It is that time of year again! It is the time of year when America seems to get religious, if only for a short while. I hesitate to phrase it that way, but, for both our country and our culture, I believe it is true. For most Americans these days, religion does not a play a very significant role in their lives. While the majority of our neighbors say that they believe in God and many of those likely share Christian beliefs, their lives are not centered on prayer, church attendance, or any regular religious practices. Though many say that they are still spiritual (whatever that means), their lives are not known for regular religious practice.
               
That is to say, we are not religious until December roles around. In the lead up to the Christmas season, Americans show a surprising amount of religiosity in surprising ways. Sure, some of these ways can be negative. Christmas is a time when Americans are known for being materialistic with our shopping and giving habits, unleashing our wallets to drop dollars and swipe credit cards with almost reckless abandon. Yet, for the various pitfalls of the season, the religiosity that Americans exhibit during the Christmas season can also be quite good and refreshing. Many of us drive or fly great distances to intentionally connect with family that we do not get to see very often. People are known to talk about and praise the spirit of Christmas as an almost mythical form of wonderment about the season which I believe is nothing other than religious. The spirit of Christmas is really just another way of talking about the time of year when we get together to reflect on and stand in wonder of the Great Beyond. This time of year, rampant criticism and skepticism about proving the unseen falls silent, we do our best to pay attention to the better angels of our nature, and, hopefully, we will do our best to listen to the angels heralding our Savior’s birth from the heavens.
               
This year, we folks of Faith who live religiously year-round, will do our best to help lead others in living religiously for this one time of year. We are joining in support of our community’s Lights Under the Big Sky event which will be taking place over the first three weekends of December. The Faith Lutheran Women will host a vendor table that first weekend, and our entire congregation will help host a table throughout the third weekend of the event. The money we raise will help, God willing, our many ministry efforts and outreach opportunities throughout 2018. On Sunday, December 10th at 4 pm, we will host a live Nativity scene through which we will lead the crowd in understanding the true meaning of Christmas as we read the story of Jesus’ birth in the Gospel of Luke and sing carols around the scene. Finally, we will include the voices of our Mission Valley Children’s Choir as we hold our Christmas concert at the event on Sunday, December 17th at 3 pm, singing several songs devoted to telling of the Messiah’s birth.
               
At Faith Lutheran, we will devote extra worship time to preparing our hearts and minds throughout the season of Advent with our midweek worship services on Wednesday, December 6,13, and 20th at 6:30 pm. We will be using the Holden Evening Prayer Service that our congregation loves so well for these midweek services. Our Advent season will culminate with our candlelit Christmas Eve services at 7 pm and 9 pm on Christmas Eve. We encourage everyone to join us for one of these services and invite any friends or family to come too so that they may have a community of faith for this sacred evening.

In Christ,
Pastor Seth

The person who believes in what he or she is doing is nearly unstoppable. That was definitely the case for Martin Luther and his other reforming compatriots in Wittenberg following 1517. They had the vim and vigor of the Spirit driving them to share the Good News in new ways and with new audiences every day. After Luther blew open the issues of his day by posting and publishing his 95 Theses, there was no turning back and no slowing down. They got to work spreading the Gospel that once was lost but had again been found.
               
I have to be honest. When we, as pastors, were deputized by our Lutheran leadership to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation over a year ago, I was not very enthused about the whole thing. For one, I saw that there are many challenges that our church is facing in the present. Much of the talk about the 500th anniversary seemed backwards looking to a reforming movement that was, at the neglect of the reforms we need to bring to the church in our own time. I try hard to make sure that we do not treat our church like a museum, but the things I was hearing about this celebration of our history seemed exactly the work of museums. Our congregation is a living, thriving community of faith and we need to constantly live into that identity, even as we honor our past.
               
