October 2021 Newsletter
Dear Family of God at Grace,
As you read this letter I will be traveling for a few weeks for some rest and relaxation and a one-week continuing education class at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I have been looking forward to this trip for about a year now.
I’m leaving you in good and capable hands. Pastor Seth DeBartolo will be preaching on Sundays and leading worship and Bible Class. If you need a pastoral visit while I’m away, please call the office. Pastor Mark Eisold, Pastor DeBartolo, or Pastor Karl Glander will be on call if you need them.
October is a joyous month! We have the Oktoberfest on Sunday the 17th. It will start around 4 and we will eat around 4:30ish. Start praying for good weather! There will be lots of great food and fellowship. Lot’s great music and fun games for all ages. We will have a bounce obstacle course for the kids and the egg toss. There will be face-painting for the kids and this year we hope to add some Bingo with prizes for the kids at heart (that means adults)! My hope is to have some Luther lemonade (that means beer), and bratwurst provided by the church and then you can bring your favorite dish to share. Sadly, I am just coming home the day before the Oktoberfest, so I don’t think I’ll have time to make the hot potato salad, sorry! Everyone will have to pick up may slack a little. I’m sure we will still have more than enough food.
“Trunk or Treat” will be on Friday, October 29th at 6PM. If you would like to come out and support our preschool kids and families as well as the kids from Grace, we will be setting up at around 5PM so we are ready for the 6PM start. It’s easy. Buy a trunk load of candy (maybe not that much, but enough for say 50 kids). Come up with a theme for the back of your car, (your trunk). Drive over to the church parking lot at 5PM. Pick out a parking spot. Decorate your car’s trunk. Bring a chair to sit on and some cold ice-tea or lemonade, and then wait for the kids to walk around the parking lot and get candy! Remember, no toothbrushes or apples! This is time for the good stuff, CHOCOLATE! Thanks in advance!
This year, Reformation falls on Sunday October 31st. We are not planning a special service, but we will make the Sunday services Reformation. If all goes well, Lord willing, Pastor Kudart and Sandy will be back for that Sunday. We look forward to having them back with us! Pray for their safe travels!
In this Reformation month and with our verse at Grace for the year being: 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come”(ESV). It seems appropriate that I end this letter with quote from Luther about baptism. This is a long quote so let me set it up for you. Luther is writing in 1519, ten years before the Small Catechism would be published. He writes to encourage believers that their baptism is the entrance rite into the family of God eternally. While sins certainly trouble the conscience of every believer they can turn to their baptism for comfort and forgiveness. In that water the baptized child of God receives Jesus and all He has won for them. So as sin/sins have their way with you run back to the forgiving water of life, baptism! This is a covenant which God has made with you. I give you Luther:
“Now if this covenant did not exist, and God were not so merciful as to wink at our sins, there could be no sin so small but it would condemn us. For the judgment of God can endure no sin. Therefore there is no greater comfort on earth than baptism. For it is through baptism that we come under the judgment of grace and mercy, which does not condemn our sins but drives them out by many trials. There is a fine sentence of St. Augustine which says, “Sin is altogether forgiven in baptism; not in such a manner that it is no longer present, but in such a manner that it is not imputed.” It is as if he were to say, ‘Sin remains in our flesh even until death and works without ceasing. But so long as we do not give our consent to it or desire to remain in it, sin is so overruled by our baptism that it does not condemn us and is not harmful to us. Rather it is daily being more and more destroyed in us until our death.’
For this reason no one should be terrified if he feels evil lust or love, nor should he despair even if he falls. Rather he should remember his baptism, and comfort himself joyfully with the fact that God has there pledged himself to slay his sin for him and not to count it a cause for condemnation, if only he does not say Yes to sin or remain in it. Moreover these wild thoughts and appetites, and even a fall into sin, should not be regarded as an occasion for despair. Regard them rather as an admonition from God that we should remember our baptism and what was there spoken, that we should call upon God’s mercy and exercise ourselves in striving against sin, that we should even welcome death in order that we may be rid of sin.”[1]
Fear not! Sin, death, and hell have no claim on you. You are baptized into Christ! Thanks be to God!
In His Service,
Pastor Lingsch
