Do your friends regale you with connection stories that go something like this?

“My daughter’s boyfriend’s sister’s friend met Brad Pitt.” Or, “My aunt’s brother-in-law’s cousin is a distant relative to Elvis.”

We all tell these connection stories. It is as if we are saying, “Do you know who I know?” In fact, we do not know the person at the center of the story at all. We are three steps away from knowing them. We like to tell these stories about our place of work, the clubs we belong to, and our neighborhoods, too.

But what about our church? Being a part of Lord of Life and its incredible Outreach Ministry opportunities can give you countless connections stories. You can simply tell the stories or choose to be an active participant in the story. I hope you choose the latter.

Take Family Promise for example. Family Promise was started in 1986 by a woman who learned that homelessness was affecting families in her own community. Thirty years later this national network has 203 affiliates in 43 states and has served 68,000 families engaging 160,000 volunteers.

Family Promise of Butler County began three years ago. Lord of Life was a part of this exciting program at its inception and continues to serve homeless families four weeks each year. In 2020, Lord of Life will host five weeks.

Family Promise staff helps homeless families search for a job or a better paying job, secure food stamps, daycare vouchers, and receive counseling at the day center all without the additional daily stress of having to find food and shelter for their young families.

In 2018, Lord of Life served 21 families, 61 individuals of which 62% were children. 38% of the children were under the age of 5. Because Family Promise is predicated on empowerment, not enabling, 75% of these families secured permanent or transitional housing. The average length of stay in the program was 57 days.

Every single day in Butler County, 2/3 of all families are one missed paycheck, one medical emergency, or one family crisis away from homelessness. Read that again… Butler County. Two thirds, 66%, two out of three! Consider this. The family car breaks down, there is no money to repair or replace it, getting to work becomes difficult, and the downward spiral into homelessness begins.

Lord of Life welcomed and hosted families just a few weeks ago. One morning, as I greeted them and helped them pack a lunch, a mom told me three times how happy she was to be sleeping in a bed, getting the best night’s sleep she has had in ages. You see, she and her teen daughter had been sleeping in a car. I cannot adequately describe the look on her face. I saw peace and relief. I saw hope and I saw a new beginning.

So, will you be telling folks about how your church supports Family Promise or will you be an active participant in the program? I hope you choose the latter.

Hoping to connect,
Lauri Vesper
Lauri is one of our Family Promise Coordinators.

Want to hear more? You can hear a Family Promise graduate tell their story at the annual Keeping the Promise fundraiser on October 17 at Wetherington Country Club. Details of the event are available on our website

To read Lauri’s previous blog, click here.

Thank you to the people of Lord of Life for allowing me to sneak away for a long weekend to spend some quality time with my dad. We traveled to Dallas this past weekend to see Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival, more on that in a moment. While we were there we got to experience the Museum of Biblical Art, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, and Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, all of which will be fueling many sermons and blog posts in the near future.

My dad grew up playing in bands at a very early age, playing in night clubs and bars before he was even legally allowed to consume a beverage there. He played with several “party” bands in the Cincinnati area, most notably with “Roundabout,” and even met my mom while playing in one of the clubs. Because he spent so much time playing music, he never had a lot of time to go to concerts to see the musicians who were so influential to him. 

It has always been on my dad’s bucket list to see Eric Clapton play live. Clapton “retired” from touring several years ago and it looked like my dad may never get to see one of his guitar heroes play in person. So when Clapton announced that he would once more be hosting the Crossroads Guitar Festival, in support of his Crossroads Centre for Addiction Treatment (https://crossroadsantigua.org/), we knew he had to get tickets. Along with seeing Clapton play two live sets over two nights, we got to see him play for the first time ever with Peter Frampton, collaborations with Buddy Guy and Johnny Lang, Tedeschi Trucks Band, John Mayer, Jeff Beck with Johnny Depp, many more bands, and all hilariously hosted by Bill Murray. It was a joy to see my dad geeking out over all of the amazing guitarists!

After the two-day concert ended, my dad said, “I think I have seen all of my bucket list musicians in one epic concert.” That got me thinking… What comes after your bucket list? What motivates you once all of those “pie in the sky” dreams are checked off and completed? After he is done basking in the glory of that concert, my guess, is that my dad will find some new things to add to his bucket list. The thing that brings me joy is knowing that God smiles when we get to live out those bucket-list moments and enjoy the life with which God has blessed us. 

Our God is a God who desires for us to be whole and happy. I think God beams with joy when we are swept up in these mountain top moments. So how are you planning to live life to the fullest? What would bring you joy right now? What do you want to add to your bucket list? A bucket list implies that at some point we will “kick the bucket” and cease to be on Earth. The good news is that God has defeated death, and the most epic guitar concert ever assembled, better than any bucket list item, will be waiting for us, with Jesus playing lead guitar! 

