Have you ever thought about being a Holy troublemaker? Maybe you are one but haven’t put a label to it. I didn’t create the term, but I like it. I learned about it from a children’s book, Holy Troublemakers and Unconventional Saints by Daneen Akers. She describes them as people of faith who have worked for love, compassion, and justice in their corners of the world and eras, even when it might mean rocking the religious boat. While their lives look different, what each troublemaker and saint have in common is that they use their faith to work for the good of everyone. The book includes stories of (Mister) Fred Rogers, Rachel Held Evans, Harriet Tubman, and many more that I just learned about their stories.

When do we step outside of our comfort zone to live out our faith in justice and love? So often we can be overwhelmed with stories of injustices or inequities. Many times, the lines are blurred or labeled as political issues. We get tired of hearing it. We don’t want to listen to what makes us uncomfortable or makes us dig deeper to understand. We justify our silence with “it’s always been this way and it’s fine”. It’s easier to stay in our lane and not have to dwell on issues that make us uncomfortable. We don’t want to be labeled as troublemakers. Sometimes the issues seem insurmountable. Where to begin is daunting so we don’t. I get it all. I’ve felt it all.

But as followers of Jesus, he is the ultimate Holy troublemaker. His teachings and actions were radical in his time. He challenged established religious authorities, overturned tables in the temple, used stories to emphasize all-encompassing forgiveness, and associated with societal outcasts. By advocating for love, forgiveness, and justice, Jesus disrupted the status quo and confronted his era's religious and political powers. His message of inclusivity and compassion often clashed with prevailing norms, leading to conflicts with the religious establishment.

We just completed a Wednesday morning Bible study series on Martin Luther and our ELCA Lutheran beliefs. I would call him a Holy troublemaker. He questioned the church on traditions that separated the teachings of Jesus from the common people. Nothing should separate us from the love and grace of God even if it is rooted in traditional church beliefs.

Holy troublemaking doesn’t always need to be loud. It can be a conversation challenging a viewpoint or not staying silent when a derogatory comment is made about a person or a community. Sometimes it’s a march together, or creating art, or organizing to change a law. Sometimes it’s as simple as supporting a community or individual facing injustice or hardship. Maybe it’s not judging circumstances or communities we don’t fully understand or taking the time to dig deeper to learn. Maybe it’s asking hard questions or not jumping on a particular viewpoint’s bandwagon without research or empathy.

I love Lord of Life because we aren’t afraid to ask hard questions, or for our kids to ask difficult questions or challenge ourselves to grow and learn. We may not have all the answers but we follow the example of Jesus as a Holy troublemaker who is leading in love, compassion, forgiveness, inclusion, and justice. Where can you be a Holy troublemaker? How can we be Holy troublemakers together?

Living and learning in faith with you,

Angie Seiller, Director of Faith Formation

I’m so glad that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Groundhog’s Day and that this will be a short winter. The sunshine recently has been restorative! On our women’s retreat, we were able to enjoy the sun on an afternoon walk. The sun brings so much joy to our lives, making certain activities more pleasant such as strolls and fun on the playground. As wonderful as a snow day can be, I’m glad we’re turning our attention to spring.

Our Lenten journey can be similar to this transition from winter to spring. On Ash Wednesday we are reminded of our humanity through the imposition of ashes and hearing, “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” Yet from the dust, from the brokenness of our humanity, sprouts of life emerge when we recognize that we are forgiven and receive the grace of Jesus Christ. Each day the sky brightens a bit more as we get closer to Easter.

And then Easter is the ultimate sunny day in our faith. The Son has risen and we rejoice! We have been through the wringer of Holy Week – the celebration of Palm Sunday and the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem to the devastating crucifixion of Jesus. We wake up on Easter to the realization and joy that Jesus has overcome the grave and is alive! It is such a miracle that we are giving thanks and celebrating 2000 years later.

