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Plans are moving ahead on this event and the planning group of the 5 churches is getting excited. We will be commissioning from Centennial High School on Saturday September 8th to a number of opportunities for service projects. There will be sign up sheets coming soon. St. Timothy will be hosting the Alzheimer’s Texture Blocks project with Elaine and Candace in charge. We will be hosting those interested from the other churches. We will worship together Sunday, September 9th at Centennial High School and will provide ushers and young person volunteers to assist. We again will have a potluck lunch to share and Jean Whitford is our representative for food planning.
Blessings, Sherry

St Timothy’s team is planning to be an Olympic Basketball team and are busy developing fundraisers at our site including iced mochas and a basketball hoop game for the event on August 11th. Total raised by the team at this time (including our sponsor Weston Buick) is about $1400. We have 5 team members currently and know that many church members have yet to register. Register on line at relayforlife.org/ portlandor. We have paper registration forms available for those without email. We have several members and their family and friends who are survivors and hope we can honor them as survivors or caregivers at the beginning of the event.

Sherry Willmschen, Team Captain

    On the day you were baptized or confirmed, you committed to do your best each day to “to live among God’s faithful people, to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s Supper, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth” (“Affirmation of Baptism” service, ELW pg. 235). None of us are perfect at this. If we were, we would not need Jesus. To be honest, many who believe in Jesus struggle to live out their faith in their daily life. To follow Christ means that we take time in our daily and weekly schedules to worship, read scripture, pray, practice generosity, serve, and be in fellowship with others. These are marks of faith that nurture our relationship with God and deepen our faith. There are no shortcuts or quick solutions. If you are going to commit your life to Christ you need to be in worship, where you not only hear the word of God but also are encouraged, supported, and loved by a community of faithful people. You cannot know God fully if you only hear scripture on Sundays that you attend church; you must dig into God’s Holy Word daily. To follow Christ means that we are generous with our time, our treasures, and our skills for the sake of others and that we serve others just as Christ did. If we are going to take our baptismal confirmation promises seriously, we need to ask ourselves some hard questions:

1. How am I using my time?

2. How faithful am I in worship?

3. Am I making time to talk with
God?

4. Am I being generous with what
God has blessed me?

5. How am I doing at putting my love
for my neighbor into action?

We are the body of Christ in this world and we are called to follow Christ, being generous with our time, treasures and skills for the sake of others. We are the body of Christ in this world and we are called to commit our lives to Christ, to gather together in worship, to study scripture, to pray, to serve,to fellowship together. We are the body of Christ in this world and we are called to take our baptismal promises seriously as we let our light shine in the world for all to see. We are the body of Christ in this world, so how are you using your time and being generous with what God has blessed you with?

By Pastor Jennifer Beil

    That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind,  they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

    He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completel calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Mark 4:35-41

    As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.”  I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.

    We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments, and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yetregarded as unknown; dying and yet we live on; beaten and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. As a fair exchange — I speak as to my children — open wide your hearts also.

2 Corinthians 6:1-13

    Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say this — those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from east to west, from north and south.

     Others went out on the sea in ships; they were merchants on the mighty waters. They saw the works of the Lord, his wonderful deeds in the deep. For he spoke and stirred up a rempest that lifted high the waves. They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away. They reeled and staggered like drunken men; they were at their wits’ end. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men. Let them exalt him in the assemblyof the people and praise him in the council of the elders.

Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32

     Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm, He said:

    “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.

    “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone — while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

    “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves and halt’?

Job 38:1-11

    O Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 107:1

The Word of Life

     That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched — this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowshipis with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

Walking in the Light

      This is the message we we have heard from him and declare to you : God is light; in him there is no darkness at all; If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we decieive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense — Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atonight sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

 

Test the Spirits

    Dear friends, do not believe every, spirit, but test the spirts to see whether they are from id, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater that the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

 

God’s Love and Ours

    Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another , God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowldedges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also loves his brother.

 

John 1:14-16

    The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:29

    The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

John 14:15-17

    “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

John 15:9-11

    “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

 

    He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain — first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

 

    Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, itgrows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.”

    With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.

    Mark 5:26-34