Resurrection Lutheran Church - Woodbury, MN

To call all people to a vibrant life of faith in Christ

Sue Guck

Resurrection Building Reopen Status – Nov 12

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Over this past fall through our Connect Bible study I have been swimming in the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5. Although there is similar list of blessings in Luke, Matthew’s list is a bit more comforting, which is something that we all need. Matthew gives us a list of things that point to our reality and the hope that is still present. However, Matthew also includes ideals that we should pursue, to chase after with the intent of catching… like peace, righteousness, and mercy. It is in pursuing these things that we wear God’s name… we are called children of God. Part of that pursuit includes care for the health of our worshipping community, our kids, and our wider community.

That is why we have decided to continue our online only worship. Jesus does not include a “blessed are the stubborn” in the list. At times I wish he did though, because the stubbornness in me longs to return to in person worship. This summer outdoors was life-giving to us all. However, we do know what scripture says about stubbornness – 35 The wise will inherit honor, but stubborn fools, disgrace. (Pro 3:35) Sounds a bit like the beatitudes listed in Luke. A bit harsher than Matthew. Now you know why I like the Matthew list a bit more.

We will continue to develop creative ways to be community with and for one another and we will keep you up to date each week. We continue to be guided by Minnesota Department of Health, the CDC, and our local schools. We are also guided by research and education around this pandemic. We have included a link to a presentation that was recently given at St. Olaf College in Northfield MN. (Where my son attends.) Take a look.

https://institute.stolaf.edu/public-programs/2020-2021/public-policy-and-covid-19/

 

Blessings to you all.

Pastor Paul Dean

Resurrection Worship Update – July 2

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Well we have been on a journey these past months and we have found ourselves on this journey separated from one another. However hard the physical separation has been, and it continues to be, it is for the right reasons. Resurrection has been gifted with a wonderful option though. We have a beautiful outdoor worship setting that we will begin using for worship on Sunday mornings at 10am starting July 12th and will continue each week weather permitting and following MN state guidelines.

After many steps and a lot of conversations we do believe we can both hold your health and safety as top priority and appropriately gather for outdoor worship. I have included in this mailing our guidelines and a map of the outdoor worship space to help you navigate. We are prepared and we can do this if we all do it together.

Resurrection will continue to produce our online worship experiences for the foreseeable future as well. Our online worship has been a major gift to so many and we see our outdoor worship and our online worship as incredibly important to our spiritual lives.  Watch online here.

We also acknowledge that we are not experts in social distance worshiping. We have listened to the experts closely, which is why we have taken our time to do due diligence. But we expect to be experts soon as we will learn from week to week. We will be taking baby steps with your health in the forefront of all our plans. We will also continue to respond and follow our states guidelines moving forward. As you know some states may have opened too soon and some people have not been taking this situation as seriously as they should. I say again… we are prepared, and we can do this if we do it together. Please read through the guidelines and follow the seating guide. As always there is no pressure to come. Per our survey there are those who are not comfortable with outdoor worship even if we were not in a pandemic. We get that. We understand. Our online worship will continue and we are working on future plans for indoor worship sometime this fall.

 

Blessings to you all!

Pastor Paul Dean

 

 

As we open for Outdoor Worship: Additional protections and protocols

Other conditions and circumstances addressed in this plan that are specific to our church include:

  • per Industry Guidance for Safely Reopening: Places of Worship we will not be able to gather outside in groups larger than 250. If we find that our outdoor worship begins to lean in that direction, we will act to either add an additional outdoor worship or institute a reservation system (which is not favorable).
  • as of this summer of 2020, in person communion will be suspended until further notice… we will still celebrate communion during our online worship.
  • even though we are outside COVID-19 is commonly spread through aerosol which means we will ask each worship attendee to wear a mask. Being outside means the wind comes into the picture. Please read further information from the CDC here.
  • we will not have handouts, but you will be able to download a worship handout to your phone that includes an order of worship and the lyrics of songs.
  • the building will be closed which means that the bathroom facilities will not be accessible… please use your home facilities before attending worship.
  • at this time, we will be also suspending in person children messages, however they will continue during online worship.
  • as you come to worship please follow social distancing when you are parking and walking to the outdoor worship area.
  • the outdoor worship space will be clearly marked for 6 feet of social distancing… families are encouraged to sit together…
  • please bring your own chair or blanket to sit on… chairs will not be provided…
  • weather – please check our website 30 minutes prior to worship to see if our wonderful Minnesota weather cooperates for outdoor worship!
  • please see the map of our campus that is included for more direction.
  • in order to help with contact tracing we will be taking attendance through our website and sign in sheets with clean pens and hand sanitizer.
  • if you have a fever or are ill please refrain from attending and seek medical help.

