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Greetings Grace Family,

After taking last month off writing an article for this newsletter (due mostly to writer’s block, but also because I really enjoyed Bishop Eaton’s article. I hope you did too!), I’m back! There were a number of topics I considered writing about this month like fear, or the history and purpose of why we do the things in our worship services that we do. But I decided to write about Romans. Not the residents of Rome, but Paul’s Epistle.

As long as I’ve been at Grace and teaching Bible study, I have mostly taught from the historical narrative books. Genesis, Exodus, the Samuels and Kings, even Acts from the New Testament, just to name a few. I find the historical books fascinating for many reasons and they are also fairly easy to follow. After finishing 2 Kings I decided to venture back into the NT and explore faith and theology with those who participate in Bible study. Studying Romans did present some challenges for both the teacher and students. One of those challenges is the density of Paul’s theological work and his writing style. One of the other challenges is studying a book that requires one to examine one’s theology. That may not seem like a big deal, but the truth is we humans tend to have a pretty simple understanding of topics like grace, righteousness and salvation. But these are deeply intellectual topics that can make one’s brain start to ache when exploring the endless layers of some of the key tenants of our Lutheran Doctrine.

It is not a criticism to say we tend to have a simple understanding of our doctrine. When presented with the reality that Jesus dies for our sins and as a result those who believe receive salvation and eternal life, it is like receiving the greatest gift ever! I do not have to know, necessarily how that gift was made or how it works in order to understand and appreciate its incredible value. If Jesus said it is true, that is good enough for me! Taking grace at face value does not diminish its blessings. I was perfectly happy with face value for many, many years of my life as a Christian.

When I started my education to become a pastor and began to explore the how’s and why’s of my faith I did not anticipate the depth of the change that it would create in my relationship with God and my worldview. Silly me! It was challenging for sure, but I am so grateful for the process and its results, results that continue to evolve. That is one of the beautiful things about this kind of study. The deeper I went the more I wanted to learn and grow! But the truth is it can be uncomfortable at times having deeply held beliefs challenged and it requires a great deal of thought. It also does not change the basic truth of saved by grace through faith.

So deciding to teach from Paul’s letter to the Romans, perhaps the most theological book in all of scripture, was accompanied by the concern that my fellow learners would quickly lose interest, thinking, “Why do I need to know how grace works if it does not add to its benefits?” I imagined I would be teaching a class of one (That one being Lindi because she would never want to hurt my feelings) after a couple chapters of rich Pauline theology. Well, I am happy to say that as of this writing and four chapters of Romans I have not lost any of the folks who regularly attend the study!

I hope one of the reasons for that is studying a book such as Romans, as hard as it is at times to understand, has resulted in what I experienced in seminary. That ‘going deeper’ has resulted in a closer relationship with Jesus and a greater appreciation for the Gospel. This is what I experienced throughout my education and what I continue to experience today as I am being transformed by the renewing of my mind (Romans 12:2). It’s never to late to join our Bible study! You might just discover that below the surface the riches of God’s grace are infinite!

Yours In Christ,

Pastor Steve

Greeting Siblings in Christ!

As we are well into the summer months it is typically a time when we see less activity at Grace than the rest of the year. There are a number of reasons why this is, but that is not the focus of this month’s article. Our entire campus does not slow down during the summer and one space that remains busy and vital to the life at Grace is our Preschool. Theirs is a year round time of busyness with many children being cared for, loved and learning about the love of Jesus.

I want to dedicate this article to the group of faithful servants that care for, love and share Christ’s love with those precious children because they deserve to be recognized for their dedication, but also over the last three plus years they have endured unprecedented challenges unlike any time in recent memory. Ms. Christy and the teachers at our Preschool deserve sainthood for pushing through the pandemic and doing it as well as could have possibly been imagined, and truly without complaint. None of us outside of the childcare community will ever understand what they dealt with, and continue to deal with since early in 2020.

