Where were you when God first encountered you?  How did it feel?  What was the experience like?  What were you left with after it happened?

No encounter with God leaves us the way we were before the encounter and over the next month we’ll take time make connections between our encounters with God and worship at Hope.

So please join us on Sunday mornings August 8 through September 12 (9:30 AM worship every Sunday except September 12, then it’s 10:30 AM) as we explore these encounters and how it transforms us and the world.

Photo: Some rights reserved by John Fraissinet

Beginning Sunday, June 6, we will shift to our summer schedule for worship. Worship will begin at 9:30 AM and there will not be Sunday School until after Labor Day. We hope you’ll join us this summer as we continue to explore what it means to be faithful disciples of Jesus.

Photo courtesy of adwriter

We’re often encountered by the question, Where have you found hope?

Some of us find hope for a better life in a new job or in our educations.  Others of us find some glimmer of hope in our childrens’ eyes or their curiousity that leads them to question so much of what we take for granted.  For others of us it is simply in the care of a friend.

But I wonder if it’s really that we’ve found hope or if Hope has found us.

In my experience it’s been those times when I’m not looking for it, when I least expect it, then a sudden flood of Hope rushes in and captures me.  And in those moments, what may have been overwhelming no longer seems quite so bad.

So where has Hope found you?  And could it be that wherever that was/is, was/is where God found you too?

We at Hope Lutheran Church are discovering those places we’ve been captured by Hope, those places and times in life when we things transformed from hopeless to hopeful.  Together we find we’ve been caught by Hope every day of our lives.

This Sunday, September 13, please join us as companions on this journey - pointing out for each other those times and places Hope has found us and how we may live into that Hope in the days to come.  We’ll gather for a time of teaching at 9:00 AM (all ages, including adults) followed by a time of worship at 10:30 AM.  Then we’ll gather for some food and fun after worship with a picnic (about 11:30 or 11:45).

Where has Hope found you?  Perhaps in a worshiping community… perhaps this coming Sunday… we hope you’ll join us.

Story has great meaning in our lives.  So it is no wonder Jesus used stories (parables) often when teaching.

We hope you’ll join us this Wednesday evening, August 5, at 7:00 PM at Panera Bread in Waldorf (map).  We’ll take a look at some of those very stories, parables, Jesus told as well as a few modern day parables - discerning where they have meaning in our lives.

Photo courtesy of Môsieur J. <au ralenti>

The past three days have been very, very full days for us.  It has been a challenge to even find a spare moment of time for sleep let alone to write a blog post detailing what is going on here in New Orleans.  But tonight I’ve got some time (although again, not much) so I thought I’d share a bit about what has been going on.

This is the first gathering of such a size the city of New Orleans has hosted since Hurricane Katrina and in some ways it is a bit obvious.  Things that would have worked  a bit more smoothly 12 years ago when the city last hosted this very gathering are now a bit kinky.  But the major issues that we’ve had as a group have had less to do with whether the city of New Orleans is ready for us and more to do with the actual Gathering participants.

The streets are crowded!  There are at least 36,000 people walking the streets to and from the Superdome for our nightly Mass Gatherings.  And while we are all coming from different hotels in slightly different areas, it gets a bit oppressive especially up at the Dome.  In response to this, people are crowding each other, pushing and shoving, and disobeying traffic laws.  It’s a bit chaotic.

But, things are still good and we’re learning and growing a lot.  We’ve spent time in the Interaction Center which provides all sorts of opportunities for learning (including Justice Town where our group learned about human trafficking among other things) as well as fun and games (did you see the pictures of the bumper cars from day two?).

Today though we spent time at a Catholic Charities building cleaning it up so that it can open as housing for homeless and battered women and children.  We did a lot of different things around the buildings, everything from packing up a food-pantry to move from one building to another to sweeping to washing windows and painting.  It was incredible to see the ways in which God is at work in our kids and the other groups who were there.

I will hopefully write about the Mass Gatherings and the speakers/bands we encounter there each night.  But that will have to wait for another time because I am in need of some sleep before another full day tomorrow.

In the meantime, enjoy some pictures from today.

Jesus, Justice, Jazz - Day Three

Pastor Kate

Want to see what we’ve been up to for the past two days, here are two more photo albums, one for each day.

As the Gathering is very fast paced and we don’t often get down time, I will have to post captions later.  But please enjoy the pictures while you wait.

Jesus, Justice, Jazz - Day One

Jesus, Justice, Jazz - Day Two

It is likely that over 13,000 people will die of hunger today.  963 million people across the world are hungry. Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes, that’s one child every five seconds. (Statistics provided by Bread - http://www.bread.org/learn/hunger-basics/hunger-facts-international.html)

With all this in mind and the ever growing need for hunger awareness and action due to the current economic crisis - we continue to have conversation about how we may alievate some of the hunger in our area.

Over the past few months we have had two potlucks which raised hunger awareness and fueled some action in this regard.  We also collected almost 1300 cans of food for the Oxon Hill Food Pantry in January and people from the congregation walked and donated money for the Oxon Hill Walk-a-thon on May 16.  The congregation also continues to collect food on a continual basis which is then donated to the food pantry.

If you’d like to get involved in addressing this issue or begin conversation about another, please send an email to kmurray@hopeclinton.org.  Otherwise, check out ELCA World Hunger (http://www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Responding-to-the-World/ELCA-World-Hunger/Our-Work.aspx). 

The two potlucks were done in conjunction with A Month of Potlucks Project: http://amonthofpotlucks.blogspot.com.

Photo courtesy of Hamed Parham

Update: Thank you so much to all who volunteered and donated.  We exceeded our goal of 1000 cans and collected 1291 cans of food for the Oxon Hill Food Bank!  Because of you, there is more food available for people in our community.

If you wish to donate again or for the first time, we continually support the Oxon Hill Food Pantry and make regular donations.  Just bring the food by the church.  During the week we’re here Tuesday through Friday, 10 AM to 2 PM and on Sunday, 9 AM to 12 PM.

As part of the National Day of Service on MLK Jr. Day (Monday, January 19), we will be collecting food for the Oxon Hill Food Pantry.

The church building will be a drop off point for food from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM and volunteers will be walking the streets of the neighborhood going door-to-door asking for cans.

Help us reach our goal of 1000 cans for hunger by signing up to staff the drop off location or go door-to-door with us: http://www.usaservice.org/page/event/detail/4jwbd