Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burnin’ 

Video Service Link:  https://youtu.be/zhfLCmFLahw

I have been humming this gospel song throughout the week as I, like many of you, stayed up late awaiting election results and what they would mean for our country in the days, weeks, and months ahead.  Many of us burned the midnight oil and still we kept waiting.  As I write these words, we are still waiting.  Perhaps serendipitously, our Gospel text for Sunday is about waiting and watching and being ready for whatever might come… or be delayed in coming.  This Sunday we hear the Parable of the 10 Bridesmaids. 5 bring enough oil for a long night of waiting, but the other 5 do not.  It is a bit of a foreshadowing to our Advent season just around the corner.  Yes, as Americans, we wait, but as Christians we wait hopefully rather than anxiously.  We wait alertly rather than lacadaisically.  We wait actively rather than passively.  Most certainly we wait not expecting a president to save us but rather for a Messiah, who has already saved us.  So keep your lamps trimmed and burnin’ …

Worship Where You Are!

Join us to Worship Where You Are this Sunday at 9AM & 11AM.  This week as we gather together, bring a candle or better yet, an oil lamp to your worship space.   We give thanks to this week’s WWYA Worship Leaders, our WWYA Musicians, and our WWYA Production Crew!  Scriptures this week are Amos 5:18-24 and Matthew 25:1-13.

All Saints Join Us in Thin Places & Thin Moments

Video Service at:  https://youtu.be/NLYDxf8gy8E

All Saints Day is Sunday. On this special day we honor the saints of the past and present. During our Worship Where You Are, we will honor the TLLC members who have joined the Saints Triumphant in heaven throughout the year, but I also invite and encourage you to gather items to make your own home ofrenda to remember the special saints in your life. An ofrenda is a traditional part of the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration. Home ofrendas include pictures and mementos of loved ones as well as saints of the church along with flowers, food, drink, and candles.

Here I Stand... You Stand Over There!

Video Version On Youtube link:  https://youtu.be/YabP_EmbFKM

Yes, it’s Reformation Sunday, albeit in a way supremely appropriate… which is to say reformed. As Lutherans, we are rooted in the Reformation, but it should also mean that we are rooted in ongoing reformation. For us, the Reformation can’t simply be a celebration but also must be a transformation. It can’t simply be our past but must also be our future. And Luther will be with us on Sunday to make sure! Most scholars presume that Luther’s Reformation wouldn’t have stuck were it not for the media of the time – Gutenberg’s printing press – that allowed his ideas to be shared and his fame to keep him safe. Today our worship is being shared literally around the world thanks to the media of our time – the internet (not to mention a rarely-resting tech crew!). I know WWYA isn’t the same as our usual in-person worship, but I have heard from so many of you about how it is the one thing keeping you going at times. Because of the pandemic our worship, connections, and faith are being re-formed. May we trust in the transformation God is leading in us!  Worship is essential, but how exactly we worship is adiaphora. On this, here I stand… you stand over there… at least for now!

Lession and Gospel:  Romans 3:19-28,  John 8:31-36

God's work. Our hands. Let's serve today.

Video of today's service can be found on the youtube link: 

https://youtu.be/W9o5zTXMdZE

Scriptures this week are Psalm 104:24-30, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, and Mark 2:1-12. 

On the 25th anniversary of the ELCA in 2013, church leaders decided (and I would say rightly so) that the best way to celebrate was not to simply give ourselves a party or a pat on the back but rather to serve our neighbor.  That year, “God’s Work. Our Hands.” Sunday began, and it has become a yearly tradition for the thousands of congregations across the ELCA, including Triumphant Love.  Despite needing to be physically distanced God still needs our hands at work in the world so Let’s Serve Today!

 

Join us to Worship Where You Are this Sunday at 9AM & 11AM.  This week God’s work is done through hands – those of Jesus and of four friends.  For your worship space, bring something that symbolizes how you do God’s work with YOUR hands. 

 

Join us to Worship Where You Are this Sunday at 9AM & 11AM.  This week God’s work is done through hands – those of Jesus and of four friends.  For your worship space, bring something that symbolizes how you do God’s work with YOUR hands.

This Sundays Video of this service can be found on youtube using this link.

https://youtu.be/_FnuR338tl4

Setting the Table Where We Are  

  This Sunday’s texts will have your mouth watering because they are all about feasting!  In Isaiah we are given a vision of the great feast to come. In Jesus’ parable about a great banquet, those invited do not come, so the invitation is extended to others. In Psalm 23 and in our communion liturgy God prepares a table before us. With great joy we feast at the table of the Lord, and we go forth to share the wonderful invitation with others hungering and thirsting for the abundant life of God. 

Worship Where You Are!

Join us to Worship Where You Are this Sunday at 9AM & 11AM.  This week Jesus tells the parable about a great banquet and invites us to the table where we feast together.   As we celebrate Holy Communion, remember to make or buy your own bread and wine/juice.

 

We give thanks to this week’s WWYA Worship Leaders, Deb Hilton, Robert Gonzalez, and Tim Holck, our WWYA Musicians, and our WWYA Production Crew! Scriptures this week are Isaiah 25:1-9, Psalm 23, and Matthew 22:1-14.