One year I went on vacation after Christmas. Since I wasn’t going into the office, I decided that I wasn’t going to shave. By the end of the vacation time, I decided that I still wasn’t going to shave. The season of Epiphany came and went, and then we got into Lent, and by the…

Peeps. These sugar coated marshmallow baby birds (now outsold by their rabbit cousins) are sort of like the candy corn of Easter — not many people will confess to liking them, but they still sell well enough that they stay on the shelves. In fact, estimates say that every year the parent company of the…

Holy Week starts this Sunday with Palm/Passion Sunday. As we have done for the past few Holy Weeks, we are going to do a sermon series that stretches throughout Holy Week – a bigger picture look at the powerful services that happen during this zenith of the church year. This year our series will be…

The word “Lent” is derived from the Old English “lencten”, which was the word for “Spring”. You can probably see our modern English word “Lengthen” in the word as well – this is not by accident. The word for Spring sounds like “lengthen” because in Spring the days “lengthen” as the amount of daylight increases…

Woof. Today is one of those days. Last week I talked about the possibility of writing a newsletter article via ChatGPT, this week after a short day at work yesterday because of obligations, and then a dentist appointment that ran over time — well, I’m definitely still considering it. We have these days, right? These…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…