We’ve got a lot of balls in the air.
As I write this letter, Sunday School is well underway, with more students and
more teachers than have ever been involved. We’re planning a Consecration
Sunday focus on the givers’ need to give, and a luncheon to celebrate
your generosity. Tapestry’s planning both its annual fall retreat and
the women’s Christmas Dinner. Five of us are packing to attend a three
day event on worship in Midland, the Natural Church Development team is planning
Octoberfest and the Building Committee is ready to unveil an image of the new
home for the church.
We’re so busy doing church there’s hardly time to pray.
Feedback from the Natural Church Development focus groups suggest that many
of us are in the same boat. We’re so busy and our lives so demanding,
we don’t have time to pray - or maybe in the rush of our day, we simply
forget. How sad that must make our God. It’s like forgetting to kiss your
husband or wife goodbye when they leave for work, or forgetting to tuck your
kids under the covers when they go to bed, or forgetting to share a meal together.
That’s how relationships break down, how love begins to die, how we drift
apart from God - when we don’t stay in touch.
But the NCD team has come up with a little plan to help.
Once each week, the church office will group mail a one sentence prayer to
the entire congregation. It will include a single Bible verse from the coming
Sunday readings. The prayer will be based on a devotion from Christ in Our Home,
the daily devotional booklet we purchase for you and give away from the Welcome
Center. Two sentences, a Bible lesson and a prayer, once each week. A simple,
quick reminder to stop what you’re doing, take a deep breath, and join
your entire church in surrendering to God. A prayer the size of an electron,
to steal back your soul from a hectic pace, just a little kiss on the cheek
to help you remember who you are and whose you are.
It’s just a little step, just a little prayer. It’s just enough.
Pastor Jim
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not
know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes
with sighs too deep for words. Romans 8:26
From the Shepherd's Song Newsletter -- October 2008
Copyright 2008 by Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
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E-mail your comments and questions to Pastor Jim in care of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at gslc@sirus.com.