St. John’s Lutheran Church

Pastor’s Blog

Marvin Henk 9/16/24 Marvin Henk 9/16/24

Let Us Not Become Weary in Doing Good

It doesn't take long to realize that living is trying to move forward against a lot of resistance. It's like having the wind in your face, climbing up a hill, or trudging through a foot of snow. Yes, when I look around, I see the struggle - the epidemic of opioid addiction, alcohol addiction, the worried look on people's faces on the train home from the city, the people lining up in front of food pantries, the exhausted parents picking their kids up from school. In some ways many are looking at a "defeated life".

Matt Hardigree 6/16/24 Matt Hardigree 6/16/24

To All Our Fathers

Being a father is a vocation. It is a calling and it comes, in a certain way, with many surprises. First of all, there is nothing - and I mean nothing - like a nurse handing you a beautiful baby. Wow!, this little thing, so small, vulnerable, dependent, and helpless!

Matt Tatum 6/6/24 Matt Tatum 6/6/24

The 80th Anniversary of D-Day

Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day. I have been very fortunate to go to Normandy on a number of occasions and I walked through the cemetery of white crosses and some Jewish Stars of David. I also walked along Omaha Beach.

Matt Hardigree 5/20/24 Matt Hardigree 5/20/24

Faith "in the Clutch"

I am a cradle-to-grave Lutheran Christian. While I am not in the grave yet, I do sometimes wonder how I would fare if I was taken prisoner by Hezbollah, the Islamic State, or Putin’s Russia. Would I have the grit and determination and courage to withstand existence in a jail cell in a Russian prison?

Matt Tatum 5/3/24 Matt Tatum 5/3/24

Proud of What We Do at St. John’s

Have you ever been proud of a place, an institution, a person? When I visited the site of 9/11 many years ago, with heaps of dust and rubble everywhere and a stench that made it hard to breathe and overwhelmed the place, I saw a battered firetruck with a flat tire, unable to move.

Matt Tatum 5/1/24 Matt Tatum 5/1/24

Neverland Isn’t What it’s Cracked Up to Be

I once took a course entitled “Christianity and Fairytales” taught by the late theologian Robert McAfee Brown. As I look over the fairytales I read to Madelyn or the ones by the Grimm Brothers, you can make the case that Christianity is like a fairytale. I entitled one of my Easter sermons, “It’s too good to be true”. Yes, the story of Easter is, to the ears of all of us, almost too good to be true.