​Dear People of Hope,

There are certain loops that get stuck in my head on repeat. Usually, they involve some variation of “I should” or “I should have.” Usually, these thoughts involve the past or the future – what I should or should not have done in the past, or what I think I am supposed to do in the future (which let’s be honest…probably won’t actually happen even if I beat myself up about it). Many of us have loops of thoughts, and loops can look like all kinds of things — repeating negative and hurtful thoughts about ourselves and about others. What I find is that these thoughts make me very very tired. And they can get my present self stuck, immovable. 

In the letter to the Philippians, Paul writes: From now on, brothers and sisters, if anything is excellent and if anything is admirable, focus your thoughts on these things: all that is true, all that is holy, all that is just, all that is pure, all that is lovely, and all that is worthy of praise. Practice these things: whatever you learned, received, heard, or saw in us. The God of peace will be with you. (4:8-9, CEB)

For the longest time, I have thought that this just sounds more exhausting. How is it possible to focus one’s thoughts in this way? I’ve got loops! They play on repeat! 

But, the Lord is near, Paul says in the verses before. And the God of peace will be with you. The God who is true, and holy, and just, and pure, and lovely, and worthy of praise. When I find myself stuck in thoughts of “I should” or “I should have” (or whatever version your loop is), I can hit pause as I turn to God. The Lord is near. The God of peace is with you and me. And it doesn’t matter how many times I must turn to God in order to refocus my thoughts – it doesn’t matter how many times!! It might be 30 seconds later. Each time I turn to what is true, holy, just, pure, lovely, and worthy of praise, I am practicing what I have learned, received, heard or seen in others. 

During the month of November, we are often encouraged to give thanks and to practice gratitude. I invite you to make this a practice of refocusing your thoughts. Keep it simple! “I give thanks today for…” or “Thank you God for…” or notice what is true, holy, just, pure, lovely and worthy of praise at that moment or on that day. And may you use it when the loop begins to play. Hit the pause button. Turn to the Lord who is near. 

Peace,
Pastor Liz

In our last council meeting, during our devotional time, we shared around connection, particularly connecting to visitors and new people in our congregation (also, check out Chris’ council article!). A particular theme struck me – in order to build connection, we must be vulnerable. Such as, nervously introducing ourselves to someone, unsure what their response will be. And the truth is, anyone who visits a church that is new to them is also practicing vulnerability – they don’t know what to expect!

Vulnerability creates community. 

I invite you into a time of creating community, which may also be an invitation into vulnerability. Starting the week of September 10th, we are starting a sermon series on the theme, “I’ve Been Meaning to Ask…,” a series for curiosity, courage and connection. With this theme, I am inviting you to join a small group for the 4 week duration. Small groups will share with each other from a different theme each week. The conversations will be guided by the hosts. The first week is “I’ve Been Meaning to Ask…where are you from?” So much is packed into that question: family, church, culture, the memories that are most important to us. So much! 

I encourage you to sign up for one of these groups and join in the sharing. Families with kids are encouraged to join and talk with the host on what will work best for kids. We hope that some families will join the same small group and kids can play together! The options are as follows:

Carolyn H.’s house on Wednesdays at 6:30pm
Beaty’s house on Thursdays at 6:30pm
Adam at the church on Saturdays at 11:00am
Sign up here. 

On a personal note, I am excited to share with you that I will be starting a Doctorate of Ministry program this month. It is an interschool program with Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, McCormick Presbyterian Seminary, and Catholic Theological Union. I will be a part-time student joining online. I look forward to sharing more with you as I move forward!

Peace,
Pastor Liz

Dear People of Hope,

During those lockdown months of the pandemic, we had to do some extra work to stay connected with one another. We connected “buddies” with our children. We encouraged folks to reach out to others with cards and phone calls. Some of us invited others for walks and chats outside. It was a struggle! But we muddled our way through.

