Elim Extra for Sunday July 28, 2024

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Elim Extra for Sunday July 21, 2024

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Pastor’s Reflection

 

Please welcome Pastor Steve Tharp to Elim’s pulpit this week! Steve and his wife Lynn lead Bible study at Elim and have attended a number of our worship services, so hopefully you will recognize him and give him a warm hello. Steve and Lynn have the biggest servant hearts you will ever find, so I know you will just love connecting in worship. I will miss being there!

 

We have wrapped up our summer sermon series on the questions of Jesus. The topics you have asked me to address from the pulpit have truly been incredible:

-Domestic violence

-Biblical inerrancy

-The 10 Commandments

-LGBTQ+ inclusion

-The historicity of Noah’s ark

-Economics and sharing our blessings

-The politics of Jesus

-Interfaith and religious pluralism

-Is it okay to grieve?

-Do animals have souls?

 

Dang, Fam. Your questions make the faith of Jesus so relevant to our lives. I hope you never stop asking them!

 

with love,

Pr. Chelsea

 

Upcoming events:
July 17 – Wednesday night evening prayer continues at 7:30 PM
July 28 – Church Becoming meeting
August 5 – Family Promise at Ascension begins
August 7 – Bibliodrama workshop at 5:30 PM
August 17 at 9 AM – Manna and Matins: Come bake communion bread in our new oven!
August 25 at 10 AM – Church picnic in Eden, UT

Elim Extra for Sunday July 14, 2024

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Elim Extra for Sunday July 7, 2024

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Pastor’s Reflection

 

Happy Fourth of July! This Sunday, Elim will be closed and there will be no Facebook livestream. You are invited to worship in the park together with First Presbyterian Church, at Monroe Park on Sunday July 7th at 10 a.m. This is our first outdoor worship in quite a while, and promises accessible parking, good shade, two pastors who are excited about ecumenical collaboration, and a luncheon following (Gloria, Joan, and First Pres are providing the food). Please come early at 9:45 a.m. to get a parking spot, or if you’re running late, there’s plenty of free parking on 29th Street. Monroe Park is near Elim, at the corner of Monroe and 30th. I get to do the children’s message, so I’m pretty excited about bringing my goofy self out to worship in God’s creation.

 

Backing up, on July 3rd (this Wednesday) we will be having Evening Prayer on the Lawn at Elim at 7:30 p.m. This short, informal service will be great for kids, pets, and making new friends. Bring a guitar, drum, lawn/patio chair if you have one, or just bring yourself and spend time thanking God for your day. Evening Prayer on the Lawn will continue every Wednesday in July.

 

Enjoy all the juicy goodness summer has to offer!

 

with love, Pr. Chelsea

Elim Extra for Sunday June 30, 2024

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Pastor’s Reflection

 

This Sunday we will be hearing St. Paul’s beautiful verse “we have treasure in jars of clay.” We do not use clay jars in our kitchens very often anymore, but when we do we call it a “crock.” Not as poetic an image, but illuminating, in that today’s crocks usually contain fermenting foods like sauerkraut or sourdough starter. In other words, our treasure lies in the process of life itself, not in its container.

 

I thought about this last Sunday, as eight hardy souls braved cobwebs and funky smells, a decaying boiler and cemented-over “secret room,” to tour Elim’s unused spaces after worship. Everywhere I looked I saw evidence of the vibrant life-process happening in the past. Every room had clearly been used for many functions over the years. Each “past place” had its OWN past, still detectable in outdated signs or individuals’ memories. 

 

Church is a process, as much as it is a place. So when My Hometown Ogden came last Saturday to spruce up our yard, they were showing some love to our container, yes, but mostly they were called by God to participate in our process. To be community with us, to share life with us. To join in our fermentation. This is our treasure – to enjoy life together as much as we can, for as long as we can, until our jar wears out. In the words of Dorothy Day, “Community happened as we sat there talking, and it is still going on.”

 

with love, Pr. Chelsea

 

Announcements:

 

Has anyone seen our assisting minister robes?

 

We are borrowing lawn chairs and camp chairs for Evening Prayer on the Lawn beginning July 3rd at 7:30 p.m. Let me know if you have any extras to spare and I will keep them in my office. This will be a kid- and pet-friendly outdoor service.

 

Help expand Elim’s online outreach! In order for us to reach a wider audience streaming our Sunday services, and perhaps other events (like Jazz Vespers, etc.), please subscribe to our new YouTube channel (while logged into your Gmail account). We only need 22 more Gmail users to click on the subscribe button to allow direct streaming. Here’s how you do it:

Click on the link or type in our NEW YouTube channel:

https://youtube.com/@elimlutheran

Click on the oval button with the word ”SUBSCRIBE” on it.

Thank you!

Elim Extra for Sunday June 23, 2024

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Pastor’s Reflection

Happy Juneteenth and Father’s Day, and a huge thanks to all who helped with setup and cleanup for our outdoor coffee hour last Sunday on the lawn. It was fun to be out there and sit with different folks and get to know one another better. I’m eager to hear if you think this is something we should try again!

