Emmanuel Lutheran Church

Emmanuel Lutheran Church A congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). A great place to live, work and serve.
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We are a church serving the historic West End of Lancaster, a neighborhood of well-kept row homes, schools, shops.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!Alleluia!!!
04/20/2025

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!
Alleluia!!!

Worship with us on Easter Sunday-The Resurrection of Our LordEmmanuel Lutheran-10:15 amAlleluia! He is Risen
04/19/2025

Worship with us on Easter Sunday-The Resurrection of Our Lord
Emmanuel Lutheran-10:15 am
Alleluia! He is Risen

LETTING OUR SPIRIT LEAD by Karen Minnich-SadlerDifferent people want different things from us. Certain situations, like ...
04/19/2025

LETTING OUR SPIRIT LEAD by Karen Minnich-Sadler
Different people want different things from us. Certain situations, like jobs, also have their demands. If we’re not careful, we can be so focused on being everything to everybody, we lose all sense of self. We have broken pieces of our identity scattered all over the place.

One of the lessons I learned the hard way is that we don’t owe anyone anything except, as the apostle Paul said, to love. Love—Divine Love—takes into account everyone’s well-being, including our own. Love knows when to sacrifice and when to withhold. Love is quick to offer support, but not unnecessarily. Genuine love sees with both clarity and compassion, and has the strength to forge its own path.

We should never allow anyone to convince us to do something that doesn’t feel right to us. Neither should we mold our opinions and ideas around someone else’s, just to gain their approval. We need a strong sense of self—part of a community but not determined by it—to make choices that resonate with our spirit.

We should never blindly accept what anyone says or give our loyalty without question, for then we allow a person, rather than God, to shape our character and direct our lives. This is a good way to get off our highest path and forget who we are and why we’re here. When someone demands our unquestionable allegiance, our spirit must be strong enough to set boundaries, regardless of the impact on the relationship. We must not sell our God-self short.

We’re here to walk our highest path and each person has their own. We may share our story with others for awhile, but we can’t insist others walk as we do or allow them to tell us we must walk as they do. We’re mature spiritual beings, not dependent children. We’re responsible for living in a way that allows the Light and Love of God to flow through us. Whether others understand this or not, it is our highest calling.

LETTING GO OR GIVING UP? By Karen Minnich-SadlerIt’s hard for me to figure out sometimes when I’m letting go of somethin...
04/18/2025

LETTING GO OR GIVING UP? By Karen Minnich-Sadler
It’s hard for me to figure out sometimes when I’m letting go of something and when I’m giving up. Letting go can be incredibly freeing, like when I release something from my life that’s been weighing me down. Often, though, I want to let go of something quickly, before it has the chance to teach me what I need to know.

If I release something too quickly in order to avoid facing it and working through it, that—to me—is the same as giving up. I can’t learn from the experience if I push it away. At the same time, I can’t hold onto something if the time is right for letting go. Whatever I decide, I want to be certain in my soul it’s the right choice to make.

Letting go can make me feel guilty and giving up as though I’ve failed. Either way, if I’m not clear about why I do what I do, I’ll lose energy. The only way through these myriad emotions is to seek the grace of clarity and trust I’m not in the process alone. I’ll be shown what I need to know when it’s time.

Often I want to hold onto something because releasing it feels as though I’m not being responsible. This usually has to do with carrying burdens that aren’t mine to bear, when I’m trying to do for someone else what they need to do for themselves. Seen from another perspective, I might not want to let go because it means losing control of a person or situation. It means I must live with the discomfort of uncertainty.

This is exactly why I need to release the person or situation to God and allow that person to walk their own path. This is when letting go acknowledges the reality that no one can walk another’s path for them. We’re not God and we don’t know the direction their story should take.

We need to lift our choice up to the Light of God and trust that at some point, we’ll know the right answer. Like all of life, it’s process.

NEEDING TO CONTROL THE STORY by Karen Minnich-SadlerWithout being aware of it, I often script the unfolding story. I thi...
04/17/2025

NEEDING TO CONTROL THE STORY by Karen Minnich-Sadler
Without being aware of it, I often script the unfolding story. I think things will occur in a certain order or that one thing must happen in order for another to take place.

I should know better. Life has a way of surprising me, for I’m not the writer of my story. Certain choices I make can influence it, but it’s a fluid unfolding of something larger than I can possibly imagine.

When my expectations are set in stone, I’m usually blindsided, for I must learn not to need certainty. These life experiences are a path I get to walk one step at a time, and often the turns don’t allow me to see very far ahead.

Oh, how I pray for total trust and deepest faith, for this is the only way I’ll make it through life without giving up or giving in to fear and despair. Expectations are ludicrous and I know it, yet when things don’t turn out the way I thought they would, I get angry—at myself for having expectations and at God for not letting me know I was about to trip and fall.

One of the hardest challenges I have is to abide and allow, to let the Spirit flow from this deep place inside of me and be willing to go wherever life leads, without anxiety or need to know the ending. Hard as it is, I’ll not give up on the journey for I know the God to whom I belong.

This Presence in my life is so good and so soul-satisfying, everything else fades in comparison. Knowing outcomes isn’t as necessary anymore; demanding guarantees is seen for the illusion it is. What I want, more than anything, is to feel God’s Holy Presence within me and around me, reminding me this is the one true thing that matters.

God’s presence is all I ever truly need. I could lose everything but God would remain, and because of this, my life would be complete. God with me is the only guarantee I need to not give up on life.

