Covenant to Care
December 8, 2010
Covenant to Care (www.covenanttocare.org)
Covenant to Care for Children is a nonprofit, private agency working with faith communities to meet the needs of abused, neglected, and impoverished children and teens. Through a network of volunteers, individual donors, and businesses, we work to foster caring and nurturing environments for children and youth. Our main initiative, Adopt A Social Worker, matches social workers with faith communities to assist in providing the basic goods to meet the material needs of children. Last year, an estimated 27,850 children in Connecticut received basic necessities through the Adopt A Social Worker program. With the help of more than 200 faith communities and over 1,000 volunteers and donors we have served more than 500,000 children since the agency was founded in 1987.
Standing firm while under attack
December 7, 2010
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Who Jesus Really Is
December 7, 2010
Did Jesus fail to come when you rubbed the lantern?
Then perhaps Jesus is not a genie.
Did Jesus fail to punish your enemies?
Then perhaps Jesus is not a cop.
Did Jesus fail to make everything run smoothly?
Then perhaps Jesus is not a mechanic.
Over and over again, our disappointments draw us deeper and deeper into
who Jesus really is … and what Jesus really does.
William A. Ritter, Collected Sermons
While Waiting, Pay Attention to Today
November 30, 2010
Luke 21:34-36
“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Jesus warns about preoccupation with the end-times predictions and instead commands simple attentiveness to God’s presence every moment of every day: Be alert at all times (21:36)
We are tired of waiting for our dreams to come true. So we become numb to our world and seem to just walk through each day with little thought, but of getting through another day. What if we became more aware of each moment? Jean-Pierre de Caussade called it: “The Sacrament of the Present Moment.” He described it this way: “This discovery of divine action in everything that happens, each moment , is the most subtle wisdom possible regarding the ways of God in thisl life.”
What will you do today to help cultivate this simple attentiveness?
From a letter to Bonhoeffer’s fiancee Maria von Wedemeyer, December 1, 1943, written from Tegel prison camp.
I think we’re going to have an exceptionally good Christmas. The very fact that every outward circumstance precludes our making provisions for it will show whether we can be content with what is truly essential.I used to be very fond of thinking up and buying presents, but now that we have nothing to give, the gift God gave us in the birth of Chirst will seem all the more glorious; the emptier our hands, the better we understand what Luther meant by his dying words: “We’re beggars; it’s true.” The poorer our quarters, the more clearly we perceive that our hearts should be Christ’s home on earth .
Pastor Debner
Zion Lutheran Church
Why does our church use Blue instead of Purple for Advent?
November 29, 2010
I found this blog that seemed to sum up the answers to why we use purple or blue at Advent.
From The Lutheran Zephyr a blog of Chris Duckworth
Advent: Blue or Purple?
What is the “proper” color of Advent – blue or purple? Purple was the long-standing color used by Lutheran congregations, as well as other liturgical churches, through most of the 20th century. The purple of Advent and of Lent served two purposes – emphasizing the royalty of Christ, as kings in western culture over the centuries were often adorned with purple garments. Furthermore, purple has a penitential nature to it, inviting introspection and repentance on behalf of the believer.
Indeed, the connection of Lent – with its pilgrimage to the suffering of the cross – with penitential acts is pretty easy to make. As we reflect on the sin of the world that nailed our Lord to the cross, we also confess our own sin and seek to live more faithful lives.
But penitence in Advent, in preparation for Christ’s birth? Absolutely. For as we prepare to see Christ face to face, in the Christmas incarnation and in his promised return to earth, we anticipate both joy and judgment. Joy, for in coming to us God is bridging the gap that separates humanity from its Creator. But judgment, too, for in coming to us God will confront our sin and brokenness, and pass judgment on the degree to which humanity has been unfaithful to God’s commands and vision for human community.
That’s a pretty good case for a purple Advent, don’t you think?
Well, blue has a pretty good case to make, too. In the late 20th century, some churches began to use blue for Advent, while retaining purple for Lent. Why?
