September 2017

 


Our New Luther Hymn

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“To Avert from Us God’s Wrath”

 

For our festival Reformation Celebration on October 29, we have commissioned a new hymn tune from Carl F. Schalk (b. 1929) for Luther’s 1524 hymn, “To Avert from Us God’s Wrath.” The text is loosely based on a Latin hymn, Jesus Christus nostra salus, by Jan Hus (1366–1415) whom Luther greatly admired (Luther’s Works 53:249, 48:153).

     There are ten verses in the original hymn. In our version, we have four of them. In the first verse we sing of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, whereby Christ “averts from us God’s wrath,” bringing “us sinners nigh to God,” or close to him. God’s wrath keeps his mercy away from us. But when “Jesus suffered in our stead,” we then have “a full atonement,” and with that, the forgiveness of sin.

     In the second verse we have that mercy and forgiveness. In it Christ calls, “Come that I may soothe your grief.” This not only happens through hearing the Word and prayer (Matthew 11:28–30) but also in the Lord’s Supper. But only for “each afflicted soul,” for only they need “a doctor for relief.” In the third verse we sing about the worthy guest who through self-examination knows Christ’s death is the “only hope” there is. And this hope abides “how e’er your soul’s oppressed.” And in the last verse we hear that the forgiven show “love unto our neighbor,” as well as “praise” to the Redeemer Jesus.

     Think about this great hymn for the next few weeks, and then sing it with a full heart in church at our celebration for the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation. 

Pastor Marshall








The Lord is a Rock

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Isaiah 26:4; 1 Peter 2:8

 

“Swift to its close

ebbs out life’s little day;

Earth’s joys grow dim,

its glories pass away;

Change and decay

in all around I see;

O Thou who changest not,

abide with me.”

 

[Henry F. Lyte, “Abide With Me” (1820)

Lutheran Books of Worship (1978)

Hymn 272.]

 





 



PRESIDENT'S REPORT....by Bob Baker

 

It is tempting to begin this article with "Welcome Back." September, The Messenger resumes monthly publication, school and Sunday School resume, as does our pastor's monthly book discussions.

      However, the weekly worship opportunities and daily office operations have been ongoing the past three months, just like the previous five months, etc.

      Yet Fall and the approaching final quarter of the calendar year do bring routines of their own, especially for the Congregation Council. Perhaps among the foremost of these is preparation of the budget for the next calendar year: Pledge Cards, Committee recommendations/requests, and Council discussion and proposals.

      Some might regard this as a perfunctory process of looking at what was spent this year, and planning accordingly for next year. However, I invite, encourage, yes request that members speak up, ask questions and express preferences.

      A context for doing this might include comparing the budget adopted at the Annual Congregational Meeting last January with the Treasurer's Report presented at the Mid-Year Congregational Meeting, noting expenditures for the first half of the year. An even broader context might include the Mission Statement of our congregation, your Pledge, and the budget with the Treasurer's Report.

      Our Mission Statement might prompt considerations regarding one's Pledge. The Mission Statement and one's Pledge might raise questions regarding budget priorities. The budget might press questions regarding our Mission Statement as well as reconsideration of one's Pledge. There could be an engaging discussion developing there. Does our budget reflect what our priorities should be?

      You might find questions you had not thought through or had not expressed before. I know I did. I'd like to know your thoughts and what you pray about as our congregation enters the rhythm of this time of the calendar year. Yes, I'd be interested to know if you even read this article!

Martin Luther and family by G.A. Spangenberg (1866), Musée de Leipzig



 



STEWARDSHIP

 

Encouraging Our Prayers

 

Yes, September is here, and besides vacations ending and school beginning that means the Congregation Council needs to begin serious work on the budget for next year.

      Yes, to encourage your prayers and thinking while you consider filling out your Pledge Card, I am reprinting a Stewardship article from April of 2016.

      Why that particular article? Well, after it was first printed, one family responded to the following article by increasing their tithe to the congregation by 50%.

      Yes, maybe after reading this article you too will adjust your pledge accordingly, and, Yes, maybe you will tell me about your thoughts regarding the article . . . .

