Have you ever been so physically and mentally tired that all you want to do is sleep but you can’t? Usually, it’s the “to do” list whirling in my head. This month, my mind has been there but more overwhelmingly it has been all the beautiful hearts, hands, and feet that have been giving and growing in Jesus’ name. I find myself just smiling.

One of the questions we ask students in Vacation Bible School (VBS) is where they see God? Their answers are so sweet and innocent. God is in their food, in their friends, in their pets, and their swing sets.

As an adult, my God sightings this month are almost too many to count. When the ugliness in our world makes us question our faith or where God is, it gives me great peace to know that God is alive and well in the LOL community and we are working diligently to spread that message to all.

Here are just a few of my God sightings:

• I saw God in college and high school students who could be making money at summer jobs but took a week to serve alongside others with the Appalachia Service Project (ASP) and in adults who took a week off work or jumped in after just retiring.
• I saw God in the courageous people who blocked hateful messages at Hamilton Pride and shared God’s unconditional love while marching and working our booth.
• I saw God in the people who serve each Sunday to create our worship services.
• I saw God in donated ice cream funds for ASP, VBS donations of snacks and craft, VBS donations piled high with underwear/socks/diapers/wipes for Butler County Children’s Services and in LOL’s gift of $1500 to ASP.
• I saw God in all our VBS leaders and helpers who smiled, encouraged, used their gifts, or stepped out of their comfort zone and gave of themselves to 70 students and each other, not to mention how they created, decorated and cleaned up like champions!
• I saw God in people who weren’t visible, but I know were holding together a busy family, or working hard to provide or care for a sick or elderly person or praying for our safety and God’s presence to be known in all we do or experience.
• I saw God in the leaders who stepped up to help organize ASP with laughter and skill when LOL staff couldn’t.
• I saw God in the Healing and Affirming Service. We acknowledged the hurt that has been caused by the church to the LGBTQ+ community and shared the life changing message of hope and love that is for all people.
• I saw God when our ASP crew shared the same daily meals as 20 people experiencing homelessness in Harlan County, KY at the Christ’s Hands facility.
•  I saw God in one of our littlest VBS students. Helpers at VBS wore Thrivent “Live Generously” shirts that had a sideways red heart. This child thought it was a chair. Her mom gently informed her that it was a heart. She said, “like Jesus sits in your heart.” She knew where we could find God!
• I saw God in the people who braved the heat during Cincinnati Pride to share the life-saving message that God loves ALL, no exceptions.

I really could go on and on. We are truly blessed with a faith community that uplifts, heals and shares as Jesus calls us to do.

Where do you see God today? What keeps you awake smiling? Praying along with you that the Holy Spirit continues to guide us to those precious moments.

Living, sharing, and celebrating God’s love in Jesus Christ with you,

Angie Seiller, Director of Faith Formation

Hello, my Lord of Life family! I recently joined you as we celebrated the life and love of our dear friend, Gary Glaab. It was wonderful to walk in the doors and be greeted by everyone as if I had been there every Sunday for the last few years, as opposed to someone deep in the seminary life.

It is a surreal thing to be still living so close while working in my internship for my ordination journey. I am still here, but it can at times feel like I’m a million miles away. The responsibility and time that internship asks of us does come at the cost of regular communion with the congregation that helped deliver me to the Church for candidacy in the first place.

Lord of Life is still my church and I deeply love all of you. As you may know, I showed up with my family at Lord of Life a decade ago. After a conversation with your brand-new (at the time) pastor, we started worshipping with you all. You drew us into a deeper relationship, and you made it possible for me to get more involved at LOL. I was fortunate enough to serve as a Evangelism Ministry Area Coordinator (MAC) for quite a few years, and through Pastor Lowell’s gentle nudging, and seeing our friend Corey Wagonfield navigate the challenges of seminary while maintaining a family, I eventually followed suit.

I am now serving at Trinity Lutheran Church in Mt. Healthy as a seminary intern and have been very fortunate and overjoyed to see some of my Lord of Life friends pop in to see me preach. Seeing you brightens my day! I am coming up on my first 6-month review and have been ruminating on my journey. Worshipping and celebrating with you on May 18 brought a smile to my face, even if it came at a time when we were gathered to reflect on a life well lived. Those days bring with them a wealth and range of emotions, but for Gary, it is hard to look back and not smile. He was a part of my faith journey and he makes everyone smile.

