Bethany Lutheran, Port Orchard, WA

09/09/2026

🇺🇸Saturday, September 12th at 9:45am Bedtime Books at Bethany celebrates Patriot Day with-
🎺 Narrows Music Society Brass Quintet
⚓️ South Kitsap NJROTC
🚓 Port Orchard Police Department
🚒 South Kitsap Fire and Rescue
📕 read by 👮‍♀️ Deputy Chief Iwash*ta: Police Hurrying! Helping! Saving!
📖 read by 👩‍🚒 Deputy Chief Josh Hurguy: Jorge El Curioso Y Los Bomberos/ Curious George and the Firefighters (bilingual edition read in English and Spanish by Sandra Percich!)
🎁 Keep the books!
🇺🇸 Followed by a children’s parade around the parking lot with flags and It’s a Grand Old Flag!
🤟ASL provided by Alisa Sutherland
🛝Come early to play
🚑 🚔 Stay for an Emergency Vehicle Touch a Truck and Vehicles featuring local heroes👮👨‍🚒👮‍♂️🧑‍🚒 and
🎶 a Patriotic Concert!
🧦 We’ll be collecting socks for local law enforcement to share with our neighbors in need!
♥️ Sponsored by our friends at Gesa Credit Union. Thank you! 🥰

09/07/2026

Summer Psalms Day 107
September 7, 2026

Psalm 25:22 (ESV)
22 Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.

I saved this verse for the last of our Summer Psalms because Psalm 25 is my personal favorite. I pray you’ll read it for yourself. Maybe it will become one of your favorites as it has become mine.

I love David’s realism and honesty. He talks about those who oppose him. He talks about his own failures. He asks for God’s help. That’s me.

In v. 7 he asks God to forget, to “not remember” the sins of his youth. Instead, David asks God to remember him according to the Lord’s mercy and goodness. I need the same.

In vv. 8-10 David asks God to instruct and teach him so that he wouldn’t be the terrible person he is by nature. I need the same.

In v. 21 David asks God to guide his life and behavior so that “integrity and uprightness” would be his protection. David asks God for this help because David can’t trust himself to do it. Me too.

The psalm closes with that precious word “redeem.” Purchase me. Trade for me. Ransom me. God has done this for me and for you. In Jesus Christ God has redeemed us from all trouble, the troubles from the outside and the troubles that originate inside of ourselves. Thanks be to God!

Lord God, as this last of 107 of Your psalms comes to a close, I thank You for providing me the opportunity to learn Your Word. Guard me throughout my life. Forgive and forget the sins of my past and lead me on Your paths. All this I ask for Jesus’ sake, my Redeemer. Amen.

09/06/2026

Divine Service for the 14th Sunday of Trinity, Bethany Lutheran Church, Port Orchard; Pastor Pittenger.

09/06/2026

Summer Psalms Day 106
September 6, 2026

Psalm 127:1–2 (ESV)
1 Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. 2 It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.

This being Labor Day Weekend, I figured I should find a verse with “labor” in it. This 99th Summer Psalm puts our labor and work into context. Undertaken without God in mind, contrary to His will, performed only to line our pockets or glorify ourselves; our efforts are in vain.

Even if there is worldly success, even if there are promotions and paychecks, it is all fleeting.

All the things we as Christians do, our “vocations,” are to be done in obedience to God and in love for neighbor. Luther is said to have put it this way: God doesn’t need our good works but our neighbors do.

Today’s Summer Psalm calls us to examine what we do, reminding us to do it all in line with God and His Word.

Lord God, on this holiday weekend and near the close of another Summer, help me to examine the things I do. May everything, my paying-job, along with everything else, be done in Your name and be done for my neighbor’s sake. Bless all my labors. During this three-day weekend remind me of Jesus’ three-day rest in His tomb. Completing the work of salvation, He has opened the door to eternal life and eternal rest. Bring me safely there when the work You’ve given me here is complete. Amen.

09/05/2026

A fun free night at our Evergreen Lutheran High School!

Mini Golf and Friends! Join us on Friday night for a 9-hole mini course and dinner catered by My 4 Sons BBQ.

Sign up your team at: https://www.elhs.org/2nd-annual-eddie-the-eagles-mini-masters-9-11/

09/05/2026

Summer Psalms Day 105
September 5, 2026

Psalm 37:25 (ESV)
25 I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.

Dr. Fischer was the town veterinarian while I was working my way through college. More than once people asked for his help because their cat was stuck in a tree. Dr. Fischer’s advice was to put a dish of their favorite food out and wait until hunger overpowered fear. He would add that “No one has ever found the skeleton of a cat up in a tree.”

Today’s Summer Psalm speaks with more certainty than cats coming down from their trees. God’s children have been on foot in the middle of deserts and in ships on a world covered with water. They have been in furnaces and in lion’s dens. Surrounded by armies, hunted by kings, one-on-one against giants and deep in fish bellies; they have even been dead and buried.

But never have they been forsaken. Never will you be!

Proof of this is found in Christ. Peer quietly into that manger, remember that’s God wearing flesh and blood like yours. Watch as He treads the dusty roads of ancient Israel, hungry and exhausted. Gasp and hold your breath as He goes to the cross you really should have gone to. Sigh and sing in joyful relief as His tomb is empty and He shows Himself to all.

In Christ, God. Will. Not. Forsake. You!

Heavenly Father, help me remember these words of yours. When I am overwhelmed or overcome remind me of Your people before me and show me that cross and empty tomb. Amen.

09/05/2026

🇺🇸Saturday, September 12th at 9:45am Bedtime Books at Bethany celebrates Patriot Day with-
🎺 Narrows Music Society Brass Quintet
⚓️ South Kitsap NJROTC
🚓 Port Orchard Police Department
🚒 South Kitsap Fire and Rescue
📕 read by 👮‍♀️ Deputy Chief Iwash*ta: Police Hurrying! Helping! Saving!
📖 read by 👩‍🚒 Deputy Chief Josh Hurguy: Jorge El Curioso Y Los Bomberos/ Curious George and the Firefighters (bilingual edition read in English and Spanish by Sandra Percich!)
🎁 Keep the books!
🇺🇸 Followed by a children’s parade around the parking lot with flags and It’s a Grand Old Flag!
🤟ASL provided by Alisa Sutherland
🛝Come early to play
🚑 🚔 Stay for an Emergency Vehicle Touch a Truck and Vehicles featuring local heroes👮👨‍🚒👮‍♂️🧑‍🚒 and
🎶 a Patriotic Concert!
🧦 We’ll be collecting socks for local law enforcement to share with our neighbors in need!
♥️ Sponsored by our friends at Gesa Credit Union. Thank you! 🥰

09/04/2026

How perfect would this book be for next summer's Touch a Truck Bedtime Books at Bethany with TH Excavation LLC? Today you could buy a used copy of this book from Amazon for $10.49. We just ordered 160 new copies for $52.03 shipped!! That's $.33 a copy!!! If you'd like to help us pay for them, please bring a donation to Bethany or use the link in the comments!