Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! Today is the first of five Sundays with gospel readings from John 6, the first four of which focus on Jesus as bread of life. Today...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! Mark’s gospel makes clear how great is the press of the crowd, with its countless needs to be met, on Jesus and his disciples. Yet...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! When Amos reports his vision of God judging Israel for its mistreatment of the poor, he becomes a threat to the power of the priests...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! Jesus does great deeds of power and gives his disciples authority over demons. Yet none of this power is unilateral; it all must be...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! A woman finds healing by touching Jesus’ cloak, and a girl is restored to life when he takes her by the hand. In both cases a...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! We often use that phrase; “God is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good”, and that’s what today’s readings strike me as...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! The mustard seed becomes a great shrub that shelters the birds, recalling ancient images of the tree of life. We’d expect a cedar or...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! A house divided against itself cannot stand. Jesus makes this observation in light of charges that he is possessed. He is possessed,...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! When we say God is the triune God, we are saying something about who God is beyond, before, and after the universe: that there is...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! Fifty days after Easter, we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Crossing all boundaries that would separate...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! The gospel for Easter’s seventh Sunday is always taken from the long prayer Jesus prays for his followers in John’s gospel on the...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! This Sunday’s image of the life the risen Christ shares with us is the image of friendship. We are called to serve others as Jesus...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! This Sunday’s image of how the risen Christ shares his life with us is the image of the vine. Christ the vine and we the branches...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! The image of the good shepherd shows us how the risen Christ brings us to life. It is the relationship between the shepherd and the...
Introduction & Welcome Alleluia! Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia! The gospel for the third Sunday of Easter is always one in which the risen Christ shares food with the disciples, meals that are the Easter template for the meal we share each...
Introduction & Welcome Alleluia! Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia! The Easter season is a week of weeks, seven Sundays when we play in the mystery of Christ’s presence, mostly through the glorious Gospel of John. Today we gather with the disciples...
Easter Sunday/The Resurrection of Our Lord Introduction & Welcome Alleluia! Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia! Christ is risen! Jesus is alive, and God has swallowed up death forever. With Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! This week, the center of the church’s year, is one of striking contrasts: Jesus rides into Jerusalem surrounded by shouts of glory,...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! God promises Jeremiah that a “new covenant” will be made in the future: a covenant that will allow all the people to know God by...
Fourth Sunday in Lent Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! The fourth of the Old Testament promises providing a baptismal lens this Lent is the promise God makes to...
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, Toledo, Ohio A congregation of the Northwestern Ohio Synod The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Sunday, March 7, 2021 Third Sunday in Lent Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! The second covenant in this year’s Lenten readings is the one made with Abraham and Sarah: God’s promise to make them the...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! On Ash Wednesday the church began its journey toward baptismal immersion in the death and resurrection of Christ. This...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! The Sundays after Epiphany began with Jesus’ baptism and end with three disciples’ vision of his transfiguration. In Mark’s...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! In Isaiah the one God who sits above the earth and numbers the stars also strengthens the powerless. So in Jesus’ healing work...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! all the time! and all the time! God is good! In Deuteronomy God promises to raise up a prophet like Moses, who will speak for God; in Psalm 111 God shows the people the...
Introduction & Welcome Welcome to worship today, God’s gift to us because God is good! All the time! And all the time! God is good! As we continue through the time after Epiphany, stories of the call to discipleship show us the implications of our baptismal...
Introduction & Welcome All the baptized have a calling in God’s world. God calls not just pastors and deacons but also the youngest child, like Samuel. The story of the calling of Nathanael plays with the idea of place. Nathanael initially dismisses Jesus because he...
Introduction & Welcome Our re-creation in baptism is an image of the Genesis creation, where the Spirit of God moved over the waters. Both Mark’s gospel and the story in Acts make clear that it is the Spirit’s movement that distinguishes Jesus’ baptism from...
Introduction & Welcome Within the gospel reading’s profound words lies the simple message that God is revealed in a human person. Though we may try to understand how the Word existed with God from the beginning of time, the wonder we celebrate at Christmas is that the...