I can’t give you the historical details – what great church councils or scholars or congregations first began the shift. But I can tell you that blue offers us a different shade, so to speak, of Advent. If the purple of earlier years resonates with the penitential nature of the season and draws certain parallels to Lent, the deep blue of Advent highlights the expectant nature of the season, and of our faith.
Deep blue is the color of the clear, predawn sky, the color that covers the earth in the hours before the sun rises in the east. Most of us are not looking at the sky at that hour – perhaps we’re still asleep, or too weary to notice it as we get onto the Metro or hop into our car for a long commute. Nonetheless, a deep, dark blue is the color that covers us in the dark, cold hours before the sun dawns.
Thus we use deep blue for Advent to shade the season with a hint of expectation and anticipation of the dawn of Christ. Surely penitence and spiritual discipline is part of the traditional Advent observance, and this is why so many of you are using Advent wreaths and our congregation’s Advent devotional to mark the days of Advent. Advent is a time to recommit to our faith and to our God – no matter the color! But Advent involves more than penitence, and by using deep blue we err on the side of emphasizing the church’s hope-filled and faithful watch for Christ. The deep blue of Advent is meant to inspire in us the hope of faith, and to encourage us to keep watch for the promised light of Christ to break over the horizon, changing night into day, darkness into light, and filling our lives and our world with a holy and righteous splendor.
No matter your color preference, I hope and pray that you will find this season to be shaded by both the purple and the blue, by the reflective self-examination suggested by the penitential purple, and by the hopeful anticipation suggested by the predawn blue … for both colors call us to lives of faithfulness in this time before the coming of our Lord.
Waiting is an Art (Mon Advent 1)
November 29, 2010
Today is Monday, November 29, 2010. We are in the season of Advent. Advent means “coming”. We are waiting and preparing for the coming of Christ, as the babe in Bethlehem and as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords on the last day.Celebrating Advent means being able to wait.
Waiting Is an Art
Isaiah 11:1-4
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.
Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten. We are a people who no longer wait, we get what we want now. Credit cards make it so easy to purchase items right away. The discipline of saving and waiting to buy items is no longer a reality. We are impatient waiting in lines. When you think about it, there are very few things that we wait for anymore. I wonder if this is because we don’t want to do without something. It might show our weakness, or our lack of success, if we have to do without something.
Have you ever struggled with the deep questions of life? Waiting for the truth to be revealed? The questions about why things have happened or why events have not taken place as your dreamed or envisioned, or planned. It’s at time like this that our impatience hinders us. For often the greatest, most profound, tenderest things in the world, we must wait. To open your soul to the soul of another person, to find love is something that can not be hurried. To wait nine months and hold the new born child in your arms is an event that can’t be hurried.
Waiting is an art that must be learned as Christians, as we wait for the day of the Lord to come. Discipleship – discipline – are the ways that we live as we wait. Advent is a season to help us learn new disciplines as we wait. What discipline will you begin today, that will help you wait in this season of Advent?
From a letter to Bonhoeffer’s fiancee Maria von Wedemeyer, December 13, 1943, written from Tegel prison camp.
Be brave for my sake, dearest Maria, even if this letter is your only token of my love this Christmas-tide. We shall both experience a few dark hours-why should we disguise that from each other? We shall ponder the incomprehensibility of out lot and be assailed by the question of why, over and above the darkness already enshrouding humanity, we should be subjected to the bitter anguish of a separation whose purpose we fail to understand…And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives...
Lord God, keep us awake in our faith, alert and ready to do what is right. May, the Lord be as near to you as your clothes. May he help you live in good ways and keep you awake in faith. Amen.
