Nov 15, 2024 | Pastor Jim's Blog
Today’s Word from Sandra Moore…
I was fortunate to make a trip to Italy with a TLC group a few years ago. The day before we reached Rome, we stopped at one of the medieval hilltop towns called San Gimignano. Tuscany is breathtakingly beautiful. The walled town with its tall towers made breathtakingly beautiful go up a notch. It was a small place, very easy to walk from end to end in one day. Jim led us to the far end of San Gimignano to a small stone church, high above the winding valleys and green rolling hills. The priest allowed us to have a private service within as pilgrims on our way to Rome. It was a small and humble church. The priest told us that during the dreadful plague years hundreds of years ago that this church was used as a hospital. I had no trouble imagining those suffering taking refuge there in a time of great uncertainty.
During the recent TLC course led by Deacon Amy, we read the book By Heart: Conversations with Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. In the last paragraph in the introductory chapter we read the following sentence: “And most importantly, how can we stay true to Luther’s witness to the gospel and his vision to embed the Christian catechism into all hearts and minds, so that, in the hospital we call the church, people may discover the sickness of sin, hear the good news about God’s medicine of grace, and call on God for help in all of our need?” The church we visited in San Gimignano came to my mind and stayed there. I had never before heard the church called a hospital and it intrigued me. I had to look up the etymology of the word. Google told me it came from the Latin word hospitale, which means “lodging for travelers.” Anglo-French borrowed the word to first mean a charitable institution for the needy and later a place for educating young people. It was first used as an institution for the sick or wounded in the 16th century. Our word hospital is related to words like hostel, hotel, host, hospitality, and hospice.
Would thinking about the church as a hospital, our sanctuary for example, bring us closer to God? Maybe not if someone has had a bad experience in a hospital or if one fears hospitals. While I would not personally choose to work in a hospital, when I hear the word I think of a quiet, good place with patients mostly trying to be considerate of all the other patients who are waiting to hear good or bad news from the experts. I think of all the personnel in a hospital who treat patients with gentle kindness day after day. What if we came to church each Sunday as if we were entering a hospital? How would that change the way we interact with each other in the pews before, during, and after the service? TLC’s hallmark is hospitality. Are we attentive, empathetic, and responsive to those sitting around us? Do we behave at church as we would behave in a hospital or hospice with a loved one? How do we support and nurture our caregivers at church?
We live in troubled times. We come to church each Sunday with wounds, scars, and debilitating pain—both physical and spiritual—that are masked by our smiles. We come seeking comfort and hope, the same way people come to hospitals. We, fellow patients and hospital staff, offer kindness to each other in the spirit of hospitality. We are the hospice care givers to each other.
Every hospital has a prayer chapel. You might remember spending time in one or more of them. They are peaceful places of rest in times when we feel most uncertain and vulnerable. There is a synagogue in the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. There are twelve stained glass windows, representing the twelve tribes of Israel, designed by Marc Chagall. On a sunny day the bright colors are reflected down into the prayer room. In our sanctuary there is a square tower leading up to the cross on the roof outside. We have stained glass windows on either side. In a similar way, there is a box shaped tower in the synagogue of the Hadassah Hospital with three tribes on each of the four sides.
Hospitals offer our physical bodies hope, answers, no answers, mending; they are places of respite or urgent care in the journey of life in all of its stages. Church offers us the same but for our souls. Together, in our church community, let us be both givers and receivers of hope each Sunday in our hospital sanctuary.
Nov 9, 2024 | Pastor Jim's Blog
Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…
Blessed to be a Blessing, Trinity Lutheran Church is touching the lives of our island neighbors and reaching the far corners of the world. We do it with buckets of money. Every gift to Trinity Lutheran Church falls safely into one of three buckets. The placement is determined by the donor.
Bucket one is the general fund. All undesignated giving is deposited into the general fund. The general fund allows us to keep the doors of the church open, utilities, paper products, choir music, Sunday school materials and staff salaries are all paid for by the general fund. The general fund also provides over $100,000 a year to benevolent causes.
Bucket number two is the Trinity Lutheran Church endowment fund. The Endowment has just shy of $6,000,000. Each year the Endowment Committee, consistent with their founding guidelines, provide hundreds of thousands of dollars for scholarships and non-profit support.
Bucket number three is a catch all that we call Restricted funds. Donors designate gifts for World Hunger, Helping Hand, Good Cheer or any number of other causes. The restricted fund is a holding bucket until the funds are dispersed. It should be noted that the three buckets each stand alone and are never co-mingled.
