Family Life - Christmas - True and Better
Jesus is the true and better savior, and he connects himself to us and makes our lives true and better.
Merry Christmas
Email Blast - Dec 23 16'
Greetings and Merry Christmas From Grace Lutheran PSL.
We have just a few announcements and reminders.
Christmas Eve Services.
6 Pm English And Korean Candlelight Service
8Pm English Candlelight Service.
Christmas Day
10AM Christmas Day Communion Service.
New Year’s Day
10AM New Year’s day Service.
Service Time Change.
Due to the increased attendance during the winter months. We are going to add a service through the winter.
We love our snow birds, down for the winter months (and the Mets), and we love the new families which will be coming. This also presents a very interesting opportunity to be able to invite your friends or neighbors to Grace. Both services during this winter will be very similar, and have communion. I have talked to a couple of families which are excited about the earlier time.
Service times on Sunday
Beginning January 8th
8AM Service
9:15AM Sunday School
10:30AM Service.
New Cry Room!
The Live Feed from the sanctuary to the cry room in completed.
If you need to leave the sanctuary for any reason, coughing, crying, anxiety, or boredom. Please feel free to sit in the cry room, it is a quiet place where you can still watch and participate with the community of believers.
New Website!
While not yet done the new site is live.
Check it out.
www.gracelutheranpsl.com
To all who are traveling, stay safe and warm while on the road; and share the warmth and love of our savior with all you meet.
Merry Christmas
Mops Christmas and Halloween
We had a fun time this year.
In late 2016 we had a great time with our little ones and with one another.
We had a Halloween parade in a local nursing home.
And we had a wonderful Christmas party!
12 Reasons Millennials Are OVER Church
Only 4 percent of the Millennial Generation are Bible-Based Believers. This means that 96 percent of Millennials likely don’t live out the teachings of the Bible, value the morals of Christianity and probably won’t be found in a church. This author goes deep to explain why.
This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King.
From the depths of my heart, I want to love church.
I want to be head-over-heals for church like the unshakable Ned Flanders.
I want to send global, sky-writing airplanes telling the life-change that happens beneath a steeple. I want to install a police microphone on top of my car and cruise the streets screaming to the masses about the magical Utopian community of believers waiting for them just down the street.
I desperately want to feel this way about church, but I don’t. Not even a little bit. In fact, like much of my generation, I feel the complete opposite.
Turns out I identify more with Maria from The Sound of Music staring out the abbey window, longing to be free.
It seems all-too-often our churches are actually causing more damage than good, and the statistics are showing a staggering number of millennials have taken note.
According to this study (and many others like it) church attendance and impressions of the church are the lowest in recent history, and most drastic among millennials described as 22- to 35-year-olds.
- Only 2 in 10 Americans under 30 believe attending a church is important or worthwhile (an all-time low).
- 59 percent percent of millennials raised in a church have dropped out.
- 35 percent of millennials have an anti-church stance, believing the church does more harm than good.
- Millennials are the least likely age group of anyone to attend church (by far).
As I sat in our large church’s annual meeting last month, I looked around for anyone in my age bracket. It was a little like a Titanic search party…
IS ANYONE ALIVE OUT THERE? CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME?
Tuning in and out of the 90-minute state-of-the-church address, I kept wondering to myself, where are my people? And then the scarier question, why I am still here?
A deep-seated dissatisfaction has been growing in me and, despite my greatest attempts to whack-a-mole it back down, no matter what I do it continues to rise out of my wirey frame.
[To follow my publicly-chronicled church struggles, check out my other posts The How Can I Help Project and 50 Ways to Serve the Least of These.]
Despite the steep drop-off in millennials, most churches seem to be continuing on with business as usual. Sure, maybe they add a food truck here or a bowling night there, but no one seems to be reacting with any level of concern that matches these STAGGERING statistics.
Where is the task-force searching for the lost generation? Where is the introspective reflection necessary when 1/3 of a generation is ANTI-CHURCH?
The truth is no one has asked me why millennials don’t like church. Luckily, as a public school teacher, I am highly skilled at answering questions before they’re asked. It’s a gift really.
