ANNOUNCEMENTS
No Wednesday Worship on August 23rd. The Men’s Band is in Cumberland at First Lutheran Church at 6 pm that night.
Confirmation Parent Meeting is Wednesday, August 30th at 7pm. This is for all youth in 7th & 8th. If you can not make this meeting, please contact Pastor Brad
Confirmation starts back up Wednesday, September 6th at 5:30pm for 7th graders. 8th graders will start the following week.
Women of Trinity Fall Gathering, Thursday, September 7th at 5 pm. Bring a dish to pass.
Sunday School starts back up Sunday, September 10th at 9:45 am.
Youth Mission Trip Presentation will be Sunday, September 10th at 9:45 am. Come see the amazing work our youth did in Colorado.
2024 ELCA Youth Gathering Informational Meeting: Sunday, September 10th, 10:15 am. The Youth Gathering is in New Orleans July 15-21, 2024. All current high school students can attend.
It’s back to school time!! The WOT will be collecting items for our local schools and for kits to go to Lutheran World Relief. There are two different boxes set out for collection so make sure you put yours in the box you want your items to go to. The bags you take off the pews are the ones that go to Lutheran World Relief and each bag has a printed copy of all items needed to fill that bag. There are copies of items needed for our local schools on the display table by the kitchen. Thank you for helping us help others!
Sign up to bring snacks for Crew and/or Sunday School. Any and all are very much appreciated. Sign ups are on the table in the Narthex.
The Crew begins on Wednesday, September 20th, for all 3rd-6th graders from 3:30 pm till 5:00 pm.
MUSINGS FROM PASTOR BRAD
On our last morning in Paris, France on July 1st, we went to breakfast and I decided to order bacon and eggs. I know, a shocker. I was very much looking forward to having this simple breakfast with two of my favorite things, eggs and bacon. And in my head, they would come like the picture below.
I bet that is how you viewed it in your head when I said I ordered bacon and eggs for breakfast. Now, maybe your eggs would be scrambled or fried or something else. But this is what it normally looks like. How do I know? When I “googled” the phrase “bacon and eggs,” this is the image that popped up.
But this is not how my bacon and eggs looked. Rather, it looked like this:
I was blown away. The bacon was literally inside the eggs. It wasn’t two separate things, it was one. I have wanted to try to recreate this at home but haven’t been able to yet. It was bacon and eggs but it was different. Still basically the same, but presented in a very different way.
Sometimes we have an image in our head of how something is supposed to be and we can find out that it can be something totally different. It still has it basics but might be presented in a completely different way. Think of popular songs that are redone by other artists who put their own spin or musical style upon it. Still the same song, just done differently.
Sometimes we think church should always be the same. And though God is eternal, the church does need to change from time to time. We want to keep our core, our foundation, which is of course proclaiming Jesus Christ and serving our neighbor. But how we do that doesn’t always need to be the same. And at Trinity, we have tried to do that.
Just last week I made everyone get up and sit in a different spot in the church. The week before we had worship in the park. This fall we are going to have services presented by youth, have a parking lot service with the blessing of animals, and much more. We do this in order to keep worship fresh but also to help us expand our minds to what worship is and what church is. Yes, we are bringing out bacon and eggs, but presenting it in an entirely different way.
Sometimes we don’t like change or don’t like when something familiar is presented in a new way. But if we reject it before we experience it, we lose out on the chance for the Holy Spirit to work and the fact that we might actually like it. If I had rejected that bacon and eggs dish because it didn’t look like what I expected, I would have missed out on an incredible meal. If I had told the group of people who asked me to lead a Bible study in a bar, I would have missed out on the incredible faith conversations we have been having at Lagers with the Lord.
My hope at Trinity is that we never get complacent. That we are willing to try stuff, even if they fail. My hope for you is that you might open up your heart and mind to the new ways God might be working in your lives. Maybe an opportunity to serve and be in a different way or a chance to experience the Gospel in a way that is not the norm or might even be out of your comfort zone. Most importantly, may you know every day that God is working in your life and that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, you are free from sin and death and loved every day. No matter how you serve your bacon and eggs!
May God bless you today and always!