Finding Faith ... in the varied pace of joyful summer worship services

By Pastor Devlyn Brooks

And just like that … seemingly with a snap of a finger … we are talking about spring planting, luscious green trees and beautiful flowers popping up around us, when just a mere six weeks ago we were talking about blizzards!

What an incredible about face! … God is good! 

The quick turn to spring also is a symbol of what’s to come in our church.

Bob Stein is graciously presiding over the last Sunday worship service of May, which happens to be Pentecost this year, and then we won’t meet again as a faith family until Wednesday, June 7, when we will begin our summer worship schedule.

As we have done the past two summers, this summer we will be worshiping again on Wednesday nights. We will begin by gathering at 5:45 p.m. for a family style meal and for fellowship. And then at 6:30 p.m. we’ll move upstairs for our worship service. 

If you haven’t attended one of our Wednesday summer services before, I’d encourage you to come join us. While Sundays are special here at Faith Lutheran, I fully admit that getting together with you all midweek gives my week an energetic boost, a weekly event to look forward to all summer long!

Also, new this year, we’ll be holding three outdoor worship services! … Last year we held two summer worship services outside, and we had such a great time, we upped it to three this year! Keep a lookout for more information on those! We’d love for you to join us on the front lawn of our church. And spread the news to your friends and neighbors! These nights have been very special!

JUNE COUNCIL MEETING UPDATE:

Our Faith Lutheran Church Council will be meeting on Wednesday, May 31, for a special meeting with Pastor Rebel Hurd, who is the director for evangelical mission for our Northwest Minnesota Synod.

While this meeting also will serve as our monthly June council meeting, this will also be a special time to talk with Pastor Rebel about the vibrancy and future of our church. This is her specialty in our synod; it’s part of her official role as assistant to the bishop.

As you may remember, we have been discussing the notion of what comes next for our church in the coming years. And the church council agreed that it was time to bring in some professional help to focus this conversation and provide us synod support while we figure out what our next mission is.

We will share updates about this conversation at future services and in future newsletters as well. But if you have some thoughts on this conversation you’d like shared with me, the council or Pastor Rebel be sure to reach out to me, Lisa or anyone else on the council so that your voices are heard. Thank you! 

UPDATE ON THE ISRAEL TRIP:

On Sunday, May 21, about 10 of our Faith Family gathered to watch the informational video about the proposed congregational trip to the Holy Land. Thank you to those who were interested! 

I also can share the link with you if you’d like to watch the video on your own. Just let me know. 

After the video we had a chance to discuss the possibility of the trip, and it does seem that there is likely enough interest that the trip could be a go. The magic number is seven. We need seven confirmed registrations for the trip to take place. And it seems that we are close to that number. So I would encourage you to prayerfully think about joining this opportunity.

Once we have confirmed that there will indeed be a trip, we have discussed the potential of opening up the trip to other congregations around us. We are not limited to only Faith Lutheran members going, but have the opportunity to extend the invitation to anyone in our families and other churches in the area who would be interested. So please give that some thought too!

There is a time factor here, of course. We do have to lock in the trip by late August. So there is incentive to start firming up who is indeed interested in coming. The earlier we have firm numbers, the better opportunity the travel company will have in getting flights booked so that we can travel together. 

Finally, on Wednesday, July 12, the representative from Collette, the travel company which is working alongside us, will be coming to join us for an in-person visit at Faith Lutheran. She’ll be on hand to dive even deeper into the logistics of the trip and answer all of your questions.

If you are interested and have not yet expressed that interest, please let me know. This will be very helpful as we continue to explore the likelihood of this once-in-a-lifetime faith trip together.

Thank you Faith Family!

Blessings to you this June!