In Common, September 2008

September 2008 issue: Holy Cross (PDF, 700K)

Rally Day picnic photos!

Worship Services

Sundays, 10 am: Holy Communion

Wednesdays, 7 pm: Evening Prayer, or Holy Communion during Advent (4 weeks before Christmas) and Lent (6 weeks leading up to Easter). There is no Wednesday prayer in August.

Who can attend worship at St. Paul?

We invite you to worship with us whether you are:

• A Lutheran
• A Christian from another church body
• A person of faith of any religion
• Not really much of a believer

At the altar for Holy Communion, we welcome all baptized Christians who believe that Christ is really present in the bread and wine.

Babies and children are especially welcome at St. Paul. Baptized children may receive Holy Communion, regardless of their age. We understand that little ones need to move around and sometimes make noise. When a child really needs a break, there’s a little area in the narthex at the back where parents can take them to find a soft toy and help them calm down.

What is worship like at St. Paul?

At St. Paul Lutheran Church, we worship in the historic liturgical tradition of the church catholic. That’s small-c catholic, meaning “universal”—we worship the way the church has worshipped for a long, long time. Our worship is centered around Word and Sacrament.

Word

We read the Bible because we believe it contains the Word of God. Most of the time we read three Bible lessons and sing a Psalm. We also sing and pray the Bible! Many of our hymns and our prayers come from the Bible. At St. Paul, we love to sing, and our wonderful organ and great acoustics makes singing God’s Word fun and rewarding.
Oh, and there’s a sermon, too! The sermon generally applies the Bible lessons of the day to our daily lives. Martin Luther said that proper preaching includes both Law, which shows us why we need God, and Gospel, which shows us God’s love freely given to fill our need. Sermons are usually 15-20 minutes long.

Sacrament

At the heart of our worship—and of our lives—is Baptism. In Baptism, we die to ourselves and are reborn in Christ. God accepts us as beloved children, even though we’re not worthy of such a great gift. Baptism is about what God does for us and to us and in us, not about what we believe or know or do. So Lutherans baptize infants as well as adults. If you would like to be baptized or have your child baptized, please contact the pastor.

At the heart of every Sunday service, as well as festivals such as Christmas, is Holy Communion. We believe that the bread and wine is “the body of Christ given for you, the blood of Christ shed for you,” as the ministers say to each communicant. We leave the altar fed with God’s great love for us, forgiven our sins, and strengthened for a life of service to others.

God has a passion for justice. The people of St. Paul Lutheran Church follow the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19: 18, Matthew 22:39) by caring for the people in our neighborhood and by advocating for justice for all people on earth.

• The Sharing Place is the largest food pantry in Hudson County.
• We make facilities available to the Lutheran Home for Children and Alcoholics / Narcotics Anonymous groups.
• We are expanding our community service through the St. Paul Center for Caring.
• We join other NJ Lutheran churches in prayer vigils at the Elizabeth immigrant detention center.
• We pray at every worship service for peace and justice.

God Bless

Now that Theo is born, and he travels with me in his stroller or baby carrier, I get another even more stirring and moving response. When I go for walks with him, people look at him, smile, and say “Awww.” Then they look at me and say “God bless”. Now, people have said “God bless” to me before, especially during allergy season when I sneeze constantly. But this feels different. It’s not an automatic, rote response. It is heartfelt and genuine. When it is spoken, there is eye contact, there is human connection. There is a knowing, loving look in their eyes, which is a blessing in itself.

God bless. It is part prayer, part proclamation. It is a prayer that this new life will be blessed, healthy, and strong. It is also a proclamation of what is: New life, and life itself, is a gift from God.

God bless. What if we said this tiny prayer to one another as we shared the Peace during the liturgy, giving thanks for the gift of our life together and praying for a blessed future? What if these two powerful words were to become a refrain of St. Paul @ 125, as we honor the past and ask God to make our future one of abundance and grace and passionate discipleship?

God bless us with new ministries in our community and new members to join in our service. God bless the Sharing Place, St. Paul Center for Caring, and our partners in the community. God bless all God’s people with discernment and wisdom. God bless us with compassion. God bless us with renewed vision and energy. God bless us so that we might be a blessing to others.

We can call on God’s name and pray these prayers because God does bless us through the love God shows for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and for our salvation (Romans 5:8–9). As we go forward into the fall and beyond, let’s keep our eyes on the risen Christ who is our hope, our nourishment, and our life, so that we will know we are blessed, and so that we know in whose name we pray, “God bless.”

In Christ,

Pastor Jessica