Pastor Hendrix

Vigil for Peace in Ukraine

March 12, 2022 by Pastor Hendrix Leave a Comment

[originally published March 7, updated March 12 with links to recording of event and news coverage]

Faith Lutheran Church, Oregon, WI held a Candlelit Prayer Vigil for Peace in Ukraine Friday, March 11 at 6:30pm.

A number of individuals with direct connections to Ukraine have been invited to speak. After hearing from them, we will join together and pray for peace. A free-will offering will be taken: All donations will be divided between various locations where the Ukrainian Lutheran Church (ULC) and its affiliated organizations are conducting humanitarian assistance.

Learn more about the Ukrainian Lutheran Church

A recording of the event and Prayer Vigil can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4HUnvevBg4

Coverage of the event was provided by Channel 3000. View the coverage here.

Service folder for the Prayer Service:

Service-of-Prayer-in-Time-of-War-Faith Download

Ukraine Crisis Fund

March 12, 2022 by Pastor Hendrix Leave a Comment

Our Christian brothers and sisters in Ukraine are in need of our support. First and foremost, they need our prayers to God for peace and security. There is also a very great need for humanitarian assistance as the war continues to destroy lives and property.

Faith Lutheran Church has established a fund for Ukraine, which will be forwarded to aid our brothers and sisters in the Ukrainian Lutheran Church and the Gift of Life program as well as other Ukrainians in need.

If you would like to donate to our partner organizations and churches in Ukraine as they continue their humanitarian work, you may make a check out to Faith Lutheran Church and designate it for Ukraine Relief, or donate online at FaithLutheranOregon.com/OnlineGiving.

Donate Here

Festival of the Annunciation – March 25th

March 8, 2022 by Pastor Hendrix Leave a Comment

Faith Lutheran Church and Return to Wittenberg will host the Festival of the Annunciation Service on March 25th at 6:30pm.

The Annunciation is one of ten principal feasts of Christianity. It commemorates the announcement of the Messiah’s birth by the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary. It takes place on March 25th every year, exactly 9 months before Christmas Day.

Join us for this special event. We will welcome guest musicians and service assistants from Return to Wittenberg.

Before the Service around 5:30pm, there will be a fellowship meal in the church basement.

Lent

March 1, 2022 by Pastor Hendrix Leave a Comment

What is Lent?

Lent is a 40-day season of an intentional Christ-centered return to our baptisms, where we daily die with our sins and rise with Christ to live a new life. Between Ash Wednesday and the Paschal Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil), the church is again called to live a life of repentance. The practice of Lent has been observed by Christians around the world since the early centuries of the church.

Lent shows how much we need Christ.

Lent is an opportunity to follow Jesus who was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit for 40 days of prayer and fasting, who became our substitute. By His fasting and temptation, He opens for us the feast of heaven.

Lent shows how much we need each other.

We often think of our faith as something personal, and while many of the practices of Lent are things that can’t be done except by each person individually, however Christian faith is never practiced in solitude, but always in communion with fellow Christians. Together, by meeting together around the Word of God, we encourage one another and fulfill a purpose of church: to carry each other’s burdens and to encourage them with the love of Christ. May we encourage each other this Lent in our individual participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

As you participate in Lent, please read our guide, and feel free to share it with your friends.

Faith Lenten Guide

Here are all of our opportunities at Faith to participate in Lent:

Ash Wednesday

March 2, 6:30pm Divine Service

In Scripture, ashes serve both as a symbol of mortality and as a sign of mourning and repentance. In the Ash Wednesday service we are reminded of our mortality, we confess our sins, and we experience forgiveness through Christ’s death and resurrection. A central practice in the Ash Wednesday service is when those gathered physically embody what is in their hearts when they receive the “imposition of ashes” on our foreheads and hear the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Praise be to God that sin and death do not have the final word! We leave the service in confidence and gratitude: Christ has conquered death, and nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Vespers

Wednesdays at 6:30pm

(No service on March 23rd)

Each Wednesday in Lent we gather together to be refocused around Christ’s passion. As it is customary for Vespers to be a catechetical service, this year we meditate on the Lord’s Supper, under the theme “Fasting and Feasting”

Festival of the Annunciation

Friday, March 25th at 6:30pm

Return to Wittenberg and Faith Lutheran Church, Oregon, WI will be hosting a special Festival of the Annunciation Service on March 25th at 6:30pm.

The Feast of the Annunciation commemorates the announcement of the Messiah’s birth by the Holy Angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It takes place on March 25th every year, exactly 9 months (the typical length of human gestation) before Christmas Day.Before the Service, there will be a fellowship meal in the church basement beginning around 5:30pm.

Prayer

Daily

Pray the Catechism during the 40 days in Lent, using this booklet.

Pray the Catechism

Almsgiving (Charity & Acts of Mercy)

Mid-March

Spring Cleaning Drive
Target dates: March 21-26

Spring Cleaning Drive: We will collect personal health and hygiene products from our community for the local food pantry.

Faith In Action: Members who have been blessed financially by the Lord are encouraged to give to our church’s Faith In Action fund, which is set up to help families in need in our community.