The other big issue that I had with celebrating Luther’s posting of his 95 Theses is that the real work of reforming the church happened in the years following 1517 – not in that year alone. It was not as though Luther nailed this document to the church door, walked away, and said, “Alright. Everybody good now?” On the contrary, that single act started him down a journey and career that would demand great energy, effort, insight, collaboration, and faith that God was calling him to serve the church by disrupting it. The Reformation was not a one and done sort of thing, it demanded seemingly endless effort by the guy our denomination is named after and all who supported him. It was no easy task to change centuries of church malpractice and lead people to stand on a Gospel that they were barely familiar with. Lutheran Reformers surely rose to the challenges of their day. Over the next decade, they would out publish their Roman Catholic opponents 10 to 1, and, to this day, Luther remains one of the most prolific writers in human history. His work in the years following 1517 proved that the movement was only just getting started.
               
Obviously, we did have a grand celebration on Reformation Sunday, but I want to let you know that I will not stop drawing on the legacy of the Lutheran reformers. They have left us a great example for our own time. Like the church in the 21st century, they had no clear way forward and had to fight the tide of their time to bring renewal to the church. The way forward for the church of the 16th century was almost entirely unknown. There was reason to doubt and despair over the massive upheavals that were threatening the social fabric of Europe and, seemingly, even threatened the very salvation of Christian souls. But, the Lutheran reformers were convicted by scripture and their faith in a loving God, so they pressed on anyway as I believe we must.
               
Martin Luther could not be stopped because he believed in the mission that God had set upon his soul, and his conviction was contagious. The Gospel mission that inspired the reforms he brought to the church was one worth fighting for, and the fact that he did not shy away from putting his life on the line for what he believed in is an example that is worth following into the unknown challenges of our own time. Press on in the faith my friends, and know that while our faith draws on the past, it will only propel us forward to the unknown paths that lie before us.
 
                                                                               In Christ,
                                                                             Pastor Seth

This month, 500 years ago, an Augustinian monk turned professor got on his high horse and called the church to account for its spiritually fraudulent practices. The author Alister McGrath, in his book Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, called Martin Luther an “accidental reformer”. I believe that this is an apt observation. When Luther posted his 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg, there was no reason to think that this little town with an unknown university would ever have a role in speaking truth to church power. There was no predicting how big this reformation thing would eventually become and there was no reason to think that Luther would ever have been anyone special.
               
But, we believe that Luther and his theology played an important role in freeing the Gospel from church falsehoods that had grown worse over time. The gospel of Mark tells us that, at Jesus’ death, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38). The ancient Israelites believed that God dwelt with them in the ark of the covenant which was housed in the holiest of holies, the innermost room of the temple which was covered by a huge curtain. When Jesus died and the curtain was ripped open, we believe that God’s presence was unleashed on the world. Yet, in the centuries leading up to the Reformation, the church used its authority to try to hide the presence and grace of God from ordinary people once again. They taught that priests, bishops, cardinals and popes were closer to God than everyone else, and that they were the only ones who could interpret the will of God. In turn, these leaders used their authority to exploit the faith and fear of the masses. People were charged if they wanted to receive God’s forgiveness and grand cathedrals and elegant church mansions were built using the hard-earned wages of the faithful poor. The effect of these abuses was an attempt to hide God behind a proverbial temple curtain, making people believe that salvation was only for the rich and powerful – not the everyday believer.
               
In essence, when Luther taught people that the Roman Catholic Church was perverting the Good News of Jesus Christ, it was similar to the temple curtain being torn when Jesus died. Though the church tried to hide the fact that God is generous and freely forgives everyone who believes, Martin Luther made this simple truth known to the masses once again. In so doing, God’s gracious love was revealed to the people by tearing open the veil of church corruption and false teaching.
               
500 years later, this is a fact still worth celebrating because churches and pastors continue to put up curtains to hide the truth of God’s gracious forgiveness and love. I have friends who have been told that they are unworthy of God’s grace because they got pregnant before marriage. Others have been excluded from churches because they love the wrong type of person or because they have gotten divorced. Others have been told they are unworthy of God’s love because they haven’t attended worship for a couple of Sundays. And still others, just like Martin Luther, are told that they are not worthy of God’s grace because they question and doubt things that some churches and pastors teach. For all of these who have been hurt and kept from encountering God’s grace in the 21st century, we celebrate that for 500 years we have been faithfully living into the truth that God loves us no matter what. Even if some of our churches try to keep us from the grace of God, there is no hiding the truth that God cares for each and everyone of us, no matter what.
               