On Sunday, October 20th after everyone had gone home for the day, I had the privilege of giving away $85,000. $75,000 came from bucket number two, the result of our generous donors to the endowment. Local grants were approved by the Church Council and TLC was able to support Good Cheer, Gifts from the Heart, Whidbey Island Homeless Coalition, Tiny Houses, Whidbey Island Nourishes, Friends of Friends, Small Miracles, and Readiness to Learn. In addition, grants were approved for ELCA World Hunger, ELCA Hurricane Relief and the Guatemala Project of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services. The final $10,000 came from bucket number three; a restricted gift for ELCA Hurricane Relief.
In Guatemala, Trinity Lutheran Church has become the single largest supporter of a new program to help young Guatemalans returned from the Southern border of the United States. The grants so far this year have allowed 50 young people to establish small businesses in their own communities. But it more than that, the 50 young people are now able to provide hope and stability to their extended families in total 243 people.
Blessed to be a Blessing! Through October of 2024 we have given away more than $600,000 this year. $14,000 every week has left our campus for the common good of God’s people near and far. This is not magic, this is generosity. Generosity that allows us to keep the lights on, to provide space on our campus for dozens of non-profits and 12 step groups, to support our Whidbey neighbors and those devastated by war or disaster. It happens because of you! I thank you for your generosity.
Blessed to be a blessing! I am one beggar, telling another beggar where to find bread, I am your,
Pastor Jim
If you would like to email Pastor Jim direct please send a note to: [email protected]
Nov 6, 2024 | Pastor Jim's Blog
Today’s Word from Pastor Jim
What changed overnight? I sit in my office early this morning pondering God’s calling.
“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
That has not changed. Some post-election thoughts:
Our political leaders come and go. Our Leader is unchanged by this election.
Nations and Empires come and go. The movement of Jesus Christ has persevered for 2000 years.
Christianity has thrived under persecution and trial.
Our Leader is unchanged. The foot washing Rabbi who ate with sinners is unchanged.
Our identity and our mission do not change with elections.
We are people of hope. The world needs people of hope.
We are people of Good News. The world longs for good news.
We are a community that celebrates and grieves together.
Grief is an inevitable part of the human journey, but we do not grieve as those who have no hope.
Our calling is unchanged.
We are called to extend hospitality and welcome.
We are called to love our neighbors.
Our neighbors come in all colors, creeds, political affiliations and gender expressions.
We do not make God’s guestlist, we simply set the table.
We are called to love God by loving our neighbors.
Our neighbors are the precious children of God.
Children of God; a title that extends beyond the man-made borders of nations.
Our Leader is unchanged. Our mission is unchanged. We are people of hope.
People of hope, we have work to do!
I will see you Sunday. One beggar telling another beggar where to find hope, I am your
Pastor Jim
Nov 2, 2024 | Pastor Jim's Blog
Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…
It was a warm humid August day in DeKalb, Illinois. It was the Summer of 1984, after three years of marriage and two years of seminary Felicia and I were headed out on the Oregon trail. Like the pioneers of old we headed west that day to begin a new life in an unknown land. The summer hit “What’s love got to do with it?” by Tina Turner was playing on the radio of my old Pontiac as I pulled into the parking lot of the hospital where I was born 25 years earlier. The Haish Hospital, named after its benefactor barbed wire baron Jacob Haish, had been converted now to an assisted living facility for the aged. We bounced up the seldom used stairwell to the second floor and were greeted at the door by my grandfather Harold Lindus.
My grandmother Aline Lindus had died on her birthday two years earlier. Grandpa Lindus was tired and worn, his lungs ravaged by emphysema, his oxygen tank always close, his hands unsteady. He had worked hard all his life: a sharecropper, a bus driver, a factory worker, and a man of profound faith. In his younger years, with the help of others, he was among the farmer founders of little Trinity Lutheran Church on 7th Street in DeKalb. Now his life and his world had contracted. Dinners out were rare, travel was out of the question, most of his life was spent in a small apartment, in the halls and gathering spots of the hospital where I was born.
