Lutheran Church of Providence

January, 2020 Newsletter

Pastor’s Corner

Well, here it is the end of one year and the beginning of another. Many people are making resolutions to improve their lives and to get a new start on things? I wonder how many people are resolving to grow in their faith and relationship with God. How many are committing to eliminate a certain sin that has been hurting their relationship with God? How many have decided to become more regular in their daily devotion life and in their church attendance to worship God?

Often we concern ourselves with our bodies and not with our souls. Often we want to make our life on earth more complete but neglect to improve our life with God and to prepare ourselves to be with Him forever. God has richly blessed us in the past years and wants us to draw closer to Him so He can bless us even more in the future. God has chosen us through Holy Baptism to be His sons and daughters.

    I predict that the church, Christianity in general and our faith will come under increased pressure in 2020. Satan wants to draw us away from God and will do all he can to be successful. Seldom will he act openly but he will challenge us to “water down” our faith, only observe the parts of our faith that we like, or scam us into believing that we can do whatever we want as long as we tell God ‘I’m sorry.’

Not everyone can and will follow God because He calls us to such a high level and expects us to imitate Him in all ways. Just belonging to a church or saying we are a member isn’t enough. We are required to ‘walk the walk’ and show people who our God is by our actions and not just our words. We need to strive to keep the entire Word of God and not just the parts we want to keep. We need to ‘be about our Father’s business’ daily in all we say and do.

In the years I have been with you at the Lutheran Church of Providence, you have worked hard and helped the church get back on its feet. I thank you from the depths of my being ― but, we aren’t done yet. This year we need to invite others to join us, we need to rebuild our Sunday School, strengthen our bonds with the preschool, serve the underprivileged in our community and strengthen our bonds with God and with one another.

God has a mission for us in the new year and we must tackle it with joy and determination. Again, I thank you for your love and support and I look forward to serving God with you in a new year.

Pastor Weikart

Lutheran Church of Providence

December, 2019 Newsletter

Pastor’s Corner

The Lord is coming ― Christmas is almost here. The excitement builds as we look forward to the holidays. People will panic as December 25 comes and aren’t ready yet. There’s all the big things that haven’t been completed as well as a lot of little things that need to be done. One question always looms for us ― how do we prepare spiritually for the coming of Jesus?

John the Baptist tells us to repent ― change our sinful ways ― walk in the light of Christ. It’s hard to repent, however, because much of what we do has become habit and we’re not even aware of how and why we sin. This means that we have to examine ourselves and look at the negative and not the good parts of ourselves. However, Christ came to save sinful people and we are all sinners in one way or another. Often we want to see our good side and not our sinful side.

When Jesus gave us His body and blood in Holy Communion, He instructed us to examine ourselves so we are truly prepared to have our sins forgiven. This ought to be a weekly assurance but one that we often neglect. John the Baptist also told us to be baptized. How many people do you know who aren’t baptized? How many people have you asked to find out if they’re baptized? Many people neglect baptism when their children are young and say they want their

children to decide for themselves when they get older. Unless they ask about it, it may not seem to be that important. That is why we need to ask and offer to help them join the family of God.

Christmas also reminds us that Christ will come to earth again for the second time. Each year we are closer to Him returning. Are we ready at any second to meet Him? How are we living our lives? How are we obeying the commands He has given us? Are there areas of our faith that need strengthening?

Because Christ hasn’t returned yet we assume it won’t happen in our lifetime but it could happen at any time. All the signs that the Bible tells us about have been or are being fulfilled. We are told that His coming will be like a thief in the night. Many people were surprised when Christ first came as a baby and many will be surprised and shocked when He comes again.

Time is short and we have a lot to do to be prepared for Christ’s coming. Let’s focus this year on our spiritual preparation as we prepare to worship God on Christmas Eve at 7:00 PM and Christmas Day at 10:00 AM. May God Bless Us, Have mercy on us and keep us in His care.