We are going to “think on our feet” this Sunday during our Church Becoming meeting, as we rove around Elim’s building, stand inside all our unused spaces and conjure up life-sustaining memories from our rich past (and maybe finally find a few lost things that we need!). I’m calling it our “Spirit in the Spiderwebs” tour. We will begin on the lawn after worship in patio chairs under a canopy, so please bring your snacks upstairs as soon as you can after worship. Chairs will be provided throughout the tour for those who need to sit.

I’m looking forward to going on an adventure right at home with you!

with love, Pastor Chelsea

Upcoming events:

Sunday July 7th, 10 am – Outdoor Worship with First Presbyterian at Monroe Park

Every Wednesday night in July, 7:30 – 8 pm – Evening Prayer on the Lawn

Sunday July 14th – Council meeting

Elim Extra for Sunday June 16, 2024

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Pastor’s Reflection

This weekend I decided to watch some of my ministry colleagues’ services online – you know, as you do – and I was horrified when one of them started pulling questions out of an “Ask Your Minister Anything” box and answering them on the spot! Talk about putting my premeditated question-based sermon series to shame. 

While I was impressed with my colleague’s courage and quick wits, what was most valuable was hearing unfiltered questions from a wide range of people in the same faith community. The concerns that keep people up at night vary widely from person to person, it turns out. (So do the bones people have to pick with their minister.) What I want to hear about – and what I think YOU should hear about – might be quite different from what’s actually on your mind! 

Perhaps while I was addressing domestic violence and LGBTQ Pride during the past two weeks, you were feeling like these topics weren’t quite for you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to what your neighbor needed to hear. This Sunday, we will entertain another question from one of our members that I think has broader appeal – “How can we be blessed to be a blessing?”

Please join us!

with love, Pr. Chelsea

p.s. Thank you for celebrating my one-year anniversary at Elim! I did not expect that and was very touched. I love being with all of you!

Upcoming Events:

June 16 – Father’s Day Outdoor Coffee Hour

June 22 – My Hometown Ogden yard work at Elim 9-11

June 23 – Church Becoming meeting

June 30 – Worship Team meeting

Elim Extra for Sunday June 9, 2024

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Pastor’s Reflection

 

We have begun our “Why Do You Ask” summer sermon series at church. Jesus answered only three of the 183 questions he was asked! Instead he asked lots of his own questions (307 of them in fact). I’m giving space in the pulpit to address whatever questions you bring to me, and I have room for a few more if there are any sermon topics you’d like to hear.

 

Now, at first I thought this would be a fun and easy summer project. But now that I’m getting your deep questions, I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew!

 

But we don’t have to bring a full answer to our big questions, settling them for all time. Preaching is not a one and done. Rather, we feel our way into a few truths that meet the needs of the moment, and let the rest of the mystery continue to unfold. Like the poet Rilke said:

 

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

 

with love, Pr. Chelsea

 

Upcoming events:

June 16 – Father’s Day – outdoor coffee hour.

June 22 – My Hometown Ogden yard work.

June 23 – Church becoming meeting.

July 7 – Outdoor worship at Monroe Park with First Presbyterian Church; Elim will be closed.

Elim Extra for Sunday May 26, 2024

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Pastor’s Reflection
Last Sunday we heard the scripture being proclaimed in seven languages simultaneously! Eight, if you count baby talk. Who knew we had that many different language readers at Elim? Thank you Dave Thomas for organizing this wonderful Pentecost experiment.
This coming Sunday, we will still have our red paraments up for Holy Trinity Sunday. Normally they should be white, but I want to emphasize how important the Holy Spirit is in the doctrine of the Trinity. Because of the Holy Spirit, the relationship of love between the Father and Son is not a closed two-way relationship, but something we are included in because the Holy Spirit lives in us.
Council will be meeting this Sunday and has been guiding quite a few wonderful repairs around our building. We have a new door and repaired bathroom plumbing, and in the next few weeks we will have new electrical lines in our kitchen and….duh duh duh…..our new furnace is coming! Just in time for some much appreciated summer AC.
Happy Memorial Day weekend, safety to those who are traveling, and for the rest of you, hope to see you at church
with love, Pr. Chelsea

Elim Extra for Sunday May 19, 2024

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Pastor’s Reflection

My friend the Rev. Martha Moler, a retired Presbyterian minister who was born in Ogden, baptized at Trinity Presbyterian, and currently lives in Salt Lake, will be joining us on Sunday May 19th to help me lead our Pentecost service. Don’t forget to wear red! And after the service, please stick around downstairs to hear exciting stories of recent international mission in four Middle Eastern countries, from Pastor Angel of the People’s Church.

We have something exciting coming up on Wednesday, May 22nd at 5:30 PM. A lively dialogue between jazz and worship, with music to uplift your soul. Presenting: Ogden Jazz Vespers, a “Wind and Fire” Pentecost concert at Elim Lutheran Church. Bring a friend, date, or treat yourself to an evening of spiritual improvisation, live jazz, and contemplation in Elim’s beautiful sanctuary, featuring the Tracy Quartet. A proud member and musician in the Ogden community, Daniel Tracy is coordinator of Jazz at the Station and director of instrumental music at Ben Lomond High School. This event has free admission and light refreshments will be served. A free-will offering will be taken to support future Jazz Vespers at Elim Lutheran Church, located at 575 23rd St. Questions? Call (801) 394-5543.

Hope to see you there!

with love,

Pr. Chelsea