ELCA Malaria Initiative--Final Push to $4 Million

Dear friend,

I am thankful for your support of the ELCA Malaria Campaign and ask that you make one more special gift this year. We have less than two months to raise $1 million -- and we need you.

Today, thousands of children in Africa will contract malaria. It will start with a fever, headache and vomiting. But within just a few days, the disease can turn deadly -- all because of the bite of a mosquito.

A child dies from malaria every 60 seconds. Most are children under the age of 5.

Our church is making a difference. It has been less than two years since the ELCA Malaria Campaign joined the global movement to fight malaria, and we have already seen a reduction in the number of deaths from this preventable, treatable disease. Thank you for being part of this!

We have more to do. This year, our goal is to raise an additional $4 million toward our goal of raising $15 million by 2015. Thanks to the generosity of people like you, we just passed the $3 million mark.

We are so close -- but we need you. 

Give now to help reach our goal. Your gift will ensure that the work of the ELCA Malaria Campaign continues. We need to raise $1 million more by the end of our fiscal year -- January 31 -- so that malaria programs in Africa that are just getting off the ground will continue to gain momentum. I know we can do it!

Your gifts are critical -- families in Africa will benefit from your support.

We are a church that believes God is calling us into the world -- together. Join the ELCA Malaria Campaign, working with Lutheran churches in Africa, to provide what is needed to help eliminate deaths from this disease -- for good. Please give today. Thank you for your gifts, prayers and partnership. In Christ's service,  Jessica Nipp Hacker Coordinator, ELCA Malaria Campaign

How to Celebrate Advent and Lower Anxiety

Some things just work in the doing of them. For example: take a really deep and full breath right now. Now take another one. Can you feel your body melt slightly, your heart slow, your head ooze out tensions into your neck? There is a reason practitioners of meditation, prayer, and exercise focus on breathing--it matters.

Keeping Time matters: This week is the beginning of the year, according to Christian tradition. We keep time according to a slightly different pattern from the lunar calendar. The year begins with anticipation of Christ's coming, and Christ's birth. We begin a new year recognizing God is the Lord of our years, and our weeks, and our days, and our hours. We begin the year relaxing into a sense of God's watchful care over all of our moments, keeping time with us.

Living life on God's clock brings real peace. It is relaxing to melt into the solidity of the Christian calendar, the life of weekly worship, the offices of daily prayer.

Prayer is healthy for those who practice it.

Ritual matters: In church last Sunday we had distributed a simple Advent calendar, and our goal as a family is to do the activity for each day. So last night our family blessed each room in our house, per calendar instructions.

We tried to invent a ritual that would make sense to the kids. So we lit a candle and carried it around to each room in the house (having dimmed the house lights in advance). One person said a prayer over each room, prayers to bless sleep, help stay clean, lots of thanksgiving for food and toys. By the third room, even our 22 month old had the liturgy figured out, and so whispered quietly, "God---thank you."

By the end, there was this sense of unity in our family, prayer calling us together in a common purpose. In each room, we made the sign of the cross. We did the cross together. And our oldest had invented a portion of the ritual I will never forget. In an operatic manner, he sang "Aaaaaaaaameeeeeeeen" the way families sing the Amen at the conclusion of the Doxology.

It was somber and hilarious in equal measure.

Keeping time as keeping calm: In a sense, keeping time and keeping rituals are keeping calm and lowering anxiety. The benefit is in the doing of them. Often when we are sad, anxious, depressed, we tend to avoid these habits. We stop exercising. We fail to call friends to talk on the phone. The way out of the hole, the healing that is available, is to step into the routines, and let the givenness of the ritual and prayers lead us to a new place.

This week we are mindful of Zechariah. In fact our mid-week worship will include meditation on his story at the beginning of Luke.

Once when he was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside (Luke 1:8-10).

With Zechariah, or at least with the whole assembly of the people praying outside, we give ourselves over to these practices, entrusted to us by God and the communities out of which we are risen, and we trust that in them, God will give us rest.

Do not be anxious. Light some candles. Do not fear. Breath. Find some others to breathe with. Celebrate Advent.

Christmas decorating is biblical (kind of)

If you have been wondering whether or how all the Christmas decorating you have been doing or are planning to do this month aligns with Scripture, just consider this passage, one of the lectionary texts for Sunday:

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on for ever the beauty of the glory from God.
Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
for God will show your splendour everywhere under heaven.
For God will give you evermore the name,
‘Righteous Peace, Godly Glory’.

The woods and every fragrant tree
have shaded Israel at God’s command.
For God will lead Israel with joy,
in the light of his glory,
with the mercy and righteousness that come from him. 

So when you're hanging those ornaments or weaving your wreath, sing this little song of Baruch. It'll keep the reason in the season while decorating the season for a reason. 

Promise In Christ Overcomes Shame

Audio of sermon for Advent 1 exploring the prevalent theme of shame and judgment in Scripture in relationship to the coming (advent) of Christ.

"When Christ comes to us there is no shame, there is no fear."

"If it's the forgiveness of sins, it's the forgiveness of sins."