Pastor Weikart

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Merry Christmas!

Every time you say, “born of the Virgin Mary” in the Apostle’s Creed, words that can easily flow from the lips, do you give pause and truly marvel at that statement? Jesus being born of a virgin is miraculous enough but being born at all even more so! God the Son, born! The One eternally being Begotten of the Father is conceived by God the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary and is BORN. God born! The only greater moments in history that literally shook creation itself and caused heaven to marvel was when God made flesh Jesus died on the cross and then rose from the tomb.

We find ourselves in the Advent season, looking forward to celebrating God’s incredible gift to us of sending His only Begotten Son into our very flesh to be our substitute – the One Who would fulfill the Law we could never follow, and pay the Life we could never offer to remove the debt of our sinfulness.

But we know that in the person of Jesus, God has become like us so that we can once again be made like Him and live with Him, as we were designed. How humbled and awe struck we should be at this truth! God enable us these Advent and Christmas seasons to truly marvel at His love for us – that we indeed marvel at Emmanuel, that God is with us in the flesh that we can be with Him for eternity. God grant that we NEVER take this miraculous and most incredible truth for granted.

On behalf of my family and myself I want to wish each of you a Very Merry Christmas! I also want to thank the congregation for allowing me to be your Council President these past two years. I look forward to 2020 as another year of growth at the Lutheran Church of Providence and I know our new Council President, Grady Gresham, will keep us on the right path.

A very special thank you and well done to Pastor Weikart for his guidance and understanding during this past year. We are very blessed to have him as our Pastor!

A Child of God, Remembering the Price God Paid to Save Me from My Sin,

Roy Armstrong , Council President

LCP’S MAILBOX

My family, friends and I would like to thank all of you who participated in my daughter Stephanie’s memorial service on October 12th. The cards, gifts, phone calls, prayers, words of kindness and the entire afternoon of the service and the food and fellowship were more than expected from any of us. We are so truly blessed to have you in our lives and for you to have been there for us in this time of grief.

I, personally, will never forget what each of you did and how you made Stephanie’s day so special. I am still in so much pain and grieving for her that I sometimes think I will never continue living a normal life. But with your help and God’s love I know that I will be okay.

Again, from my family to yours, thank you all so very much.

God Bless each and every one of you,

Nina Roof and family

Lutheran Church of Providence

November, 2019 Newsletter

Pastor’s Corner

Often in the church the seasons seem to drag by when we get to the Pentecost/Trinity part of the year. Everything is done in green and it seems to go on forever. Good News! The church year (which starts with the first Sunday in Advent) is almost over. For the next few weeks, the colors on the altar and pulpit will change as we see the color red for Reformation and white for All Saints’ Day.

For Lutherans the Reformation is a very important time when we return to what the Bible says and base our salvation on God’s great love for us and the gift of His Son to pay for all our sins. We don’t have to pay for it when we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior because He died in our place and then rose again to give us eternal life by faith, trust and love of Him. We are truly Christ centered! I encourage all members to attend our worship celebrating the Reformation.

One week later we will celebrate All Saints’ Day when we remember those whose bodies have died before us and they were God fearing people. In our worship we sing about praising God with angels, archangels and all the company of heaven. Through faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, when our bodies die we will join the angels and saints before the throne of God and will be in His presence forevermore.

Many people grieve when their loved ones are called home, but we also rejoice at the homecoming awaiting them and us. Let us be ready at all times to meet our God when He calls us home.

Shortly after Reformation and All Saints we will enter into Advent ― a time to prepare for celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. This isn’t about shopping for gifts and decorating our homes but it’s about getting our entire lives ready for God’s gift to us of His Son Jesus Christ. Stores have sales but God’s gift is ours free of charge. How often do we think about what will happen when our bodies die? How often do we talk with God about returning to Him? I have never heard anyone say that they don’t care what comes next. Many people however have an inaccurate knowledge of God and of His great desire to have us with Him forever. God is love but He is also just. Knowing about Him isn’t enough we must also love Him and desire to be with Him whenever the opportunity arises. As Luther says: ‘We must fear, love and trust in God above all things.’

