November 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Posted by on Oct 29, 2015 in Pastor Eric Midthun's Monthly Letters | Comments Off on November 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter Dear friends, I need some help.  We have started our fall tennis season…(I play on a men’s 55 and older team against other old men teams).  This week was our first match and I was paired up with a partner I had not been paired with before.  I have known him by name for at least 5 years.  We have been on the same team before and I have practiced with him a good number of times.  We had a good...
read more

September 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Posted by on Aug 27, 2015 in Pastor Eric Midthun's Monthly Letters | Comments Off on September 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter Friends in Christ, Two years ago our three congregations, St. Peter, Trinity and Waverly, as the newly formed “Circle of Faith” parish spent a year around the theme of “Who are we?” We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people. (I Peter 2:9) Then last year we focused on “What we do”, reflecting on the words; worship, pray, rejoice, share and fellowship. (Acts...
read more

May 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Posted by on May 1, 2015 in Pastor Eric Midthun's Monthly Letters | Comments Off on May 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter This is our final time to reflect on these things that the first disciples did together after Jesus had ascended to heaven and left them with the Holy Spirit. (Their fellowship, breaking bread, praying, learning, sharing and praising.) I try to imagine how they felt, and what they were thinking about. This was a whole new adventure for them. They did not have Jesus telling them where to go and...
read more

April 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Posted by on Mar 27, 2015 in Pastor Eric Midthun's Monthly Letters | Comments Off on April 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter We have been thinking about the things the early Christians did from Acts chapter 2. We thought about the sharing, the fellowship, the rejoicing and the praying. Now we think about worship: The first Christians spent much time at the temple, they broke bread and they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching. Since we are in Lent and looking forward to Holy Week and Easter, I’ll...
read more

March 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Posted by on Mar 3, 2015 in Pastor Eric Midthun's Monthly Letters | Comments Off on March 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter When Jesus began to teach the disciples how to pray he told them not to heap up empty phrases and use lots of words because God their father knows what they need. Then he taught them what we now call the ‘Lord’s Prayer’. The phrases are short and simple. They are utilitarian. This prayer is not a fancy sports car or a large RV, it is a pickup. It gets you where you need to go...
read more

February 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Posted by on Jan 30, 2015 in Pastor Eric Midthun's Monthly Letters | Comments Off on February 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter The early followers of Jesus spent much time in the temple…praising God. (Acts 2:46-47) This means that one of the things they were doing was praying. We have talked about sharing, rejoicing and fellowshipping, now we want to look at prayer. God really wants us to pray. It is how we maintain a close relationship with God. And so a lot of our worship is prayer. And so we pray around our...
read more

January 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Posted by on Dec 29, 2014 in Pastor Eric Midthun's Monthly Letters | Comments Off on January 2015 – Pastor Eric’s Letter Dear Circle of Faith fellowship, One of the things I really love about my life right now is that our children all live fairly close to us. We gather together for birthday parties and holidays and sometimes, just for fun when one comes over another one or two will come over as well. We catch up on news, we give each other advice, we eat, we play games, we laugh, we make fun of each other but we...
read more

December 2014 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Posted by on Nov 30, 2014 in Pastor Eric Midthun's Monthly Letters | Comments Off on December 2014 – Pastor Eric’s Letter Dear fellow rejoicers, We continue our emphasis on the theme, “What we do as Jesus’ followers.” We are looking at what the early Christians did from Acts 2. We focused on “sharing” because they shared. Now we focus on “rejoice”, because they rejoiced. Here is the NIV translation, “They … ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God...
read more

November 2014 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Posted by on Oct 30, 2014 in Pastor Eric Midthun's Monthly Letters | Comments Off on November 2014 – Pastor Eric’s Letter Sharing… At it’s very beginning the Church was about sharing. That’s because Jesus emphasised it. And Je-sus was reasserting the value that God always emphasised which was that people were to look after one another and especially the strangers or foreigners that somehow ended up living with them because they were strangers and foreigners themselves at one time. And, they were...
read more

October 2014 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Posted by on Sep 29, 2014 in Pastor Eric Midthun's Monthly Letters | Comments Off on October 2014 – Pastor Eric’s Letter Dear friends, “All day long the wicked covet, but the righteous give and do not hold back.” (Proverbs 21:26) Sometimes it seems like there are two types of people. Some feel fortunate and are thankful and generous while others feel unfortunate and not thankful and covet what others have instead of being generous with what they have. What is the difference? The author of this proverb...
read more

September 2014 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Posted by on Sep 10, 2014 in Pastor Eric Midthun's Monthly Letters | Comments Off on September 2014 – Pastor Eric’s Letter Dear friends, We are thinking about the question of what we do as God’s people. I remember a few weeks after one of our children had been confirmed he was not ready to go to church on Sunday morning. We called for him and eventually he showed up and said that he was now an adult Christian who could make his own decisions and had decided that he was not going to go to church that day. We...
read more

August 2014 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Posted by on Aug 18, 2014 in Pastor Eric Midthun's Monthly Letters | Comments Off on August 2014 – Pastor Eric’s Letter Dear friends, Over the past year at Circle of Faith we thought about who we are.  We reflected on images like a royal priesthood, a holy nation and God’s own people.  This year we are going to take the next step and consider the question, what do we do?  This question really has two parts.  First, what does God intend for us to do?  After all, God called us out of the darkness into his...
read more