Rock On,

Pastor Corey

True confessions. I hate to admit this, but I used to be a badass substitute teacher and would have a look of disdain when students would ask me for paper and pencils. For the life of me, I could not understand why parents were so lazy that they could not even drive their kids to the store for basic school supplies. After all, I was the mom who drove to Walgreens at midnight for that darn poster board no one told me they needed until the last minute. Didn’t everyone do that?

One day while subbing in art class in Lakota, a student abruptly stood up and threw all of her textbooks at the table of four guys sitting next to her. I approached to ask if the boys had said something to upset her. Before I could even finish my question, she emptied the trash can and hurled it across the room aiming at those same young men and then emptied the recycling bin and launched it across the room, too. She fled and I called for help.

When I left that day, I stopped by to talk to the on-site sheriff and asked if she was going to be ok.  He told me that she had no home to call her own. She was bounced from one house to the next, living with different relatives and moving schools based on where the relatives lived.

I wondered how many other homeless kids had crossed my paths in my years of subbing. Was it the kids whom asked me for school supplies? Or the young man who carried a broken cell phone just to fit in? Or the kids wearing tennis shoes that were two sizes too small? I was a judgmental insensitive fool and I was incredibly sorry.

From that day on, I decided to carry my own stash of notebook paper and pencils and dole out these basic school supplies to anyone who asks. No judging.

Family Promise of Butler County recently released the Official Homeless Count Numbers for the 2018/2019 school year. As of May 2019, there were 182 homeless students in Lakota, 685 in Hamilton, 190 in Middletown, and 162 in Fairfield. For the previous year, the total for Butler County was 901. This past year it was 1,354, an increase of 453 children. If you include the number of homeless children under the age of 5 the number is much greater. 

So, yes, there are homeless kids in my/our school district. Our work with local schools, ministries with Family Promise, Stepping Forward, Reach Out Lakota, and engagement with local leaders are essential to our communities and these children.

To be continued…

Lauri Vesper

Lauri is one of our Family Promise co-ordinators.

While we were renovating our kitchen this summer, Brian and I decided to put an instant hot water faucet at our new bar sink. We drink a lot of hot beverages and it would make it quick and easy to pour nearly boiling water over a tea bag, coffee grounds, or oatmeal and save ourselves a few minutes of using the microwave or stovetop. I think we got the idea while visiting the Littig's house in the spring.

What we didn’t realize was that with easy access to hot water, our hot beverage of choice would become a nice ritual at the end of each day. Once we’re both home from work and rehearsals, before we go to bed, we pour hot water over some sleepy-time tea and have several nice quiet minutes while the leaves steep and then the heat and medicinal qualities of the tea help to calm us.

Once I became aware that the habit was forming, I started to ponder what other rituals become parts of our lives without knowing it. It is easy to slip into patterns, whether they are based on the time of day or some other trigger. Perhaps it is a morning routine – the order we wake up, shower, get dressed, get kids ready, prepare meals for the day. Perhaps it is a particular way we do our job – consistency is a great way to ensure quality. Or maybe it is something less productive like scrolling through social media or news headlines any time we’re bored; or playing a game on our phone.

One ritual many of us share is our Sunday morning worship. In our Lutheran tradition, our worship follows a prescribed pattern – there are certain things we do every time we worship (things like confession, creed, the Lord’s Prayer, etc.)  This isn’t true of every denomination. In some churches, worship looks different every Sunday or every season. Our particular rituals help us connect not only to God, but to the wider community of Christians, including Christians who have been saying the same words for the past 2,000 years. The repetition of these words can also help us use those moments to dive deeper into their meanings.

What are your rituals? Are they productive? Are there any you might like to change? Sometimes just being aware of them can help you find more meaning in them. Are your rituals helping you do something better or dive deeper into something important? Or are there any rituals that are distracting you or wasting your time? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Ritually yours,

John Johns

Thank you to everyone who reached out to me over the last week asking about my health. On Tuesday, August 27, I went to the emergency room because of a constant fluttering feeling on the left side of my chest. I had the fluttering feeling for several days and it was getting so intense that it was distracting me from my work. While there was no pain associated with it, it was definitely annoying! After sitting in the emergency room for several hours, hooked to various machines, and subjected to a multitude of tests, the doctors could not find anything wrong with my heart. I am following up with a cardiologist this week to receive a monitoring device for further testing. 

