"If My People..."

The images in the news in recent days leave many of us speechless. Words like horrifying, torture and barbaric keep coming to the forefront of our conversations with strangers and friends alike. They stand alongside words like freedom, liberty, hope and justice. The losses of the war in Iraq are becoming more frequent and graphically diverse. A Stanford linguist interviewed on the news last week suggested that Americans are having a hard time finding the words for what we are learning as our psychological and emotional loyalties may be found to be at cross purposes with our ethical and moral sensibilities.

At our most recent Council meeting, one member echoed some of this struggle by leading us in devotions, but sharing honestly that it was deeply difficult to find words to hold it all together. How do we take in the images of the world — deeply, horrifyingly broken, and integrate those images with the images of our faith and of God’s Easter presence and activity in the world? Not a small question. But then living the gospel is not a “small” commission for those who are called to bear it’s light and bring it’s power to life.

If the world were neatly divided into good people and bad people, good choices and bad choices, good situations and bad situations, we humans would have an easier time of knowing what we feel and think and want in various scenarios that flood our daily lives. The truth of life is that it is messy, clouded with partial information and semi-truths, messy and foggy and changing so quickly that on any given day it may seem beyond our ability to get clear about it all. Otherwise, good and kind and loving people make serious mistakes that give rise to a series of tragic results. Real people in every nation suffer and die, often unjustly. Sometimes we are those people; sometimes they are people we love, sometimes we look at them on the news with the distance of continents between us. In the midst of the pressures and demands on our lives we struggle to find the path that is true and right and good and to live in it.

Jesus was no stranger to this human struggle; his experience of humanity was firsthand. The choice that God made to become human was not naïve to who we humans can be, at our worst moments and in our most precious times. I believe God is grieved by our inhumanity toward one another. And I believe God holds all of life, together, even when we can’t begin to make sense of it.

In 2 Chronicles, the prophetic voice of God comes to us through the pages of human frailty and depravity, “If my people who are called by name will humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” Times are tough. Let us not run to easy answers or easy apathies. We are to be salt, light, transforming the world around us. Digging in our God-given heals and finding ways to be God’s healers. So, since we bear the name of Christ, let us live faithfully in the midst of the struggle, let us be on our knees, praying, seeking God, and acting for justice whenever and wherever we can, and looking eagerly for those places where God will, can and is healing the nations of the world, and you and I in it.

Praying with you for our hurting world,

Pastor Janet

Googling for Jesus

When I took on the task of updating the HTLC web site, I first started by "Googling for Jesus." In other words, I used the Google internet search engine to find web sites that have information about Jesus to give a clearer picture of what our web site should look like.

My research indicated that if you Googled for "Jesus," "Lutheran," "Lutheran Churches," or even "Holy Trinity Lutheran Church," Google could not find our web site. To the search engine, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church simply did not exist on the internet.

Since one of the core requirements is to share the good news that Jesus is our Lord and Savior — in addition to providing general church information — it is quite impossible to broadcast the good news without a basic listing in a well-known search engine like Google.

Although the web site has been operational for many years, search engines did not categorized our site as a Lutheran Church or anything remotely related to Jesus. The original web site version had a beautiful photograph of the Altar in the Sanctuary with the stained-glass windows in the background. This picture was easily worth one thousand words, but a search engine, which only understands textual content, could not interpret the beauty and the message in the picture.

After we started adding content to the site, search engines started categorizing our site as a Lutheran Church. Visitors were finally able to locate Holy Trinity on the internet. With the new web site version launched last May, every Ministry has a dedicated page that can be used as a vehicle to provide important ministry information that is so valuable to the church and to web site visitors.

I encourage you to visit and contribute to our web site. Everyone has a story to share. The web site now has a news feed capability that you can easily share your personal witness with the entire world in a matter of seconds. With everybody's contribution, the next time someone "Googles for Jesus," they will find the answer at Holy Trinity.

The Road to Vacation Bible School is now being paved

Explore God's great creation at this summer's Vacation Bible School.

The Easter Season Continues

The Easter season will continue to be a part of our worship together through the rest of this month. The Resurrection is the hope-filled message to our world that we must proclaim, and do with boldness. As the Easter season ends we find ourselves in the season of the church. The birth of the church with Pentecost, points us towards our mission as the "body of Christ Jesus" in the world.

Recently, I believe the Holy Spirit, which our God sent to guide us after Jesus ascended, has been speaking volumes. The proposal recent made to improve our Youth Ministry and our Christian Education Ministry have come in ways that lead me to think that God is working marvelously in our midst. Couple that with a year's work on developing a third worship opportunity and one can visibly see our Lord at work here. Holy Trinity is an exciting place to be. I know change isn't always an easy thing to deal with, but it is something that God does with us from time to time to make His work even stronger. Pray about that won't you, that we will be doing the will of our Lord in this place, touching many in His name.

See you in church,

Pastor Frank