Claimed, gathered and sent

Thank you to Helen Harms, Assistant to the bishop of the WV/W MD Synod for sharing this devotion.   Immeasurably More Than We Ask The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?:  So she went to inquire of the Lord. Genesis 25:22        Rebekah’s prayer was for her own life and that of her babies.  Yet her prayer resulted in giving birth to two great leaders and all their descendants.  She asked God for only a penny but obtained a mountain of gold-something she hadn’t hoped for or dared to believe.  She kept her prayer modest and reasonable, and she was willing to be satisfied with small favors.        We too are in the habit of praying for trivial and insignificant things.  When we pray, we don’t take into account the great majesty of God.  If God wanted to give us only petty and superficial things, he wouldn’t have given us such ...

Today is the last day of my internship in  Petersburg,WV. This is the sermon I  preached today. The gospel text is Matthew 10:40-42.   It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness... (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities ) These are the opening lines to Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, a novel set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. I’d like to take the point and title of Dickens’ work and just tweak it a bit for the purpose of this morning’s message. I call it A Tale of Two Churches. I got acquainted with Church One during my first year of seminary. It was my teaching parish. That’s where I spent most Sundays engaging in a variety of roles--student, assisting minister, and sometimes preacher and teacher. I will never forget my very first Sunday there. The ...

Now it's really started. The last day of internship is Sunday, June 26. The lasts have begun. I've already experienced my last Ministerial Association meeting and last pericope group in this conference. This week was my last Grace Lutheran Church Council meeting. And yesterday was the last internship cluster meeting, which was really good. Actually all the cluster meetings have been very good. But this last cluster meeting hit me harder than the other lasts. It was emotional, for one thing. On the way home, Pr. Larry and I stopped at Castiglia's in Keyser, WV, like we do every month after cluster to pick up something delicious to take home to our spouses for dinner. As we drove home, it struck me that this was the last time we'd be doing this. There is still much to be done before my time of internship is completed. There will be more lasts or endings. But then there are beginnings on the horizon as well. I was reminded of this last week at the WV/W MD Synod Assem...

No fear! ELCA Daily Bible Reading

Thanks to Pr. Dave Westphal for a wonderful devotion this morning. Devotion for Wednesday

Amen! A Place for Prayer: Shock of the Spirit

This seems to be quite a busy week for synod assemblies. My home synod, New England, is having theirs in Springfield, MA, where tornadoes ripped through the city. Thankfully, the venues for the assembly were untouched. A number of other seminarians will be participating in the VA, DE-MD, Lower Susquehanna, and other synod assemblies. As for me, I will be at the West Virginia/Western Maryland Synod Assembly, the synod in which I'm doing my internship.  I'm looking forward to gathering with so many for worship, study, prayer, and the business of the church. Many God guide each synod as they gather to do the work of God's church.