​The power of the Gospel is Good News whose re-release 500 years has been worth celebrating for centuries. I can’t wait to see the Gospel moving in people’s lives for the next 500 years!
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

                Greetings family of Faith! The temperatures outside don’t make it feel like fall is around the corner, but the calendar tells me it is. Hopefully, September will bring an end to this crazy fire season and our skies will finally clear up for a while!
                I shared this already in our Sunday announcements, but I am excited to say once again that we have received our first distribution from the Mission of Faith Endowment Fund! All the hard work, and generosity that our congregation put into raising money during 2016 is paying off and benefitting our ministry going forward. From the the initial $34,000 we raised as our principal amount in the endowment fund account, we received our first distribution of $367.56! Distributions are money that is generated from the interest, dividends, capital gains, etc., which come from the money that we deposited into our account with the broader ELCA Endowment Fund. We will receive a distribution from the Mission of Faith Endowment Fund every quarter, totaling four per year.
                The Endowment Fund Committee, consisting of Rick Tameler, Janette Rosman, Dustin Hess, and myself, met and started deliberating how we should spend the money that our Fund is bringing in. Since we hope to grow the Mission of Faith Endowment Fund over time, the committee decided that it was important to use some of the funds we receive towards this purpose. We decided that we would like to devote a ten percent tithe out of each distribution to put back into the fund for future growth. We intend to be faithful stewards of the money that has been entrusted to us, and we believe that giving money to the future of Faith Lutheran Church’s ministry is a crucial aspect of that stewardship.
                The committee also decided, and our church council approved, that we would like to spend the rest of our first distribution in support of Elias Nawawieh from Polson when he travels to support Christian refugees in Jordan in October. Christians have been in Iraq for nearly 2,000 years, since the time of the apostles and the early church, but ISIS has forced them to renounce their Christian faith, flee, or die. These deeply committed Christians believed that it was better to give up everything than abandon their faith, and many are now in refugee camps in Jordan having left all that they own behind. Elias Nawawieh has traveled and worked with refugees in Jordan for several years. Elias is originally from Bethlehem in Palestine, and regularly leads trips to the Holy Land from the United States and elsewhere. He is uniquely suited to provide aid to Iraqi refugees because his first language is Arabic and he has many contacts in the Middle East. By supporting Elias, we will not only be helping Christian refugees in need, but also pushing back against the evil that ISIS commits against its own people in Iraq and Syria.
                Since distributions from the Mission of Faith Endowment Fund are not all that big yet, we determined that it is best to devote them to specific causes each quarter, instead of splitting them up into smaller amounts. We expect that future distributions will be used to support things like youth service learning trips, scholarships for camp, or similar causes. We also intend to support international and other local causes with the money that we receive from the Fund, and we are grateful for this opportunity which enables us to do both at the same time!

In Christ,
Pastor Seth

                Kids are going back to school already? Summer is nearly over? I mean, it has been hot for a long time, but don’t we still have a couple months left? I guess not! Not sure about you, but this summer definitely seems to have slipped away from me. With the business of trips, family visiting, vacation Bible school, camp, and every other activity over these last couple of months I am left with one thought – “where has the time gone?” I suppose time does really fly by when you are busy.
                As we think about gearing up for the fall once again, there are a few things that I hope you will think about in the life of our community of Faith. First off, you probably have noticed if you are on the email list or Facebook that I have started blogging. If you are not, this message is for you. I have started an author website, www.revsethnelson.com, and I have started a blog that I hope to update on a weekly basis. My blog entries will give spiritual reflections on the church, life, faith and other topics that I hope you will find interesting. Check it out and share it with friends and family that you think might be interested in reading it!
                When the school year starts, there are many things that start back up at church, too. From Sunday school to confirmation, quilting to potluck dinners, you will have many opportunities to get involved when the fall rolls around. As you consider your church involvement this year, I want to challenge you to think about new things you might want to see us do as a faith community this year. Do you think you would like to have more Bible studies in our congregation? Great! Think and pray about what you would want them to look like and tell me about it. Want different activities for kids in our community? Great! Think and pray about it and let me know. Want to see changes to our church property? Great! Think and pray about it and let me know.
                While we are on the subject, I want to throw out a couple of opportunities that I could use some help with. First off, I could use another person to help with the bookstore that we run in conjunction with Dobson Creek Coffee here in Ronan. The bookstore (a mini-bookstore within the coffee shop), has been going well for a little over a year. Through sales we have raised close to $1,000 for our youth! It has been a fun way for me to raise money on behalf of our youth, while at the same time bringing new books into our area. Not only are we raising money for our youth ministry, we are promoting literacy at the same time - a faithful endeavor for us people of the book! Though I have enjoyed monitoring the shelves every week, ordering more books as needed, I could use some help with these tasks. I am looking for one or two people to help me with the ordering process, as well as thinking about what books we want to keep stocked and what books people actually want to buy. If this is something that interests you, please let me know!
                Another task that I will likely need help with is replacing the front steps on the parsonage. The current, concrete ones do not have safe railings for children like Otto and Freja to walk on and we should think about prioritizing safety in our buildings. Additionally, the steps have put a strain on the foundation. As the soil has settled, the steps have pulled forward and are now threatening the integrity of the foundation wall. We are thinking about knocking out the current steps and replacing them with wooden ones that have proper railings and would be safe for the foundation. Let me know if you are interested in helping out with this project.
                Have a blessed August!
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

