Pentecost 12, August 23, 2015

When I was a child in Lutheran elementary school we took turns leading our morning prayer and devotions which meant we got to pick the Scripture or Bible story to read and the song we were going to sing.  One of our favorite hymns, by far, was Onward Christian Soldiers.  It had this “hup-2-3-4” beat which was irresistible and it’s rousing melody was just fun to sing. At the time, nobody really thought too much about the words or message of the hymn which is about Christians preparing for combat.

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Pentecost 11, August 9, 2015

I learned a new word while I was on the mission trip.  Our housing site was a high school and on the bathroom walls they had posted a number of vocabulary words for students to learn.  One of the words was “enervate.”  I had never used this word or even heard of it before.  Those of you with more word power than I have probably already know that it means to drain someone’s energy or vitality.  To weaken  or deplete the spirit.  As in “Working out in the hot sun all day enervated him.”  So it was kind of ironic for me to discover this new word on a day that I may or may not have been feeling a bit enervated myself! 

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Pentecost 10, August 2, 2015

One of these things we do at the end of each day on our mission trip is to gather together in small groups and answer this question: How did you encounter God today?  This can be a difficult question to answer sometimes but it can be a good way to talk about how God is involved in our lives and interacting with us and relating to us.  Every night, participants would take turns sharing stories of these encounters – these “God moments.”

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