I’ve been thinking about that extra effort, sometimes successful and sometimes not. I’ve recently read articles and listened to conversations around the epidemic of loneliness in our country. We crave connection, and I wonder if we need to be reminded again of the blessing of slowing down, pausing, asking for help, offering help, pursuing connection and greeting all those around us with the peace of Christ….because we knew how much we all needed it and were in this boat together!

I want to encourage you to pursue connection this month. Introduce yourself to someone new in the congregation and get to know them….even if it feels awkward! This month, our kids, teachers and school workers are returning to school. Send them a card or drop off cookies! Ask parents or teachers if they need any help getting ready for the transition. Call someone you haven’t seen for awhile. Can you connect with one of the elders in our congregation? Can you go through our directory and pray for people? Can you help out at the food pantry? Can you ask for the help you need? Is there someone you can invite to church with you?
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And then look around your neighborhood, your job, your grocery store and frequent trails ....are there ways for you to drop seeds of joy? Even if it is as simple as saying a blessing in your mind for someone you see. Are there seeds of joy that others are dropping for you? Receive them. 

We’ll have other opportunities for building connection starting next month. Stay tuned for more details! But I invite you to begin today. Let’s keep stretching ourselves to live as the beloved community of Christ. 

Peace, 
Pastor Liz

​Dear People of Hope,

During these summer months (it is summer, right??), I hope you are finding moments that offer you rest, build up your spirit and give you joy. It gave me great joy to bless our garden together and sit in the sunshine with all the delicious food that was offered at the BBQ last month. And it was a joyful day when we gathered at Celebrate Pride, giving and receiving love and joy with all those around us. Thank you to all the many people who helped with both of those events. 

This month I am seeking rest through prayer and retreat. On July 18-20, I will be going to a cabin in Ninilchik with the intention of praying about the ministry of Lutheran Church of Hope and planning ahead. I’ll be praying about where God is working among us, where God may be leading us and how we can respond. I don’t know if I’ll come away with any answers! But I think it is good to stop and get away to listen, following Jesus’ example. I am grateful for the opportunity to do this. Thank you for making that possible through providing funds and the ability to take the days away from everyday tasks.

I ask that you pray with me and for me! I would love to hear what answers to those questions you receive. And I hope you also find moments to get away and listen, even for just 10 minutes a day – listen to the Spirit in your heart and in your life, building you up and giving you rest. 

God’s peace,

Pastor Liz

Dear People of Hope, 

While the repair needed for my office wall is not fun, the change in office space has been. (Big shout out to Todd and Adam who moved me in while I was at synod collegium!) I have enjoyed the new space. I appreciate the layout it offers for welcoming people in, the big windows and light, and the accessibility to others. My previous office felt a little too tucked away and out of sight. 

No matter the office, you are always welcome to say hello when I am there. In fact, I’ve been thinking about how the pandemic disrupted our ability to have those conversations and meetings together. If you stretch your mind waaaaay back to 2020, we never even finished all our small group gatherings when I first arrived as your pastor – gatherings meant to get to know one another! 

So, I have a summer experiment in mind. I invite you to a conversation - a “one-on-one” some call it – but it can be with your family or others. We can meet in my new office, at a coffee shop, or in your home. We could go for a walk. I would love to hear more about what is going on in your life and your family, what thoughts are percolating about our congregation, and/or what faith questions you might be wondering about. 

The truth is everyone in the congregation can always request to schedule a conversation with me! Any time. But this is a little nudge for the summer….let’s talk.

In the midst of camping, hiking, and enjoying the summer, let’s have a conversation!

Peace be with you,
Pastor Liz

​Teaching my dog, Rory, has been teaching me. We have steadily been working on his ability to remain calm when seeing other dogs. This requires rewarding him for good behavior, and ignoring him and just hanging on when he starts pulling and lunging. Every week I see him improving. I also notice that if we run into too many dogs on a walk, or if there’s too much stimulation around him, he gets worse. He may have been behaving great at the beginning of the walk, but by the end, I’m dragging him along. Or, he’ll have a great day, and then the next day, be an overly excited and anxious pup.

