Thoughts From The Pastor
July 2010
Summertime....
A season when the pace slows, and yet time seems to go so quickly.
It’s a time to be away on vacations.
It is also an opportunity for events that are so big that the regular year’s schedule simply couldn’t contain them.
I just came off of a huge event: BRRICK camp. It is a week when African American and White kids (and all others too!) look at the ways our lives and relationships are distorted by the sin of racism. It is a powerful time for building community and seeing the world differently. Some of you will remember that we signed a Covenant of Racial Reconciliation last year. Sending kids to participate in this camp is a profound opportunity for congregations to live into the covenant.
Our Confirmation kids are at camp even as I write. I am thinking of them often this week – and praying that they too will experience a transformative time at Michi-lu-ca. We had a very special class this past year, and I pray God will give them every blessing in this week.
Of course Vacation Bible School will take place at the end of the month. I love the theme: Baobab Blast. A Baobab tree is a central, gathering place for animals – and people.
That certainly describes Vacation Bible School. It continues to be a huge ministry for St. Mark. I love the ways it has become an event for the entire congregation. I love the way we begin the evening by sharing a meal – guests, members, people unknown before that moment with people you’ve known a long time -- together.
I love the ways that men, women, and teens all take leadership. It says much about who we are as a congregation – where all are welcome, and all are nurtured to grow.
It’s also a huge opportunity for us to meet more people in the neighborhood.
We will have a couple of specific opportunities to do this. We will be walking the neighborhoods and delivering flyers the week of July 11.
Genesis 12 is our first day’s theme story. (Feel free to look it up now!) It is the first time that Abram receives the promise from God that his descendants will become a great nation. It’s quite a promise for an old man with no children!
Abram, of course, trusted God. He followed God’s lead through some very difficult times – and many years without a child. Sometimes it seemed there was no hope. Perhaps God finally had promised more that could be delivered.
Abram may have been tempted to believe that...right up until his son Isaac was delivered. He was delivered twice, actually – once at birth, and the second time, from death at Abram’s hand.
Clearly, summertime is not a time to take a break from God’s challenging, life-giving Word.
In Christ,
Pastor Julianne Smeck
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St. Mark Lutheran Church
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