Holy Week continues at Emmanuel Lutheran in Lancaster, PAMaundy Thursday at 7 pmGood Friday at 7 pmWorship with us.
04/16/2025

Holy Week continues at Emmanuel Lutheran in Lancaster, PA
Maundy Thursday at 7 pm
Good Friday at 7 pm
Worship with us.

LIGHTWORKERS IN ORDINARY LIFE by Karen Minnich-SadlerSometimes our path is clear; at other times, we do well to put one ...
04/16/2025

LIGHTWORKERS IN ORDINARY LIFE by Karen Minnich-Sadler
Sometimes our path is clear; at other times, we do well to put one foot in front of the other and hope we don’t get lost. We struggle to find our soul’s purpose. We imagine giant adventures or extraordinary callings. We think if we’re living an ordinary life, there must be something wrong—we’re not on our highest path.

We’re all called to be Lightworkers, to be channels for God’s grace. This is a calling tightly interwoven with and lived out in our ordinary lives. To align ourselves with God’s purpose, we only need to make choices that manifest the goodness of God. This will happen in large and small ways, and that’s okay. Large or small, every bit of Light helps drive the darkness away.

We don’t have all the answers; we can’t solve all the world’s problems. We trust that what we can do will be caught up and magnified by the Holy Spirit of God. We’re not God, although God dwells in us, so our major task is to keep pointing to the Light and Love of God no matter what’s happening. Light-bearers are also hope-bringers. When all else fails, we allow the Light we bear to pe*****te the darkness, pointing directly to the One who is the Light.

Our soul’s purpose is lived one decision at a time, as we seek to be God’s compassionate and healing love however we can. We try not to add to the darkness through hatred and negativity. More than anything, we want the Light of God to shine through us and into the world.

When this is our purpose, to manifest God’s grace, it changes how we seek the world and our place in it. It changes our decisions and puts us in an entirely different relationship with everything that lives. Knowing we’re of God—that our primary purpose is to manifest God’s presence and grace, we’ll not feel good about making any choice except that which brings Light into every situation we’re in.

THE NEED FOR SCAPEGOATS by Karen Minnich-SadlerHuman history is filled with fear. Sometimes it’s those in power who stir...
04/15/2025

THE NEED FOR SCAPEGOATS by Karen Minnich-Sadler
Human history is filled with fear. Sometimes it’s those in power who stir up fear, directing it to their own ends, but we’re all guilty of it at one time or another.

Stirring up fear in others can make us feel powerful. If we fear something, we want others to fear it, too. This is human nature. What we don’t usually do is intentionally look within to see what wound might be feeding our fear.

I’m now more cautious about listening to those who have a need to constantly broadcast the negative, manipulating it for their own use. Wherever the information is coming from, I now question everything. In the past, I reacted before I thought. This cost me a lot in terms of energy and peace.

We’re living in a season of scapegoating at many levels. We need to stop blaming the scapegoats and call into question the ones who are generating the negativity. We need to see from a higher perspective so we can discern the processes, the causes and effects.

When people intentionally craft stories to stir up chaos and fear, I believe they must be very poor in spirit. They’ve a need to feel powerful at the expense of others. There’s a part of me that feels compassion for them, for they’re not using their gifts in service to the Divine and are missing so much of what this life could teach them. That is quite a loss. Can you imagine what good they might accomplish if they directed their energy to higher purposes?

There’s a lot of negativity being generated from every side of every story, but I can choose not to participate. My soul energy is better directed elsewhere, so I’ve started to pray healing grace into everything I read and every newscast I hear. This is the only antidote I have to the fear and negativity that want to own me. I’ll not become like those who hunt for scapegoats; nor will I allow them power over my spirit. I may not be able to change the world but this I can do: I can serve as a channel for God’s grace however I find to do that.

ACCEPTING ALL OF LIFE by Karen Minnich-SadlerIn the movie, The Last Airbender, the young boy who’ll become the means of ...
04/14/2025

ACCEPTING ALL OF LIFE by Karen Minnich-Sadler
In the movie, The Last Airbender, the young boy who’ll become the means of uniting and healing warring nations, has lessons of the spirit to learn. He can’t learn them until he faces his inner self. He must acknowledge the grief he carries and his responsibility for a choice he made that brought harm to people he loved. He needs to learn acceptance so he can face his emotions with honesty.

I’ve been learning this lesson, too. When I think of some of the choices I made and some I didn’t make but should have, I find it hard to forgive myself. Just recently, though, an insight was given me: I must love all of my life—not just parts of it—for each decision shaped me, made me wiser and more compassionate. Even the choices I regret were a means to spiritual growth.

I must accept every part of every experience whether I liked it or not: what others did to me, what I did to others, what I’ve done to myself. It is all a mixture of temporary scenarios, giving me the opportunity to experience and grow. None of these experiences are permanent and none have the power to harm my soul. It’s the human me who carries regrets, grief and anger.

With God, every day is being made new and me along with it. The truth is, I’m not a frightened child; I’m a powerful spiritual being. Much of that power is hidden in this earth experience, but this I do know: what is of the spirit is power for good and only ever used for purposes of grace.

I don’t need others to understand this in order to feel whole and complete. Whatever frees me from the past, from senseless guilt or bitterness, also frees me from suffering. The more I’m freed from suffering, the more I can manifest God’s healing grace in this world. If I’ve learned the lessons of the journey and they changed me and made me more compassionate, then this is all I’ve ever needed from the journey.

Address

540 W Walnut Street
Lancaster, PA
17603

Telephone

+17173976195

Website

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