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.The Martyrdom of St.
John the Baptizer
Do people know what you believe? Would you put
your life on the line to back up your faith?
On August 29 the Church commemorates the
Martyrdom of St. John the Baptizer. This bold preacher had prepared people for
the coming of Christ. He had baptized Jesus (his cousin) in the Jordan River,
accompanied by the voice of the Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit in the form
of a dove. He had announced Jesus as "the Lamb of God, who takes away the
sin of the world." And John proclaimed, "He must increase, but I must
decrease."
Some time after John baptized Jesus, king Herod
arrested John. John had been preaching that Herod was guilty of adultery
because Herod had married his brother’s wife. Herod kept John in prison for
some time. He didn’t like being accused of sin, but he feared John as a holy
man and liked to listen to his preaching. Finally, Herod’s wife used her
daughter’s dancing to coax a promise of a favor out of Herod. Herodias (the
wife) told her daughter to ask for the head of John. Since Herod had made his
promise in front of a banquet, he didn’t want to back down. So John was
beheaded, and one voice of God’s law and gospel was silenced. But the witness
of John was written in the Gospels for all of us to read – a witness of God’s
anger against sin and God’s gift of a Savior.
You and I don’t need our life stories written
in the Bible to be witnesses like John. Our daily lives and the words we speak
can be evidence
of our sin or signs of God’s grace. We can never give that message of grace
by our own strength, but Jesus has promised
to be with us always. He put His life on the line – on the cross – for your
sin and rose from the dead to give you new life.
In our confirmation vows we were asked: Do
you intend to live according to the Word of God, and in faith, word, and deed
to remain true to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even to death? And we
answered: I do, by the grace of God.
May God’s abundant love for you, freely given
through Christ Jesus, fill your words and deeds with the beauty of Christ’s
love and forgiveness and new life, every day of your life.
Hymnal Homework
As you look at the hymn, please write in the box
one of the following numbers (and symbol, if appropriate):
1 = don’t
know it. 2 = know it. 3 = love it(favorites). * = want to learn
it.
Please note that you don’t have to limit your
favorites to 1 or 3 or 5 or 10. Also, the * hymns, those you want to learn, can
be any of those marked as #1 (don’t know it).
Thank you for dedicating your time to this
survey
-Pastor Mueller
Family Worship by the Clock
BASE • JULY 2008 • PAGE 1
"Seems like we are doing almost
everything by the clock these days! That can’t be good." We have
probably said something similar. But, perhaps it is good. God grants us 24
hours each day. That time frame never varies. So when we parents and children
live by the clock, we are grappling with hard reality. Good time management is
crucial for us. That’s especially true because we are called to be faithful
stewards of all God’s gifts to us, including the time He grants us.
Obviously, we want the blessing of Jesus’
presence with us. And we know He promises, "Where two or three are
gathered in my name, there am I among them" (Matt. 18:20). We also believe
that because God works within us by His Spirit we receive His peace, guidance
and courage as we read and reflect on His dynamic word. Like Peter we say to
our Lord Jesus, "To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life" (John 6:68). God makes clear to us the value of allocating minutes
each day to a family worship time. The minutes we divvy up for it are easily
calculated. We need several moments for each of these ventures:
1. Reading the Scriptures.
2. Discovering and sifting out God’s intention
in His Word.
3. Choosing the actions to which God moves us by
His message.
4. Praying for God’s power to stabilize us in
Christ, and to more compassionately care for one another and our neighbors in
our community and around the world.
We will chart the length of each span according
to the age and experience of our children, our schedule as parents, the day of
the week and the nature and quality of the devotional helps available to us.
Concordia Publishing Houses (cph.org) has rich resources to probe for
assistance.
Perhaps you remember family devotions that were
a blessing to you in your youth. CPH has materials suitable for a variety of
age levels from toddler to adult. With a desire for variety we can spur family
members to look for Bible sections that are new to us, hymns and orders of
worship especially designed for family participation, imaginative and deeply
spiritual prayers regarding everyday personal and family situations. Let’s
provoke one another to the good work of initiating, or freshening up, our
family time to let the Word of God dwell in us richly.
We can offer several purposes for our family
devotions:
8 To help one another, even in tough
circumstances, become more than conquerors through Jesus, who loves us an us
and intercedes for us (Romans 8).
8 To lead us into a more mature knowledge
of the Bible, which is able to make us wise unto salvation and equip us for
every good work (2 Timothy 3).
8 To provide time for us to be still,
listen to God, speak with Him in prayer and learn how to honor Him with high
respect and piety (Psalm 46).
8 To train up children in the way they
should live so that even when they are old they will not depart from it
(Proverbs 22).
8 To train ourselves as responsible
disciples of Christ for godliness, which is of value in every way, holding
promise of the present life and the life to come (1 Timothy 4).