As we come into the celebrating season of the church year there will be many opportunities to share God’s love with others not only by what we say but also by what we do. Why not volunteer to be a part of the food bank or the quilters group? There are also opportunities for us to work closer with the preschool by reading to the children and by joining them in chapel every Tuesday at 10:00 AM. Don’t forget to join the book club and to invite your friends and neighbors to join you.

As you can see, a lot is happening during the late fall and winter seasons. Let’s reach out to others and encourage them to develop a relationship with Jesus as their Lord and Savior. May God bless us and keep us in His care.

In His service,

Pastor Weikart

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Lutherans Have Saints Look Around!

For All the Saints Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Hebrews 12:2 During the month of November, our thoughts literally turn heavenward. On November 1st, the church celebrates All Saints’ Day, a time when we rejoice in the hope we have as Christians that those who die in the faith still live in Christ.

As the month of November continues, we start to move into a time of the church year in which we hear readings about the end of time and the return of Christ. During November our minds are indeed turned heavenward, but we can also look to the saints all around us right here on earth. The scriptures say we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses in the faith (Hebrews 12). During Sunday morning worship, this is literally true. You are seated with Christians in front of you, behind you, and next to you. Consider one group of Christians in particular ― our elderly members. Many of our elderly members may not physically be with us on Sunday. Many may be homebound, in a hospital, or in a care facility; but that does not mean they are any less with us in the faith of Christ. These members are truly saints whom we should desire to emulate and respect. In the United States we live in a relatively youth-obsessed culture. We like our bodies to look and feel youthful. We generally look down on the aging process. Most of us groan when the wrinkles appear, and we moan when the aches get worse. But why should we look down on aging even with all its wrinkles and aches? Those lines and wrinkles are not signs of depleted youth. As Christians, we should see every line and wrinkle as the beauty mark of someone Christ has sustained in the faith over many years. As our bodies slow down we don’t have to grow angry that we can’t do the things we want to do. On the contrary, we can give thanks that Christ is drawing us closer to what He wants to do – give us eternal life. We have living saints among us who emulate faithfulness to Christ on a daily basis. Our elderly members are fellow Christians who have seen life, lived through what many of us are just now going through, and have come out the other end sustained by faith in Christ. We should strive to be like these living saints.

Take a moment and ask yourself what can I do at Lutheran Church of Providence to be a better Christian or bring a lost soul to know Jesus? Today is the day to volunteer to help bring in food for the Food Bank, sign up to cook a turkey for our Thanksgiving Church dinner, make a difference! After all, as Christians, shouldn’t we want to live lives of faith right now in this world, and ones that will be celebrated for all eternity with our living Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord, the author and perfecter of our faith.

A Child of God,

Roy Armstrong, Council President

FOOD PANTRY

   Thanksgiving is almost here which means that the Food Pantry is asking the congregation to help us fill 100 bags of food for our clients. The number of our families in need is increasing monthly. The following items will be needed: yams or sweet potatoes, boxed mashed potatoes, stuffing, canned gravy, cranberry jell or whole and money for turkeys.

Lutheran Church of Providence

September, 2019 Newsletter

Pastor’s Corner

“I can’t wait to get away from here.” “I’m looking forward to going away and maybe I won’t come back.” “I just want to veg out and do nothing for a week.” “I can’t wait to have a vacation where I don’t have to think about anything.”

Above are some sentences I hear regularly from people as spring comes and people look forward to summer. Now that summer is about over, it’s back to the ‘old grind’ with little to look forward to.

Aren’t we glad that God doesn’t say things like we do but is always with us and is ruling over heaven and earth. God would have good reason to want to get away when we realistically look at ourselves and see our disobedience, unfaithfulness and the sins that we commit daily. I’m sure that everyone who is a parent knows the frustration of not being heard, and receiving excuses that we know aren’t realistic from our children. How often we have wanted to ‘get away from it all’ even for just a few minutes?

