At Port Orchard's First Lutheran, it's OK to be sad at Christmastime

This from the Kitsap Sun:

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/dec/15/at-port-orchard-churchs-service-its-ok-to-be-sad/

Creator Lutheran Church digs out from under fallen tree

BONNEY LAKE
Members of Creator Lutheran Church of Lake Bonney Lake will continue to repair extensive damage through Christmas caused when monster tree came down during a Nov. 15 windstorm.
The tree smashed through the roof, breaking a beam and rafters and destroying much of its fellowship hall. It broke several waterlines in the ceiling, sending water everywhere. Fencing and playground equipment were damaged.
A number of other trees with root rot close by later were taken down.
The Rev. Kim Latterell said that for the time being the preschool has been moved to another part of the building and classes have been postponed.
"We will continue to worship on sticky, carpet-less floors ... but a step up from the dirt floor in the stable, eh?" he said.
Pastor Latterell gave thanks for the prayers and offers of support from neighboring churches and pastors.
The church was insured. — RP

2010 Christmas Message from Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announced peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation! Isaiah 52:7

When Jesus was born, angelic messengers broke the still calm of a Judean night to sing joyously and proclaim, "This very day in David's city a Savior is born for you, O God's Promised One, your Lord. Glad tidings of great joy! Common shepherds were the first and heartiest heralds of the promised Savior's arrival then, and today the joy in Jesus' birth fills every corner of this season.

Admittedly sometimes in modern America the commercial clatter and cultural clutter of the season seem to overtake the angels' song and the shepherd' joyous news. But such a majestic message of God's salvation cannot be silenced. Some loudly lament that the world will not listen to the Gospel message, but in this season so many beckon.

Christians, sing with us. Bring your songs of Christmas, of Jesus. A few may shush you, just as there were those who would later attempt to silence Jesus and his message of God's remarkable, revolutionary marcy, even to the point to crucifixion.

If so, then that is all the more reason to enter into the commotion and clutter, to let go of your inhibitions, to join the angels in singing and the shepherds in exulting with unashamed joy: Jesus, the Savior is born!

Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices, together they sing for joy? See, our salvation comes. Isaiah 52:8; 62:11

Mark S. Hanson
Presiding Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

'Colonial House' actor and pastor shares new book

By Rachel Pritchett

GIG HARBOR
His face is still recognizable from the 2004 PBS series "Colonial House."
The Rev. Dr. Donald Heinz was the pastor in the series that recreated life in 1628 in the colonies.
The real-life ELCA pastor and retired religion professor today is living in Gig Harbor, writing instead of acting.
His newest, "Christmas: Festival of Incarnation," looks at the secularization of Christmas and urges readers to take a step beyond.
"There is still much more to Christmas that can be discovered, and if you're going to discover it, you're going to have to go to church," said Heinz, who taught and was a dean at California State University, Chico.
Heinz's book takes the form of a three-act play in which the church is a theater, the pastor a director and the congregation a troupe.
Heinz said he himself is not at all above the commercialization of Christmas, admitting "I love all that stuff," but if readers settle just for that interpretation, they're missing the message.
"Christmas: Festival of Incarnation," with study guides, is available through Fortress Press. It is the second book for Heinz. In 1999, he write "The Last Passage: Recovering a Death of Our Own," based on a rediscovery of ritualizaiton surrounding death mostly in the gay community through AIDS deaths (Oxford University Press). The ritualization of death also has been lost in the secularization of the culture, he said.
Heinz and wife Carolyn have been living in the Northwest for several years now, getting used to the gray climate and attending Agnus Dei Lutheran Church of Gig Harbor.
Even now, nine years after it was filmed, he still gets stopped on the street by people curious about what it was like to recreate life in 1628, and if the popular series where hardships and strife among close neighbors was for real.
"We didn't cheat at all," he said. The crew lived life as close as America's first settlers did then, though they were chagrined when PBS producers sometimes twisted the stick for some reality TV. Once, they encouraged one of the actors to go skinny dipping instead of coming to worship.
"It began to dawn on us," Heinz said, "that the worshipful attitude we had toward PBS started to feel like reality TV."
The series still is shown occasionally on PBS and is avaiilable through Netflix and at local libraries.
Heinz grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, went to a Missouri Synod seminary and switched over to the ELCA a quarter of a century ago, because of "irreconcilable differences."
Having coffee outside a Gig Harbor Starbucks one cold November day, Heinz said he is sad about the division in the ELCA caused by the 2009 churchwide vote on sexuality.
"In about 15 to 20 more years, no one is going to even be debating this question," he said. "It really grieves you, I think, that the church will split over an issue that is going to resolve itself."
Heinz is working on a third book now, this making the case that the progressive Christian voice needs to be much more assertive in this country, where the far Christian right seems to be the chief public voice for Christianity, he said.

