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Thank you, Messiah! I cannot believe that my time at Messiah is almost to a close. My last day will be Sunday, August 8th, so I wanted to reach out and say from the bottom of my heart, thank you for being you, Messiah. Thank you for inviting me into your lives. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to learn, be challenged, laugh, cry, breathe, and...

by Intern Pr. Taran | Here it is! |  "How long have you been at Messiah Lutheran Church? What drew you to Messiah?" Those have been my two greeting questions as I meet and greet so many of you for the first time. As you can imagine, the answers to both of those questions are incredibly diverse. The length of time folks have been at M...

A farewell post from pastoral intern Joel Hinck |  When Liz Bailey (Messiah's fantastic Co-Director of Children's and Family Ministries) ends a Godly Play session, she puts out a candle that has been burning the whole time and says something quite striking. Instead of telling the children that she is "putting out" the candle, she tells them th...

by Joel Hinck, Pastoral Intern  |   I've been reading John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress during Lent this year. Written in 1678, the book is an allegorical description of the Christian life. The main character, named (appropriately enough) Christian, encounters a series of dangers, monsters, and peculiar characters, all of whi...

a "Travel and Arrival" blog by Joel Hinck, Pastoral Intern  |   For days we never saw the sky. As we drove west the smoke from blazing forest fires covered the landscape in a dull grey, stinging in our nostrils and hiding all but the vaguest shapes of the mountains around us. The mountains were lurking giants, hiding just out of...

Nathan and I love gardening. Of course, like many gardeners, we love the end results of our hard work. We like the beauty of flowers in our front yard and the satisfaction of eating vegetables we grew ourselves. But we also love the glamor-less, labor-intensive parts: the pruning and weeding, the digging and watering. It's a lovely and gratify...

Reflections from Pastoral Intern Mary Beenken - A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of joining three former interns on a panel for our most recent Theology on Tap. The subject was 'changes in the church' and our task was to provide perspectives on how these changes were talked about and handled while we were in seminary—and whether or not that mea...

Meister Eckhart, German theologian and mystic from the 13th century, famously claimed, "If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." (He was also famously tried as a heretic, but all the really good ones are, don't you think?) It's a prayer that we have been saying fervently and frequently in these last few weeks, as we reflect on our time at Messiah. We were so blessed, in so many ways, by our year with all of you, especially by your generosity with our baby shower and farewell program. Thank you, thank you for your gifts, your time, your presence and your words of encouragement and support. We'll be sure a baby picture makes its way west when the little one arrives. We are excited for the impending start of Allison and Timothy this fall, and we will continue to hold you...

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” Eccl. 3:1  In Disney’s animated film Frozen, one of the characters named Olaf sings about his dreams of experiencing summer for the very first time. In his song, called In Summer, Olaf confesses that he doesn’t have “much experience with heat” (he is, after all, a snowman...) and then adds, “But sometimes I like to close my eyes, and imagine what it’ll be like when summer does come.” It’s a clever, catchy number (don’t look it up unless you’re prepared to have it stuck in your head). Olaf can’t wait to “find out what happens to solid water when it gets warm!” and shares that “when life gets rough, I like to hold onto my dream/of relaxing in the summer sun, just lettin’ off steam.”What’s this got to do with anything? Aside from the obvious, (summer is...

Easter is coming! But sometimes it's hard to transition from Lent and Good Friday into Easter. An ancient tradition of the church is to hold vigil until the dawn of Easter morning, and declare Christ's Resurrection. This year, though we won't stay up all night, Messiah is going to practice an Easter Vigil worship service on the Saturday before Easter, April 4, at 6:30pm. It's a service that begins in darkness and with fire to remind us that the Light of Christ is never extinguished, and we will declare that "this is the night!" that Christ crosses from death to life. Then we settle in to hear the stories of God's faithfulness, from Creation to Resurrection. And when we hear the resurrection story, we'll bust out the lilies and "Alleluias!" and celebrate the Risen Lord. You're all invited. To learn more, or if you're interested in participating, contact Intern Ben.  ...