Don’t Put Me on Hold!
Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.  But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your god….  The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
– Exodus 20:8-10a, 11b

It’s the same old story.  You’re in a hurry and have to make an important phone call.  You dial the number, someone answers the phone and says, “Will you hold, please?”  Before you can respond you immediately hear a click followed by the typical elevator music.  Then you wait…and you wait…and you wait.  Drives me nuts!  I don’t care who’s on that other line; their time isn’t any more valuable than mine.  The way I see it, if you’re just going to put me on hold, don’t answer the phone in the first place!  Wait until you’re finished with the other call.  One of these days, just to protect my time I’m going to shout, “Don’t put me on hold!” right after I hear the word, “Hello,” and see what happens.
 
I wonder if God ever feels like the people God loves (that would be us!) try to put God on hold sometimes.  In most Lutheran congregations when summer arrives, worship attendance drops significantly.  It’s as if we’re saying we need a break from church.  Now I understand the need for rest and renewal in all aspects of our lives, and that means in our spiritual lives as well.  But while we find that rest from work and our daily routines by “getting away from it all,” the rest we need for our spirits comes to us in a different way.  In this case it’s not getting away from something (after all, it’s not like we worship eight hours a day, five or six days a week!) but rather getting back to the Word of God.  The rest that we find for our spirits comes through the gathering of the people of God in worship.  It is there that we meet the living Lord Jesus Christ.; it is there that we hear his renewing word to us; it is there that we experience that much needed rest for our souls.
 
Worship is much like a spiritual gas station.  You fill up with the Lord’s gifts on Sunday, use that tank-full to get you through the week, and then when you‘re about empty you come back the next Sunday to fill up again!  You miss a Sunday and you end up trying to coast through the next week on spiritual fumes.  Like a car that won’t run if you don’t fill the gas tank on a regular basis, so will we run down if we attempt to “put God on hold” during the summer and don’t come to worship on a regular basis.
 
So enjoy your summer; get the down-time and rest that you need; find renewal in body, mind and spirit.  Just don’t put God on hold in the process!  See you in worship!
 
                                                                                      ~ Pastor Jeff

Congratulations to our 8th Graders
who were Confirmed on
Sunday, May 13, 2018

(front row) Bailey Baird, Marley Bodine, Grace Jackson, Sophie Holland, Samantha Katschke, Maya Martin
(back row) Ms. Bonni Kaiser, Jacob Jackson, Ted Landgraf, Logan Brandner, Ethan Hanaman, Luke Jackson, and Rev. Jeff Chubb.

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Please Note...

Our office hours have changed!
We will now be CLOSED on Fridays.

Regular office hours are
Monday - Thursday
from 8:30am to 4pm.

Also... we have accumulated several hats and coats on the coat racks in the Narthex.  If they have not been claimed by the end of June, they will be donated to Nightengale’s.

Help Yourself...

Our quilting ladies have been working on “Walker Bags” for residents of area nursing homes.  They are also making them available to members of our congregation.  You will find a basket full of these colorful and handy fabric bags in the Narthex.  Please feel free to take one for yourself or someone you know.

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