Global mission keynoter: Missionaries called home

TACOMA
For the first time in its history, the ELCA recently recalled a handful of its missionaries, due to budget cuts.
That somber news was delivered by the Rev. Twila Schock, ELCA director for mission support, at a synod global mission event Nov. 13 at St. Mark's by The Narrows Lutheran Church of Tacoma.
The average annual $70,000 cost to support a missionary could not be sustained at a time when the ELCA's budget was shrinking, due to fallout from the 2009 churchwide sexuality vote, she said.
The pullbacks are particularly painful because they come at a time when relationships between the ELCA and its companion churches are growing fast. Its relationship with its partners in Ethiopia, for instance, grew 475 percent in the past two decades, she said.
Today, the ELCA has 250 missionaries in 48 countries, 63 of them in Europe, where the ranks of practicing Christians are diminishing in some places. Even in Wittenberg, Germany, only 27 percent of residents are practicing Christians, she said.

Upcoming events

Don’t Forget to Register for 2011 Bishop’s Convocation
Register through the synod office or its website for the 2011 Bishop’s Convocation, “The Balancing Act of Pastoral Leadership,” to take place Jan. 25 and 26 at the Seabeck Conference Center. Participants will examine the many roles pastors are called to fill. The convocation will be preceded by a prayer retreat on Jan. 23 to 25 lead by the Rev. Jim Christianson. The theme will be “Tending to the Holy: Practicing the Presence of God in Ministry.”

PLU Sunday Coming Feb. 13
Congregations throughout Region 1 of the ELCA are invited to lift up Pacific Lutheran University and its effort to educate tomorrow’s leaders on Sunday, Feb. 13, for PLU Sunday. Congregations can contact the PLU Office of Congregations Relations at (253) 535-7424 or crel@plu.edu to request free materials.

Catechumenal Training Slated for February in Vancouver
The next “Come to the Water” ecumenical catechumenal-process training event will take place Feb. 18 and 19 at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Vancouver. The event is appropriate for congregational teams that need resources to begin the catechumenal process, which is faith formation for newcomers and people who need refreshers in faith basics. Featured speakers include Bishop Robert D. Hofstad and catechumenal author Ann McElligott.
The cost is $30 per person. Further information can be found in a brochure at
http://catechumenate.org/uploads/file/Water2011.pdf or by contacting the Rev. Martha Maier,
maierm@comcast.net or (360) 892-7160.

Conference Focuses on Spiritual Formation of Congregations
The 2011 PLU Summer Conference on Pastoral Theology focuses on “The Spiritual Formation of the Congregation,” a follow-up to the 2010 theme of “The Spiritual Formation of the Pastoral Leader.”
Taking place June 20 through 22 at the Pacific Lutheran University campus in Tacoma, the event will feature the Rev. Melissa Skelton, director of congregational development for the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia and rector at St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Capital Hill of Seattle.
Bishop Robert D. Hofstad of the Southwestern Washington Synod urged attendance.
“I encouraged congregations and rostered people of the Southwestern Washington Synod to consider participation in this event.” To sign up, contact the Rev. G. Lee Kluth, PLU director of congregational relations, at (253) 535-7423 or e-mail him at crel@plu.edu.