Worship Videos

The Pastor’s Piece for January 2025

“Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” Luke 3:21-22

In January we celebrate new things! These new things are highlighted in our life of faith together by a New Year, the season of Epiphany and the Baptism of our Lord. As for the New Year, what can I say…time rolls on – may we all roll along gracefully with it! Hopefully you will not be too hard on yourself regarding any expectations you might have concerning New Year’s resolutions. As for the season of Epiphany, well God continues to make God’s self-known to us  at Bethany/Negaunee and Emanuel/Skandia in new and unexpected ways, uniting us with Christ Jesus through our baptism into his baptism and challenging us all to explore some of the new and exciting ways God is revealing God’s self to us and leading us all to new places in ministry. Yes indeed, January is the month of new things! New beginnings and fresh starts!  My hope is that you will experience a meaningful new start in your life, work, play and ministry, this year as well!

As far as our Interim transition process is going, we have completed the “Histogram” activity and now we will begin something new with a series of “Question Boards.” The question board will present a question, such as “My favorite part of coming to church is_________________.”  Your part would be to fill in the blank! Each question in the series will be available for several weeks in order to give everyone an opportunity to participate and to include all of our voices. I would anticipate that there will be around six to eight of these in the series, and then the responses will be recorded to use alongside the Histogram results and other possible exercises as part of your discernment in completing a Ministry Site Profile for each congregation. Thank you for participating in the Histogram and turning your attention now to these new tasks in our work together.

Also, as we consider new things for this coming year it would be a good idea to re-familiarize ourselves with our mission statement(s) in order to begin considering if they accurately reflect each congregations’ priorities.    This is important, because these brief words serve to ground us and remind us of what we are all about at each congregation and they provide a foundation for the people’s work together. We see this concept reflected in Jesus’ baptism, described above by the Gospel writer Luke, which provided a foundation for the beginning of his earthly ministry. Jesus knew the importance of relying on God the Fathers’ guidance and wisdom. In his baptism, the Holy Spirit recognized and supported a journey of faith for Jesus that he valued and was committed to even unto death, for the sake of the world.  Now as we venture into this New Year may we always remember that each of us is also a baptized child of God, equipped by God through this same Holy Spirit, with gifts for ministry together.   With our baptism as our foundation reflected in the words of our local Mission Statement(s) we can better focus our resources, in perhaps new ways, to continue to make a meaningful difference in our communities and world.  May 2025 be a year of fresh starts and new energy for our ministries and our lives!  Happy New Year my friends! See you in church! +LLL