So, at the risk of being excommunicated, here is the metaphorical nailing of my own 12 theses to the wooden door of the American, Millennial-less Church.
1. Nobody’s Listening to Us
Millennials value voice and receptivity above all else. When a church forges ahead without ever asking for our input we get the message loud and clear: Nobody cares what we think. Why then, should we blindly serve an institution that we cannot change or shape?
Solution:
- Create regular outlets (forums, surveys, meetings) to discover the needs of young adults both inside AND outside the church.
- Invite millennials to serve on leadership teams or advisory boards where they can make a difference.
- Hire a young adults pastor who has the desire and skill-set to connect with millennials.
Family Life - Fear and the Open Door.
The Messenger of the Lord tells us to not fear and leave the door open
Why We Gather
Worship is about remembering God’s story in the past, present, and future.
Worship is about remembering God’s story in the past, present, and future. A corporate gathering is a dialogue between God’s people and God’s word, a chance to remember the story they’re a part of, renew their commitments, and be sent once again into His world. Here are four rhythms that illustrate this dialogue during worship gatherings:
EXPERIENCE THE GOSPEL
- "God is holy"
- "We are sinners"
- "Jesus saves us"
- "Jesus sends us"
REMEMBER THE STORY
- Creation
- Fall
- Redemption
- Consummation
ACTIONS IN LITURGY
- Adoration
- Confession and/or Lament
- Assurance, the peace prayers of thanksgiving, and petition instruction
- Communion commitment/charge blessing
This is the heart of the church’s liturgy, a word that has gathered a lot of buzz, much of which I think is unhelpful. “Liturgy” gets spoken in tense whispers, held out as a sort of mystical code, a way to ensure transcendence or to root us to tradition. But frankly, these are all horrible reasons to embrace liturgy.
These traditions were formed out of a pastoral desire to see the church shaped by the gospel, immersing them in the story every week, enabling the body to remember who God is, what he’s done in Christ, and what He promises about our future.
Worship Is Remembering
If there’s one thing that’s clear about the people of God, it’s this: we are a forgetful bunch. Adam and Eve forgot God, even in the midst of Paradise. The patriarchs forgot him as they drank, womanized, and lied their way toward their destinies. Israel forgot him as soon as the mud from the passage through the Red Sea dried upon their sandals. We forget again and again. That’s why one of the most often repeated commands in the Bible can be summed up with one word: remember. Over and over, to the patriarchs, to Israel, and to the church, we’re told, “Remember.” Even the Ten Commandments are prefaced by a reminder: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt.” “Remember your story,” God says. “Remember what I did. Now hear my commands.”
Connecting Past, Present, And Future
When God calls us to remember, he connects us to past and future in a single thought. We’re connected to an entire legacy of faith, stretching from the garden to the New Jerusalem, and connecting us to His people throughout that history. God’s promises are rooted in our heritage of faith and anticipate their fulfillment, and that anticipation is a powerful gift for those who are suffering, struggling, and stumbling along their way. Remembrance is at the heart of New Testament worship. Where before God’s people gathered primarily to be with God at the Temple, we now gather primarily to be with God’s people and to remember Him. We gather to let His word dwell richly among us (Col. 3:16). We gather to encourage one another as “the Day” approaches (Heb. 10:25). And we gather, as theologian David Peterson says in Engaging with God, to “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) —a command more about shared, congregational confession of the gospel than bold confrontation between two people (as the first is commonly treated).
Telling The Story
If you look at almost any long-standing church tradition, you’ll see that their gatherings had just this intention—the gathering itself tells a story. It begins with God gathering His people, to which the people respond with praise and adoration. Seeing God in the Scriptures almost always results in a cry for mercy, and so the church responds to their own praise with a cry of confession or a lament over the sin in the world. To this, the Scriptures reply with an assurance that, in Christ, our sins are forgiven. We are nurtured by His word, and are sent out again on a mission.
Why We Gather
Written for the Resurgence by Mike Cosper
Family Life - His Name is John
We lead with Expectations, But God Leads with Grace
A Sermon about this new baby John, showing us "the Lord is Gracious."
