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

By now you’ve surely heard the news that Haiti has suffered a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake.  Many buildings have crumbled and several thousand have died.  Port-au-Prince, the capital city which was nearest the epicenter and with some of the greatest destruction, and the area around it is without electricity and water and many people are in great need of medicine and other medical help.

We, the people of Hope, are talking about ways we can be of assistance now.  But we encourage you to pray for the people there, for the residents, for those who were killed, families of those who died, for those who will travel there in the next days, months, and years to help, and for those travelers who were already there.  Pray for their safety, health, and for the rebuilding efforts.

We also encourage you, in the midst of prayer, to consider donating to the relief efforts.  You can do that through Lutheran World Relief: http://lwr.org/emergencies/updates/011310/

If you text, you can send a text to donate through your cell phone bill.

Text either “LWR” to 40579 to donate $10 to Lutheran World Relief or “Haiti” to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross.  Both will ask you for a confirmation before the $10 is credited to your next cell phone bill.

In this time we hope, pray, and trust in the God who sustains the weary and gives hope to the downtrodden.

And we remember…

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the

mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and

foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

Psalm 46: 1-3

Photo courtesy of XOZ

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.

Every two years, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American (ELCA, the larger church body of which we are a congregation) gathers together to pray, worship, and be about the business of the church during the Churchwide Assembly.

This year voting members and others are gathering in Minneapolis, MN this week.  While there is much to be about during the week, one agenda item is getting significantly more attention than the others, our social statement on human sexuality and the role of clergy in same-gender relationships.

Please keep the Assembly in your prayers.  The conversation started last (Monday) night with obviously dissenting opinions among the group.  Pray for the Holy Spirit to be present and to lead the church both in dialogue and dicision making.

If you’d like to follow the conversation, the Assembly is on Twitter.  Follow Assembly members and observers as they post their thoughts and updates on Twitter here.  Otherwise you can find news updates and multimedia on the ELCA’s official Assembly page here.

Image courtesy of ELCA.

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