More than likely, whatever was bothering me was probably due to stress. This is a very busy time of year for me as I submit my final internship evaluations, submit my 20-page approval essay which outlines to future churches all of my theological understandings, I began classwork for two classes, and I am probably biting off more work than I can chew. I don’t tell you all of this to elicit sympathy, for I know that all of you are probably racked with stress as well. I mention it because when times got hard I immediately slipped back into bad theology.

I jokingly posted on my Facebook page: “My heartbeat has been acting weird, my car is officially dead, and my laptop died. I think God is trying to tell me to take some time off work!” I meant the phrase tongue-in-cheek, but not everyone who replied to the message took it that way. What I posted was bad theology. I don’t believe that God made my heart act weird, I don’t believe God KO’ed my car, and I don’t believe God fried the motherboard of my computer. 

The God that I see in the Bible is a God who is constantly creating, trying to bring about wholeness, and has an undying love for all of creation. In the teachings of Jesus, I do not hear a God that wants to punish us to get our attention or to teach us a lesson. The overwhelming message is one where we are called to love God and neighbor in the same way that God loves us, unconditionally. 

God was not the one causing the bad things to happen, but I did experience God’s love through the supportive actions of my family and friends. People volunteered to come visit me at the hospital, people prayed for me, someone let me borrow their car (which also broke down, but that is another story), and my kids were able to let me borrow their Chromebook so that I could get some work done. If someone ever tells you, “God won’t give you more than you can handle,” tell them they are right. Not for the reasons they think, but because God doesn’t give us pain and strife, God brings about the good in our lives. 

In closing, sorry for the bad theology in my Facebook post… they really do need to come up with some kind of sarcasm font. And yes, I am probably stressed beyond my breaking point, so I am trying to get more rest and cutting back on my caffeine intake. Thank you all for your loving support, I see Christ’s love in the way you care for me and my family. 

My Heart Skips With Joy,

Pastor Corey

image courtesy of www.teespring.com/shop/badtheologykillsblack

An agitated woman stepped into the front door of the church recently, and asked if there was a pastor or church leader who could bless her husband’s ashes. When I introduced myself, she said that her husband’s ashes were in her purse and just wanted to make sure that they were “blessed properly.” I said, “Absolutely,” and invited her to sit down in my office for some conversation, but she wasn’t interested in any small talk and requested that we go in the sanctuary and have me bless his ashes. So we moved to that space.

Before I could lead into any of the ritual and language frequently used for memorial services and funerals, she took charge of the moment and launched into the Lord’s Prayer – “Our Father, who art in heaven…” After our “Amen!” I said a prayer of thanks for her husband’s life and for the promises of God that hold us in this life and the next. With a handshake and word of thanks, she was gone.

I don’t know what brought her to Lord of Life or why she was drawn to this place for this ritual, but we are a beacon of peace and hope in the community. I say we, because even though you might not be on the property at a certain time, your life and prayers are poured into this space and sustain ministry and that doesn’t stop when you leave the church campus after worship on Sunday.

There’s a running joke that pastors only work one day a week and I like to say that “even on that day, people are asking me to keep it short!” We chuckle, but all know that ministry isn’t confined to a few hours on Sunday mornings.

I have the privilege of being part of this beautiful ministry for my life’s work, so I’m in the office many days and experience all kinds of folks who drop in. Not only do many of you pop by to say “Hello,” drop off food, or ask an office question, but there are people who don’t name this as their faith home who wander in for every imaginable reason and occasion.

Family strife has led them to the breaking point and they need to talk to someone. They are down to their last $5 and need to pay the rent by tomorrow or they’ll be evicted. A family member died suddenly and they are looking for a clergy person to lead a funeral. They say, “Mom used to be a Lutheran, back in the day.” They are 30 days clean and are curious about stepping back into faith, but wonder whether God – and the church – will welcome and accept them.

And it doesn't only happen on the Lord of Life campus. Last week, I visited one of our members who will not be able to join us for worship any longer because of physical limitations and I mentioned in a social media post that “you, the community of Lord of Life, and your prayers go with me.” An old Sunday School song reminds us that we’re all in this together:

I am the church! You are the church!
We are the church together!
All who follow Jesus, all around the world!
Yes, we're the church together!

You know well that I am not the only one involved in pastoral care, offering guidance, praying for others, and “living, sharing, and celebrating” with others what God is doing. You are also the vibrant light of Christ, shining everywhere you go, which is why coworkers seek advice and confide in you, family members ask you to pray for them, and random strangers approach you and share their deepest struggles.

Do not be afraid. God is using you for God’s purpose. One day, one action, one prayer, one small act of kindness can change the trajectory of someone’s day or life.

Serving with you,

Pastor Lowell

Words and music by Donald S. Marsh and Richard K. Avery ©1972 Hope Publishing Company