However, even when we sin and are disobedient and break the ten commandments, God looks on us with love and pity. Instead of wanting to be away from us, He seeks us out and wants an even closer relationship with us. That is why weekly in church we hear the words of God’s forgiveness and receive the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion to reestablish our closeness to God who doesn’t want us to go on our own.

God does His part and then it’s up to us to change our sinful ways and seek to draw closer to God. I wonder how often we wrestle with a particular sin and put together a plan so we don’t duplicate that sin but that we eradicate it from our lives.

Many people do not know about or appreciate God’s love for all humans. Our job is to invite by word and by example to seek God in His house and to develop a personal relationship with Him. When is the last time that you invited someone to come experience God’s presence in His house on Sunday morning? When we love God as He loves us, we are eager to see Him at any opportunity. The devil often makes offers of other things to do but the pay-off is only momentary whereas in God’s house, the forgiveness of God wipes out our sins forever when we have faith in Christ as our Lord and Savior.

This year we will be working closer with the preschool than we have in the past. The parents and preschool children will want to meet the God we worship. Let’s be open and loving as we embrace them in church. Let us look at those in our neighborhoods who don’t have a home church or have fallen away from the church and invite them to attend with us. Let’s pray daily for them and see how we can be of help to them.

In the past people have seen the friendliness of the members here at Lutheran Church of Providence. Keep up the good work and commit yourself to be in worship every single week.

May God, who never sleeps and never grows weary of us, bless us and keep us in His care.

In His service,

Pastor Weikart

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Dear Fellow Children of God,

September is starting and the final days of summer vacation are just around the corner. As I walked through the local Walmart school supplies were in the main aisle and back to school sales are the order of the day. These school supplies got me to thinking about our grand-daughter and how she says she loves school!

In the last week of September our granddaughter will start school in the Fourth grade. We are all excited for this big step in life for Rylee. But school is more than just a new escapade. Starting any grade in school is an entry into much a bigger world around us. Each grade is a new adventure!

Rylee knows they will be studying about math, reading, writing, science and social studies. She doesn’t know she is also entering the world of cliques. This will increase and complicate a child’s social life, the academic ante is upped as well, requiring her not only to be responsible for her own work but to work in groups as well. This year is the genesis of the too-heavy backpack, as each subject in 4th grade usually has its own book and notebook. That is a big arena for a 10-year-old!

So, I am praying for Rylee, AND I am praying for her teachers. Please pray for your kids, grandkids

and their teachers!

Do you remember when teachers were respected? When I got in trouble in school as a child, and it happened often, I would get more punishment at home than I did at school. My parents trusted and respected my teachers. From what I read today, when teachers discipline students, so that everyone can learn more about reading and writing and math, teachers are often challenged by parents.

Teachers are being asked to do more than to just teach academics. More and more teachers in schools are being asked to provide values and nurture that sometimes children are not receiving otherwise. Most teachers I know care about children and want to help children grow into maturity toward adulthood. But, while teachers are being asked to do more, there are things teachers now cannot do, and teachers often receive less respect for the job that they do. Maybe you understand why I am praying for Rylee’s teachers.

Yet, teachers are not the only ones whose jobs have become more difficult in our country. Law enforcement officers do not receive the same respect I remember from days past. Doctors and health care professionals are often questioned. Imagine being a Christian and trying to serve as an elected official! I know some people who say it is impossible to live one’s Christian faith and to serve in office. Personally, I am thankful for Christian people who struggle with the political system in order to bring honor and values to our society.

Jesus knew about the struggles of His disciples to live in this world. He talked to our Father in heaven about such struggles. On the night before He died Jesus prayed with his disciples and John recorded this prayer. In part of Jesus’ prayer, He asks His Father, “¹⁵ My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. ¹⁷ Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”  (John 17:15-17)

Many have taken the words of Jesus’ prayer to describe the struggle Christians face. We are “in the world, but not of the world.” In other words, instead of serving just ourselves using the values of the world around us, Christians are called to serve God and others, following God’s guidance and trusting His help.