You all have supported me through this. As I write, I find myself sitting in a room at the seminary in Columbus. For us Trinity students, we travel here every now and again for week-long intensive courses. These come with times of reflection and times to connect with the Holy Spirit. It is in one of these moments I felt drawn to write to you all.

As Lord of Life prepares to say goodbye to Pastor Laura, next month and looks forward to meeting Nicole Keifer, our new seminary intern, let me grab the mic for a minute to say thank you. While my duties at my internship site keep me away from your doors, know I am always thinking about you. Lord of Life is an amazing place, filled with amazing people, and I count myself lucky to be counted as one of your number.

Through the lens of people like Gary, we see a reflection of our whole community. A community that cares for one another, uplifts one another, and supports one another. I feel your support and I love being a part of you. I love that you are a part of my journey into ordination and a call to pastoral leadership.

With Love,

Vicar Richard Ponton
Trinity Lutheran Church, Mt. Healthy

Training to be a Lutheran pastor is a four year degree with a blend of coursework while also serving and learning in the parish. We currently support our seminary student Richard Ponton with $5,000 per year toward education expenses. Thank you for your financial generosity that makes training ministry leaders a priority.

In this week’s blog post, two of the young adults on our mission trip with Appalachia Service Project (ASP) share some words about their experiences this week. You may remember Larkyn and Annabelle from last year’s ASP blog post. They’re back with more stories.

This past week on HGTV…

We can’t believe it has been five years since Lord of Life has participated in the Appalachia Service Project (ASP). ASP has been one of our favorite parts of summer and we look forward to each year. Every summer we get the honor of meeting new people, being in new environments, learning how to use new tools and construction equipment, and also growing closer as a church community.

This past week in Harlan KY, we worked with our group on removing rotting wood in several different aspects. This week has been a lot different from previous years because we are working the first week of the season. As the first-week crew, we are in charge of preparing the house for future work. It’s been a new experience since we are used to progressing significantly on a project or even revisiting a project from a previous week. But, this week we are discovering projects as we progress through the week.

We began our demolition by removing a back porch making it feel like real-life HGTV. We then moved on to removing things such as the band joist, fascia board, and soffit to prepare the house for future groups. After each layer was removed from one project, more projects were discovered, resulting in several delays. These delays are a blessing in disguise. Project delays allow us time to grow bonds with each other, the animals around us, and even the homeowners. This allows us to really get the full experience out of ASP because believe it or not, it’s not all about fixing houses.

Working with our homeowner has been a pleasure. This home was meant for our crew as there are at least 7 cats, 8 kittens, and 3 dogs. Playing with the animals is such a joy in our week and definitely helps to push through the long, heat-filled hours on the worksite. The homeowners are one of our favorite parts of ASP because it allows us to grow closer to the community and learn more about the county we are serving for the week. It also allows us to take time, reflect on our own lives, and be grateful for what we are blessed with.

Once again, we were paired with a new leader…Dean. He has supplied us with endless dad jokes, the best one so far being “Are you guys branching out or just going out on a limb” after a tree branch randomly fell right behind us. He also has an unbelievable amount of stories that he could tell for days, I don’t think there’s much he hasn’t done in life. He’s been so supportive in putting up with our uncontrollable laughter and love for pets. We couldn’t have asked for a better 5th-year leader.

At the end of the week, we couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity to have been serving Central Appalachia Kentucky for half a decade now. The laughter, pets, and heart-filling repairs are something we will always look forward to each and every summer.

Larkyn Ripley and Annabelle King

ASP’s work is ongoing and inspirational. Don’t miss out on the progress and the stories throughout the summer.

To follow along with the Harlan County Projects that LOL started this week, follow the Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/ASPHarlan

Introducing ASP's Summer Blog Series!
This summer, we have two blog series by our Story Gathering Interns:

"Appalachian Honey" by Taylor Beam and "Aspire To Be" by Sarah Brassfield. These entries give a behind-the-scenes look into an ASP summer and give a glimpse into the power and magnitude of ASP's life-changing work!

Appalachian Honey Blog Series: https://asphome.org/2024/06/07/appalachian-honey-resilience/

"I hope to give y’all a taste of the honey this summer. I will work to translate the wondrous experiences, people, and quirks of Appalachia that are illuminated by a summer of service with ASP."

