Sunday Morning Worship - 9/3/2017

How often might you feel lost—lost among the confusion and details and busyness of life? When someone is lost, they forget or do not know where they should be going. When someone loses money, their health, or a loved one to death, everything from anger to despair to fear take over, and we are tempted to think there is no hope. That’s why Jesus’ statement “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” sounds so strange, so backward. We lose our life by daily contrition and repentance as the old Adam is drowned. We find ourselves given the gift of eternal life as the new man daily arises, and we escape death forever!

Please join us for Sunday worship at 8:20 AM or 11:00 AM.  Pastor Joshua Baumann's message is titled “What’s My Sacrifice?” based on Matthew 16:23-24.

Sunday's bulletin can be found at this Bulletins Link.

Sunday Morning Worship - 8/27/2017

There are many different opinions in our world about who the Lord is, and many of those opinions are based on who people want the Lord to be. What a privilege and joy it is that as we gather we don’t need to try to seek and find the Lord and His attributes on our own. Instead, He reveals Himself as who He was, is, and ever shall be, in and throughout Scripture. We hear this today in our Old Testament Reading as God, through Isaiah, calls His people to look and listen to Him as He seeks and makes us His redeemed children (Isaiah 51:1–6). As His children, we are part of His Body and blessed to complement one other in faith and fellowship (Romans 11:33–12:8) and in the confession of who our Savior Jesus Christ truly is (Matthew 16:13–20). As He continues to seek and to find, and by the calling, gathering, and enlightening by His Holy Spirit through His Word, we worship in that promised grace giving certain hope now and in the future.

Please join us for Sunday worship at 8:20 AM or 11:00 AM.  Pastor Cory J. Rajek's message is titled “Who Is Jesus....To You?”  based on Matthew 16:13-20.

Sunday's bulletin can be found at this Bulletins Link.

Sunday Morning Worship - 8/20/2017

Pet dogs know the right place to be at mealtime: under the table. They know you don’t need a special seat; these dogs are happy to get crumbs of “people food.” And we rejoice to receive what we don’t deserve: whatever blessings God bestows on us, disobedient sinners that we are. In the Old Testament Reading, God promises that He would call us foreigners to His table, and here we are. Even the disobedience of God’s Old Testament people has proven good for us, as we see everyone receiving mercy from a gracious God. The Canaanite woman in the Gospel saw herself in the position of a dog, trusting she would receive crumbs from the family table. But the bread crumb falling to earth she and we have received is none other than the Son of God, the Bread of Life. The crumb each of us receives is priceless! As we gather around Word and Sacrament, we get no stale food, but the nourishment we need for abundant life each day until we join saints and angels at the eternal feast in heaven.

Please join us for Sunday worship at 8:20 AM or 11:00 AM.  Pastor Cory J. Rajek's message is titled “A Faith Which Looks to Jesus”  based on Matthew 15:20-28.

Sunday's bulletin can be found at this Bulletins Link.

Sunday Morning Worship - 8/13/2017

All of our prayer and praise is only our response to what God has said to us. Through the revealed Word of the Bible and the incarnate Word, Jesus, God has talked to us about sin and grace. Our talking back to Him, unfortunately, can be back talk, with all the negative connotations of that term. That’s when we deserve to hear the Law, as Job does in today’s Old Testament Reading. But when we have truly heard God’s gracious invitation, as Paul reminds us in the Epistle and Peter heard while in his boat, our talking back to God is humble thanks for His grace and mercy. We have the opportunity again today to hear Law and Gospel and to give God the faith-filled back talk He wants from His forgiven sons and daughters.

Please join us for Sunday worship, August 13th, at 8:20 AM or 11:00 AM.  Pastor Joshua Baumann's message is titled “Fear, Focus, Faith: The Savior Reaches Out in Love” based on Matthew 14:27.

Sunday's bulletin can be found at this Bulletins Link.

Sunday Morning Worship - 8/6/2017

Our trip through Romans today continues as Paul invites us to praise God for all of His gifts that come to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Paul lists the gifts given to the Israelites: adoption, glory, covenants, the Law, worship, promises, and patriarchs. All of these gifts and more are ours through our Lord Jesus Christ, because most of us are Israelites not by flesh but by promise. So great are the gifts we receive in and through Christ that Paul expresses his distress that so many of his fellow kinsman would not believe it. He even says he would be willing to be cut off from Christ, if only his peers would welcome the ultimate gift, the Lord Jesus. Thanks be to God that, instead of Paul, Jesus was cut off even from the Father on the cross, in order to reconcile all people to Himself! Jesus gave the ultimate gift—His life—for the sake of all people. This is a gift that invites belief and grateful obedience. Thanks be to God!

Please join us for Sunday worship, August 6th, at 8:20 AM or 11:00 AM.  Pastor Joshua Baumann's message is titled "Sustained by Christ" based on Matthew 14:19-20.

Sunday's bulletin can be found at this Bulletins Link.

Sunday Morning Worship - 7/30/2017

“God never gives you more than you can handle.” These words are often used to try to comfort someone who is suffering. These words are often spoken as if this is what the Scriptures teach about suffering. However, these words are not found in the Scriptures. Nor is the idea that you never face more than you can handle. This not-so-helpful idea is loosely based on today’s Epistle, “all things work together for good,” and 1 Corinthians 10:13, that God “will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.” While it’s a well-intended comment, “God never gives you more than you can handle” is simply not true. Life does sometimes give us more than we can handle. If we could handle these things and more, then why would we even need God? Instead of protecting us from more than we can handle, God handles what we can’t handle. Joseph couldn’t handle it when his brothers sold him into slavery. But God handled it as He guided Joseph toward leadership in Egypt. What amazing news it is that no matter what might happen to you in this life, even when you can’t handle it at all and you feel like your life is crumbling to pieces, God can handle it!

Please join us for Sunday worship, July 30th, at 8:20 AM or 11:00 AM.  Pastor Cory Rajek's message is titled "Looking For Something of Worth?" based on Matthew 13:44-52.

Sunday's bulletin can be found at this Bulletins Link.

Sunday Morning Worship - 7/23/2017

With the whole creation we groan together in birthing pains, waiting for the redemption of all things. Things are not how they were intended to be. This sad state of affairs is the result of people who are not God playing God. The devil is in on this, sowing weeds throughout the field of this world. But there is no God besides God the Holy Trinity, not in heaven above nor on earth below—not you, not me, not anyone. The real God has appointed that we and all humanity are saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our true home is the kingdom of God introduced by Jesus. Along our journey home, even when we do not know what to pray, our hope is sustained by the intercessions of God the Holy Spirit, whose groanings on our behalf are deeper than words can tell.

Please join us for Sunday worship, July 23rd, at 8:20 AM or 11:00 AM.  Pastor Joshua Baumann's message is titled "I'm But a Stranger Here" based on Matthew 13:24.

Sunday's bulletin can be found at this Bulletins Link.

Missionaries

From Gary, Indiana to the Gambia, many partners help missionaries carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth.  Read Summer 2017 issue...  See https://engage.lcms.org/

Sunday School Crosses

On November 6, 2011, our celebration of All Saints Sunday, every classroom was given a cross. This symbol of the central teaching of our Sunday School is a clear reminder of our Lord Jesus Christ, Him crucified, Him risen.

This generous gift comes to Faith as part of a generous gift given by Duane Cummings in memory of his mother, Verna Cummings.

In addition to baking a lot of cakes for the church and years of service in our LWML, Verna was a longtime Sunday School teacher.

What an appropriate gift in memory of a loving teacher, a cross in every Sunday School classroom.

We thank Duane Cummings for the generosity that has made these crosses possible.