Teaching him has been teaching me.

Growth is often a slow process. The results are not always readily visible. I cannot see from day to day how he is progressing….but I can certainly see it from last spring! Steady small steps with the expectation that there will be bad days, and overwhelming triggers, and a need to wait until calm returns. 

Faith, as well as life, may be about the small steady steps, as much as the big ones. It will include the days when we forget who we are (child of God). It will include the days when there is too much stimulation – too many fears, too many anxieties, too many hurts. They are not too many for God, but we forget. And in our forgetfulness, we do what we wish we did not do. Or we stop altogether – impatient with our progress or stuck by some hurdle that has appeared in our way!

Yet, we are invited to return to the slow steady steps of the Spirit. Healing is sometimes slow and meandering. Faith is often filled with questions. Joy comes in the morning, but we may be awake at night for a while. The evidence may not yet be visible to us – how the Spirit is strengthening us, or how God is sheltering us, or how we truly are learning to lean on the secure foundation of Christ. But then we look back! And we see how far we’ve come.

May you follow Jesus, no turning back, and may your slow steady steps take you to a surprising place, people of Hope. May you be surprised by the abundance of growth all around you and in you. And may your growth be a testimony to the love and wonder of God.

Ask me next year how well Rory walks past dogs.

Peace,
Pastor Liz

Dear People of Hope,

​​“We interrupt our regularly scheduled program…”

As a kid, this usually brought many groans from me, especially if it was a speech. I want to watch my favorite TV show! Of course, the groans might disappear when faced with an interruption that was startling or sad, but as a child, I would still feel the disruption of what I thought my time in front of the television would be. Interruptions may bring all kinds of thoughts and emotions.

Holy Week sometimes feels like an interruption to our regularly scheduled program. Suddenly, it interrupts our typical week and asks for our attention — Do we really have the time to stop? Do we have the time or the energy to walk from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday to Good Friday to Easter? 

I think that is one of the gifts – that our regularly scheduled programming is interrupted. We immerse ourselves in gathering together with prayer and song and Scripture. We do not know what to expect even though we may have done this before. We seek a new understanding and a new encounter with Christ. We may follow a rhythm familiar to us, but that nonetheless disrupts our daily rhythms. Or, this may be an entirely new experience. We gather and gather again, asking that God interrupt our thoughts and lives. 

I encourage you to join us for Holy Week and be interrupted! Begin the week on April 2 with Palm Sunday as we mark Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the events that will lead to his death and resurrection. Come and eat with us on Thursday, April 6, as we hear again Jesus’ commandment to love one another. Sit with us and pray as we hold space for all that we confess and lament in our lives and in our world on Good Friday, April 7. And then…then, celebrate with us the resurrection on Easter!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program…may it be a Holy interruption.

Peace,
Pastor Liz

​Dear People of Hope,

Often in our public confessions during worship, we leave a moment of silence so that we can name our specific confessions silently before God. Once when I led this prayer, my sister told me that I needed to leave more time for silence. “I wasn’t done yet. I got a loooooong list,” she told me. 

If we’re being honest, we’ve all got looooong lists, even longer if we added those things we don’t know we’ve done or left undone. Public confession can be a reminder that we are all in the same boat. We are all in need of forgiveness and grace. I am just as much in need of God’s grace as my neighbor standing next to me. They are just as much in need of God’s grace as me. Public confession gives us an opportunity to acknowledge this together as a community. 

Public confession can also become just words we say, but reflect very little on. Like any tradition, we can lose sight of its meaning as we stumble through the words and hope to get to the part of the service we like better. We can also have mixed feelings about it - is it intended to simply make us feel guilty or unworthy? Or is something more meaningful or powerful at work when we say these words together?

