Sermon given on Sunday, August 29, 2010, at Wooddale Lutheran Church by Pastor Tim Rauk. (Solveig Englund’s last Sunday as organist) Text is Colossians 3:12-17.

With so many schools, struggling to balance budgets, many districts are being forced to cut some of the classes they offer. And all too often, the classes that end up on the chopping block are music and art. “We need to stick with the basics, ‘reading, writing and arithmetic’” to quote an old educational axiom. That leaves quite a few other classes that are viewed as luxuries, or non-essentials. Fairly high on the list of things to cut, in order to save money, – music and art.

Not long ago, I heard a conversation on public radio on this very topic, discussing the value of keeping music in the public school curriculum. They had a music teacher, and an expert on educational development – who specialized in how kids learn. The developmental person spoke in favor of keeping music in the curriculum because, he said, “there is a strong link between music and math, and between art and science. If we expose kids to music, it will improve the likelihood that they will become strong mathematicians and scientists. “ After listening for a while, the music teacher agreed that, “there may be a link between mathematics and music, BUT is there not great value in music simply as music? Is there not great value in art on its own, whether it leads one to become a mathematician or not?”

Music is its own reward. As the devotional box on the front of your bulletin this morning suggests, I believe there is a very direct spiritual line between the worship of God, and music. The service today, is a celebration of the delight of music and what it brings to our worship life. The occasion for this focus is the fact that today is the last Sunday where our music will be led by Solveig Englund, who has been our organist for 16 years. But again as I wrote in the devotional box, Solveig’s guiding principle was that of J.S. Bach who said, “The aim and final end of all music should be the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” The focus is not on the performer: the focus is on the gift and how that gift raises our sights beyond ourselves, and helps us connect to God, the ultimate giver of the gift.

Sermon given on August 22, 2010, at Wooddale Lutheran Church by Pastor Tim Rauk.  Text is Luke 13:10-17.

I love the study of scripture.  And so I am intrigued when I read a story like the one I just read from Luke’s Gospel.  But it’s challenging enough sometimes, to make a link from these 2000+ year old writings to our world today.  And then, when it’s a story like today’s Gospel, where there’s something medical going on here, it really become challenging.  This story from Luke sounds different to our ears than it it sounded to people 2000 years ago.

We read the story, the first thing we do is ask medical questions about what’s going on.  We read “crippled” and “bent over”; “unable to stand up straight”, and we immediately imagine a medical diagnosis for this woman’s ailment.  I wonder what was wrong with her?  Osteoporosis, an injury, maybe a congenital birth defect that caused her suffering.  We separate the woman from the ailment.  We know nothing about this woman, except her ailment.

And that’s often how our society deals with medical questions. 

Sermon given on August 15, 2010, at Wooddale Lutheran Church by Pastor Tim Rauk. Text is Hebrews 11:29–12:2.

When I first read through the lessons for today, my first thought was to pick different lessons. There’s an edginess in the Gospel reading that doesn’t fit into the faith stories most of us embrace. And then the second reading, from the book of Hebrews: I have had people say to me with some regularity, “I tried reading the Bible, but I just don’t get it.” And this would be one such reading.

It starts off with a listing of images that we have trouble relating to. The writer of Hebrews is illustrating something that is important to us – this thing we call FAITH – but describes a kind of faith that is very different than the faith experiences that most of us have had.

“By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned.”

I have never had to flee for my life from an army of Egyptians.

Hey y’all Birthday girl here (Wendy).
When I woke up this morning Jean handed me a Purple foam crown to wear, and Ron handed me a card signed by everyone (very well appreciated).
When we pulled into Agua Viva, kids with their smiling, bright, energetic-selves rushed to come meet us and help set up VBS and play until we started. As the day progressed, we began with opening songs and a bible verse, followed by Ghost in the Graveyard ( a game). We then continued crafts and made puppets out of paper lunch bags. Later we crunched free time until the clowns came out. The kids enjoyed every bit of it. The         clowns called the B-Day girls out of the audience to come up. They sang the Birthday Song to us two. Later came the piñata, which everyone enjoyed of course. The birthday girls got to hit first, then followed by the rest of the kids until the piñata exploded. All the kids swarmed to get candy. Yes, I can say Ron did not get hit because I wasn’t blindfolded (thank goodness). As the kids slowly went to lunch, we cleaned up and put the church back together. We then slowly headed to lunch. After, we loaded up the vans and said our goodbyes to the kids who stuck around. We headed back to the Mission house to relax and to do a bit of cleaning up and pack for Corpus Christi. This may be our last post, unless we can find some wifi.
Please come to the service to listen what else happened if we don’t get a chance to update again.
Thanks for keeping posted throughout the week (:
-Wendy And Alex.

Hello everybody! John and Alex here!
We started today like any other day, scrambling to get ready and get to the church to set up VBS. We started by having a huge game of Duck-Duck-Goose, some songs (led by Carrie), and a puppet show to top it all off. We then made a cross using flowers and butterflies the kids made during craft time to give to the church as a gift. That afternoon we started the painting of the mural, with a little help from some of our kids from VBS. Today was a good day. Also I, Alex Kubitza, a.k.a. “Bingo” was inducted into the brotherhood of clowning. Goodbye for now y’all!

Hey Y’all,
Cailin and Katherine checking in!
Today was our day of rest. We got to sleep in about an hour, had a fantastic breakfast made by Papa Ron then headed to the worship service at Agua Viva. There we were presented with a cross as a thank you and sang to by the kids. Then it was back to the house to get ready for horseback riding. We were pleasantly surprised by how many horses there were to visit and other special animal friends. One word, PUPPIES! Of course, there were also sheep, goats, bulls and cows. We even came across a black widow spider. Then we had an amazing meal prepared by our friend Ricardo. Though it was hot we definitely enjoyed ourselves. Y’all are lucky that we didn’t bring any puppies with us because they were free and adorable. After we were full and tuckered out we packed into our vans and headed back, only after stopping to look at a Road Runner and the marvelous view of a valley.

Tomorrow we have big plans to paint a mural designed by the incredibly talented Joy. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for all of the support from back home.