     “A recent study of The Ten Commandments notes again that the first three commandments pertain to our relationship with God: that we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.

     The remaining commandments pertain to “others,” that is, that we should fear and love God so that we honor Him in our relationships with parents, spouse, and neighbors.

     Regarding Stewardship, we honor God by returning a tithe of the benefit of our labors. We do this through the Church, which is the Body of Christ.

     Is there such an index for neighbors in need? May I suggest a tithe of what we spend for groceries and eating out as an index of what we should contribute to the food bank?

     Extending this discussion, a tithe of what we spend for travel, recreation, and vacations might be a good index of what we contribute to agencies such as The Compass Center or World Vision, agencies that serve those who cannot afford such extras.

     We will have to give God an account of our stewardship. Will we be able to say that, in spite of our sin and shortcomings, The Ten Commandments guided us?”

           Bob Baker, Church Council




 







Luther’s Funeral Sermon

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By Pastor Jonas Justus (1493–1555)

 

“[Dr. Luther’s books] show how great a man he was, how richly he was endowed, and how diligently and faithfully he labored with the Word of God…. [We] will learn from them what an eminent orator, preacher, and bishop [we] have had in him…. [He] possessed in large measure the grace of God, the illumination of the Holy Spirit, and the true knowledge of God and Christ. Those gracious gifts were not permitted to decline in him, but he increased them daily, by the diligent use of the holy divine Scriptures, their careful study, and the devout reading of them for forty years. He was well acquainted with the entire Bible, which he read through so many times that the whole was clear in his mind. This habit the good, dear man, pursued steadily from his 24th until his 63rd year, and until he died…. He saw and understood well what a sublime and excellent article of faith that is, which declares that God sent His Son into the world to redeem it, and that so long as a man lives he will have enough to do, to study and learn about it, and yet not exhaust the subject…. The first passage he wrote down for his spiritual comfort, is 1 Peter 5:7, ‘Casting all your cares upon him, for he careth for you.’ As if he would say: Gather together all your cares and anxieties into one bundle; enclose the very greatest of your cares in one grasp,… and cast them upon him, transfer then to Christ, who cares for you. Applying this precious and consoling passage to his own case, the dear, devout man, Dr. Luther, cast all his cares upon the Lord Jesus Christ, in the hour of death, and neither asked nor felt concern, as to where he would be… On this passage Luther wrote…. I would not be willing… that the salvation of my soul should be in my own hands. For if it depended on me, my soul would long ago, and in a moment, have been torn to destruction by Satan, as a young chicken, or a little bird, by the talons of a hawk…. Particularly it distressed him that so many brethren were false, and fell away from the true doctrine; and on this account, he would willingly die, and lie down in the grave. He also loved the sentence: Why fearest thou to be with Jesus?…. Thinkest thou that the Devil, or the world, would have done for thee, what Christ has done? Wherewith does the world show such faithfulness? This world does not. Why therefore, dost thou desire to remain here?.... After the vicissitudes of this life and death a joyful day will come. There will then be no more marrying or giving in marriage, no more birth of children, no more becoming lame, blind or sick, no more death, for mortality shall cease, and an immortal, everlasting life shall begin to be…. Ah, the last day would be a blessed, joyful day, since then each would know the other better than in this wretched life, the wife her husband, the husband the wife, the children their parents, the minister his hearers, and would without ceasing speak with each other, be together, adore and praise God together, in the great general assembly and Church in heaven, with the holy angels, forever and ever…. It is a sublime article of the Christian Creed that the putrefied bodies, or the bodies consumed by fire, shall rise again, know each other, speak with each other, and forever praise God. At this article reason stumbles and takes offense, for it cannot understand how the body that the worms devour, or that is reduced by fire to powder and ashes, can again come forth, a living being…. A Christian should recall every morning, when he arises from slumber, this precious, revealed mystery, and say to himself: ‘I know that a day will come, in which God will awaken all who are asleep in Christ, and that all our bodies will arise, those that have believed in Christ, and have done good, to eternal life.’ Thus should a Christian always keep in mind, and meditate upon that blessed day, and the coming again of Christ. It will make him more patient amid the various sufferings, crosses and persecutions he meets with in life.”

