Church guide

Women of Amazing Grace celebrating vulnerability, enough-ness and community over tea!

Update on Cesar from Dale Larson, Pastor, First Lutheran Church of South Bend (PCIS is Pacific County Immigrant Support): "I received an update from our treasurer today: in addition to the $2,000 PCIS committed, a total of $1,774.56 came in from the GoFundMe effort and Cesar's softball team came up with another $253 giving us a total of $4,027.56 which is $972.44 short of what we paid the attorney. An additional pledge has not yet been fulfilled so we are not counting it in the total. The PCIS Board is hoping that folks in Grays Harbor can continue to raise funds to cover that shortfall in addition to the $2,500 remaining balance for the legal fees. We have found and applied for a grant to cover $500 of that balance leaving a need of $2,972.44. As we do not receive 100% of the funds contributed through GoFundMe it is suggested that perhaps people send checks payable to PCIS at PO Box 156 Long Beach, WA 98631 or visit the website https://donorbox.org/pacific-county-immigrant-support-1 and Cesar in the comments. Madeline Moore, who I believe is at Westport Aquarium, is involved in this and past efforts in Grays Harbor."

Read this glimpse into life - the one we we share on this beautiful earth with brothers and sisters and the one we rarely see. (I wonder if any young adults we love would thrive in this Young Adults in Global Mission experience?)

As we gather tomorrow we hold our beloved Jewish cousins in prayer. Hatred toward them is an offense against us all! Lord, in your mercy...

UPDATE: Cesar was successful in getting a 2 week continuance, and we are over $4400 in funds contributed towards the attorney's fee. In addition Mallory has been able to secure documentation of the need for asylum. Please share this story and continue to pray for Cesar and all those who have to leave their home to find safety or opportunity.

This is the fundraiser I talked about this morning. There's still time to contribute if you're able.

Easter Sunday It was still the first day of the week. That evening, while the disciples were behind closed doors because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities, Jesus came and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” John 20:19 “While his followers met where the doors were “locked for fear” he came. He stood there in the midst of the violent restless empire, and he said, “Peace be with you.” They recognized him when they saw the scars on his body, as he had been executed by the empire. This was the same Jesus of whom they despaired! And when they recognized him, he said a second time, “Peace be with you.” The story exhibits the contradiction between the empire of death and the Living One whom the empire could not keep dead. This Easter Sunday we ponder that contradiction between empire death and Easter life to consider our own faith amid the empire and to be dazzled by the one who said then and who says now, “Peace.” Pastor Val (All quotes from A Way Other Than Our Own by Walter Brueggemann)

Early in the morning, while it was still dark, they came...

Holy Saturday Early in the morning of the first day of the week, while it was still dark John 20:1a “Nobody knew how long Saturday would last. Nobody knew if Saturday would ever end. So it is now as well. Nobody knows how long Saturday will last or if it will ever end Saturday is that in-between day of stillness and doubt and despair when time stands still in lethal flatness.” “In the midst of that desperate stillness, the church listens yet again to another narrative that interrupts and intrudes and summons and haunts.” “You are the God who remains with us during our Saturdays of waiting and wondering, marked by the memory of Friday and the hope of Sunday. Forbid us too-easy exits out of the darkness. May we wait until we are at last interrupted by your life-giving grace. Amen. Pastor Val (All quotes from A Way Other Than Our Own by Walter Brueggemann)

Good Friday I will praise God’s name with song; I will magnify him with thanks because that is more pleasing to the Lord than an ox, more pleasing than a young bull with full horns and hooves. Let the afflicted see it and be glad! You who seek God— let your hearts beat strong again because the Lord listens to the needy and doesn’t despise his captives. Psalm 69:30-33 “What is it that happened in that drama of power on that Friday? Do not give up the question for a heavenly, transcendental transaction out beyond worldly reality, for these are real people struggling over real power. Friday is the ultimate day in which the church asks with unblinking honesty about the moral quality of reality. Or is it just that money talks and might makes right? Jesus has become for us the lens through which we reread power, social relations, and formal policies. Jesus stands alongside all the powerless in his abrasive prayer, demanding justice on earth from God. Jesus’ innocence is an expose of and a threat to every other kind of power. No wonder he made the governor nervous and the crowd frantic. They killed him, but he kept praying in his dangerous, abrasive honesty.” We ask “with unblinking honesty” what is the moral quality of reality we see around us? Is it money talks and might makes right? If that is what we see, are there actions we can take so that we can better see through the lens of Jesus more clearly? Might a change of location help? Do we need to more often stand where Jesus stood, “alongside all the powerless”? Pastor Val (All quotes from A Way Other Than Our Own by Walter Brueggemann)

Thursday of Holy Week If I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you too must wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example: Just as I have done, you also must do. John 13:14-15 “Jesus offered an example to his disciples that was a sharp alternative to all the available models around him. He broke decisively with the model of control used by the Roman Empire. He broke with the model of his religious context of stratification and purity. He broke with all the social realities that control and stratification produce and found himself free and traveling light. In his great act of humility and washing, he broke with all the models of humanity that are visible in our own time and place: the rat race of productivity, the fear for survival, the frenzy of accumulation, and the deathly sense of self-sufficiency. And then, to be sure we had not missed the point, he said to his disciples, ‘A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another…’ In that act, Jesus summoned and constituted an alternative community… a community that refuses to participate in the anxiety of the world, because it imitates birds and lilies in the sure confidence that God in heaven knows our needs and supplies them.” As part of the “alternative community” of Amazing Grace, do you feel that you are managing to “refuse to participate in the anxiety of the world” at least some of the time? If not, what might you do to participate a little less? Is there a tension between refusing to participate in the anxiety and participating in the world in order to make it better for all people, through things like voting, or advocating with lawmakers? How could that tension be resolved? Since Jesus told us to love one another, how can we help each other live with less anxiety and more confidence in God’s love and provision? Pastor Val (All quotes from A Way Other Than Our Own by Walter Brueggemann)

Holy Thursday is tomorrow, April 18 7pm at Amazing Grace. We'll be the church telling the story of Jesus and the disciples on that last night, with good food, opportunity for foot/hand washing and together we'll strip the altar. Please come even if you didn't sign up and bring a friend. It's for all ages.

Celtic Advent Day 40: Christmas Eve. Where have you experienced God's presence this Advent?

Youth group fun at Trampoline Nation.