I have been tapped to bring The Bag next Sunday. Actually, I'm kind of a default presenter; after one of our little kiddos completed a charming and meaningful review of her three items this morning, our pastor asked for volunteers for next week, and when no one raised a hand -- the congregation was unusually bashful today -- he picked me. (Lay ministerial service with a smile -- LC reporting for duty, sir.)
Now, I have been a Bag lady before, maybe a year after I started hanging out with this congregation. But that was then, and this is now, and I am going to place three new items in the Bag. One of them will be my laptop computer, because something that's very important to me is my amazing network of online friends, and the real excitement I feel in our ongoing collective project of being the Church in this new modality.
With that in mind...if you would like to send your greeting to the fine folks at Hope Lutheran Church -- talkin' 'bout my congregation, in a little white-clapboard country church next to a hayfield, in a place that's hard to find unless you're lost to begin with -- just post your hellos here, and I will convey them to my friends there next Sunday.
The Official Bag
11 comments:
Peace Be With You and Your Congregation.
I'm a lifelong Lutheran by the Grace of God. I attended Jerusalem Lutheran Church in Ebenezer/Rincon, GA right outside of Savannah for over 10 years (home of Lutheran Salzburgers).
I'm now in the upmost left corner of GA and attending a small Episcopalian church (20 in average attendance) because there is no Lutheran Church within 70 miles of where I live.
I've been reading your blog for a few months and soak in your "lutheranisms" :) I often find myself nodding at some of your comments and ideas and scratching my chin at some of the others (causes me to ponder and think)
I've loved this idea of "The Bag". Peace be with you all.
What a small world... I've preached in the Jerusalem sanctuary when my internship parish had a retreat at the nearby conference center! This is the kind of communication-among-the-Body made possible by the web. And as we say when in Georgia, grace and peace to all y'all!
Peace to you, Hope Lutheran Sisters and Brothers from a member of First Lutheran Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Your layleader, LutheranChik, is truly a blessing to you and to the rest of us. She questions, and contemplates, and chuckles, and moans along with the whole body of Christ, and her online blog connects you to a much wider world than Outer Podunk, Michigan.
I'm blushing!:-)
Just so you know...I'm editing out the stuff about me, 'cause it's really about you.
On another of my frequent online hangouts I collected a greeting from a new friend in Tasmania. (Who knew there were Tasmanian Lutherans?) This is great.
Hello, People from Hope!
Greetings from Asbury Park! (Or thereabouts!)
Grace and peace to you all.
(bls - I've actually been to Asbury Park. Friends of mine got married at the HoJo's.)
Greetings to the people of Hope!
I live, and go to an Episcopal church, in Berkeley, California (another small town where nothing much happens ;-).
My online Christian community saved my sanity when I had an illness that made it tough for me to get out of bed. Now that I'm better, I enjoy "meeting" people from all over the world and from many different traditions ... in our Father's house, there are indeed many mansions!
Peace be with you.
My pastor is a rock and roll guy...he'll get a kick out of that.
Charlotte: My pastor and his wife, who are cosmopolitan in spirit if not in place, will also get a kick out of your description of Berkeley.;-)
(I'm not actually from Asbury Park - I live about 60 miles away, in fact.
But isn't that a Springsteen album title? I just thought I'd use it for color and fun.
And it sounds better than "Greetings from the Diocese of Newark!")
LC - admittedly our calibration for "nothing much happening" is a lot different from yours ;).
(I got it from an exchange with a merchant on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Tone of voice, which I can't reproduce here, is everything, but you have picked up on the essentials.)
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