Ambassadors Visit St. Paul’s, Glenside
The Ambassadors resumed visiting after a month’s hiatus due to obligations of individual Ambassadors. Our busy Ambassadors had afternoon plans today, so we visited the early service of St. Paul’s, Glenside. Two of our ambassadors are familiar with their neighboring church, St. Luke’s, but this was our first visit to the St. Paul’s of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
This was our 51st visit and the fifth (at least) Stewardship Sunday we encountered.
We attended the 8 am service and sat in the lobby listening to the bell choir rehearse for about 15 minutes as we were early. The bell choir was impressive. The 11-member bell choir performed two challenging numbers. A vicar led the liturgy.
A children’s sermon was very short and made a good point for the children but the message seemed to be too short with little to reinforce the message (sharing blessings).
The stewardship sermon for adults talked about keeping balance in our faith lives and mentioned about five things that stand in the way of stewardship. When these five things are out of whack, Rev. Henrik Sonntag said, our stewardship lives suffer. Several of them seemed to define the problems Redeemer has with SEPA/ELCA. The Synod’s FINANCES ($275,000 deficit budget) led them to poor stewardship choices in their poor RELATIONSHIPS with our congregation. He then talked about embracing the cross of Christ as a remedy and as a restorer of balance. We agree. We’ve been reading scripture for five years that point to what is going on in East Falls at the hands of SEPA Synod with the approval of its clergy and member churches as wrong, wrong, wrong. But the hope of this synod embracing their message to reach a good resolution seems to be dim. It’s not the first good sermon we’ve heard that seemed to meet with a disconnect between theory and practice. But as Stewardship Semons go, it was one of the better ones.
The service followed a standard liturgy, the organ was well-played but too loud for the size of the congregation. We couldn’t hear the congregation to figure out which verse they were on. Attendance was about 50. Two children and one youth (the acolyte). The make-up of the congregation seemed to be homogenous as are most of the churches we visit. We returned to the 11 am service to retrieve a forgotten hat and the second service seemed to be better attended.
A woman spoke after church of the congregation’s participation in feeding the homeless. She acknowledged the volunteers who participated in the project.
Church was followed by an impressive fellowship spread. We stayed for a few minutes, but not a soul spoke to us.
We retired to the Moonlight Diner for our own Sunday fellowship.
Our stewardship message is of the Stewardship of Possibilities and the Stewardship of Promises.