 

(Two Funeral Sermons on the Death of Dr. Martin Luther, trans. E. Greewald, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1883.)






 




 

All is Vanity

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The Truest of All Books

 

“The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows [Isaiah 53:3], and the truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. ‘All is vanity’ [Ecclesiastes 1:2]. ALL.” This willful world has not got hold of unchristian Solomon’s wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing grave-yards, and would rather talk of operas than hell; calls Cowper [1731–1800], Young [1683–1765], Pascal [1623–1662], Rousseau [1712–1778], poor devils all of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais [1494–1553] as passing wise, and therefore jolly;–not that man is fitted to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mold with unfathomably wondrous Solomon.”

 

[Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or The Whale

(1851) Chapter 96].



 






The Reformation at 500

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Still Condemned – But Free

 

By Pastor Marshall

 

Our seventh installment on the significance of the Reformation, comes from a new, popular German biography by the Göttingen historian, Thomas Kaufmann, A Short Life of Martin Luther (2014) trans. Peter D. S. Krey and James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2016) pp. 110–12:

 


Through Luther… a church without a pope became a reality in the domain of Western Christianity. Luther sometimes characterized the primary achievement of his life as a fight against the papacy…. With Luther churchly Christianity became plural, not because he had wanted this, but because in the long run the pope’s church closed itself off to his questions. For the condemnation of this “heretic” has not yet been revoked even today; according to Romans Catholic teaching, Luther is damned for time and eternity. The condemnation applies not only to Luther himself but also to all those who might feel committed, directly or indirectly, to his interpretation of Christianity. Being condemned… [but] in his judgment, never refuted,… was Luther’s traumatic primal experience and the birth shock of Protestant Christianity…. The freedom of the church Luther derived from its freedom for the gospel and for faith…. Such a freedom, bestowed as a gift of God and made known through the Word, should not fall into the hands of just any person or religious collective. That is why God sustains a church that is empowered to speak in the authority of freedom…. Connection with or membership in the church was never an end in itself for Luther…. Rather, the church exists to provide a good conscience before God, to make faith possible. As a fellowship whose very nature consists in making itself superfluous ever and anon, the church of the gospel as Luther conceived of it is a new kind of institutional phenomenon in the history of Christianity.


 

Well that’s scary – so no wonder Luther’s way of being a Christian has never caught on (even among nominal Lutherans). This is because, in lieu of faith, people have held on to their life in the church which is far more commonsensical and palatable. For belonging always outpaces believing. But Luther would have none of this – even if it meant tripping up church membership for the sake of personal discipleship wherein one is charged to painstakingly work out one’s salvation in fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).





 



 

Schedule for

Wednesday Bible Classes

with Pastor Marshall

2017-2018

 

Morning 10- 11:30 am

Fall: 1 John – 3 John                                      Spring: Ecclesiastes

1) 1 John 1.1-4           9) 1 John 3.16-24        1) Ecclesiastes 1.1-18       9) Ecclesiastes 6.1-12

2) 1 John 1.5-10       10) 1 John 4.1-12          2) Ecclesiastes 2.1-11     10) Ecclesiastes 7.1-13

3) 1 John 2.1-6         11) 1 John 4.12-21        3) Ecclesiastes 2.12-26   11) Ecclesiastes 7.14-29

4) 1 John 2.7-14       12) 1 John 5.1-5            4) Ecclesiastes 3.1-9       12) Ecclesiastes 8.1-17

5) 1 John 2.15-20     13) 1 John 5.6-12          5) Ecclesiastes 3.10-22   13) Ecclesiastes 9.1-17

6) 1 John 2.21-29     14) 1 John 5.13-21        6) Ecclesiastes 4.1-16     14) Ecclesiastes 10.1-20

7) 1 John 3.1-8         15) 2 John 1.1-13          7) Ecclesiastes 5.1-10     15) Ecclesiastes 11.1-10

8) 1 John 3.9-15       16) 3 John 1.1-15          8) Ecclesiastes 5.11-20   16) Ecclesiastes 12.1-14

 

 

 

Evening 7:30 - 9:00 pm

Fall: Hosea                                                          Spring: Romans

