This Sunday was the last week of our summer series, Learning to Swim. This week's reflection is from Sam Fritz. Sam is a member of Risen Lord along with his wife Shannon and children, Sophie & Simon. Sam serves on the Redevelopment Team and shares his thoughts on serving in conjunction with the upcoming God's Work. Our Hands. event.
Our purpose at Risen Lord Lutheran Church is to “Share God’s love through words and actions.” We accomplish this by learning to think and act IN, OUT and UP. As we continue to dive deep IN our spiritual journey, we have been learning some wonderful new skills. We also are learning how to enact our purpose through actions. One opportunity to practice OUT (or service), will take place on Sunday September 8, 2019. Our Risen Lord Lutheran Church family will participate with the other approximately 3.4 million baptized ELCA members in 9,091 congregations across America, in God’s Work. Our Hands. Day of Service. Service is one of those odd phrases that gets used often, but I’m never really sure what I am supposed to do to embrace it. I think service is when a person or people find a need in their community and work to maintain or improve it to improve the lives of others. The ELCA encourages this nation-wide effort toward service and below is a description of the event from the God’s Work. Our Hands. website . “God’s work. Our hands.” Sunday is Sunday, September 8, 2019. This day is an opportunity to celebrate who we are as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – one church, freed in Christ to serve and love our neighbor. Service activities offer an opportunity for us to explore one of our most basic convictions as Lutherans: that all of life in Jesus Christ – every act of service, in every daily calling, in every corner of life – flows freely from a living, daring confidence in God’s grace. This is an important opportunity to show our presence in, and love for our own neighborhood community. The Redevelopment team has planned 3 mini projects for our part in God’s Work. Our Hands. Sunday on September 8, and needs your help. First, we will be adorning 100 bottles of hand sanitizer and post-it notes with positive messages of love and kindness, that will be delivered to Center Grove Middle School Central teachers. Secondly, we will we working to remove weeds and foreign debris from the RLMS playground. Finally, a group will walk the adjacent neighborhood collecting trash and debris from common space areas. If you have your God’s Work. Our Hands. shirt from last year, just wear it to church on Sunday. (And we have some available in the office if you need one!) We will meet for a potluck right after church and get to work on our projects. You could help in several ways. First, you could bring in hand sanitizer or post-it notes for the CGMSC teachers. I know there are a few bottles in the narthex baskets, but we are far from 100. Secondly, you could just join us on Sunday to help with one of the mini projects. You could also just bring a dish and cheer us on while you enjoy lunch. Obviously, we cannot make any of these projects a success without help. If you have not attended any of our social activities recently, try to join us for this one! I am a huge fan of author, Brené Brown who is a researcher and has devoted her career to studying shame and vulnerability. If you are not familiar with her watch one of her TED talks . Her work has changed some major parts of my life for the good. One of her talks discusses how we, as humans, tend to avoid things that make us uncomfortable. I know that at many times in my life, I have felt miserable for days over a decision I failed to make. Brené has found that the uncomfortable feeling only lasts for about 8 seconds when addressed head on. If you are feeling uncomfortable about joining us for the first time, or helping on Sunday, here is a brief list of things that each take about 8 seconds to give you some courage. 1.Drink a sip of coffee
2. Check a notification on your phone
3. Send a text
4. Say “hi” to a friend across the room
5. Open the door for someone
6. Take a walk from one end of the church to the other
7. Add a bottle of hand sanitizer to your shopping cart
8. Usian Bolt can run 100 meters in 9.81 seconds, but that’s a lot in under 10 seconds!
I hope to see you on September 8 for God’s Work. Our Hands. Day of Service! Sam Fritz