                Western Montana is not a bad place to be during the summer months. Our gray winters roll away to shed beautiful rays of sunshine on our Mission Mountains, eventually warming up the lake at the same time. The birds seem to sing a little brighter, water from the mountains seems to flow a little clearer, and the trees are a bit greener. It is good to have seasons in our lives when things get just a little bit easier and more relaxed. Summer time in Montana is one of those seasons.
                It can be hard to let things just be easy and good - there is always something to stress about if we want to. For instance, we know that western Montana is a great place to be in the summer because of the nice weather and sunshine, but also because of the hordes of tourists that make crossing highway 93 nearly impossible. We can relish in the sunshine, or grumble that it makes traffic around here nearly impassable. The choice is ours. We can cherish how the air is getting warm and sunny, or get paranoid about the forest fires that will very possibly be around the corner because of our sunny skies. With the good comes the bad and we can get stuck focusing on the bad instead of the good.
                Sometimes it is kind of odd how we get stuck dwelling on the bad. You may receive twenty compliments about a job well done, but the only one you really remember is the person who criticized the work you did. You might be respected by most all of your colleagues and friends, but the one person who antagonizes you is the only person you dwell on. You might have countless holiday celebrations as a family that are blessed and wonderful, but the only one anybody talks about is when everything broke down into a heated argument. While there are many good things to focus and dwell on, it is easy to get stuck paying attention only to the bad.
                Yet, for all that we might want to focus on things that can bring us down, God desires for us to dwell on what truly matters. One of my favorite Bible verses is Psalm 46:10 in which the Lord commands through the Psalmist, “Be still and know that I am God.” What a simple but profound command – be still and rest in the knowledge that God is God. Do not be anxious about the people who make you feel bad, the ways that you feel you do not add up, or the circumstances that make you feel miserable. Instead, be still.                      
Be still.
Be still.
 
 
                In the stillness, remember that God is God and has it all under control. And, in the stillness, focus on the things that really matter… (while enjoying the sunshine!).
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