As Rylee enters this larger 4^th grade world she does have help. She has help from her Creator, and from the one who loved her and died for her. As teachers,  policeman and lawmakers and all who might be God’s children seek to serve the Lord in our sinful world, they need help too. That is why I prayed for Rylee, and why I also prayed for her teachers. After all, that is what Jesus did for His disciples.

Also worth noting: we need volunteers to help with the many duties around the Church. Please see our Council members or Pastor. They will let you know what is needed! See you all soon … October is coming right up!

A Child of God, Praying for my grandchild, her Teachers, and all of us at Providence Lutheran,

Roy Armstrong, Council President

QUILTS

We are doing well working toward our goal of 100 quilts. To date we have 29 quilts and several more being put together at this time. Thanks to all the hard working group. We could use more volunteers for tieing, ironing and helping pick up when we are finished for the day. We meet the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM. Come join us.

Thank you, Sandy Wylie

MEMORIALS

A memorial in memory of Mr. Dale Weiberg, dedicated to the Roof Fund, was given by Grace and Kathi Grages.

Lutheran Church of Providence                                     June, 2019 Newsletter

Pastor’s Corner

When we look at the Old Testament in the Holy Bible we cringe at what they did and how they acted. Often it seems so bizarre that we don’t even look at the Old Testament. We see children being killed or being offered to the pagan god Molech; we see people at war against each other; people lying, stealing and cheating to get ahead; people turning away from the true God and trusting in themselves for all their needs; people forsaking God’s laws and commands and going their own way; and sexually acting out with asherah poles for the immediate pleasure of the participants.

Sadly, we haven’t learned from their mistakes. I see many in our country going down a parallel path that we see in the Old Testament. How horrific this seems to many people but we aren’t changing our ways.

Children today are being killed in large numbers in the womb and now many states have laws that living babies can be killed after coming out of the womb. We justify this by saying it’s a woman’s right to have the baby killed. Is this much different from the Old Testament times?

Lying, stealing, cheating, making false accusations are rampant not only throughout the world but also in our own country and in our government. Getting even and making people pay for sins real and imaginary is the protocol of the day. This is often born out of greed and jealousy. Unfortunately this never stops but just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

As times become more prosperous in the United States as well as other countries we begin to rely on mankind and fall away from God. We even see laws being passed to force us to follow the government and society rather than God Almighty. Churches are being abandoned and people are finding other things to do rather than to sing the praises of God. Living for ourselves rather than God is the direction we are pursuing. The Ten Commandments are being violated regularly and we even justify our rebellion by saying that we’re living is a new era and that God’s laws are out of date. We cheat, lie, steal, murder, bear false witness and lust after what others have.

Our society has also become very sexually oriented. We see people on the ‘red carpet’ with see though clothes and people posing nude for others to view their bodies. We talk about honoring human sexuality but then we treat it with very little honor and respect.

With all the above, and more, going on in our country and in the world, is it any wonder that we have so many problems? In the Old Testament God allowed foreign nations more corrupt than Israel to rise up and conquer God’s people. God was calling His people into repentance in a way that they couldn’t reject. Is this where we are headed as a country? Have we learned from history or do we want to wipe history out and thereby unconsciously repeat history?

As a congregation we need to be a light and a guide to this community. During the summer months we need to reach out and invite others to see who God is and to establish a relationship with Him. We need to be in His Word and learn from our ancestors with the sins and mistakes they made. This summer we need to pray regularly that God has mercy on us and that He restores us to be His people who strive to do His will. Let us be supportive to each other and aim for peace and unity.

Have a blessed summer as I look forward to worshiping with you and loving you as part of God’s family here in Deltona.

In His service,

Pastor Weikart