From the Pastor's Desk

After worship this past weekend one of our members said she was talking to a friend of hers from Germany who now lives here in America also. This friend goes to a Baptist Church and was lamenting the fact that "we don't have Pentecost here in America". To that the lady from our church promptly said, "Well we do at Our Savior!" :-)




And we certainly do "have Pentecost" here. It was such a blessing to be a part of worship this past weekend with our children in procession with the streamers, a visual reminder of the wind and fire of the Holy Spirit, and the readers speaking in various languages (Spanish, Greek, Italian, German, Norwegian, French, Polish…and did I forget any?) along with the other readings, the singing, gathering for Holy Communion…yes, the same Holy Spirit continues to breathe Life into God's people today as that Spirit blew into and through and among those in Jerusalem so many years ago.



One of the reminders of that mentioned at worship was our "Disaster Response Team" made up primarily of members of our senior Youth Group who are presently in Alabama helping with post tornado cleanup efforts. To see pictures of our kids at work go to our website (www.oursaviorelca.com) and under "Ministries" click on "Youth". The team will be returning this Wednesday. More to come!



Along with mission trips like this being faith building events, to help nurture and build faith in the home, be sure to check out the Vibrant Faith Ministries website (www.vibrantfaith.org) , which is now beginning a new dimension to their ministries called "Vibrant Faith @ Home". Just go to the www.vibrantfaith.org website and click on the "Vibrant Faith @ Home" link for all kinds of tips, tools, resources and suggestions that parents, families and households -of all ages and stages- to help people grow in faith.



This coming weekend at Our Savior we will be celebrating "Trinity Sunday". This is the only festival day of the church year that is about a teaching of the church and not a person or an event. This year, the Old Testament reading is the creation story. Some of you may recall this from 3 years ago. (We're on a 3 year cycle for our readings.) As we hear this story, we will be "seeing" the story unfold before us: eg. "let there be light" and the lights will come on, and as God created the plants and animals, birds and creeping crawling things, we will invite folks to bring up representatives of all of those elements of creation. We already have some dogs lined up, but if you have any creeping crawling critters as pets, or birds or fish who could be brought forward in a fish bowl, please contact the church office this week and we'd love to have you be a part of our hearing and seeing the creation story unfold this coming Saturday or Sunday.



Also, this coming Sunday, at the end of worship (remember, we're in our summer schedule: 6pm Saturday and 9:30am Sunday) we will have the groundbreaking for our 50th Anniversary Building Project! The plan is to have the new space and renovations dedicated at our 50th Anniversary Celebration the weekend of December 11. If you haven't yet "bought a leaf" for our Tree of Life, it's certainly not too late. This is going to be a beautiful, lasting symbol of our life together here for generations to come. See me (Pastor Jack) or George Dann for more information about this part of our 50th Anniversary celebrations.



For more information, especially about special summer activities, please visit our website at: www.oursaviorelca.com . And keep your eyes, ears and hearts open to the working of the Spirit around and within you as this week unfolds!



See you in church! 50 years of letting our Light Shine and counting!
Pastor A.C. 'Jack' Diehl III +