the thunder of the miraculous, but more often than not God is moving, guiding, and leading us – subtly and quietly throughout our lives.

So why I introduce this term WIGIAT is because it can help us to look around for the places that God may be speaking to us and guiding us in that ‘still, small, voice’. If you look at your own life you can probably see instances of this in your own life. You can probably see it in those things that you might want to call ‘chance encounters’, or in that person who came to you with the encouragement or the right words you needed to hear at that particular moment. Sometimes God shows up in the strange way that a preachers sermon may especially speak to us that day, or in the way that particular part of the liturgy moves us in a new and profound way on a particular Sunday. Many times we hear God moving and speaking when we hear and sing that favorite hymn.

If you look around to what we do as the church you HOPEFULLY can see WIGIAT. Do we understand that God uses our parish to meet the needs of people in our communities. God works to make sure people are fed in Williamsburg and Claysburg, God works to needed things to the clients of the Altoona Domestic Abuse Shelter. God is here working to open the doors of our congregations and welcome visitors and is using you to be his hand and heart of welcome and hospitality.

God is hear and moving and working especially when we are there for each other. When you are able to comfort and be with and help those in our congregations and out who are grieving, who are lost, who are struggling, who need you. God is there and you get to be the way in which God is working to care for all of us.

Do you get what I am pushing at? Where God Is in All of This – is RIGHT HERE. God is RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of our lives and is in working to guide, lead, help and heal us and more than anything to lead us deeper and deeper into relationship with him and into the life that he intends for us.

So you are going to see around the church pretty soon this strange word WIGIAT. It is there to help us all remember to look for God and to know that God is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS right here with us. We are never alone, because the Lord and God that said ‘Do not let your hear be troubled,’* and who proclaimed in Jesus Christ that ‘I will not leave you orphaned’* and that ‘I am with you always even until the end of the age’* – that this God means it.

Where is God – Right Here, Right Now.
Thanks be to God!

In Christ
Pastor Mike

*I’ll buy a cup of coffee to the first person who can tell me where in the Bible, chapter and verse these three verses come from. –offer good through July 1, 2010

Reflecting on Lent/Holy Week/Easter:

We have come through our first Great Season together. I think, overall, we had some real successes in our worship, our attendance, and in our services which I believe were successful in focusing our hearts and minds on God. There are things which we have learned from and some tweeks which we can make for next year, but these are minor adjustments. I truly believe that we had a season that worked to help us walk toward the cross, reflect on the sacrifice of our Lord, and to celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord.

I was very pleased that our Lenten Midweek worship services were well attended and the attendance stayed steady even up until the sixth week. We were even able to celebrate one Wednesday when we ran out of bulletins. What a problem to have? We were able to have people share bulletins and continue our worship. I was very pleased with our turnout because I believe that it is especially important during the Lenten Season that we are refreshed with word and sacrament in the middle of the week. This pattern helps us to focus our hearts and reminds us of the great work of God in Christ Jesus.

We also raised through the free will offering at our Midweek services $657 to support Lutheran World Relief’s work in Haiti .

We began Holy Week with the procession of the palms on what were rather chilly mornings. We learned at Newry to bring our coats. At Geeseytown we learned two things. First we need to start further down in the parking lot because as loud as the pastor can be, he can’t out shout the 18-wheelers screaming by on 22. Also we learned that next year we will pass out bulletins with the palms . We managed and got through, for what was a meaningful worship service.

As we got to the great Three Days (the Triduum) I believe we entered into these days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter with reverence.

Our Maundy Thursday Service was at Newry and was well attended. I appreciate all who came forward to have their feet washed. It is a strange thing about this ancient practice of the church. It is humbling for all of us. Because whether we are having our feet washed or are washing feet we remember that Jesus did this. That Christ the one who was God from God and Light from Light – lowered himself in love to serve. A preview of the great lowering of himself that he accomplished on the cross.

Our Good Friday Service is the one for which I have heard the most feedback and all of it positive. That is the mysterious and wonderful thing about the Tenebrae Service, it works in its simplicity. All the service is, is prayer, hymns, and the story of the Passion of Our Lord. Yes we lower the lights and wear black and it is a solemn but at the heart we hear the story of Jesus, and that is what is so powerful.

Easter was a great celebration for our congregations. We proclaimed the Resurrected and Living Jesus Christ beginning at 6:30 in the morning at Geeseytown followed by our Easter morning breakfast. Your pastor grabbed a plate of food that he ate while driving over the mountain to Newry where we had a large turnout for our 8:30 service, and then got over the mountain again for our 10:15 Festival service at Geeseytown. It was a memorable morning for me, and probably for anyone who saw a fully vested pastor driving back and forth through Hollidaysburg trying to drink coffee and finish his breakfast casserole without spilling anything on himself. It was a hoot.

Most importantly we got to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, we got to wallow in the promise that God gives to us that Christ is alive and because he lives we will live also. As part of living in that promise of new life we celebrated two First communions and one Baptism on Easter Sunday, and then were able to celebrate two additional baptisms the following Sunday.

So looking back at our first walk through this season, I would call it a success. Jesus was worshipped, thanks be to God. We came together and hopefully we were able to both individually and communally to experience the great difference that Jesus Christ makes. Because that is what it is all about. That we have been sought out and claimed by Christ who will not ever let us go. God is that Good, Jesus is that Good, and the Holy Spirit is that Good. We are given the great gift of life in Christ Jesus who continues to reach, call and make us his own.

May God Bless You and Keep You
As we Continue in this Journey of Following Christ

In the Peace of the Risen Christ
Pastor Mike