Sincerely,
Pastor Debner
Zion Lutheran Church
The Advent Season is a Season of Waiting (Sun. Advent 1)
November 29, 2010
Today is the first day of the Advent Season. Each day in the Advent Season, I will be sending a daily reflection. Most days will include a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945). He is one of the twentieth century’s most beloved theologians, who was also a Lutheran pastor. He was part of the resistance movement against Adolf Hitler, which resulted in his arrest in 1943. He spent the next two years in prison, writing to his fiancee, Maria, to his family, friends and to the church. In April of 1945, ten days before the Third Reich surrendered, Bonhoeffer was hanged at the age of 39. The writings he left behind continue to speak to us of God’s bold vision for his called out people, the church.
| The Advent Season Is a Season of Waiting |
| Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me..Rev. 3:20
The Advent Season is a season of waiting. Jesus is standing at the door knocking. Will you open the door? We don’t open the door for just anyone, especially those who seem different than us. Maybe for Christ? But what if you were told that our Lord is coming in the form of a beggar, asking for help. As long as there are people, Christ will walk this earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you. Christ is standing at the door; he lives in the form of a human being among us. Do you want to close the door or open it? Christ is knocking. It’s not Christmas yet, but it’s also not the great last Advent, the last coming of Christ. We live in the in between. In our waiting, we are to be about our Lord’s work. We are called to be people of compassion, who heal, forgive, restore and resurrect all those who have fallen. In this season of Advent we are waiting, for lots of things. But as Christians we are waiting for the final Advent, the final coming when Christ will make all things new. When Christ will no longer be hidden in the neighbor, but revealed in all his glory. As you wait this Advent, will you have your eyes open, spying where Christ might be? Are you longing for the final Advent when all things will be new? We can, and should also, celebrate Christmas despite the ruins around us….I think of you as you now sit together with the children and with all the Advent decorations–as in earlier years you did with us. We must do all this, even more intensively because we do not know how much longer we have. .. Lord God, keep us awake in our faith, alert and ready to do what is right. May, the Lord be as near to you as your clothes. May he help you live in good ways and keep you awake in faith. Amen. Sincerely, |
Automate your Offering
November 5, 2010
Automate your regular offering
by Simply Giving…
provided in conjunction with Vanco Services
Zion Lutheran Church wants to remind everyone that we offer electronic giving as a way to automate your regular offering. Electronic giving provides convenience for you and much-needed donation consistency for our congregation. Getting started is easy. Authorization forms and additional information are available in the Gathering Place, from the church office or by calling Ruth Buchanan at 860-621-0316.
Someone will be available after all services in the Gathering Place to hand out Sign-up forms and to answer questions. There are numerous parishioners already participating in this form of giving. It is our hope that others will consider this easy and convenient way to contribute to your church.
Food for the Poor
November 1, 2010
Food For the Poor at Zion Nov. 13 & 14
Food For The Poor is a Christian relief and development agency dedicated to sharing the love of Christ by helping the poor. By working through a well-established network of clergy, they deliver aid where it is needed most. Founded in 1982, Food For The Poor aids the poor in the Caribbean and Latin America. The ministry provides lifesaving nutrition to malnourished children, builds houses for families in need of shelter, supports orphanages and homes for the elderly, provides medical care and supplies in hospitals and clinics, drills wells for the thirsty, educates children, provides skills training for the unemployed and much more. They share the love of Jesus Christ by aiding our poorest brothers and sisters.
Zion Lutheran Church has become a “Power Broker” for reduced rate electricity.
September 23, 2010
The website is:
For signing up and getting a reduced rate on your electricity from our supplier, Zion Lutheran Church gets a rebate! You will still receive the same bill from your present electric company, just the supplier will be different. Please go to the web site listed above for more detail about the program.
Will CL&P or UI be upset if I choose an electric supplier? No. CL&P and UI ENCOURAGE their customers to choose an electric supplier to help lower energy costs.
Will my bill look different? No, your bill will look the same. The only difference you will see is Discount Power will be listed as your electric supplier.
Who do I call if my power goes out? You still call the public utility if your service goes out or you have any other repair issues. For CL&P – 800-286-2000
Do I have to sign any type of contract? No, residential customers can cancel anytime.
To Make the switch go to zionlutheranpower.org