8 To enable us and our children to speak
up more naturally and frequently when people need to hear about our hope in
Christ (1 Peter 3).
8 To acquire skills to combat the forces
that breed dissension, conflict and stress in our home and church and to
cultivate the forgiveness, trust and patience that are the fruit of the Spirit,
nurturing harmony and a sense of divine purpose for our lives (Galatians 5).
8 To more and more put on the Lord Jesus
Christ, casting off the works of darkness, putting on the armor of His light,
practicing loyal citizenship in our nation for the sake of conscience, being
subject as a Christian to the governing authorities (Romans 13).
8 To be taught by God’s Spirit in the
bond of peace the practical steps to which His word enlightens us. Thus we will
grow up in every way into Him who is the Head of the Church. We will work to
strengthen Christ’s Church, especially as we experience it in our local
congregation, making the Church grow so that it builds itself up in love
(Ephesians 4).
Our Value Statements
(summary of top 4 areas)
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We believe that God loves all people, wants them to be
saved, and helps us to reach out with the Gospel of Jesus and with actions
of love to every person in our community.
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We believe that the life of the church depends on God’s
Word and Sacraments, and that God enables us to worship with joy and grow
in His Word.
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We believe that the church is a family in Christ, and that
God helps us to build up each other in love and faith, doing all in a way
that gives Him glory.
Mission
Statement
Our Mission is Proclaiming Jesus’ love
to all people through God’.
Is It Mine or God’s?
The Steward asks…
Is It Mine – or Gods?
Okay, so the world is His. There is no need to
go picking our way through the Bible poling up verses that assert God’s claim
on the whole of creation-and all the creatures, too! There are plenty of the.
You’ve seen enough to make the point! The spirit and tone of Scripture is a
witness to God’s total claim. The redemptive sacrifice of Christ, who died
for the whole world and the whole life of each individual, underlines God’s
statements that He was reclaiming His lost/strayed/stolen property-what He had
always owned and never relinquished.
The Psalmist’s plea for help in Psalm 51:10
echoes that claim because it is based on the assumption that God has all the
power, even down to cleaning the individual heart and renewing each inner
spirit. The Biblical position is clear. You are not your own. You belong to
Him.
Now He’s getting personal! God’s view of
stewards, stewardship and stewarding is wide-ranging. God want the whole 10
yards. He’s deep into the day-in-day-out, every-corner-of-life understanding
that Luther cites in his explanation of the First Article of the Apostles’
Creed: "God has made me and all my members, my reason and all my senses…Also
clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and home, wife and children, field,
cattle, and all my goods." The truth is-it all belongs to God!
Adapted from the newspaper of the
California-Nevada-Hawaii District-LCMS
Stewardship
In June we celebrate the beginning of summer. The first day of summer is a time
when we enjoy the longest day of the year in contrast to the first day of
winter when we observe the shortest day of the year. That can be a reminder
that there are also equal parts with Christian stewardship—Law and Gospel.
From God’s Word we know what good Christian stewardship
should be. We also have principles that guide our stewardship life. But at the
end of the day we realize, with sorrow, that we have failed over and over again
in our stewardship. We have not managed all of life and life’s resources for
God’s purposes. We have not lived out our stewardship with the reality that
God is the Owner of all things and we are simply managers. We have used our
possessions as if they belong completely to us—not acknowledging that God has
simply entrusted them to us for wise management that brings glory to Him and
blessings to others. And the list of stewardship failures could go on and on.
That’s bad news! That’s what the Law says to us!
However, for us as Christians, there is also some very good
news. Moved by sacrificial love, Jesus came into our world and took upon
Himself our sins—yes, also the sins of poor stewardship—and gained God’s
forgiveness for us by going to the cross to suffer the death penalty that we
deserved. What good news that God does not treat us according to what we
deserve; instead, in Christ, He loves and forgives us—daily and richly.
That loving forgiveness of God has moved Christians
throughout the ages to manage all of life and life’s resources for God’s
purposes—and to do it freely and joyfully. That loving forgiveness of God is
also the proper motivation for our stewardship. It moves us to share and give
freely and generously of our time, talents and treasure for the work of the
Lord and to make life sweeter for others. What a place this world would be if
we all practiced faithful stewardship. It would be heaven on earth!
The sad reality is that we have not only sinned in the past,
but we have also sinned in the present and will continue to sin in the future.
Yet there is hope and new life. We confess our sins to God with sorrow in our
hearts and minds and flee to the cross of Jesus Christ to find full and free
forgiveness for every sin. We have the added blessing of the power and presence
of the Holy Spirit to help us live in new and different ways. That’s what the
Gospel says to us!
When it comes to our stewardship, it is not possible for us
to bring about heaven on earth. But, by God’s power, we can make our little
corner of the earth a better place because we are here!
"Maturing stewards do the right things for the right
reasons and strive for excellence in all they do!"
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From the Pastor