We had a touching, tender, loving visit. My grandfather, like his grandson, was smitten with the young Jewish girl who shared my life. We talked about faith; he was troubled as he spent much time watching TV preachers and wondering why so many were cured and his prayers seemed unanswered. When it was time to go, we embraced, and he slipped a hundred-dollar bill into my hand; he wanted to pay for our gas as we journeyed out to Washington to begin our pastoral internship. The Pontiac, loaded up with clothes and wedding presents, headed across the prairies and mountains of this great land. With three hundred dollars in the bank and an $800 a month stipend we began a life of service in the church.
The fall was busy, learning names, visiting homes, playing games with the youth group, preaching once a month. I was also leading worship at Bethany Lutheran Church. Each Sunday I was expected to chant the liturgy. It was among the most terrifying ventures of my life. Fortunately for me, I was mentored by a Professor of Church Music at Seattle Pacific University. A young Vernon Wicker took me under his wing and with the patience of Job he loved me through my internship year. I was in my office at church on November 1st, All Saints Day, writing a sermon for Sunday when the phone rang. It was my mother; my grandfather Lindus had died. For all the Saints who from their labors rest. We flew home to DeKalb, gathered at church and graveside, and said goodbye.
On Sunday, October 20th Vernon Wicker died. Vernon and Jutta were long time members of Trinity Lutheran Church. Vernon will be laid to rest in the columbarium in close proximity to the niche that will have my name on it. Vernon’s beautiful voice has been silenced, his legacy will live on in his family and in my life. Tomorrow we will observe All Saints Sunday, there will be 28 candles on the baptismal font. The flames will flicker for the 28 from our community who have died since November 1st, 2023. It is a sobering day, a graphic reminder that life is short, and each day is a gift. I give thanks for my grandfather, for Vernon and for all the saints who from their labors rest.
One beggar, telling another beggar where to find bread, I am your,
Pastor Jim
If you would like to email Pastor Jim direct please send a note to: [email protected]
Nov 1, 2024 | Pastor Jim's Blog
Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…
Trinity Lutheran Church 2024—we are Blessed to be a blessing. We are blessed by God and in response to blessings too numerous to count we seek to give back.
We give thanks for the history of our Church and this Sunday we will give thanks for the dear Saints who have labored here in decades past. Thankful for the past, we take our turn and faithfully invest in the future of a church that touches lives and touches the world.
On this All Saints Day, November 1st, 2024 we celebrate the 71st Anniversary of the founding of Trinity Lutheran Church in Freeland. Trinity was born in the imaginations of our 37 Charter Members. 37 people, 21 adults and 16 children, believed in the future of this place before Trinity existed.
Our roots can be traced to our Mother Church—Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Clinton. In the Fall of 1952, the residents of Freeland longed for a place to take their children to Sunday School. Before Highway 525 was constructed it was a long drive to Clinton. Renting space from the Seventh Day Adventists in Freeland, the Sunday School outpost began to teach the local children the stories and songs of faith.
One year later, on November 1st, 1953, Trinity Lutheran Church became an official worshipping community of the American Lutheran Church. A handful of families with little money, no land and no building stepped out in faith. For the next 24 years Trinity would share a pastor with the people of Saint Peter’s. There were five pastors who served this two-point parish: ALS Mathre, Floyd Larsen, Richard Knutson, Ken Olson and Wayne Bolling.
In 1955, with a building budget of $10,000 and lots of sweat equity, the people of Trinity Lutheran Church began building a small church on property donated by Austin Marshall. One cinder block at a time – one Saturday work party after another—a series of small donations allowed the humble church to rise and serve. The years ahead would be challenging and difficult—money was hard to come by—Trinity would spend decades trying to walk on her own feet.
In 1976, Trinity and Saint Peter’s parted ways. Pastor Bill Beck and his family moved to Freeland to serve as our first full-time pastor. In 1989, Pastor Jim and Felicia Lindus arrived with their two daughters and doubled the size of the Sunday School. The total church budget was almost $50,000. That included: staff salaries, operational costs, and benevolences.
The 1990’s was a time of dramatic growth. Karl Olsen and Robin Edgeman joined our staff and the church took flight. There was a major remodel and expansion, the parking lot was paved for the first time, TLC purchased 13 acres of property from Matt Nichols and Erl Bangston, and Pastor Daniel Erlander was called to serve alongside of Pastor Jim in 1995.
In 1996 Trinity would build the Sanctuary where we worship each week and a fellowship hall that currently serves as our office area. For five years our Sunday School Students would walk each Sunday to our previous building for classes.