There is another form of confession as well. We don’t always talk so openly about individual confession, but it is also available to us. Sometimes we need another person to hear our confession. I have experienced, both as the one confessing and the one hearing confession, the importance of naming out loud to another person what is heavy on our hearts.  As your pastor, I am also here to hold that space for you – not only in the community of worship, but in the holiness of listening. 
 
We are entering the season of Lent. Lent is often a time where we focus on the importance of repentance and reorientation in our lives. One way we do this is through confession. And in doing so, we hear the words of forgiveness spoken over us. God forgives. There is life-giving forgiveness to be found, as we seek together, all of us in need, all of us received by God. 
I hope you’ll join us this Lent as we gather together to confess, to pray, to sing and to seek. Seek and you will find God’s mercy. Again and again.

Peace,
Pastor Liz

​Dear People of Hope, 

There’s a phrase that the late Christian writer Rachel Held Evans would often say: “On the days when I believe…” It is a phrase I love. It acknowledges that doubt and questioning is a part of our journey. There are days when we “believe,” and there are days when we don’t. There are days when we feel secure in what we believe, and there are days when it is hard to say what we believe. 

And whether we grew up in the church or not, we likely have all kinds of questions that show up for us in worship, Bible study, and life. They are not always questions of doubt, but a desire to understand with more clarity and greater knowledge. Sometimes they are questions we are afraid to ask – doesn’t everybody else know the answer??? (Chances are lots of people around us are wondering the same thing.) They may be as simple as, “why do we do that thing we do every week in worship?” Or, get more nuanced: “What is salvation?” They may be questions of theology (what we say about God), or anthropology (what we say about humans), or the Bible, or ethics, or day-to-day living. So many questions! So many possibilities!

For the season of Lent, we will be meeting around a meal on Wednesday nights to explore questions. We still have some time before Lent begins, but I share this with you now so that you can share your questions with me. In the narthex (Why do we call the space outside the sanctuary “narthex”? That’s a good question!) is a box with index cards. I invite you to write down your questions and place them in the box. What are you wondering about? What would be good to discuss with others? We may not get to every question in Lent, but we will get the conversation started!

Seek and you will find. Questions are a gift. They help us grow. May we be a courageous space where we are welcome to ask questions and receive the companionship of fellow seekers along the way. 

Peace, 
Pastor Liz

Dear People of Hope,

As I reflected on what might be our congregation’s theme for the new year, a phrase bubbled up: “Seek and you will find.” An irony because I was seeking a theme…but a message that sent me to my Bible to read the Gospel of Luke. Jesus says, “And I tell you: Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Luke 11:9) These words are spoken not too long after the disciples ask Jesus to “teach us to pray,” and Jesus gives them the words of the Lord’s prayer. Jesus continues by describing us as ones who can pray with persistence, brashness or shamelessness, and shares an image of God the Creator as a parent who is generous in response to the needs of the children. The whole passage is also about the gift of the Holy Spirit — that as we ask, seek, and knock, we are given what we need – that is, God! We are shaped and formed by the Spirit. 
That’s a lot, right? Just coming from some words that bubbled up…seek and you will find.
This is our theme for 2023: Seek and You will Find. It is always the invitation, throughout our life, but there is goodness in making it our focus for a year. What deep longing of and for God is present in you? In what ways are you being invited to “ask, seek, knock?” What amazing promise we are given that when we do, we will receive, find and be opened to!
In this past year, we began a new ministry of offering prayer during communion on the first Sunday of the month. This is an opportunity to bring concerns, burdens, griefs, needs, hopes or whatever is on our hearts and minds to God, alongside and through the prayers of siblings in Christ. For the month of January, we will offer this every Sunday. I encourage you to let it be the start of a year of asking, seeking and knocking. May we as a community be shaped and re-formed again and again in our seeking. May we find the goodness of God in our midst. May the will of God be done and may the kingdom of God come among us. May we seek and find.

Peace be with you,
Pastor Liz