First Sunday in Lent
Holy Communion at 8:30 and 11am


Prayer of the Day
Holy God, heavenly Father, in the waters of the flood you saved the chosen, and in the wilderness of temptation you protected your Son from sin. Renew us in the gift of baptism. May your holy angels be with us, that the wicked foe may have no power over us, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
 

Scripture readings
Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25:1-10
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15

Sermon
"Caught in the Reign"
Genesis 9:8-17; Mark 1:9-15
We have entered now into Lent, a season we often describe as a journey. But it’s not really our journey; Lent is the story of the God who comes to us. The God who turns the deluge of devastation into the rainbow of promise. The God who travels from heaven to enter the chaotic waters and the wearying wilderness. The God who preaches to the captives of death and delivers them. The God who declares the rule of violence, from Chicago to Parkland, is over. A new reign is falling, into which you have been baptized. And in God’s journey to the cross of Christ, our journey of sin and separation ends. We are put on a new road for the sake of the new reign. Repent and return to the God who has journeyed to you.

Hymns

In our prayers we remember the health ministries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea.

Education hour at 9:45am

Children and youth

Sunday School,  Pre-Confirmation and Confirmation classes meet in their usual classrooms.  Teen Talk meets in the Youth Room. 

Adult Education

Color and Gender in the Early Church
Dr. George Kalantzis, Professor of Theology and Director of the Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies, Wheaton College
In his famous proclamation on the identity of the Christian community, Paul exclaimed that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one.” Yet, even though contemporary Christians may rejoice in the hearing of Paul’s words, in the the world of the vast Roman empire, the world into which Christianity was birthed, questions of race and gender were different than ours. Ethnic and cultural identities as well as procreative and domestic relationships demarcated social distinctions in ways that may be foreign to us. In this two-week sequence (Feb. 18 and 25) we will explore the concepts of color, race, and gender in the world of the earliest Christians to understand more fully Christianity’s revolutionary social claims in the slowly transitioning world of Late Antiquity.

Why We Feed the Hungry, Welcome the Stranger, and Care for the Sick and the Poor, part 2
Ryan Cummings, ELCA Hunger Education, and Franklin Ishida, ELCA Global Mission

In this two-part series, participants will learn about the breadth of projects supported by gifts to ELCA World Hunger, the emphasis on accompaniment that shapes the ELCA’s work, and the profound impact of this ministry. Rev. Franklin Ishida and Dr. Ryan Cumming will share stories from projects the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) supports in Asia, the Pacific region, and North America and discuss the “why” and “how” of ministry through ELCA World Hunger. As the ELCA’s director for Asia and the Pacific, Rev. Ishida works closely with companion churches and partners overseas as they address hunger, poverty, and disaster in their communities. Dr. Cumming, ELCA World Hunger’s program director for hunger education, develops resources congregations can use to learn more about hunger, poverty and how our faith calls us to respond to both.

Download the Adult Ed schedule for Winter 2018.

The Sunday morning Bible study group meets in the lower-level conference room.

The Grace Church Library is open and staffed on Sundays from 8:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Look for books related to Adult Ed topics as well as many other subjects. The library is also open for self-service during the week.

Download the 2017-2018 Sunday School and Confirmation Schedule.