1) Hosea 1.1-11          9) Hosea 8.1-14               1) Romans 1.1-32           9) Romans 9.1-33

2) Hosea 2.1-23        10) Hosea 9.1-17               2) Romans 2.1-29         10) Romans 10.1-21

3) Hosea 3.1-5          11) Hosea 10.1-15             3) Romans 3.1-31         11) Romans 11.1-36

4) Hosea 4.1-10        12) Hosea 11.1-12             4) Romans 4.1-24         12) Romans 12.1-21

5) Hosea 4.11-19      13) Hosea 12.1-14             5) Romans 5.1-21         13) Romans 13.1-14

6) Hosea 5.1-15        14) Hosea 13.1-9               6) Romans 6.1-23         14) Romans 14.1-23

7) Hosea 6.1-11        15) Hosea 13.10-16           7) Romans 7.1-25         15) Romans 15.1-33

8) Hosea 7.1-16        16) Hosea 14.1-9               8) Romans 8.1-39         16) Romans 16.1-27

 

 

 

 “The Word of God, because it is eternal, should apply to all men of all times.  For although in the course of time customs, people, places, and usages may vary, godliness and ungodliness remain the same through all the ages.” 

                                                          Luther’s Works 14:290






 



With the Mind

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Readings in Contemporary Theology with Pastor Marshall

in the Church Lounge, 3-5 pm, the fourth Saturday of each month.

2017-2018

 

Sept. 23     Thomas C. Oden, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity (2007).

Oct. 28      Martin Luther, Notes on Ecclesiastes (1527, 1532), Luther’s Works, Vol. 15.

Nov. 26     Peter Marshall, The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction (2009).

Dec. 23      Alister McGrath, The Passionate Intellect: Christian faith and the Discipleship of the Mind (2001).

Jan. 27      Michael Rota, Taking Pascal’s Wager: Faith, Evidence and the Abundant Life (2016).

Feb. 24      Greg Garrett, Entertaining Judgment: The Afterlife in Popular Imagination (2015).

Mar. 24     Thomas C. Oden, A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir (2014).

Apr. 28      Terry Eagleton, Culture and the Death of God (2015).

May 26      Thomas C. Oden, Two Worlds: Notes on the Death of Modernity in America and Russia (1992).


September Book

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3-5 pm in the Church Lounge, Saturday, September 23rd.

The book for September is How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity (2007), by Thomas C. Oden (1931–2016), long time professor at The Theological School, Drew University, in Madison, New Jersey. This book is about the beginnings of Christianity in northern Africa. The recent influx of Christians to Africa, then, is not an intrusion or new phenomenon, but a development of its ancient roots. So Africa is more influential on the church than is Europe. This surprising truth is the burden of Oden book to make plain. Central to Africa’s influence is the scholar Origen (184–254), born in northern Egypt to Christian parents, whose Biblical, sermonic and historical work set the stage for church teaching into the future (p. 46).

     A copy of this important study is in the library. If you would like to purchase one for yourself, contact Pastor Marshall. Feel free to attend our meeting when we discuss the legacy of Africa for all Christians today.





 




Sunday Education

with Pastor Marshall

2017-2018

9:00 to 10:00 am, Room D

 

FALL SESSION I, September 10 - September 24

Reformation Today: Carl E. Braaten’s 500th Anniversary Lecture

        This four week class will discuss Dr. Braaten’s 2016 Reformation lecture. He was professor of Systematic Theology at the Lutheran School in Chicago for many years.

This class is the eighteenth in our series on studies in the Reformation, leading up to the 500th anniversary in October 2017. This series began in April 2009.

 

FALL SESSION II, October 1 - October 22

Christian Peace: Luther on the Peasants Rebellion

        In this four week class we will study Luther treatise, “Admonition to Peace” (1525), Luther’s Works 46:17–43. This is his defense of not supporting the peasants uprising.

This class is the nineteenth in our series on studies in the Reformation.

 

FALL SESSION III, November 5 - November 26

Admonishing the Jews – Luther’s Controversial 1543 Treatise

In this four week class we will discuss Luther’s treatise of the Jews from 1543. Our text will be the chapter on this treatise from Ronald F. Marshall, Kierkegaard in the Pulpit (2016).