More recently the issue Ms. Christy has been dealing with is finding and keeping qualified teachers employed at the school. This year there have been two teachers that have left the preschool for different reasons, leaving just three full-time teachers and Ms. Christy to care for the infants and children. They are still operating with full compliance of the State of California’s requirements for teacher to children ratios, but being two teachers down has made life more challenging for Ms. Christy and her faithful staff.

I have said it before and will continue to say, “We are blessed to have the best preschool director anywhere!” It is a difficult job under the best circumstances, but under the current conditions it is nearly impossible, yet Ms. Christy has never let the quality of care at the Preschool dip even a little. It means that she has to do more in order to ensure the children remain the only priority, never compromising the standard she has upheld for the decades she has been our director. And she has done it with less help than ever.

Ms. Christy is not the only one doing extra work. Ms. Jules with the 2-3 year olds, Ms. Cerise with the 4-5 year olds, and Ms. Shraddha in the infant care room have gone the extra mile, more like 10 miles, in maintain the standard of excellence at our Preschool. I cannot say enough about the dedication of these three extraordinary teachers! They are willing to do whatever is needed to keep things running smoothly, not because they are well paid, but because they love what they do and the children they take care of. Ms. Christy and these three teachers exhibit the love of Christ, His sacrificial love, in ways that are truly admirable.

You may be wondering, “Why doesn’t Ms. Christy just hire more teachers?” It seems as if since the pandemic many people in early childhood development have left the industry to seek employment elsewhere. Ms. Christy has been advertising and networking for months in search of qualified teachers and she has had very little interest from qualified persons. There simply are not qualified candidates to fill those two openings. And it is not just at Grace that this issue exists. According to Ms. Christy and her friends in the childcare business it is an industry wide problem.

So, what can we do? Well, pray…daily…multiple times a day for qualified candidates, but also for Ms. Christy, our teachers and children. Spread the word. Do you know anyone who has childcare experience or is qualified to work at a preschool and is looking for work or a new opportunity? Please tell them about the openings at Grace. Unfortunately, volunteering is not an option unless you have the certification to work at a preschool. But we can offer our thanks to Ms. Christy, Jules, Cerise and Shraddha. Cards would be nice. Maybe buying lunch for the four of them? Gift cards? Flowers? Anything that conveys a message of gratitude and that recognizes how blessed we are to have the dedicated staff at the Preschool. I’m probably going to get in trouble with Christy for writing this article because she does not do what she does to be recognized, but God put it on my heart to let you all know how blessed we are in the hope that that would result in a huge outpouring of appreciation from you all.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Steve

Greetings Grace Family,

The summer solstice falls on June 21 this year and the longest day of the year marks the beginning of summer. It may feel like summer will never arrive based on a very long fall and winter and a spring that was not very springy. But, summer will come with or without hotter weather. The flipping of the calendar from May to June and the change of season has me thinking about the seasons of the church.

The day of Pentecost, which just happened on May 28, marks the end of six months of seasonal changes in the church calendar. I would not say it is fast paced but there are six seasons that begin at the end of what is called “Ordinary Time” in Church parlance. This year it spans from June 1 until November 29, or about six months of the year.

I have always found it odd that it is called ‘Ordinary Time’ for a variety of reasons. More on that later. Once we are through the longest season of the Church year, Advent begins. It is followed by, of course, Christmas. Then comes Epiphany and the time after Epiphany followed by Lent, the Three Day (otherwise known as the Triduum) and Easter which lasts 50 days.

There is a rhythm to the various seasons and the order in which the come, coinciding with the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. Advent is the time of anticipation for the birth of the Savior of the world (Christmas). We ponder what the Incarnation means for us and the world as we discover with the Wise Men who the child born in Bethlehem is and will become (Epiphany). Lent has both a sense of anticipation and sel-reflection in light of the death of the One Who Came to Save Us. Easter is the time for halleluiahs and rejoicing with the heavens at the defeat of sin and death, God’s grace manifest in an empty tomb. The 50 days coincide with the amount of time it is believed that Jesus spent on earth after His resurrection and completing His earthly life with His ascension.