By the year 2000 our small campus has grown to 24 and a half acres. In 2001, construction was completed on this building. We had added a full-court gym, Sunday School Classrooms, a new nursery, the Fireside room, a courtyard with a columbarium and a commercial kitchen. It is worth noting that throughout all our building programs, we have never borrowed money outside the parish. Our debt peaked at 1.7 million dollars on September 9, 2001. We celebrated Rally Day in our new facility just two days before 9-11-2001. Then in 2020 we entered a pandemic season. We had to figure out how to be the church in a world that had changed dramatically.
All told we have spent more than $5 million dollars on property and buildings since 1991. Even more impressive, from 2014 to 2024 we have given $3.5 million dollars to charities far and near. Blessed to be a blessing – we are here because others served, dreamed, and sacrificed on our behalf. Blessed to be a Blessing we now take our place in the rich history of God’s movement at Trinity Lutheran Church.
Could those charter members have imagined how the seeds of their faith would take root and touch the lives of so many? If Pete and Alice, Nora and Harry and Don and Bonnie Cameron could see TLC today they would give thanks to the God of miracles. 71 years ago, 37 Charter members stepped out in faith—the times were hard and the future was uncertain—the Trinity Miracle was given life. Caring for the TLC miracle is our calling now. Thankful for the Past— Investing in the Future.
Happy 71st Anniversary Trinity Lutheran Church!
One beggar, telling another beggar where to find bread, I am your,
Pastor Jim
If you would like to email Pastor Jim direct please send a note to: [email protected]
Oct 26, 2024 | Pastor Jim's Blog
Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…
507 years ago, on October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. He wished to spark debate among academics, he hoped that honest discussion might lead to honest reform. He had given his life to the Roman Catholic Church and had no intention of leaving it. It was dangerous to oppose it, and starting a new church denomination was seemingly impossible. Luther sought to reform the church he loved, to correct practices that were contrary to scripture, to leave superstition behind and to embrace a gospel of grace. The spark would ignite the Protestant Reformation and change the face of Christianity forever.
The 95 Theses were written in Latin. In 1517, the Bible used in Europe had been translated from Greek into Latin. In Germany, only 5% of the population could read the German language, the Bible in Latin was completely inaccessible to the common people. The only Bible known to the masses came from the lips of priests, the only Jesus they experienced was a vengeful fellow who was more likely to condemn them to fires of hell than he was to love them. The Roman Catholic Church used fear and superstition to control and oppress a poor uneducated population.
502 years ago, in September of 1522, a recently excommunicated Martin Luther would publish his translation of the New Testament. Since it was taught that salvation was impossible outside of the Roman Catholic Church, Luther had seemingly been condemned to hell already. Luther translated the New Testament from Greek into the German vernacular, the tongue and language of everyday people. The first edition of 3000 copies sold out quickly. Luther, with an assist from Johannes Gutenberg, had given the Bible back to the common people.
Tomorrow at Trinity Lutheran Church we will commemorate and celebrate the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. We will sing familiar Reformation hymns, we will raise our prayers to a good and gracious God, we will laugh and cry and encourage each other, and we will share the bread and wine of Holy Communion at a table where all are welcome. And we will read the Bible. What a gift to be able to read the Bible and muse upon the stories of scripture, taking good courage from the words and teachings of Jesus.
Like most of us, Martin Luther was a good but flawed person, he had great insights, he was brilliant, brave and productive. He was also complicated, sometimes broken, sometimes misguided, tainted by the prevailing racism and prejudices of his time. Luther is a giant in history, but Jesus is our role model and Savior. As Christians who happen to be Lutheran, we follow the Rabbi from the Galilee, not the 16th century Augustinian Monk.
We follow the one who ate with sinners, touched the unclean, offered a new beginning to every lost soul, and loved the broken hearted. We follow Jesus, a Jesus that might have remained largely misunderstood if weren’t for a man who took a stand for truth 507 years ago. “The truth will set us free.”
I will conclude by sharing two quotes from Martin Luther. The first is point number 82 of the 95 Theses:
“Why does not the pope empty purgatory for the sake of holy love and the dire need of the souls that are there if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a church? The former reasons would be most just; the latter is most trivial.”
The second is from the Heidelberg Disputation: “A theologian of glory calls good evil and evil good; a theologian of the cross calls a thing what it is.”
Blessed to be a blessing – you are the only Jesus many people will ever see.
Pastor Jim
If you would like to email Pastor Jim direct please send a note to: [email protected]