Ukraine Crisis Fund: Our Christian brothers and sisters in Ukraine are in need of our support. First and foremost, they need our prayers to God for peace and security. There is also a very great need for humanitarian assistance as the war continues to destroy lives and property. The ELS Board for Christian Service has established the Ukraine Crisis Fund to aid our brothers and sisters in the Ukrainian Lutheran Church and the Gift of Life program as well as other Ukrainians in need. To contribute to this fund, go to els.org/donate. Checks may be sent to ELS Ukraine Crisis Fund, 6 Browns Ct., Mankato, MN 56001.

Fasting

Throughout Lent

Fasting, or giving something up that is a regular part of life is to remind us how completely we depend on the Lord. It is not dieting, as the focus of dieting often becomes my will-power. Rather, the focus of fasting is the Lord Jesus. The point is that when we give something up, we replace it with Jesus. For example, if a person chooses to not eat a meal, the time normally spent in preparation and eating would be spent reading and meditating on God’s Word.

Bible Study

Women’s Bible Study: Tuesdays at 7:00pm at the Parsonage

Men’s Bible Study: 6:30pm, 2nd Tuesday of the month

Young Adult Study: March 12, April 2

During Lent, our studies are perfect ways to focus on Jesus.

The men’s study is on “Christ Have Mercy: Putting Your Faith in Action.”

The women’s study is “Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?: 12 False Christs”

The young adult study is on what it means to be a Christian in the family, in the church, and in the world.

Books are available for purchase if you would like to own them, otherwise you may borrow from church, but please let Pastor know so we can have enough books.

Paschal Triduum

Maundy Thursday: April 14 6:30pm

Good Friday: April 15 6:30pm

Easter Vigil: April 16 7:27pm

Paschal = The Biblical word for “Easter”
Triduum = “The Three Days.”

After 40 Days of Lent, the Christian Year has now reached its climax. We have come to the celebration of the suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the celebration for which we have been preparing throughout Lent. Now we see what our Savior came to do. We see Him suffer and die for our sins and for the sins of the world. And we see Him rise triumphantly on Easter morning to assure us that our salvation is complete, the victory is won.

All three services are dramatic each in their own way and intimately connected to each other. The focus as always, is Christ.

Faith Lenten Guide

Is It Reasonable to Believe That Miracles Happen?

January 24, 2022 by Pastor Hendrix Leave a Comment

This article comes from The Center of Apologetics and Worldviews at Bethany Lutheran College. It is from a series entitled “Q&A Leading to Christ.”

A focused way of asking this question is: Can we explain the existence of life without recognizing that its creation was a miracle? When prominent atheist turned agnostic Richard Dawkins was asked how life began, he replied by saying he had no idea. Indeed, the most important mystery in biology today is the creation of life. Is it, then, a miracle?

Why is life a mystery? All life requires information storage devices known as chromosomes. Their DNA and proteins are too tiny to be seen by the naked eye, or even under a normal microscope, yet DNA has a sophistication and complexity that scientists have barely figured out. Given the amazing sophistication and complexity of DNA and given that even the simplest living organisms contain DNA, what are the chances that the DNA necessary for life could come about by random circumstances? None whatsoever. To suggest that DNA could have come into existence by random materialistic forces is to leave the real world behind and descend into the world of fantasy.

But as amazing as DNA is, the information it carries is even more astonishing. How can information be created by non-living matter? It can’t. Because of this difficulty for evolutionists, well-known scientist Michael Behe has observed that one-third of academic biologists now conclude that Darwin’s theory is inadequate to explain life. These biologists know, among other considerations, that Darwinism cannot explain the information necessary for life. Such scientists typically keep their views to themselves, however, in order to avoid the persecution they will face if they make their viewpoints public.

Darwin avoided the question of how life began. Darwin and his early followers incorrectly assumed the cell was a simple structure. Today’s scientists, by contrast, have concluded that cells are extraordinarily complex. Cells can make enzymes, make a cell membrane, move about, digest things, react to hot or cold, reproduce, etc. This means that even a single-celled organism is extraordinarily complex—far more complex than the computer with its word-processor that I am using to describe it. Nature alone cannot create complex information.

The big question of our time is not the origin of species. The big question is the origin of information, and we cannot explain the origin of information without seeing its creation as a grand miracle. Can materialistic science (a world without miracles) explain the information within lifeforms? It cannot. A world without miracles must be a world without life. The Apostle Paul said it this way:

For His [God’s] invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. (Romans 1:20)

As Paul said, when we observe the amazing complexity of life, the existence of God and his miraculous creation are “clearly seen.” God and His miracles are obvious from observing what He has created. Those who refuse to see the miracle of life are unable to see its divine origin.

When we realize that all of life is a miracle, then other events such as the resurrection of our Lord, or the Red Sea crossing, do not seem all that surprising. As criminal investigator J. Warner Wallace realized, a fair-minded investigation must follow the evidence to where it leads:

If the evidence pointed to the reasonable existence of God, this certainly opened up the possibility of the miraculous. If God did exist, He was the creator of everything we see in the universe. He, therefore, created matter from nonmatter, life from nonlife. He created all time and space. God’s creation of the universe would certainly be nothing short of…miraculous.

Is this a reasonable conclusion? The Apostle Paul in Romans 1:20 says it is. King David expressed the same idea in Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” A fairminded study of the world we live in leads to the same conclusion. We make no apologies for recognizing it as true.

Allen Quist is author of The Reason I Believe: The Basics of Christian Apologetics and also Evidence That the Bible Is True: The Apologetics of Biblical Reliability.

Learn More:
www.els.org/apologetics