This class is the twentieth in our series of studies on the Reformation.

 

FALL SESSION IV, December 3 - December 24

My Favorite Book: Luther’s Notes on Ecclesiastes

This four week class will discuss excerpts from Luther’s 1527 commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes.

This class is the twenty-first in our series on studies in the Reformation.

 

WINTER SESSION, January 7 – January 28

The Law for Christians: Luther’s Newly Translated 1539 Treatise

        In this four week class we will study Luther treatise, “Disputation on the Three Divine Hierarchies” (1539).

This class is the twenty-second in our series on studies in the Reformation.

 

SPRING SESSION I, February 4 – March 25

Memorizing Scripture: Reading Romans

        In this eight week class we will study The Book of Romans. Luther thought it was so important that all Christians should know it by heart, word for word.

Each class session will be based on a worksheet of questions handed out the week before.

 

SPRING SESSION II, April 8- May 27

The Best Gospel: Reading John

        This eight week class will study The Gospel of John. Luther thought it was the clearest and most powerful of the four Gospels.

Each class session will be based on a worksheet of questions handed out the week before.

 

 

 





 




Romans 1.32

Monthly Home Bible Study, September 2017, Number 295

The Reverend Ronald F. Marshall

 

Along with our other regular study of Scripture, let us join as a congregation in this home study. We will study alone then talk informally about the assigned verses together as we have opportunity. In this way we can "gather together around the Word" even though physically we will not be getting together (Acts 13.44). (This study uses the RSV translation.)

We need to support each other in this difficult project. In 1851 Kierkegaard wrote that the Bible is "an extremely dangerous book.... [because] it is an imperious book... – it takes the whole man and may suddenly and radically change... life on a prodigious scale" (For Self-Examination). And in 1967 Thomas Merton wrote that "we all instinctively know that it is dangerous to become involved in the Bible" (Opening the Bible). Indeed this word "kills" us (Hosea 6.5) because we are "a rebellious people" (Isaiah 30.9)! As Lutherans, however, we are still to "abide in the womb of the Word" (Luther's Works 17.93) by constantly "ruminating on the Word" (LW 30.219) so that we may "become like the Word" (LW 29.155) by thinking "in the way Scripture does" (LW 25.261). Before you study, then, pray: "Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in Our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen" (quoted in R. F. Marshall, Making A New World: How Lutherans Read the Bible, 2003, p. 12). And don’t give up, for as Luther said, we “have in Scripture enough to study for all eternity” (LW 75:422)!

 

Week I. Read Romans 1.32 noting the phrase Though they know. Luther believed that every Christian should memorize the entire book of Romans, “word for word” (Luther’s Works 35:365). Even if we can’t do that, we can at least begin with this one verse. So to start, what good is knowledge if it doesn’t prevent us from doing evil and approving of it? On this read Romans 2.4 noting the word meant. Why is meaning important? Note the connection established by the meaning of kindness in order to link it with repentance. Why is that connection good to know? On this read Romans 11.22 noting the two word pairs severity and fallen, kindness and continue. Why are these comparisons good to know? On this read Romans 6.1 noting the contrasting words sin and grace. Why would we think that sinning generates grace? On this read Romans 5.8 noting the logical connection between sinners and love. What’s the logic here? Is it that love cannot be stopped by sinners, or that love is inspired and motivate by sinners? On this read Romans 5.20 noting the phrase abounded all the more. Is this about motivation or endurance? If it’s about endurance, what difference does it make? Why would seeing it as motivation be a mistake?

 

Week II. Read again Romans 1.32 noting this time the same phrase Though they know. What is further important to know about the connection between sin and grace? On this read Romans 6.16 noting the connected words yield and slaves. How does this happen? Why can’t it be a looser relation? On this read Romans 6.17 noting the expression from the heart. When the heart is involved behavior is habituated and slavery sets in – for good or ill. How is this so? On this read Romans 10.9 noting the contrasting words lips and heart. Talk is cheap but the heart is where weighty matters dwell. How so? On this read Romans 9.18 noting the linked words hardens and heart. So what comes of all of this? On this read Romans 2.29 noting the words circumcision, heart and spiritual. Because the heart admits to hardening, deep spiritual cutting is required to get it going in the right direction. On this read Romans 15.13 noting the words hope, joy, peace, believing, Spirit and abound. Why are so many gifts tied into the Spirit? On this read Romans 8.11 noting the words raised, dwells, and give. There is tremendous power in this verse to turn us around and give us life where there is only death. Do you agree? Have you experienced it? How so, if so. If not, why not?  

