All Saints Day will be celebrated in many churches Sunday. Falling on the first Sunday in November, it is a day to recognize all the saints that have gone before us. Many churches will light candles in honor of the members of the church who have died in the past year and remember them and their families in prayer.
In our Lutheran tradition we understand ourselves to be both “saint and sinner” at the same time. A simple belief system, really, we are all sinners as the Bible says: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”, Romans 3:23. But at the same time we are sinners we are also saints….saved by God’s grace and love for all people. Because of the work of Jesus, and not ourselves, we are saints who now are charged with doing the work of Christ out in the world. We are now the hands, feet, eyes, and ears of Jesus listening for the cries of those who are without. We look for places where we can help out. We walk to where we are needed and our hands reach out to show care to another.
You can research all you want on-line and find a great deal written about saints from how you become one, the new movie out called “St. Vincent” to the New Orleans Saints! What it means to me is to care about others. It is just that simple, to care for others. What does that mean for us in the VDC to “care” for one another? I am tempted to list 3 or 4 things like finding our “alumni” those who attended awhile back and we haven’t heard from or seen them on a team. Maybe we can find ways to more effectively recruit pastors and lay folks to attend our weekend or people to serve.
Yes those are all great ideas…..but maybe we should just pray. On this All Saints Day week let us pray as the saints God has called us to be, pushing back against the sin before us.
“Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful….
Let us pray,
Pr. Doug Givan
Spiritual Director, NLS
Eric is our current Webmaster and works on the NLS Communications Team. Raised in Judaism, he found Christ and the New Testament at age 16 in a Southern Baptist Church. He searched many denominations for the real church, only to find the Holy Spirit is present in all of them. He's worked for One for Israel, a group of native Israeli believers who are sharing the gospel in the holy land in Hebrew and is part of the only Hebrew speaking seminary in Israel.
