This Week's Update

Greetings in Christ! 

What a great turnout for the play Sunday night! Paul Wee’s One Church or Many – Where Do We Go from Here? brought us closer to the events of the Reformation and our heritage as Lutherans. Perhaps more importantly, he used that opportunity to challenge us to consider what that heritage means for our witness as the church today.

Weekly Notes

+      I’m out of town this Sunday to take part in one of Michelle’s cousin’s weddings in Western New York.
+      We continue to pray for the RU community after the death of Kristin Greene, a freshman at RU. Keep the students, faculty, and staff close to your hearts.
+      Congregational Meeting – November 16th
+      Installation Service – November 23rd at 3pm

Devotional

Since I won’t be preaching this week, this devotional relates more to our last two weeks together as we commemorated Reformation Sunday and All Saints’ Sunday. In particular, the question before us today is this: What does it mean to be saints who require reformation?  

Perhaps this is obvious, but we’re not all perfect. Shocking, I know. But we are all meant to live what Jesus calls abundant life. This means a lot of things, but in the wake of Reformation and All Saints, part of what strikes me is this: abundant life is not governed by death. We live not fearing the end of our existence, but rather embracing the newness of life found on the other side of death.

Why? Because we have been crucified with Christ. In our baptisms, we were united with Christ in a death like His, and in those waters, we are also united with Him in the resurrection life. Abundant life recognizes that death, while still a reality in our lives, does not have the last word. Sin, while still a force to be reckoned with, will not rule the day. Sin has lost its power, and death has lost its sting, so we may live life abundant.

As we go forward as a church together – as God continues to transform us into the image and likeness of Christ – we are called to live an abundant life, one full of recklessly selfless blessing, of radical inclusiveness. To be saints who require reformation is to be constantly pursuing abundant life, to live baptismal life in the face of death. And I’m so excited to do that with you all at CLC.