The seasons, to a large degree, and their respective themes mirror the rhythm of our lives though not necessarily in the same order. The dash between the date of our birth and the date of our death is representative of a life filled with happy times, sad times, times of reflection and anticipation, what we call ‘seasons of life’. For a more detailed list of those seasons read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. We also experience what can be called ‘ordinary times’ when things are well, pretty ordinary. Perhaps that is what those who labeled the seasons of the Church had in mind when they named the time after Pentecost as ordinary?

The main reason why I find the very mundane label for our longest season is I do not see anything ordinary about the mystical body of Christ otherwise known as the Church. For almost 2,000 years the Church (not the buildings but the people of God) have borne witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in ways that are anything but ordinary. If you know the story from the Gospels you know that at Jesus’ ascension he instructed His followers to go, not to a specific location, but to take His love and the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Since that time billions have come to believe in Jesus. I would call that extraordinary.

And that is really what ‘Ordinary Time’ is all about. It is about being the witnesses. It is about the going. It is about the work of the Church, not just what we do on Sunday but what we do out in the world as individuals and as the Body of Christ. We need time for the various seasons of anticipation, discovery, contemplation, rejoicing and lament that are a part of the seasons of the Church. We have six months of mostly time for self, but there should be an equal amount of time spent being the selfless witnesses we are called to be. It is an amazing balance and mix that is divinely designed to help us maximize our witness.

Perhaps it should be called ‘Extraordinary Time.”

Yours in Christ,
Pr. Steve

Greeting Grace Family,

Spring has finally arrived! A little later than usual this year after what seemed like a very long and frigid winter, Southern California frigid that is. The flowers in my garden at home are blooming and as I survey the land as I move about I notice everything is green and colorful, obvious signs of growth that signal it’s spring. It is a time of renewal and growth after the darkness and chill of winter.

I imagine that mirrors the emotions that the followers of Jesus felt during His time with them post resurrection. Easter continues long after we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection day and our lectionary provides us with stories from the Gospels about the things our resurrected Lord did prior to His ascension. I’ve always been fascinated by those stories from a human point of view and how mind blowing it must have been for those who actually saw Jesus and what it meant to them.

I’m sure everyone knew that Jesus had been crucified as I imagine word spread pretty quickly among the people of that day considering His fame. That must have been unbelievable for those who believed He was the Messiah. I would guess that the news of His death brought an all consuming sense of darkness and a chill that struck them to the bone. A dark winter of emotions, if you will. It must have felt like a hopelessness that would never end.

Then, Jesus appears to the women at the tomb, and then shows up on the road to Emmaus, then pops in on the Disciples in a locked room. Surprising? More like shocking! But, in a good way, a very good way. Imagine the absolute and immediate sense of jubilation that would have filled their hearts. Once those feelings of pure emotions subsided the question, “What does this mean?” had to pop into their minds. The answer to that question remains open ended to this day 2000 years after Jesus resurrection.

One reason it remains open ended is because like pretty much everything God does in our world is far beyond our full comprehension. Another reason for that is that in some ways it’s different for each of us and there’s really no limit to what it can mean to us. I spoke about this in a recent sermon about Holy Communion. The bread and wine represent the entirety of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The power in that is unlimited and goes so far beyond just a reminder of the forgiveness of our sin. If you want to hear more go to our YouTube channel and listen to the sermon from April 23 if you weren’t in worship that day or watching the livestream.

How is this related to spring? I’m glad you asked. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus is for us an endless source of renewal and growth, which is how I understand spring. We will all experience dark periods, periods of uncertainty, during our lives but will always have Jesus’ resurrection to remind us that we always have hope in this life and in the life to come. Happy Easter!

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Steve