Aspire to Be Blog Series: https://asphome.org/2024/06/03/aspire-to-be-hellos-and-goodbyes/

"As I travel throughout Appalachia the next couple of months capturing moments and memories, I know I will hear many stories of people involved with ASP that will touch my heart and inspire me to become a better version of myself."

Recently, I’ve been meeting with Art Hupp about our plans for a new sign at our entrance on Tylersville. We’ve been talking about these plans for almost two years now, not just because designing a sign, getting permits and quotes, and building it is difficult; but because it has been so important to think about what our sign is there to do. Until a few years ago there were LED pixels displaying messages about upcoming activities. On really good days, all of those lights worked. When everything went according to plan, we counted on drivers catching as much information as they could as they sped by our campus. As the LED panels failed, the sign got more and more expensive to maintain, we resorted to putting up temporary worship times behind the yellowed plexiglass, and with the new addition on the front of the building, the old, battered sign looks especially out of date. It is time to change the way we show people we’re here.

The new sign will match the aesthetic of the front of the building. It won’t have any flashy messages or moving parts. It will serve the crucial function of marking us as Lord of Life Lutheran Church so people can see our name from the road and know they have arrived at the correct church as they pull into our parking lot. But the work of spreading our message has changed. There are a few ways this happens.

With our new addition, our building looks more like a church than it did before. When people see our 40-foot-tall new structure with a giant cross on top, they look us up online or on social media to find out who we are and more importantly, what we do. They watch our online worship, read about our outreach ministries, and often send us messages asking us what we believe about various topics. In some ways, this is the digital age equivalent of the flashing sign, and with more information than we could ever deliver before.

We spread the word in an even more meaningful way when we participate together in group outreach projects. People see us in the world being God’s hands and feet, which is a key component of our identity. They have a chance to interact with us together and individually and create relationships that offer another window into the love Lord of Life shines in the world.

As individuals, we are each influenced by God’s message we hear at church on Sunday mornings. As our hearts are changed and we’re filled with the light that recharges us, we go into the world with a renewed perspective and we share the light with everyone we meet. People notice that. Some of us are uncomfortable talking about our faith in our daily lives, but through our actions, we are being an example of God’s love, and on the off chance our faith home comes up in conversation, we are connecting more people to Lord of Life.

In last week’s blog, Pastor Lowell pointed to our rising attendance figures over the last five years. Not only has the work of spreading our message been effective, but our ability to share our light has grown exponentially. Each new face brings their own stories, gifts, viewpoints, and hearts full of and/or ready to accept and share God’s love.

What signs have you seen this week? How are you being a sign of God’s love?

Yours in Christ,
John Johns, Music Director

This June marks ten years since the Michelson family landed in West Chester and began ministry with the incredible people of Lord Of Life. What a wild ride it has been and continues to be as we live, share, and celebrate with all people in the name of Jesus!

As I reflect on this decade of love and ministry together in the 513, I could spend this blog totaling up the hours that we spent experiencing God in meaningful worship, transformational moments of serving, mind and heart-stretching learning moments, and focused prayer for one another, our community, and our world.

I could stun you with spreadsheets and data as we review the millions of dollars that you have generously given in offerings, tithes, gift cards, and fundraisers over the last ten years and highlight the hundreds of thousands of dollars we shared with dozens of ministries and community organizations that are changing the world for the better.

I could attempt to quantify the impact and joy of being a teaching parish for Lutheran seminaries. Still, there is no way to chart the mutual growth that has happened while we hosted five seminary intern pastors in our real-life ministry classroom of preaching, teaching, serving, and learning moments. We have been equally blessed by their time among us and the legacy of their love and leadership will pay dividends for generations to come here.

I could remind you of our shared vision to grow the staff, bring renewal to spaces in need of renovation and/or repurposing, and the building expansion through the Share the Light Capital Campaign, not to mention the essential leap into digital platforms when COVID unexpectedly shuttered our campus and onsite ministry.

I could thank you for the dozens of Bible and book studies, which challenged our thinking, strengthened our faith, and stirred us to greater love for God, our neighbors, and ourselves.

But rather than looking back, I want to focus on the beautiful moments unfolding around us right now!

Every single week, we experience a steady flow of people who come to see what is happening in this thriving community of faith. Since a year ago, 24 families have officially joined us in mission, serving alongside the countless others who call Lord of Life home and regularly find meaning and purpose in our life together. Worship attendance has sky-rocketed from 210 in 2019 to a weekly average of 455 so far this year! If you’ve been in worship over the last month, you may have also noticed that we have a handful of precious new little ones. Four babies have been born in our community over the past month!

Your financial generosity continues to fuel ministry here in powerful ways. Please continue to give throughout the summer months to sustain our momentum. If you haven’t given, please consider a reoccurring or one-time gift to Lord of Life. If you have questions about how or why to give, I would be thrilled to share about the countless ways your gifts strengthen the church and alter your life.

As we assembled the Lifeline newsletter for June, I was captivated by the many ways God is leveraging our gifts and energies for serving this summer. Page after page is filled with moments of us using our hands and voices to be about the work of God. Over the next few months, Lord of Life people will help make homes warmer, safer, and drier with Appalachia Service Project (ASP), share a free hot meal on Tuesday evenings with Stepping Forward, make sure hungry school kids are fed during the summer months through Summer Lunch, and senior high youth will party down in New Orleans as they sing, sweat, and serve alongside 15,000 other youth at the ELCA National Youth Gathering! This Saturday, we’ll kick off a month of Pride activities in Hamilton reminding the LGBTQIA+ community—and everyone we encounter—of their innate value as children of God.

We don't do any of these things to earn God’s favor or to brag about how incredible we are. Instead, “We love because God first loved us.” (1 John 4:19). It really is that simple. There is One who calls each of us by name and loves us with an unconditional and eternal love. How can we keep that Good News to ourselves?

I praise God for you!

Pastor Lowell

It's the end of the school year! For a lot of us, that means our lives change because so much of our family schedule revolves around what our family members are doing in their classes, music, arts, and sports activities. For some of us, it happens to coincide with a change of season that means we can finally plant our gardens and enjoy the outdoors after nine months of not knowing what Ohio weather is going to look like. And for some, not much changes at all - we just keep doing what we always do, chipping away at the work at our job, the never-ending tasks of keeping and maintaining our homes, or, if we have found ourselves in difficult times because of medical, economic, or mental situations, the continuous cycle of trying to get help. Some of these repetitive tasks feel so daunting that I can’t help but wonder, “what’s the point?”

Part of my job follows the school year - many of my rehearsals and studies and things go on hiatus during the summer. At my last meeting today with one of my choirs, someone gave me a jar of honey from one of their own hives. Without any deep thought about it I felt it was a lovely gift, but as I reflected, I couldn’t help but wonder how few jars of honey he gets from each of his hives and that he gave me one of them! Then I thought about it from the bees’ perspective. They have the never-ending job of going out to find flowers and bringing pollen back to the hive so they can produce honey, all so someone can steal most of it away. They could easily do less work, live off of a smaller amount of honey, and then the beekeeper wouldn’t have any to take. But that isn’t who they are.

Ministry is like this, too. Our work doesn’t end. The needs of the world and God’s people don’t end. Spreading Jesus’ message doesn’t end. And sometimes we do a whole bunch of work and we’ve made a lot of people feel loved, only for some person or situation to come along and make them feel unloved again. We might boost someone up on Sunday morning and they go into a meeting on Monday morning and get yelled at, or they fail a school project and it tanks their self-esteem, or a classmate dies, or their friends drift away from them, or … the list goes on. It is so disheartening and it would be so easy to throw our hands up and say it is too hard and it isn’t worth doing so much work and having so little of the result last. We could just be happy to know God loves us and leave it at that and stop doing all the things we do every day to let everyone else know that God loves them, too. But that isn’t who we are.

At our Baptism we are given the name Christian, and we Affirm our Baptismal vows later during Confirmation. We not only promise that we are going to continue to do God’s work, but we affirm that being a Christian is who we are. Luckily, we find ourselves among many generations of Christians who have walked the same path and faced similar struggles, starting with the very first followers of Christ. Most of Paul’s letters are to people overcoming struggles that are difficult to imagine from our first-world, 21st century perspective. He reminded them to “... encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11) and “... be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). 

What does being a Christian mean to you?

Yours in Christ,
John