{"id":5830,"date":"2024-08-03T16:33:40","date_gmt":"2024-08-03T21:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/?p=5830"},"modified":"2025-01-18T11:11:13","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T17:11:13","slug":"pastors-ponderings-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/2024\/08\/03\/pastors-ponderings-august\/","title":{"rendered":"Ponderings from Pastor Patti – August 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cThat Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 \u2013 Ephesians 3:17<\/p>\n

Our summer continues, but a new school year and ministry programs are just around the corner.\u00a0 And August is that time when many parents and grandparents are beginning preparations for school to start back up.<\/p>\n

It’s a time filled with newness.\u00a0 A new school year is about to begin, our Confirmation students will begin a new year studying the Catechism, and new opportunities for all of God\u2019s children to learn and grow.<\/p>\n

The Synod\u2019s Cultivating Love focus in August is \u201cCultivating New\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

But as we enter this time of newness, there\u2019s a couple of questions that come to mind:<\/p>\n

What might God be cultivating new in you?\u00a0 For you?\u00a0 With you?\u00a0 Paul writes, \u201cSo if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!\u201d\u00a0 (2 Corinthians 5:17, NRSV).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Consider this month a \u201cChoose Your Own Adventure\u201d of sorts.\u00a0 You fill in the blank, \u201cCultivating New __________.\u201d<\/p>\n

Think outside the box.\u00a0 What might God be cultivating new in your life?\u00a0 Or here at First?\u00a0 What might God be cultivating in this community?<\/p>\n

And then consider\u2026what new things will you try?<\/p>\n

Pray with me as you ponder on how we can become new together:<\/p>\n

O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.\u00a0 Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

I look forward to sharing this theme of Cultivating Love with all of you.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2013 Pastor Patti<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThat Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.\u201d\u00a0 \u2013 Ephesians 3:17 Our summer continues, but a new school year and ministry programs are just around the corner.\u00a0 And August is that time when many parents and grandparents are beginning preparations for school to start back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,36,69,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-attitude","category-community","category-devotion","category-faith"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8agoY-1w2","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5830"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5921,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5830\/revisions\/5921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}