By Pastor Kevin Barnhart Spring Grove Evangelical Free Moment follows moment, day follows day, as you get older, they can start to fly by so quickly you can barely keep track. Events and time move quicker than we can process all that is happening, so we don’t process. We keep our head down, reduce our focus to things that impact us directly and yet more and more of life … [Read more...]
Mother Earth awakens
By Rev. Debra Jene Collum Chatfield United Methodist and Commissioned EarthKeeper of the UMC As Earth begins to awaken under the warming closeness of Brother Sun; our hearts rejoice! Mother Earth is awaking from her slumber. She is sighing with renewed growth. She is stretching her molecules so that roots can expand again. She is warming within so that dormant seeds can … [Read more...]
Spring into the Lenten season
By Pastor Bridget Sheely Racine/Wykoff/Sumner Center UMC I saw my first robin the other day and oh, the joy that filled my heart! We are so very blessed to live in a region where we get to experience the beauty of all for four seasons and I believe spring to be such an inspiring season. It brings with it renewal and rebirth. So, the moment I saw that robin I was not … [Read more...]
“Amazing Grace” by John Newton 1779
By Pastor Mark Woodward Maple Leaf Parish Churches: Spring Valley: Faith, Cherry Grove, Fountain, Preston (and Lenora) Did you know that this powerful Christian hymn is 250 years old this year? 2023 marks the 250th anniversary of this great hymn written by John Newton. John Newton has a remarkable conversion experience in completing surrendering his life to Jesus … [Read more...]
Our focus in Lent is Christ
By Pastor Michael Harman St. Johns Lutheran Church and School Many Christians are in a part of the Christian Church year called Lent, a period of 40 days plus Sundays before Holy Saturday (the day before Easter). Lent reminds us of Jesus fasting in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights tempted by Satan. Some begin with ashes placed on the head as a symbol of repentance. … [Read more...]
The altar
By Pastor Jeff Jacobs Unity Lutheran Parish - St. Paul, Saetersdal and St. Matthew’s, Granger One of my favorite poets is George Herbert, who is commemorated in the Lutheran church on the date of his death, March 1, 1633. He was born April 3, 1593, in Montgomery, Wales, into an aristocratic family. In 1609 he began studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, where in 1616 he … [Read more...]
The importance of your witness
By Pastor Paul Hauschild Chatfield and Root Prairie Lutheran Churches The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once told a story about a circus that caught fire. The flames from the circus fire spread to the fields surrounding the circus grounds and began to burn toward the village below. The circus master, convinced that the village would be destroyed and the people killed … [Read more...]
Sweethearts find faith and family the best cure
For Harmony couple, John and Jacque Ryan, it was the arts that brought them together at a young age, but it was their faith which gave them strength to overcome adversity. “We kind of fell in love in art class. We were very good friends; we had this friendship that started even the year before that. We had a good time in there,” Jacque shared. “And his sense of humor, he … [Read more...]
The temple of the Lord
Rev. Peter J. Haugen St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church The glory of the Lord was once found in the pillars of cloud by day and of fire by night. That glory filled the temple, but that glory departed from the temple in judgement before the Babylonian Captivity. That glory did not return when the temple was rebuilt, not as it had been. And that glory is now found in … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past Smoke in your eyes meant meat on the table
As the boy crawled on his stomach with his face near the ground, there were about four inches of clean air below the smoke. No, he was not escaping a burning building. The building was not on fire, but it contained a fire. It was just one of many chores for young Warren Lange during the early 1930s on the family farm on South Ridge in Houston County. In the smoke house, there … [Read more...]