                This month Julie Wenner and I will be representing Faith Lutheran Church at the Montana Synod Assembly. What is the Montana Synod and why do they assemble you might ask? Great question! The Montana Synod is the group of 128 Evangelical Lutheran Congregations all in Montana! (except for 5 oddballs in Wyoming :)  As a synod, our congregations and pastors collectively elect a bishop and support synod staff who work kind of like a superintendent’s office for our Lutheran churches. The term “synod” comes from Greek. The two Greek roots “syn” and “hodos” translate to mean “the way/road together”. Sounds kind of cool, right? I like the idea of our congregations forming a synod by being churches on the way together.
                The synodical understanding of our church is, in many ways unifying. We are a synod because we have shared beliefs and practices. For instance, if you attend services at Christ Lutheran Church in Libby, you likely will have a similar worship experience as if you were also to attend Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Broadus – even though the two congregations are over 700 miles apart. By contrast, in Ronan we have at least 12 different churches within just a few blocks, but the worship experience, belief systems, and preaching varies widely from the Mennonite Church, Sacred Heart Catholic, Ronan Adventist, to Lighthouse Christian Fellowship (the four congregations located nearest to us). Being a synod of congregations with shared theological doctrines and confessions helps us stay unified in our beliefs and practices across time and space. When churches have pastoral openings, we work to make sure our congregations have leaders. As congregations, we work together to support ministries to our youth like Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp, as well as to our aging members through ministries like Immanuel Lutheran Homes in Kalispell and St. John’s Ministries in Billings. There are many things that we can do better together than we can do separately, which bind us together and give us purpose as a synod of congregations.
                The synodical understanding of our churches is well established, but can be hard to think about because every community of faith is very unique. For instance, Faith Lutheran Church in Ronan and Good Shepherd Lutheran in Polson started out together and shared a pastor for many years, yet there are many aspects of our two communities that are very different. Every congregation, even ones that share similar beliefs and worship practices, are distinct from every other congregation. However, the dynamics between congregations and synods are analogous to the relationship of the state of Montana to the nation of the United States of America. We live in Montana and know how to do our own thing pretty well. We live, work, play and have our homes in Montana, and put forth our own efforts to educate our children, conduct business, have our own local and state governments, and support our own churches. Yet, we are also part of the United States and I would argue that Montana is better off for being part of the U.S.A. than if we tried to make it as our own country. The U.S.A. has a stronger military, better highway and rail systems, better research institutions, a more robust forestry system, etc., than Montana could afford or put together on its own. While Montana is distinct and different than a state like Florida, it is better for both Florida and Montana to be a united nation than a divided one. Similarly, though the Montana Synod is made up of a 128 individual, distinct congregations that minister in separate and distinct ways, our unity at the synod level is better for all of us.
 
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

Summer is almost upon us. Though it is still snowing on the mountains, it is also starting to melt. The sun is finally starting to break through the clouds for extended periods of time, freeing us from the grays of winter. Warm days seem to be headed our way… and probably some relatives, too!
         
Since the season is fast approaching, I assume that you have likely started to make some summer plans. While it does not take a whole lot of forethought to go through Glacier for a day, trips to the coast or across the country take a little bit more planning and saving. While summer brings many people back into our area to their homes and cabins on the lake, summer also gives those of us who live in the valley all-year a chance to get away for a bit. And this takes some planning on our part.
               
As you make your summer plans, I want to invite you to think about how you will live out your faith this summer. Here are some spiritual dimensions that I invite you to focus on in your vacation planning:

     Sabbath – You probably think of the concept of sabbath in terms of the third commandment which says “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” After the Lord worked to create the world and everything in it, scripture tells us that the Lord rested and God commands us to do the same. Rest is holy and favored by God. One thing I always hope for when I get out of town for a while is an opportunity to intentionally live into God’s command that we rest. In planning your summer vacations, I invite you to not only think about planning stuff to do, but ways that you can take sabbath by prayerfully resting from your work.

      Family – It is a gift to be able to vacation as a family. The opportunity to travel with and share experiences of seeing new places and meeting new people is something that adds to the health of who we are together as parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Stories we share about the places we have been together as a family are important for us in remembering who we are together. I believe that God uses experiences of travel to strengthen our connections to one another as family.

      Exploring God’s creation – God has formed a wonderful world around us, but sometimes we lose sight of its wonders. I wish that everyone, every day, would be amazed at what God has created all around us. However, it is easy to lose sight of the wonders that God has formed in our world. It is good and holy that in your summer travels you take time to be amazed at the wonders of God’s creation. As you step away from the distractions of your everyday, may you be amazed at the wonder of God’s eternal majesty.

     Go with God – I love the Spanish phrase, vaya con Dios, which translates to mean “Go with God!” Wherever you travel, may you remember that the Lord accompanies you on your journeys. You are not alone in this life, nor are you alone on the journeys that are before you. May you always remember that wherever you travel to God is leading you onward and joins you for the journey.