Our celebration is about more than the miracle of Christ’s resurrection. It is what Jesus has done through his death and resurrection that we give thanks. Through his death and resurrection, we are given eternal life. There is nothing we can do to deserve this, it is all freely given to us because of God’s great love for us. We can take comfort in that no matter how broken we are or how many times we fall short, Jesus is still there for us.

On this journey, how is Jesus calling you? In our culture, the talk around Lent typically involves conversation on what we are giving up, how are we fasting during this period? In our Lutheran tradition, we don’t tend to fast during Lent. Martin Luther taught that fasts can be very beneficial for discipline and keeping the body from its worldly desires. However, there is no fasting that can earn us salvation or grace. Those are the free gifts of God. So where does that leave us? 

For me, I am going to try to reinforce good habits that have slipped away over time. I want to have a stronger prayer life and more time focused on journaling. I’ll be spending less time scrolling social media, but I’m not setting out as a specific fast. I am not denying myself but rather ensuring that I am being satisfied spiritually and emotionally first. I am feasting on things that are better for me than getting lost in reels I’ve already seen.

What about you? How will you be spending these next six weeks? However you decide to travel this journey, may you bask in the light of Jesus and enjoy the beautiful growth that is upon us. As the flowers sprout from the dark soil, may the love of Jesus sprout in your hearts. May you know the peace of Christ fully this season.

In peace,

Pastor Laura Applegate, Seminary Intern

In this month of love, I can’t help but once again thank you for being part of this incredible year of ministry through so many beautiful moments of worship, learning, and outreach! Looking back through our photos from 2023, I was struck by how many pictures involved us holding something.

There were countless images of you holding markers as we signed metal beams and wrote on the floor in the new space, marking these places with our names and prayers as we look ahead to the many ways God will meet us here and use these spaces for sharing God’s unconditional love.

There were moments of youth and adults welcoming and caring for children. There were images of us holding animals at Tikkun Farm, with our families in Appalachia, and at our Blessing of the Pets celebration.

Month after month, there were pictures of us holding non-perishables ready to deliver to needy families, serving hungry families at monthly Stepping Forward meals, and boxing up our Tree of Warmth items so heads and hands would be snuggled on chilly winter days.

So many occasions found us holding Scripture in our hearts, on our lips, and in our hands, as we centered ourselves in worship, Bible study, and conversations centered in the story of Jesus.

There were many photos of us holding one another in love through conversations, hugs, and high fives, as well as moments of holding one another in prayer and sharing bread and wine.

There were images of you holding on to quilts as we prayed for those who would receive them, holding up signs at a Pride event, and holding a basket of cookies as we shared them with police and fire personnel on God’s Work, Our Hands Weekend.

We even stepped forward in bold faith and completed our Share the Light expansion, holding the cross of Jesus high as a sign of love for all the world to see.

The attached picture has been holding my attention in recent weeks. Juan, holding the heart pillow, is a member of the Vida Eterna Iglesia Luterana (VEIL) community, the Spanish speaking Latinx congregation that also meets at Lord of Life.

Back in August, after tests which confirmed that his heart was failing, Juan was admitted to ICU at University of Cincinnati, while his medical team made a plan. He needed a heart transplant. After a five month wait, a successful transplant occurred. Juan is now home as he recovers, but drives to UC three days a week for testing and rehabilitation. Over these months, he has been unable to work and his attentive wife lost her job. Doctors expect his physical therapy and his full recovery to last up to 18 months.

As a way to surround Juan and his family with love and hold them during these months, we are hosting a Heart to Heart Gift Card Blitz through this Sunday, February 11. We hope to collect $5,000 worth of grocery (Aldi and Kroger) and fuel cards to allow Juan’s family to focus their funds elsewhere. 100 - $50 gifts cards will help us hit our goal! Can you help? You can drop your card in the Heart to Heart box this weekend or in the exterior drop box to the right of the front door. Thank you.

As we step into 2024, I pray that the Spirit of God continues to hold us in love and use us for holy moments of living, sharing, and celebrating together. What will this year hold for us?

Better and stronger together,

Pastor Lowell

Happy New Year! I know it is the beginning of February, but not only is this the first issue of our newsletter since December, but also January was a mediocre month, at best, and I’d like a re-do.

It is a great time for it, too. We’ve had a whole month of attempting at varying degrees to fulfill New Year’s resolutions we made at the end of December. Maybe you’re the type of person who has stuck to your new diet or your new running plan or your new meditation/prayer/self-care schedule and … I can’t relate to you. I see you. I hear you. You matter. I have no idea how you do that. Maybe you went in with great intentions and have stumbled along the way and have beaten yourself up about it. You’ve tried a few more times and have since given up on the habit you were trying to form. I can relate to this. I’ve done this. But not this year.

This year I didn’t even bother making any resolutions. I have enough life experience to know it just isn’t going to happen. But that doesn’t mean I never try to make myself better. I just decided January 1 isn’t the right time to try and also that making huge promises to myself is just going to lead to disappointment.

This is where my February New Year comes in. By February 1, I’ve gotten through the craziness of the holidays, which usually extend a couple of weeks after Christmas for me because I can’t celebrate with anyone until after my church obligations are finished. I’ve had some time to rest and relax, to catch up on some day-to-day chores that were ignored in favor of Christmas preparations, and the sun is finally staying out long enough that it is noticeably lighter out than it was on January 1.

In our church year, the season of Lent usually begins sometime in February. For centuries, Christians saw Lent as a season of fasting - of giving things up. This would be another time someone would try to quit eating junk food or quit smoking. Just like a New Year’s resolution, this type of fast comes with varying degrees of success, but with the added pressure, for some people, of Christian guilt. Oof.

That’s not how we look at Lent. During Lent, we aren’t meant to force ourselves to share in Christ’s suffering, but we are looking for ways to make room in our lives for the risen Christ we will meet at Easter. This might mean refraining from things that get in the way of our relationship with God, but it might also mean taking a moment every once in a while to be mindful of God's presence in various parts of our day. Once we start to remember God’s love in our lives all the time, our actions with other people should start to reflect that love, and we should treat ourselves with the same love, too.

The best part is, this isn’t a resolution - it is a practice. It is something we are working toward, and if we don’t do it all the time, we can try to do it again. No failed promises to beat ourselves up about.

What does God’s love look like in your life? How can you reflect that love in the way you treat other people? How can you reflect that love in the way you treat yourself?

Yours in Christ,

John Johns, Music Director

Lent begins February 14. Various resources for the season are available in the Gathering Space at church.

I had the privilege of attending the ELCA Extravaganza (the E for short) in New Orleans this past weekend. The Extravaganza is the ELCA Youth Ministry Network’s annual conference, drawing over 1,000 leaders (paid staff positions and volunteers) in children, youth, and family ministry, along with the teachers, resource providers, and leaders from the ELCA, all for four days of renewal, education, and networking.

We have a tendency at churches to say the youth are our future. This gathering emphasized that our youth are present now, in a complicated world and need us to meet them where they are. Who has God created them to be right now, in this moment?
How can we root our youth in a lifelong and transformative faith in Jesus Christ? We all have a part to play through this life-giving community. One session I attended about research in youth ministry showed the three things that impact the faith of our youth significantly:

1. ) Congregations, though imperfect, make possible an encounter with God - teaching the language of faith.
2. ) Relationships are the single greatest factor in a lifelong faith. It takes an average of 5 adults to create this impact.
3. ) Each person is made in God’s image with gifts to share with the community. They are enough and beloved by God.

Adults tend to “read” young people as uninterested, busy, and preoccupied. It’s actually the opposite. They want to be included, belong, feel listened to, and engage with purpose in their activities. I know I sometimes wonder as I’m teaching Junior High on Sunday mornings if they are really interested in being there or if it’s just the donuts they came for. Then they will surprise me with an answer about helping others, empathize with another student, or jump in with enthusiasm to act out a play about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. We have so much to learn from them.

