Week of the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

Dear Friends in Christ:

Here’s what you can expect at church this coming Sunday.

To honor Sunday as the principal assembling of the faithful on the Lord’s day, we will use the readings appointed for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost. But this coming Sunday, October 31, also happens to be Reformation Day – so you’ll note themes of the commemoration of the Reformation during worship on this day as well. And, as has been a custom at Resurrection Church to hold confirmation on Reformation Sunday, two of our youth, Christopher Bergman and Nathaniel Tsitsibelis, will affirm their baptism – which the whole assembly will participate in along with our confirmands, for together we are the body of Christ in and for the sake of the world.

Because Amanda Lindamood, our minister with youth, has been the primary confirmation teacher for Christopher and Nathaniel, and has journeyed with them for two years, I have invited her to preach this coming Sunday. As a concluding confirmation project, our confirmands have crafted this coming Sunday’s Prayers of Intercession under Amanda’s guidance.

But it is my privilege as pastor to preside at the rite for affirmation of baptism. Amanda and I have co-led two retreat occasions via Zoom with the confirmands and their parents, one last spring when I got to know them a bit better and one this fall when we focused on the rite for affirmation of baptism itself and its meanings so that our confirmands and their parents have a deeper understanding of what they will be undertaking this coming Sunday.

Following the liturgy, our confirmands will be honored with cake, congratulations, and conversation – along with an intergenerational event which will include prayer and the opportunity for participants, young and old and in between, to write their own theses to nail them to the Wittenberg door in the spirit of the church ever reforming as we make public witness to the world.

All of this is to say, please make a special effort to join us this coming Sunday for another significant occasion in our life together as a congregation.

In Christ,

Pastor Jonathan Linman