 

Week III. Reread Romans 1.32 noting this time the line deserve to die. Why so severe? On this read Romans 8.13 noting the contrasting words die and death. What’s the relationship between these two deaths? The first one is bad and the second is good. The first one is self-inflicted and the second is a gift. The first one is about self-absorption, the second is about living for God and others. On this read Romans 7.9 noting the line and I died. How does this happen? By way of sin becoming intensified when the law condemns it. How does that happen? On this read Romans 6.11 noting phrase consider yourself dead to sin. On this read Romans 6.6 noting the line our old self was crucified with him. How does that happen? On this read Romans 6.4 noting the line we were buried… with him by baptism. How does baptism bring this death about? It changes our considerations according to Romans 6.11. On this read Romans 12.2 noting the line be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Luther called this thinking “in the way Scripture does” (LW 25:261). No wonder we are to let these words “dwell in us richly” (Colossians 3.16). Do you agree?

 

Week IV. Read Romans 1.32 one last time noting the word approve. Why would we do such a heinous thing? On this read Romans 1.24 noting the line God gave them up… to impurity. What’s that like? On this read Romans 4.15 noting the word wrath. What does that do to us? On this read Romans 12.19 noting the word vengeance. Why this retaliation? On this read Romans 3.8 noting the word just. Does that settle it for you? How can we honor God’s justice? Our only hope is Romans 8.4don’t you agree?





 



Saint Nicholas Faire

Sunday, December 10, 2017 from 4:30 to 7:30 pm

 

We’re at it again.  Thank you to all who have already begun helping prepare for this annual fund raising event.  So many of you have stepped up to the plate, or in this case the “Christmas in July and August tree,” and taken ornaments.  Many of you have already made your purchases/donations and they have been catalogued and are waiting to be made into baskets for purchasing at the Faire.  At this writing, there are many items yet to be turned in.  It would be outstanding if all “ornament” items could be brought to the church by Sunday, September 17th.  If you need assistance of any kind getting this done, please call Larraine King (206-937-6740) or email her (larrainelk@gmail.com).  And please remember to put your name on the item as well as the retail value.  It takes a lot of time searching the internet to find the value of the item.  And we need that information to complete the bid sheet.

     If you would prefer, you can donate money designated to the St. Nicholas Faire and we will do the shopping.  Plus, in late November, we will be purchasing items that need to be fresh, so they need to be bought closer to the date of the Faire.  If you would like to help in this way, please let me know and I can give you a list of items to choose from.   But most important, always remember that all our efforts are to support, in a fun and enjoyable way, TWO very important extended ministries – the West Seattle Food Bank and the West Seattle Helpline.

     We are looking forward to having a super evening of wine tasting, winning prizes at the ring toss game, munchies, conversation and fellowship, and “shopping” for Christmas gifts for friends and family.  Where else can you go so close to home to such a party?!?!?  And it all benefits two great organizations!  So plan to come and invite your neighbors and family and friends to come with you.

     Sign-up sheets for helpers for the event will be posted in October and more details about the event will appear in future Messengers and bulletin announcements.  So, MARK YOUR CALENDARS!!!! If you don’t come there will be no party, no fun, and no funds raised for the Food Bank and Helpline. 

 Please note the date and time…..Our beloved Seahawks schedule has worked havoc on choosing a date and time once again for the St. Nicholas Faire.  We hope the change will solve the problem of encouraging friends and family to attend the Faire.  And we hope that the Seahawks don’t change the schedule mid season! 

-Larraine King






 






Rollie Storbakken put this copy of the famous photograph, Grace (1920), by Eric Enstrom, in his garden to ward off young vandals.  And it kept them away.  Matthew 17:20.  Hard to know how effective it would have been with jaded adults.


ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

DEO GLORIA CANTORES – Choir will start their practice sessions at 7:30 pm on Thursday, September 21st, in the gallery. 

Fall Schedule starts on Sunday, September 10th.  Adult Bible Class, rm. D and Sunday School, rm. 4, 9:00 am.  Confirmation (6th – 8th grades) meet in the library.  The Wednesday pastor’s classes (10:00 am & 7:30 pm in rm. D) start on September 6th, and confirmation (3:30 pm in rm. D) starts on September 6th.

FOOD BANK DONATION suggestion for September is canned, boxed or instant soups or one meal options like corned beef hash, spaghetti’s, etc.

Sunday School Summer Collection for Lutheran World Relief is coming to an end.  By making donations you can still help them with their goal.  They hope to purchase hens and chicks, a cow, goat and pig.... even some worms to enrich the soil. Please consider giving a check to the church designating "LWR" in the offering plate. And to end their summer collection a BAKE SALE is planned for Sunday, September 10th, following the 8:00 am & 10:30 am liturgies in room C!

 





 



X  PARISH PRAYERS  X

Remember in prayer before God those whom He has made your

brothers and sisters through baptism.

Karen Cady, Larraine King, Melanie Johnson, Shirley Demory, Kyra Stromberg, Elizabeth King Olsen, Marlis Ormiston, Eileen Nestoss, Bob & Barbara Schorn, Matt Anderson, Celia Balderston, The PLU Lecturers, Tabitha Anderson, Jordan Corbin, Iris Hansen Tate, Nell & Paul Sponheim, The Rev. Kari Reiten, The Rev. Paul Smith, The Rev. Pari Bailey, Ion & Galina Ceaicovschi, Nathan & Les Arkle, Ryan Soule, Patrick Coleman, Larry, Diane & Lesley Johnson Family, Naphtali & Josephine Khamiss, Mary Ford Rick & Marie Collins, Mary Springer, Bob Coburn, Edie Cooke, Judy Lonborg, Claudio Johnson S, Margaret Douglass, Chris & Margeen Boyer, Dave Walhgren, Jeanne Plekon, Les Whitehead, Sharon DeFray, Gene Merritt, and Racial violence in the US. 

     Pray for the shut-ins that the light of Christ may give them joy: C. J. Christian, Louis Koser, Anelma Meeks, Dorothy Ryder, Lillian Schneider, Crystal Tudor, Nora Vanhala.

     Pray for those who have suffered the death of a loved one this Summer:  Pray that God will bear their grief and lift their hearts: Pray for the family and friends of Elmer & June Wittman who died in June; and for Bill Wright’s family and friends, Bill died in July.  And pray for the family and friends of Bertil Hansson and Florence Jenkins who died in August.  Florence would have been 97 in December. 

     Pray for our bishops Elizabeth Eaton and Brian Kirby Unti, our pastor Ronald Marshall, our deacon Dean Hard and our cantor Andrew King, that they may be strengthened in faith, love and the holy office to which they have been called.

     Pray that God would give us hearts which find joy in service and in celebration of Stewardship.  Pray that God would work within you to become a good steward of your time, your talents and finances.  Pray to strengthen the Stewardship of our congregation in these same ways.

     Pray for the hungry, ignored, abused, and homeless this September.  Pray for the mercy of God for these people, and for all in Christ's church to see and help those who are in distress.

     Pray for our sister congregation:  El Camino de Emmaus in the Skagit Valley that God may bless and strengthen their ministry.  Also, pray for our parish and it's ministry.

     Pray that God will bless you through the lives of the saints:  Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist; and Saint Michael and All Angels.



 

A Treasury of Prayers

 

O blessed Lord and Savior, grant me the grace to love others in you and for you. Have mercy on all, but especially on the family and friends you have given me. Love them, O Fountain of love, and make them love you, that those things which are pleasing to you they may will and speak and do. Measure not your goodness to them by the dullness of my devotion; but as your kindness surpasses all human affection, so let your hearing transcend my prayer. May they always and everywhere be ruled and protected by you. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

                                                                          [For All the Saints IV:1133, altered]