Letting the world know about St. John Lutheran Church of Golden Spike
The Rawling Brothers are coming February 1st at 7:30PM. They are a Country Blue Grass Group that have toured all over the world and won awards for their singing.
There will be a free will offering.
Doug Rawling is the Executive Director of Wilderness Ranch, a Lutheran Bible Camp in Southern Alberta.
Check out Wilderness Ranch HERE and the Rawling Brothers home page HERE.
Cindy had been on the outreach committee at her church for almost 4 years… in fact she was coming to the end of her term, and she felt guilty for not being as involved as she had hoped. After going to social work school, Cindy had taken on a challenging job working at the women’s shelter and after a few months started attending church. Following her passion for reaching out and helping the world around her, she had volunteered to be on the outreach committee. That was four years ago, but today, a few weeks before her term ended, she was feeling uncertain whether she had done enough for the committee.
(Pause)
Stars that are signs and markers, voices from heaven that sounds like thunder, miracles of water into wine. There is none of that today. The message is simple, its straightforward, its to the point. Jesus goes back to his hometown of Nazareth and begins in earnest his ministry of teaching and preaching.
And so when he comes for worship in the Synagogue, he gets up and reads from the Tanakh, what we call the Old Testament, as any man was permitted to do. Jesus chooses his own reading and he chooses a familiar passage from Isaiah,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”.
Read the rest… (Sermons archive)
In the January of 2007 I traveled to Peru with the seminary. Twelve of us students and two faculty, spent 3 weeks visiting the various CLWR project going on there. We visited schools, farms, churches, community outreach centres, homes, villages, museums, and cultural centers. It was the trip of a lifetime.
In the third week of the trip, there were scheduled visits to CLWR sponsored agricultural projects. We boarded the bus and drove for 3 hours, through a rocky desert and up into the mountains, on a road that was narrow and steep. Finally the bus stopped and a mile further up the mountain was our destination. We were headed to a small village to see how they were growing avocados and raising chickens.
As we walked into the village, all the people living there came to greet us. They were dressed in their finest clothes and huge crowds followed us as we saw gardens and chicken coups. It was like being a rock star… and I felt as rich as one. By Canadian standards I was poor student, but by Peruvian standards, my spending money might have been the income of the entire village in one year. It was a depressing feeling, to be among the world’s richest and to be standing among some of the poorest, yet knowing that I could do nothing for them. These people had been forgotten by the city 3 hours down the road, let alone by the rest of the world.
Read the rest… (Sermons Archive)
CLWR issues emergency appeal for Haiti
Winnipeg – January 13, 2010
Canadian Lutheran World Relief (CLWR) is appealing to Canadians for financial support for relief operations underway to assist the people of Haiti following an earthquake on Tuesday, January 12. CLWR is working in partnership with other members of Action by Churches Together (ACT) Alliance to address people’s basic needs and support rehabilitation efforts.
Initial reports received from ACT indicate that the 7.0 magnitude quake has buried alive hundreds, maybe thousands, of people in Port au Prince, Haiti’s capital city. Tens of thousands of people have lost their homes. The city is without electricity and the telephone network has broken down.
Donations to the appeal may be made through CLWR in the following ways.
1. Online at www.clwr.org/donate. In the process of completing the form, you will come across a pull-down menu that allows you to designate a specific project. Choose Haiti Earthquake.
2. By calling our toll-free number: 1.800.661.2597. If you do not need to use a toll-free line or are calling locally from the Winnipeg area, you can reach CLWR at 204.694.5602.
3. By sending a cheque made payable to CLWR to: CLWR, 302-393 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3B 3H6. Please indicate in your correspondence that you wish to contribute to the Haiti Earthquake Appeal.
CLWR will be forwarding immediately to ACT an initial contribution of $10,000 to support the first phase of the emergency operations.
More information about the situation in Haiti and the response by ACT may be found at www.act-intl.org/.
We will be having our Annual General Meeting on February 1st after the service. Please come out! Two important motions we will be discussing is the purchase of the New Cranberry Hymnals and the purchase and installation of a powerpoint system.
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Sermon
John the Baptist is at it again, preaching about winnowing forks, or rather shovels, that gather grain from the threshing floor. It was only the third Sunday of Advent, less than a month ago that John was preaching this same sermon! But here we are through Advent and the waiting is over, through Christmas and the Messiah is born, through Epiphany and the Magi or Wisemen have come to pay homage to the Christ-child.
Advent can seem like a long wait, we slowly add candles to the wreath, we sing and pray of waiting and watching. But once Christmas arrives, the ball starts rolling and we are onto new parts of Jesus’ story each week. From now until the end of the Easter season, we will tumble along towards the next chapter of the story. And while Jesus was born only a few weeks ago, and John still preaches his Advent sermon, today we tumble along to hear of Jesus appearing on the banks of the river Jordan, Jesus is among the crowds who have come to be Baptized.
Read the whole thing… (Sermons Archive)
Thanks to my friend Barbara for this sermon!
On John 1:1-14
Words have power. “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me.” We have all said this at one point of our lives or another. We have said it to actually brace ourselves… because we all know very well that words can hurt. Yes, words can destroy. Words can even kill. And words can touch. Words can comfort. We use words to describe things and people and circumstances and events. With words we can create entire worlds, express thoughts, feelings, emotions, and ideas. Sometimes we struggle to find the right word. And sometimes we can’t say what we mean to say because we are simply at a loss of words.
The movie ‘Inkheart’ is a story about the power of words. The book binder, Mo Folchart and his daughter Maggie both love books. They can feel the soul of things in the words they read. And they drift into other worlds, far-away countries and into the most unbelievable stories. But one day suddenly these stories come alive when Mo reads to his family from an ominous book.
Read the whole thing… (Sermons Archive)
Welcome! Please feel free to contact the pastor at mailpastorparker@gmail.com
Have your say!