First Lutheran Church is providing a ten-person team to work with Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity on Saturday, August 28. The volunteer shift is from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with lunch provided from 12:00-12:45 p.m. There are three core goals on the job site. 1 – Safety 2 –FUN! We are here to work hard and have a goodtime 3 – Teaching: PPHFH is a teaching organization, and our qualified staff are more than willing to help!
There are only 10 available slots,so please sign up before they are gone! https://bit.ly/3y6GxTh.
Please let Cheryl Mahon know if you are willing to provide lunch for our volunteers! cheryl@flccs.net or 719.447.6064.
It started with a parade with Pastor Peel and Louis Peel in a horse-drawn carriage, while Pastor Travis was driven around in a vintage 1959 Mercedes!
We then had a ribbon cutting ceremony, which you can watch below!
After the ribbon was cut around the Peel House, everyone was invited to go inside a take a tour! We had amazing food, friendship and fun! Take a look at the photos below. More will be added as they come in!
“You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger;… But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” -James 1: 19 & 22
This is some sage advice. I wish I was better at taking advice. The whole passage from James is one that directs on how to live, and I think how to live a good life worthy of God who loves us. How many times in just this past week have I jumped in before someone could even finish a thought to either defend myself, offer an excuse, or suggest something different. I wonder what it is that I’m missing when I don’t actually take the time to hear what others are saying and am only getting ready for the next thing that I want to say? What do we miss in doing that?
These verses also steer me, to the idea of not just listening, but actually doing. What does it look like to be a doer of the word? Really, if we hear the good word, but we have no accompanying action how are we living out the gospel truth. For the next several weeks we are going to listen to the sermon series “faith that works” and examine how our faith drives our daily lives. Where are the places that we need to listen more closely, speak with intentionality and thought, and live the gospel in both word and action. I hope that you too will dive into the book of James with us and we all seek to deepen our faith together.
“I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is with you…” 2 Timothy 1:6
I remember stumbling over this passage with Pastor Carrie when we were trying to figure out a theme for the capital campaign to fund the renovation of the Peel House. The word “Rekindle” jumped off that page. That’s exactly what we wanted to do with with the Peel House. We understood it as a gift from God that just needed to be fanned back into full flame and use. The gift of this historic home has been rekindled and now we get to see all the ways God will use it in the life of this congregation and a gift to the city. It’s also a good time to look at our own faith as a gift of God that needs to be nurtured and rekindled. What can we do to make ourselves more ready to be used by God as a gift to the congregation and the community?
“But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” -Jesus (Luke 6:27)
We are finishing up the “Copy That” series on learning to imitate Jesus. This last lesson is the most counter cultural and should be the thing that sets Christians apart from the ways of the rest of the world. Love you enemies and do good to those who hate you. We’ll talk about the first part this Sunday, but what really strikes me is that last part. Do good to those who hate you. Who hates you? Who thinks you are a terrible person? Who wants you to fail? Who is actively working against you trying to make you look bad, bring you down, make your life harder? Jesus calls us to do good to them. Help them. Speak well of them. Honor and respect them. Try to make their lives better. Serve them. This is what it looks like to follow Jesus. Woah!
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. -Mark 8: 31-32
Jesus spoke quite openly of his death. It always seemed to surprise the ones he was talking with. They wanted to deny that he was going to die. Maybe they wanted to deny that he was going to die for their sake? I’m not sure where the denial stems from, but it sure is one that we are still familiar with today. Denying death. It’s been a long few years of death and funerals here at First Lutheran, some expected and some not at all. The reality is that someday we are all going to die, in the meantime we should take a look at the things that we could die to in our daily lives. What things could we give up to death? Let’s look to earlier in Mark 7 at verses 21-23: “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” As Jesus enters into his final days, death upon him and resurrection sure to come, it’s our call to live into death and resurrection also through our baptism, through repentance and through the grace of our Lord Jesus. The text for this week is another one that tries to prepare us for death, a death that I don’t believe we’ll ever be ready for, but a death that leads us to a life well lived and hope in the promise of the resurrection which is an eternal live well lived.
First Thoughts at First 