 

Promise

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Two promises… major promises in my life changed me forever.

The first was the promise of marriage… she said yes… and it changed everything…

And then she said, twice, we are going to have a baby… the promise of new life… and it changed everything…

All of these started out as promises for some future event, getting married, having kids, but the promise was not just about the future… the promise changed my present.

That is the real power of promise.  The real power of the promise is the hope and focus that it brings to our present.

You and I live in a world where promises matter.

Promise gives us hope…

I am seeing a lot of promises out there…

Promises like… I hear you… I stand with you…

Sounds a lot like the promise found in Isaiah 41…

“… do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.”

What a promise! It is the kind of promise that changes me because I believe it to be true …

So maybe these promises will lead me to fear a bit less…

Maybe these promises will help me shed my tiredness and lean into the strength of God I see in others…

That is the power of promise.

A Way

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A broom is a highly effective tool… until it’s not. And it doesn’t take long to figure out if a broom is up to the task.

When the bristles no longer do the job, debris slips through, making the task of sweeping almost futile. You simply can’t clean.

In scripture this idea of cleaning, or making things right again, is central to the story of God’s relationship with humanity.

This is what God’s law was all about. A set of instructions to provide ways of making things right and in that way we can understand the law as a broom. A broom that is fully capable of keeping things clean with God and clean with one another.

But what happens when the broom of the law doesn’t work anymore? Or maybe more specific… what happens when the people who are supposed to care enough to use the broom leave it in the corner and the mess just keeps getting deeper and deeper.

And the mess… caused suffering. The law… has been subverted and the people do not get justice.

So what do you do when the broom fails?

When all that should be, isn’t?

Well… faith…

4 Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith. (Hab 2:4 NRS)

Faith… Far too often we think of faith as having the answers all line up.

But faith is not about answers… faith is a way of life… a way of living even in a world of failed brooms.

17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.” (Rom 1:17 NRS)

Faith as a way… when all else fails…

What happens when you can’t see the promise?

There are no blossoms, the produce of the olive fails – there is no promise of food,

What do you do when there is nothing in your experience that tells us that a new day is coming?

Faith…

Faith is a militant response – faith is an act of defiance.

Faith….Calls people forward even when circumstances don’t seem promising.

None the less there is a God who created you, redeems you, and it is God who makes your feet not only move quickly like a deer… God will help you find footing over rugged terrain.

May you…  in the waiting… when the broom fails… live by faith… continue to see beauty among the broken… reach out when others hold back… seek joy when life seems the darkest… open up to the possibility that you are part of a new day.

More… Self Control

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I grew up with lots of rules…
A highly disciplined environment.
Mr. Adams – the principle of my elementary school – would walk around with a large paddle at recess and wack kids who were out of line. Sounds criminal today, but was normalized back in the day.
And while we didn’t have a guy walking around church with a paddle… sometimes it felt that way…
The church always seemed like just a bunch of rules…
A bunch of rules that others imposed upon the rest of us…
The same was true about the idea of self-control… just another rule…
But as I got older I began to realize that most of the disciplines of our faith are not about what you can’t do…

They are really giving us the freedom to do what we can…

The Eighth Commandment – You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor…
Sure seems like we are being told what not to do…
But the real power of the commandment comes when we live it…
The call is not to just refrain from lying about our neighbors…
But we are supposed to stick up for them when others lie about them, speak well of them, come to their defense and to think well of them…
Think about this in context of bullying… it’s not just that we should refrain from bullying…
But we are to stick up for those who are bullied…
Through the lens of today’s culture… in the context of today’s world,
A culture that is over hyped…
Over politicized…
Over conspiracy theorized…

When we talk about the kingdom of God… when we live into that… when we live the disciplines of our faith… the kingdom of God comes near.

Jesus uses a very normal event in the life of community, a wedding, to talk about being prepared for the kingdom of God.
Customary for the friends of the bride or bridegroom to escort the bridegroom to the wedding feast,
It just so happens that this wedding feast happens at midnight, at the last hour…
It’s a deliberate time to illustrate that the kingdom of God shows up when it shows up
It’s not about staying awake… all the girls fell asleep.
It’s about exercising the type of self-control that keeps us prepared to greet the kingdom of God when it comes…
Self-control is not just about saying no to things… it’s about having the capacity, the ability to say yes to things.
And to say yes to the things that really matter.

What is it that you do not have time to do that would change the world?
What is it that you want to financially support but haven’t sat down and planned to do it and when it comes time to give you can’t?

Typically when we think we don’t have time or the resources to help it’s because we haven’t grown the spiritual fruit of self-control that would inevitably give us the time and the resources to live more fully into the kingdom of God, to be prepared to respond when the kingdom of God presents itself.