Posts from 2026

Value of a Human

How valuable is a human? Well, it kind of depends on how you look at that question. If you look at the human being as an animated bag of chemicals, our chemical make up averages only about $200 – if we were just using your potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorous. However, if you value a human…

Lent FAQ

I’ve spent some time over the past week or so addressing questions that come up about the season of Lent. So today instead of the “normal” newsletter, I’m just going to drop some of the frequently asked questions and some answers here. Question One: Why Lent if Jesus never mentions doing Lent? Lent is a…

40 Days Deeper

You’re getting this on Thursday. I’m writing it on Wednesday. We’re just beginning Lent.  Lent is a 40 day season that lasts for 46 days. Huh? Well, technically the Sundays don’t count in Lent – so we’re going until April 5, but we’re only counting Monday through Saturday. You may also know Lent by its…

Other Witnesses

As we finish up Epiphany, we finish up thinking about the people that we’re praying for on Sundays in specific categories. There is one segment of people that we should be praying for that aren’t “disconnected from the Church or God,” however – and that is other witnesses. We are called to be witnesses of…

The Seeking

For the past few weeks we have been talking about the people that we can be praying for on Sunday mornings here at University Lutheran when we pray for “those who are disconnected from God and the Church”. The last category of people who are disconnected are “the Seeking”. People who are seeking are looking…

The Curious

“Hey, would you mind telling me some more about what you believe?” That question is likely to get us thinking, get our blood pressure to rise, get us wondering how we respond. There’s excitement in the question, but there is maybe some trepidation as well – “am I going to answer this in the right…

The Unreceptive

This Epiphany, we’re asking you to consider the people around you that are disconnected from God and/or the Church. We’re asking you to think about them and asking the question: is this person unreceptive, curious, or seeking? Today we’re going to talk about the people in our lives who are unreceptive to the Gospel. Being…

Three People

We’ve been praying for three people in our Sunday morning service for a while now. We’re doing this because of a challenge from our District Convention this summer. I don’t know about you, but I have found some difficulty in this prayer. In the prayer, we take a moment to silently pray for three people…

RSVP

RSVP – it stands for “Répondez s’il vous plaît,” a command that says (nicely), “Please respond.” Throughout the season of Epiphany (starting January 6 and ending this year on February 17), we will be using those four French words as the unifying principle of what we’re talking about in worship and beyond. The idea of…