Greetings!
Hope your week is going well. Each week we continue to work a few more bugs out of this new ministry and we hope you're enjoying receiving it as much as we are enjoying putting it together. Keep forwarding it to family and friends. We love the many new subscribers. And please remember in all you do, that God is doing his work through your hands.
Pastor Tony
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This Week's Devotion 
Consequences
by Pastor Tony Haglund
"Claiming to be wise, they became fools;...for this reason God gave them up to degrading passions." -Romans 1:22,26
There is a difference between wrong behavior and consequences for wrong behavior. It is wrong to touch a hot stove but it is not wrong to have a burnt hand - rather the burnt hand is a consequence for the wrong behavior.
In the 1st chapter of Romans, the apostle Paul is talking about the wrong behavior of idolatry noting the gentiles who worshiped images resembling "mortal human beings or birds or four foot animals or reptiles." One of the consequences for this idolatry, according to St. Paul, was that God gave them up to "degrading passions" and people of the same gender therefore engaged in sexual activity with one another.
Does anyone else find the apostle's reasoning here strange?
Pull out your Bible, read carefully - it seems as if Paul is saying that the consequence of the wrong behavior of idolatry is homosexual intercourse. Of course Paul knew better than that - Paul knew that not everyone who engaged in idolatry was also going to engage in homosexual intercourse. Paul had to know, in fact, that this wasn't true for most people who engaged in idolatry.
So what is St. Paul trying to say?
Again, go back and read the beginning of Romans carefully and you'll see that Romans 1 is part of a carefully crafted argument where Paul wants to say that everyone (Jew or Gentile, faithful or unfaithful) is subject to God's law. Some claimed that only the people of Israel who were given the law were subject to God's law but Paul insisted that everyone, at some level, was a subject of the rule of the law because as could clearly be seen, the consequences of breaking the law were everywhere.
But, Paul further claims that because everyone is subject to the law of God, everyone also is subject to the grace of God. For all have sinned and fallen short yet even so, all are now justified by God's grace as a gift to us through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. (Romans 3:23-24)
As our church struggles with issues of sexuality and the Bible's teaching, it is good to be reminded that what we think the Bible says and what it really says are very often, different things. As we pray for God's Spirit and ask for God's leading, let us take some time to read carefully through the first three chapters of the Book of Romans and ask ourselves "what do these texts say and what don't they say?" Too often people's faith conviction is expressed in words like these: "the Bible says it and I believe it" and yet, so often these people have no idea what the Bible really says. Let's study...let's pray...let's have conversations...and let's rejoice in the law and the grace of God which rescues us from our broken ways that we might know the joy of salvation. |
What's Happening at the Church
Invitation to 50 Days of Prayer
As the ELCA prepares to meet in Assembly beginning on August 17th in Minneapolis, MN, Bishop Mark Hansen has invited our church to 50 days of prayer beginning on Monday, June 29th. The staff of CLC will be accepting this invitation to prayer and we would invite members of our congregation to do the same. For more information click here: 50 DAYS OF PRAYER |
Serving at the Banquet
CLC will be serving at The Banquet in Sioux Falls on Monday, June 29th. We will be serving the breakfast that day and really need some volunteers to help. Perhaps if you work in Sioux Falls, you could stop by and give us a hand before work or if you're retired, how about giving us a couple of hours that morning before you begin your day's activities? We do need RSVP's so we can organize the volunteers. If you can help, call us at the church office at 764-2429, e-mail Lori at cantonluth@iw.net or reply to this mailing. |
Support our Youth
Our June Mission of the Month is our Senior High Youth who are preparing to go to New Orleans in July for a mission trip and for the ELCA's National Youth Gathering. They are still about $2,500 short of their goal and desperately need our help. Mission of the Month envelopes can be found in the pews or just designate your check "mission of the month" on the memo line. |
Feed My Starving Children Opportunity
The Good Samaritan Society in Sioux Falls is bringing in Feed My Starving Children next week to provide opportunities for people to participate in this exciting ministry that feeds millions of kids around the world. This is a great service project for families of all ages, including kids as young as six years old. We will pack food bags that are sent to feed children that otherwise are not receiving adequate nutrition in countries such as Nicaragua, Guatemala and Haiti. To serve at this event please go to the Sioux Falls Convention Center Exhibit Hall 1 on Wed. June 24 at 8:30 pm or Thurs. June 25 at 9:30 am. Your time there will be 2 hours, most of it working in an assembly line style packing bags with rice, soy with nutrients, and dried vegetables. These bags feed a family of six enough nutrition for one day. If you are interested in carpooling contact Janet Henke by calling her at the church at 764-2429 or e-mailing her at parisheduc@iw.net. |
New Fall Schedule Proposed
One of the fun problems we have at CLC is an abudance of Sunday School students with not quite enough space. This fall we are proposing adding a second Sunday School session to help address this issue - the twist is that this second Sunday School session will be on Wednesday nights! Look for more information in the July newsletter but begin thinking now whether Wednesday night Sunday School might be an option for your family. In addition to Wednesday School we will also be offering an additional worship service that might be really helpful for families that have to travel a lot on weekends. Following is our proposed Fall Schedule that we would like to test:
Saturday
Worship at 5:00 p.m.
Sunday
Sunday School at 8:45 a.m.
Worship at 9:30 a.m.
Wednesday
Sunday School & Confirmation at 6:15 p.m.
Worship at 7:00 p.m. |
