June 11, 2025
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Summer Fellowship Servers needed! Sign-up in the Narthex or call the church office if you are willing to serve fellowship on any Sunday June through August.
Lagers with the Lord, Monday, June 16th, 6 pm at Buckshot’s!
Vacation Bible School, July 14-18, 9 am till 2 pm for all 4 year olds through 6th grade youth. Led by Luther Park Bible Camp. No Cost. Games, Crafts, Music, Food, and more! Friends welcome! We appreciate your registering in advance! See the attached form.
VBS Snacks, Snack helpers needed! See the sign-up in the Narthex or call the office if you would like to help!
Baby Care Kits: The Women of Trinity are collecting items for Baby Care Kits through June. We are looking for, in sizes 6-24 months, sleepers or gowns, cotton t-shirts, light jackets, sweaters or hooded sweatshirts. Receive blankets, dark colored hand towels, and baby socks. We can also use onesies. Items can be placed in the bins underneath the altar in the Narthex.
Congregational Meeting, Sunday, July 27th, 10 am to vote on the building of a new parsonage.
Luther Park Golf Outing, Thursday, August 7th, 9 am. $50 per person, includes cart. At Sioux Creek Golf Course in Chetek. 9 holes. Prizes, Raffle, and fun to help Luther Park Bible Camp! To register, email at info@lutherpark.org or talk to Pastor Brad.
MUSINGS FROM PASTOR BRAD
For the 22nd time, I am sleeping in the same room in the Shalom Center at Luther Park Bible Camp as I spend this past week up there with some of our kids who are attending camp this summer (we have kids going other weeks as well this summer, though I can’t be there all week for them). Actually, I’ve been in this room more than twenty-two times, but of my twenty-three years of ministry, I have stayed in the same room twenty-two of them. The only year I did not stay in “my” room was last year when I was on sabbatical and did not come up to camp with our youth. It was sad. My room missed me.
I’ve probably been in this room close to forty times between recharges, multiple stays at camp during the summer, and I even stayed in the room for other retreats. The room is the room right next to the Men’s bathroom. It is one of the smallest rooms in the Shalom Center and some say it is the warmest. I picked it my very first visit to Luther Park in June of 2002, about five weeks before I became a pastor when I went up for three days with a group of kids in my first act as pastor of Trinity, even though I wasn’t yet a pastor. I picked the room because it was so small, figuring that way no other person would try to room with me and I could have it by myself. And the rest is history.
The room has changed over these twenty-three years. It used to have two beds and now has one. Those beds were twin beds and now it has a queen-sized bed (yeah me!). Fun fact: this room is used as a bride’s room, and a few years ago I stayed in this room for a week of camp, moved out, and a bride moved in and I did that wedding that weekend! It has many different end tables over the years, but the towel rack on the back of the door is the same. Both windows used to open but now only one does. It used to have brown colored paneling but now it is painted white and there are new pictures on the wall. And every year I walk into this room, I swear the bed is in a different place in the room.
Despite the changes, it is still my room. It still has the same magic. Camp has of course changed in the twenty-three years since I started going with our kids, and yet there is still the same magic. The same Spirit permeates through everything. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is still being proclaimed through holy play: in songs, skits, games, crafts, and more. I see that faith being proclaimed through the counselors, year-round staff, and youth of all ages. And the kids that come are the same. They still sing and dance (mostly). They still are always hungry and love the food and complain about the food at the same time. They engage with their counselors and meet new people and deal with people snoring in their cabins and the inconvenience of rain and get challenged in their faith. The programs change, new buildings are built, new stuff is there, but yet, the magic and joy of camp still endures. Seeds of faith are planted in all who experience what camp has to offer.
I was talking to a counselor earlier today who said they remembered me from a few years ago. She remembered me playing my uke in worship and interacting with the kids and then coming into her high school Bible Study to do a Q&A with them. She said it was a powerful experience and she remembered the tears that many shed has they shared their questions and heard me answer them and the faith conversations they had with me and then their counselor afterwards. She said it was that experience that convinced her she would come back to camp as much as she could and here she was, serving on staff for the first time. And I shared with her that being on staff was what was the catalyst for me becoming a pastor and even now renews me in faith, which is why I keep coming back. Because camp plants seeds of faith in all of us.
You know, things change. They don’t stay the same. But the things that have true power, true meaning, keep that power and meaning despite the changes. You can feel it. I see it at Luther Park, I see it here at Trinity, and I bet you see it too at places in your life. Places where love and faith are proclaimed, nurtured, valued, and cherished. Take a moment to give thanks for those places in your life and to see God at work in them. And take a moment to give thanks for places like Luther Park and Trinity, where we plant seeds of faith and where we nurture and support each other in faith even as we grow and change.
May God bless you today and always!