September 1, 2023

Scripture readings

for Sunday, Sept. 3

Isaiah 51:1-6

Psalm 138

Romans 12:1-8

Matthew 16:13-20

• For our community of faith as we seek to do God’s work in the world.

• For those in our congregation and community who suffer silently with illness, financial burdens, and family obligation.

• For people affected by coronavirus, their families, essential workers, doctors, nurses, aides, those working in nursing homes, etc.

• For Dianne Sloan, Lee and Kay Marker Magneson, Roy Pihl, George Balcom, Thom Shagla, Lianne Edborg, Marty Wittstrom, Sarah VanStaalduin, Charlene Hunter, Joe Gauvin, Emerson Allaby, Karen Brown, John Gingrass, those serving in the military and law enforcement and their families, including Christine Kaffka and Ben Wickerham, those caught up in violence and war who have no safe home in which to live.

• For all children, that the love of Christ may reach them through all of us who have resources to love, protect, pray and provide for them.

• For the ELCZ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe and ELCZa Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zambia.

PRAYER REQUESTS

Names will remain of the Prayer List for a month - at which

time it will be taken off unless, or course, there is still a continued need

for our prayers and we’re asked to keep the name on.

REFLECTION

Pastor Ivy Gauvin is on vacation.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

This Week:

Sept. 7 - Tai Chi 9:30 am and 12:30 pm

Choir 7:00 pm

Pastor Ivy will be on vacation August 29 – September 4. In case of a pastoral care emergency, please call Pastor Mark Swanson at 215-264-4180.

Pastor Dan Rumfelt will be the supply pastor on September 3.

*** Next week is our Picnic! Food, games, raffle basket, GREAT conversations. Join our “family reunion” so we can catch up with you all!! RAIN or SHINE at church. Immediately following worship.

5 Week Dog Tricks and Canine Good Citizen classes at St. Timothy.

Carly Davis, from Chq Dogs, is having 5 week dog training sessions on Monday evenings in the Fellowship Hall in September and October. Her tentative time is 5:00 pm.

She will be teaching dog tricks along with the Canine Good Citizen Class.

The dates are 9/18, 9/25, 10/2, 10/16, 10/23, 10/30.

o Novice Trick Dog 5 Week Course: $150

o Canine Good Citizen (2 prep classes and evaluation): $100

o Therapy (2 prep classes and evaluation): $125

*For St. Timothy members - a 10% discount (off my fees )

If interested, contact Carly at 716-268-1421.

5 & 2 Ministry

Another school year is coming up quickly, so 5 & 2 Backpack Ministry is also gearing up for another wonderful year providing food on the weekends for our area children!

Fighting childhood hunger in our community one child at a time.

Helping combat food scarcity in our community.

Can you help pack on the 3rd Tuesday night of the

month from 7-8?

Contact Gale Svenson-

Campbell at:

gales1949@gmail.com

***5 & 2 Ministry Food Bins Donated to Date: 110

***ONLINE GIVING now available at St. Timothy

for Debit/Credit cards. 3 ways to give:

- Go directly to our website at www.sttimothybemus.com

- Use our QR code with the QR reader on your smartphone

- Download the app ‘GivePlus Church’. Create an account.

For further information, see Kathy Carlson on Sundays or call her at 485-1316.

Where is God Leading Us?

… for such a time as this (Esther 4:14)

Upstate New York Synod Women of the ELCA invites all women to the 2023 Convention Gathering, Friday – Sunday, October 6th – 8th at Notre Dame Retreat House, Canandaigua, New York. Our theme – Just Love ~ Where is God leading us? – explores where we’ve been during these last four years, since our last Synod Women’s Gathering. But the theme also challenges us to explore where we hope to go, trusting in God’s guidance …for such a time as this (Esther 4:14).

Marilyn Dyer, Director of Resource Develop-ment, St. Paul’s Center for homeless mothers and their children, Rensselaer, New York, serves as our keynote speaker. We also plan time to share with one another what God has been doing in our lives during this time of challenge and for some, change.

Our weekend offers opportunities for prayer and worship, studying God’s Word, wonderful fellowship and meeting new Sisters in Christ.

Contact Lois Rumfelt – (716) 664-4409 or at rumfelt@stny.rr.com – for a reservation/ registration form and more info.

(NOTE: Accommodations include all meals while at the retreat center). Scholarship and financial assistance – also available.

More Than a Logo

If the church has a universally recognized logo, it is probably the cross. But branding was probably not what Jesus was thinking about when he invited Peter and those who would come after him to take up their cross and follow. The cross that Jesus calls us to carry alongside him is instead the means by which God chooses to reveal grace in the midst of death.

Rather than follow in the way of Jesus, sometimes the church can simply get in the way. We want to be good followers. We want more people to experience what we have. But sometimes in our desire to draw larger crowds, we end up putting ourselves—our music, our ministries, our outreach—at the center and subtly leaving God aside. In the midst of a world that drives us to always want more, Jesus invites us to deny ourselves. The denial to which Jesus calls us is not about putting ourselves down or neglecting our own needs. But it is about centering the cross of Christ in our lives so that our desires and dreams begin to arc ever more in the direction of God’s love and mercy at work in the world.

The cross that Jesus took up didn’t just belong to him. Two bandits were crucified with him, one on either side, and the Romans crucified many more. The cross is more than a logo; it is a symbol that joins us to a suffering world. The cross is not an individual burden to carry; it is the whole church’s work. Crosses adorn our steeples and worship spaces, but worship also empowers us to take up the issues of the day that are matters of life and death for so many, such as war and violence, housing and food security, racism and climate change. When we shoulder these “crosses” together, the church doesn’t make its own way; we follow the way of Jesus.

From sundaysandseasons.com.