St. Stephen's Lutheran Church

Frequently when I order from Amazon I can get overnight delivery. Once in a while I can get delivery in the next five hours if I order within the next hour. Trust me, these are rarely items that I need that quickly. I can easily wait 2-3 days for most of those items. Sometimes we just need patience. Following Jesus was a waiting game. Many believed that Jesus was the one who would bring God's kingdom to earth RIGHT NOW. There was disappointment when he talked about the kingdo

As those of you who have been part of our worshiping community these past few weeks know, I am preaching a sermon series this summer on the fruits of the Spirit, with special emphasis on growing these fruits within ourselves and within others. Next up? Patience. But you’ll have to wait for it (how appropriate is that?) as I will be at the beach this weekend. In the meantime, I thought I could share my working definitions for all these fruits. And, as a gentle reminder, these

Sue and I have a very close friend who lives in New York City and who was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones. His wife was a fellow classmate of Sue’s at Mt. Holyoke College. The connection between the two women over the time since graduation expanded a number of years ago to include their husbands and, since then, the four of us have visited regularly and have traveled together within and outside the United States. Now our friends and

I was once pastor of a church that rented its space from a much larger Episcopal church that had built a new sanctuary. It took a good year for most of us to feel comfortable with that arrangement. This was not because the rector or the leadership or most of the people did not welcome us. They did. Still, it was not our space. We needed some storage. I can’t think of any churches off-hand that have empty closets. To have any space for us was to have them get rid of some of th