We are blessed with adults in this congregation who invest in relationships with our youth, showing up as one of the five adults needed in their lives. They chaperone youth retreats and sleep on plywood bunk beds on their weekend off work. They are creating a community with a group of youth through serving in the choir and band or at the media desk. Just last night, a parent of high schoolers taught our young Exploring Communion class in an amazing bread-baking night. They serve alongside them, converse with them, and build relationships, welcoming them unconditionally into God's loving community. Our youth need your heart and gifts. How can you engage with our youth?

Join me in praying:
O God, we want to raise children
Who know they are loved
By their creator
With a love so big
It would take a lifetime
To swim in the ocean of Your grace –
And even then It wouldn’t be enough

May we honor the humanity
Of our children.
May we remember You are always in pursuit.
May we point our children to You
In times of great rejoicing and deep sorrow.
For as long as we have the gift
Of guiding them on this earth
May they see You in every star
And every cloud.
May they feel You in the breeze
And in the dirt under their feet.

Thank you, Lord
For You are never far from our children
Or from us. Amen

Prayer from To Light Their Way by Kayla Craig

Serving, giving thanks, and loving along with you,

Angie Seiller, Director of Faith Formation

Few things bring me as much joy as collaboration. Planning out our day while on vacation in New Orleans with my family last year was filled with so much joy and opportunity. Creating music with life-long friends? Always a blast. Refinishing our basement? Never could have done it by myself.

So of course, one of my greatest joys in ministry happens when I’m “sharing moments working jointly on an activity, especially to produce or create something” (Oxford English Dictionary). The last several weeks have been stuffed with many such collaborative moments. Each one offered something more than if any of them were done in isolation.

Last weekend, a dozen of us from Lord of Life joined a handful of other church youth groups at HopeWood Pines Camp for a Junior High Mix Retreat. The jumbled schedule of games, learning, study, worship, and recreation provided opportunities for new relationships centered in vibrant community.

Each month, our Church Council – our leadership team – meets to celebrate, wrestle, and dream. Our last meeting included time for reflection about our strength areas, as well as those places where we need to grow. Both lists were a beautiful image of what God is doing through us collectively, even as we know that there is still so much more to which we are called. We are living, sharing, and celebrating the love of Jesus with all people, but we’ve still got work to do!

A team from Lord of Life joined many others on a recent Saturday morning to pack, seal, and box high-protein meals for Hands Against Hunger. In a few hours, they assembled 105,408 meals for orphans and vulnerable children around the world! As they explain, “The ingredients in these high protein meals serve a very important purpose in helping children recover from malnutrition and saving them from a painful and prolonged death by starvation.”

This week, the Affirm Congregations of Butler County partnered with Hamilton Pride for an evening of sharing and discussion at the intersection of religion, faith, and LGBTQIA+ people and communities. Centered around the premise that each of us are beloved children of God, the gathering created a space for extraordinary stories of sorrow and pain, and conversations of resilience and hope. Grounded in the promises of God, may we continue to listen and learn how to love and care for one another unconditionally.

Each Tuesday morning, our staff huddles for prayer, reflection, calendar conversations, planning, and laughter. This dream team of Cara, John, Angie, Laura, Lisa, and Paula love Jesus and work hard to create experiences that nurture faith and care for our congregation. What a gift to be part of such a faithful and creative bunch. 

The Bible is a collaborative document, drawing together thousands of stories from hundreds of Spirit-led voices, all with the common thread of forgiveness, reconciliation, and hope. Jesus pulled together a group of disciples from a variety of locations and lives. God continues to draw us together for worship, learning, and taking action in love.

These examples only begin to scratch the surface of the many ways that God uses your gifts and passions, finances and talents, ideas, and prayers to make a lasting impact on the world. Even as you continue to do amazing things in your own life, I am also excited to see how you connect to the ministries of Lord of Life and find places for renewal and growth. One of the beautiful things that happens through this Spirit-filled collaboration is that not only will you be changed, but you may also transform the lives of others!

Better and stronger together,

Pastor Lowell