Welcome,

Hello, Pastor Elliott and Pastor Hallerberg invite everyone viewing this website to visit our Christ-Centered, inclusive, and caring community of faith.

Please join us for worship each Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m.

 

 

 

Pastor Hallerberg’s Message

 

You’ve got a lot of heart!

My attempt with the title of this article to have you play a little Valentine Day music (“You Gotta Have Heart”) carries the suggestion that you keep humming it while you read.  As I have come to know individuals at Atonement Lutheran Church, I know you have a lot of heart!  You love and care for one another in a wonderful way; you love this Christian Community known as Atonement Lutheran Church.

There is another side to that song and having miles and miles of heart:  there is always a courageous and committed side to “having heart.”  That another side to our life together at Atonement which I know you know is there as well.

We need both sides of heart-full resources as we take a look at our mission and ministry and “think future” together.  The Valentine’s Day Potluck after worship on Sunday, February 12^th, will be a time to use the care, love, courage, and commitment we carry with us as we have our first 2012 gathering to begin the process announced in January’s Newsletter.  Here is what we will be doing.

A major focus for 2012 at our church is to examine identity, mission, and future.

v  Who are we as individuals and a community of faith at Atonement Lutheran Church?  What are our assets?  What hinders us from using them?

v  Who and what do we want to be?  What do we want to claim as our mission?

v  What happens when we “think future”?

v  What might God be up to as we get involved in imagination and creativity?

So, bring your contribution of some good food to share at the Potluck (a main dish, salad or desert) and your good and gracious hearts for a fun-time of beginning a journey of the heart.  Our Congregation Council members give full and complete support for this focus and this activity, with encouragement for EVERYONE TO BE INVOLVED AND TO PARTICIPATE in a process to think and work together.

 

Pastor Jim Hallerberg

 

 

 

 

Pastor Elliott’s Message

This month’s Newsletter gives me an opportunity to thank the Church Council and all the members of our wonderful community for your generous Christmas gift, along with a beautiful ceramic piece that speaks of Faith.  The inscribed scripture passage is from 2 Corinthians 5:7, “For we walk by faith not by sight.”  Your gifts are really appreciated.

2012 will be the year when we focus on our identity and envision our mission and future as the people of God in this particular place.  This can be fun and exciting.  We will begin with the Valentine’s Day Potluck after worship on Sunday, February 12^th.  Please put this on your calendar, and prayerfully reflect on the questions raised in Pastor Hallerberg’s message in this Newsletter.

Our Ash Wednesday Service will be on Wednesday evening, February 22^nd.  Ash Wednesday is a strong reminder of our identity as earth and dust creatures.  Our service, with its’ serious charge to examine and amend our way of life, may be newly relevant in this age of human-caused ecological emergency.  Theologian and ethicist Larry Rasmussen suggests that one of the factors contributing to human ecological disruption is that we do not, in fact, often “remember that [we] are dust.”  Much of contemporary life is structured around the premise that humanity does not share a common origin and need not share a common destiny with the earth.  Rasmussen, with the Ash Wednesday liturgy, reminds us that “we are always rooted in earth as creatures….We are utterly dependent on earth at every moment of our lives….So the issue is not whether we can escape earth; we cannot.  We live in earth as earth.  The issue is the suffering caused and harm inflicted by not accepting the earth’s constraints and possibilities” (Earth Community, Earth Ethics, Geneva, Switzerland: WCC Publications, 1996, pp. 275-276).

As we approach the Lenten season we will recall that Jesus manifests His Lordship only by undergoing the suffering and death of the cross.  I have ordered special Lenten Devotionals which will be available when we begin the Season of Lent.  Our Lenten Services will be on Thursday evenings at 6:30 p.m., following our Soup Supper at 6:00 p.m.  Choir rehearsal will follow our Lenten Service at 7:00 p.m.  Pastor Hallerberg and I are here to serve you to the best of our ability.  Please call on us!

In Christ our Lord,                                                                                                                                                        Pastor Richard L. Elliott