By Pastor Bridget Sheely Racine/Wykoff/Sumner Center UMC Peace and Grace to you in the name of our risen savior Jesus Christ!  We have just celebrated Pentecost in our Christian calendar year, and what a God-inspired event this day  is in the life of Christ followers everywhere. God brought down the Holy Spirit to fill the disciples with the power of His grace and the image … [Read more...]

By Pastor Kris Hertsgaard Kincaid Christ Lutheran Church, Preston “You are the salt of the earth!” This familiar phrase is from a sermon Jesus gives in Matthew. He tells the crowd – you are the salt of the earth.  Put simply, when your life is the right amount of salty, your actions enrich and benefit other people. When Jesus was giving this sermon, a crowd was gathered. … [Read more...]

By Pastor Jeff Jacobs Unity Lutheran Parish -  St. Paul, Saetersdal and  St. Matthew’s, Granger A few Sundays ago, April 21, was “Good Shepherd Sunday,” the day in the Easter Season focused on images of Christ as our shepherd. There’s a story about a seminary professor who told his classes that in the Holy Land a shepherd went in front, and the sheep, knowing his … [Read more...]

By Pastor Paul Hauschild Chatfield and Root Prairie Lutheran Churches “When God measures a person, He puts the tape around the heart instead of the head,” someone once said. Very true! In Scripture we read something similar. “…they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7b).  I believe unity is a desire the Lord puts in our … [Read more...]

By Pastor Mark Woodward Maple Leaf Parish Churches: Spring Valley: Faith, Cherry Grove, Fountain, Preston (and Lenora)  In the spring before grass and plants begin to grow and before the trees leaf out, I love to walk in the woods.  I feel renewed walking in remote areas during that time when winter ends and before spring unfolds.  I walk on a carpet of brown leaves and … [Read more...]

Rev. Peter J. Haugen St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church When our Lord God instituted the Passover, He said, “I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments—I am the LORD” (Exodus 12:12). The Exodus is not simply a temporal, … [Read more...]

By Rev. Deanna Woodward Maple Leaf Parish -  United Methodist Churches of Cherry Grove, Fountain,  Preston and Spring Valley  In a book entitled “Becoming a Whole Person in a Broken World,” author Ron Davis tells a story about a mother and daughter who, long ago, were caught in an earthquake in their native Armenia. The 36 story apartment building in which they … [Read more...]

By Pastor Mark Woodward Maple Leaf Parish Churches: Spring Valley: Faith, Cherry Grove, Fountain, Preston  (and Lenora)  Pictured here is a colorful butterfly depicted in stained glass on the front door of the Preston United Methodist Church.  The butterfly is a powerful symbol of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It portrays the power of new life and that Jesus has … [Read more...]

By Pastor Nissa Peterson Chatfield and Root Prairie Lutheran Churches At the beginning of Holy Week, the church prepares to experience the stories of Jesus’ walk to the cross. These stories can be really uncomfortable to experience. For those of us with young children, we wonder how our kids might be scared by the stories, and ask really hard questions that we don’t … [Read more...]