PASTORS TERRILL AND SARA SORENSEN

We have been doing a little cleaning, organizing, and rearranging in our office these last few days.   Our idea was to get things in better shape so that we could find papers, books, and materials as we enter into the fall season with Sunday School, Confirmation, and all the other activities that are starting again.

In the process of going through the stacks of papers and books and stuff we have discovered that we have been hanging on to lots of things that we don’t need.  There was mail that was a couple of years old, which we weren’t interested in two years ago.  There were old sermons lying around.  There were confirmation lesson notes that had been long since used, not to mention a host of junk in piles on shelves, the floor and the desks. 

We are not completely done with the project, but already things look a lot better.  Not only that, we have also discovered some material that we had forgotten, material that will be useful.  With bare space on the desk and bookshelves ordered so that things are where they are supposed to be it is much easier to think about possibilities.  It is a good thing to clean out the junk and get things straightened out in the office.  It lifts your spirits and makes you feel like you are starting anew.  I recommend it.

There is another kind of starting over that all of us need.  It is in our hearts and souls.  We accumulate a lot of junk in our lives.  Sin leaves behind regrets and anger, shame and embarrassment.  Our efforts to find happiness cause us to clutter our lives with stuff that we really don’t need.  All of this along with the troubles of this life weighs us down and makes us feel weary and sad.

 We need a good cleaning.  We need a new start.  You can take care of that with a garage, an office, or a kitchen on our own.  But we can’t accomplish that on our own when it comes to our hearts and souls.  We need someone who has the power to clean out our sin and the destruction it leaves.  We need someone who can show us the empty things we don’t need to hang on to. 

You can find that someone!  He is your Lord Jesus Christ and you can find him in his Word.  So we invite you to feel the joy and possibility of the openness he can create in your life.  We invite you to worship, Sunday School, JAWS, and all the other places where his word of forgiveness is heard, his word that clears away all the junk of guilt and shame.  If you’ve been away awhile, we invite you to a fresh start in  Christ’s Word.  Come to church!

God Bless,

Pastor Terrill