Dear Church,


I took some time the other day to work out. I’ve been recording my workouts on my watch. It’s been a good way to keep track of my daily activity. From time to time, I get invited to “challenges” from friends and we compete against one another to see who can be the most active throughout the day or even for a whole week. Except that, the other day, for whatever reason, my watch didn’t charge overnight and halfway through my work out, I looked down and my watch battery had died. Here I was, working out, and I wasn’t getting credit for it! How frustrating!


So, here I was, doing a good thing, but no one was going to notice. Aldo Leopold once said, “Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching—even when doing the wrong thing is legal.” Let me ask you a question, you see that person standing on the side of the road looking for a hand out. What do you do? It’s easy for us to justify driving right by! Right?  


It is so easy for us in our mind to replay the story that those people don’t deserve it, they are actually taking money and hand outs from people while others are working, they are more than likely better off than you and me.  A friend of mine once quipped in the middle of a heated debate about helping others “ In order to help those most in need, we’re going to be taken advantage of sometimes.” It is far to easy for us to think about the corruption and misuse and then yes, to justify not helping.  

Jesus is decidedly on the side of the poor. To put it another way, Jesus is for the poor. He stands in solidarity with the poor, he does not marginalize or minimize or rationalize the poor. He has compassion for the poor, he is know as a friend of the poor. Jesus loves those who are poor and feeds, ministers to, empowers and knows the poor.

I want to be more like Jesus! I think you do too. This Sunday we will look into the deep connection to our faith and what we do with our faith in Jesus. We’ll explore the line from James 2 that equates faith and deeds.  


This past week, our confirmation students reported on their faith projects and a total of more than 120 hours of volunteering in this community. This past week 92 families used the food pantry, six families showed up for the first time. The need is great. This community needs you to step into your active and busy faith which causes us to serve those in need. Lets be on the side of Jesus. Let’s be for the poor. “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” James 1. 17.

See you in church. 


-Pastor Nate

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