                                                                            In Christ,
                                                                          Pastor Seth
 
                

Lent is a journey to the cross. While Jesus wandered the wilderness for forty days to have it out with Satan at the end, and the Israelites wandered the desert for forty years because they were a bunch of whiners, we join in the wilderness journey because we need to remember what it is to dwell in the dirt. Remember we are dust, and to dust we shall return… just like Jesus did.

We journey to the cross during this season because we need to join in Jesus’ death. We need to enter into the suffering of our Lord because it is in his suffering that our salvation is found. It is in his death that our lives our redeemed; in his resurrection that we also rise.

Jesus was surely cursed for having hung on a tree – we are surely blessed because he was. His death and resurrection meant the redemption of the whole world. By his wounds we are healed, and by his death we live.

This is why we take time every year in the church to intentionally, depressingly journey to the cross. It is worth dying with Christ again, and again, and again, so that we might all rise with him to new life forever.
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

                              “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” – Matthew 25:35

                Lue Moa was born in a refugee camp in southeast Asia. The son of Hmong parents, his family became refugees after the United States pulled out of fighting in Vietnam. The Hmong people lived as ethnic and religious minorities in Laos, but, being on the margin of society in their own homeland, they fought the oppressive Laotian government on our behalf in the sixties and seventies. This allowed the United States to officially claim that we were only fighting in Vietnam while supporting our Hmong allies who fought North Vietnamese and Laotian forces for us. They believed that totalitarian victories of their Communist neighbors would be disastrous for them, so they aligned with us. When we lost, they lost.

                Many of the Hmong people were slaughtered in the genocide that the Communist governments in Vietnam and Laos ordered against them in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from the region. In just a few years, hundreds of thousands of Hmong people became refugees. Many of the Hmong people, like Lue Moa’s parents, spent years in refugee camps in Thailand before being resettled in the United States. Little Lue and his family eventually made their way from the hot and humid climate of Thailand to the icy winters of St. Paul, Minnesota. There, Lue grew and was educated in one of the best public school systems the United States has to offer. Simultaneously, he was raised in the faith among the Lutherans who had helped to save his family from the murderous governments of his homeland. Lue went on to college, and, then, discerning a call to ministry, attended Luther Seminary in St. Paul to become a pastor in the Lutheran church. Last fall, Jen, Otto and I proudly celebrated Pastor Moa’s ordination and installation as the pastor of Valley of Christ Lutheran Church in Frenchtown.  
          
                I share Pastor Moa’s story, because he was a boy that we welcomed as a stranger – a boy who was Christ to us when he came as a refugee. Now, he is a messenger of the Gospel who weekly proclaims the love of Christ from his pulpit in Montana, just down the road from us. Stories like Lue’s are important to keep in mind as we consider how Christ calls us to welcome strangers in our midst. Jesus told us that by welcoming the stranger, we will welcome Christ himself. What’s more, he said that, when Christ comes again, those who turn away strangers will be told, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels…I was a stranger and you did not welcome me” (Matt. 25: 41-43). Not only did Jesus say that it is good to welcome a stranger, he said that we must welcome the stranger if we desire to be welcomed into heaven. These are words of Christ which stand heavy over our nation at this time. The prophets in the Old Testament warned of the same thing. The nation of Israel was conquered and hauled off to exile because they did not care for the poor, the widowed, the orphan or the foreign refugees who came to them (Jeremiah 7:5-7; Ezekiel 47:21-22; Zechariah 7:8-10; Malachi 3:5).

                Many people in our country and in Montana seem to be perfectly okay with turning away refugees. But, as your pastor concerned for the souls of people in our community, I must share that Jesus commanded us to welcome such folks within our midst. I hope that if we really are trying to live out Christian values as a nation, then we will follow the commands of Christ himself. We are not our government, and while the government officially represents us, it does not speak for the whole of who we are or what we believe. I am not sure how Jesus looks at America when our government and citizens reject his teachings and commandments, but I do know that as Christians we should listen to our Savior.
​
                When we welcome refugees, we welcome Christ into our midst – just as Jesus promised. As Christ has welcomed us, we should welcome others in His name. Who knows, a refugee coming to America this year just might turn out to be a Christian pastor one day…
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth