Christ Lutheran Church, Struthers

06/14/2026

CALL TO WORSHIP ⛪ Proclaim the good news.
🍽 Next Sunday we are scheduled to serve at Red Door Café. Volunteers will be needed to help cook and serve, as well as donations of cakes or cookies for dessert.
💰 A Noisy Offering will be collected next Sunday for Camp Frederick’s Good Grief Camp which helps youth deal with the grief of losing a loved one.
📣 Our Council President has called a brief Congregational meeting for June 28 following worship. All members are encouraged to attend.

🔥 3rd Sunday after Pentecost
Overview for Today
Moses tells the Israelites that they are called to be a priestly kingdom and a holy people. Jesus speaks of the church’s mission with images drawn from daily life. The harvest is already plentiful, he says, but laborers are needed for work in the fields of daily life. What are we to do? We are to do what the liturgy invites us to do: let our conversation be shaped by the good news, extend Christ’s peace wherever we find ourselves, and share our bread with the hungry.


✝ Exodus: Upon their arrival at Mount Sinai following the great deliverance at the Reed (Red) Sea, Israel hears the marvelous story of what God has done for them. Because God has delivered them, Israel is called to live in a relationship with God—to live as a priestly people through whom God will work for all. https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=554063701
✝ Psalm: We are God’s people and the sheep of God’s pasture. https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=554063743
✝ Romans: For Paul, living in God’s grace means experiencing peace with God and hope that does not disappoint. The love of God, evident in Christ’s death for the underserving, has been poured into our hearts and sustains us in our troubles. https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=554063774
✝ Matthew: According to Matthew’s gospel, the mission of Jesus’ followers is to continue the mission of Jesus himself. Here, he instructs his first disciples as to how they might proclaim the gospel through their words and deeds. https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=554063808

🙏🏼 Prayer of the Day: God of compassion, you have opened the way for us and brought us to yourself. Pour your love into our hearts, that, overflowing with joy, we may freely share the blessings of your realm and faithfully proclaim the good news of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
(Sundays & Seasons © Augsburg Fortress)

>>A Closer Look at…
🔍 Matthew 9:35–10:23
A few ideas came to mind in relation to this passage. When reading, I was struck by the end of the passage, which points towards persecution and betrayal within families and communities. How does this tie in to what we have read elsewhere around perseverance and hope and the peace of God? While following Jesus involves risk (something that we don't often want to acknowledge) and our discipleship does come with a cost, we can stand in the hope that God is with us.
Healing and liberation are visible signs of God's presence and Kingdom. While exorcism may seem like a disconnected or outdated notion to some, it should certainly be alive in our thinking as we consider what it means to be liberated from power that is exercised over us to bind, ensnare and oppress, keeping us from fullness of life. Any act that brings peace and love into the midst of these scenarios and context might be considered the work of exorcism.
We have a list of the Disciples' names in this passage that can serve to remind us that we are not called as perfect and fully formed. Rather, we see Peter—who denied Jesus three times, we see Judas—who betrayed Jesus, we see tax collectors and others who fluctuated between the spaces of Kingdom and empire. This also points us to the idea of identity that is present in some of the other readings. Our shared identity and the identity of this movement of followers of Jesus, is borne out of its missional impetus and the sending of God. It is when we go into the world, as peacemakers and healers in the name of God, that we are recognized as disciples and the Church is seen for who it is meant to be rather than obscured by the walls of our buildings.
In this mission discourse we are reminded to accept hospitality as the Disciples did in their sent-ness—and as we see in the story of the three guests that Abraham and Sarah entertain. As we enter into mission, it is not just about what we bring to the endeavor, but those we encounter as we proclaim the Kingdom of heaven is near, and tend to the work of making that real.
(Phill Mellstrom, Worship Development Worker for the Faith Action Programme. www.churchofscotland.org.uk)

06/06/2026

CALL TO WORSHIP ⛪ Come, follow Jesus.
🥣 We are scheduled to serve at Red Door Café on June 21. Volunteers will be needed to help cook and serve, as well as cakes or cookies for dessert.
📜Our Council President has called a Congregational meeting for June 28 following worship.

💚 2nd Sunday after Pentecost
Overview for Today
The weeks of summer coincide with the beginning of the Pentecost season. Summer brings sunny warmth, growing crops, and the promise of harvest images of the Holy Spirit’s presence and activity in our lives, the church, and the world.
Hosea speaks of God’s presence as the dawn, as a gentle shower, as light. In our life together as a community of faith, what needs light, warmth, and watering to grow and flourish? How might we be attentive to others’ needs to receive this nourishment through God’s words of life and holy supper?


✝ Hosea: Because God’s people have trusted in military power and not God, today’s reading begins with the surprising declaration that God will withdraw from Israel and Judah. Perhaps then, the people will recognize their sin and repent. God does not desire pious prayers, but a life of committed action that results in the living out of the covenant. https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=647722366
✝ Psalm: To those who keep my way I will show the salvation of God. https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=647722418
✝ Romans: In his letter to the Romans Paul develops the idea that people are made right with God through faith rather than obedience to the law. To illustrate, he uses here the example of Abraham, whose trust in God’s promise is what marks him as righteous. https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=647722460
✝ Matthew: Matthew’s gospel presents Jesus as a healer of the sick and sinful. Through him, God’s mercy overcomes exclusivism, prejudice, disease, and even death. https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=647722511
🙏🏼 Prayer of the Day: O God, you are the source of life and the ground of our being. By the power of your Spirit bring healing to this wounded world, and raise us to the new life of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
(Sundays & Seasons © Augsburg Fortress)

⚕ Who needs a doctor?
In Matt 9:12 we find one of the most liberating and salutary lines in Scripture. "People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick." Imagine the ludicrous situation of a hospital turning people away because they're sick, but who will be accepted for a place when they are better! Hospitals that turn sick people away would be places that have forgotten their purpose. And Jesus is saying here that a Church that rejects sinners is just like a hospital that rejects the sick.
Jesus drives the point home even further with a quote from our earlier passage in Hosea 6:6: "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings." The Pharisees were experts at sacrifice—the correct animals to be burnt, the rituals, the rules—‘looking the part'—but they missed the essence of what God was all about! They were failing at mercy. Unlike Jesus, they didn't have the heart that breaks for the lost. It is as if Jesus is saying: "I can't fix what you won't admit is broken. I didn't come for the people who have it all together: I came for those who are falling apart."

>>A Closer Look at…
🔍 Hosea 5:15–6:6
The passage begins in verse 15 with a startling statement from God: "I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face. In their distress they will beg my favor." We see this mirrored in other places of Scripture: for example, in Exodus 33, when God threatened to depart from a rebellious and faithless people as a result of their fashioning and worshipping of the golden calf and bringing to it their burnt offerings and peace offerings.
In the 8th century BC, although the Northern Kingdom of Israel was thriving economically, it was rotting spiritually. God's people were, essentially, hedging their bets: worshipping Yahweh on the Sabbath but flirting with the Baals (the local fertility gods) during the working week to try to ensure good crops.
In 6:1-3, we hear the people's response. It sounds almost plausible. "Come, let us return to the Lord... after two days he will revive us." But verses 4-6 make clear that this response is more like an unthinking incantation rather than a serious attempt to be, and live as, the distinct People of God. Their words and their lives reveal an almost vending machine mentality of an insincere insertion of one ‘sorry' resulting in the receipt of one automatic ‘healing' without any behavior change in the middle.
The image of the disappearance of the morning mist that evaporates early at the first touch of sunlight underscores the vapor-thin faith of the people. A faith that looks and feels substantial but evaporates quickly when challenged and tested. The ‘hewing of the prophets' in verse 5 refers to the attempts of the prophets to break through the stubbornness and shallowness of the people.
Verse 6, however, the verse quoted by Jesus Himself in our Matthew passage, gets to the root of what God desires: "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."
The Hebrew word for ‘steadfast love' is chesed. It's an all-encompassing marathon kind of love and speaks of the absolute commitment and faithfulness of God to God's people – the kind of love expected from them in return. Religious ritual in itself is not being criticized, but the paramountcy of chesed advocates the kind of love that cannot simply be reduced to, or replaced by, a mechanical piety or religiosity based on rituals, burnt offerings or what we can spare in the offering plate. Instead, God is looking for another kind of sacrifice, based on true worship of the heart and a lifestyle of sacrificial kindness and service to others.
(Rev Stephen Miller, Education and Schools Group Co-ordinator. www.churchofscotland.org.uk)

06/06/2026

The letters Martin wrote to Katie Luther are some of the few windows we have into the couple’s domestic life. What follows is a letter he wrote on June 5, 1530, from the Castle Coburg. It is especially insightful and includes a topic we normally don’t associate with the great reformer - breastfeeding!

“To my dearly beloved Catherine Luther, mistress of the house at Wittenberg: Personal

“Grace and peace in Christ! Dear Katie! If I am correct, I have received all your letters. This is then the fourth letter I am writing to you since Mr. John has gone from here to you. Together with the box, I have also [received] the picture of Lenchen. At first I did not recognize the little strumpet, so dark she appeared to me to be. I think it would be good if you want [to stop nursing her], [but] gradually, so that at first you omit one feeding per day, then two feedings per day, until [the child] clearly stops [nursing by herself]. So George von Grumbach’s mother, Lady Argula, has advised me; she has been with us here, and had dinner with us. . . .

“Tell Master Christian that in all my life I haven’t seen worse glasses than those which arrived with his letter. I couldn’t see a thing through them, and so was unable to write the letter to the father of the Cuntzes. . . .

“Greetings, kisses, hugs, and regards to all and everyone according to his place.

“MARTIN LUTHER”

Translation from the American Edition of Luther’s Works, Vol. 49, pp.312-316.

The portrait medallion is of Argula von Grumbach.

-Rebecca DeGarmeaux for Katie Luther

06/02/2026

Presiding Bishop Yehiel Curry has issued his first in a series of monthly messages that will continue through the end of this year under the title "All Together in One Place."

Each message will share a pastoral word, rooted in Scripture, that witnesses to God’s presence today, our rich theological tradition and the social teaching that connects us.

Read the full message through the link in the comments below.

05/30/2026

05/30/2026

CALL TO WORSHIP ⛪ All are welcome!
✨This Sunday we celebrate the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit--one in three, three in one!

💦Holy Trinity Sunday
Overview for Today
Though the word ‘trinity’ is not found in the scriptures, today’s second reading includes the apostolic greeting that begins the liturgy: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. In the gospel Jesus sends his disciples forth to baptize in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. More than a doctrine, the Trinity expresses the heart of our faith: we have experienced the God of creation made known in Jesus Christ and with us always through the Holy Spirit. We celebrate the mystery of the Holy Trinity in word and sacrament, as we profess the creed, and as we are sent into the world to bear witness to our faith.
If by Matthew’s language of “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” we imagine two males and a mist, the biblical imagery is failing us. God is beyond all things, alive in Jesus Christ, and experienced in the assembly. Many contemporary hymns add other imagery to the doctrinal language in hopes of opening up the mystery of God. In Genesis 1, God is creator, word, and breath. In Paul, God is love, grace, and communion.


✝ Genesis: The first creation story reached its current form during the crisis of the Babylonian exile of the people of Israel. God, not their captors’ god Marduk, was responsible for their existence. God created women and men as rulers over creation, to preserve and protect it. God also rested on the seventh day, hallowing that day forever as the Sabbath. http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=552806874
✝ Psalm: How majestic is your name in all the earth! http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=552806899
✝ 2 Corinthians: Paul closes a challenging letter to the Corinthians with an appeal to Christian fellowship grounded in the triune harmony of Christ’s grace, God’s love, the Spirit’s partnership. http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=552806922
✝ Matthew: After his resurrection, Jesus summons his remaining disciples and commissions them to baptize and teach all nations in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=552806943

🙏🏼Prayer of the Day: God of heaven and earth, before the foundation of the universe and the beginning of time you are the triune God: Author of creation, eternal Word of salvation, life-giving Spirit of wisdom. Guide us to all truth by your Spirit, that we may proclaim all that Christ has revealed and rejoice in the glory he shares with us. Glory and praise to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.
(Sundays & Seasons © Augsburg Fortress)

>>A Closer Look at…
🔍Matthew 28:16-20
I am with you until the end of the age – Jesus brings us full circle from the first words in Genesis, showing us God in God's fullness as Creator, Christ and Spirit there in the beginning and with us now and forever more.
The Word there in the beginning and there at the end – I am reminded of the Erasmus translation of "In the beginning was the word" rendered as "In the beginning was the conversation, and the conversation became flesh that no one would have the last word" – an invitation that we would join with God in unending conversation.
Our generous Creator tasks us with continuing to make (in this case disciples) and gives us the promise of presence with us. Not a go and do this on our own, rather to come and join the making God who continues to bring rhythm to the world and rhythm to those who are willing to listen and move in sync.
There is something profoundly immediate of the call to make disciples of all nations, and we might remember that if we were to live out Jesus' teachings that forbid violence and retribution, that call us to love our neighbors rather than to dominate, dehumanize or even destroy them. We do well to remember that all authority belongs to no-one other than Jesus, who is none other than the Prince of Peace.
The command to baptize those coming into the community of the Church in the name of the loving Community of God is important and explicit mention of the Trinity expresses the dynamic diversity that exists in God and shows us the fullness and richness of a life lived in the way and rhythm of the God who made all at the beginning and is with us until the very end of the age in our commission to go and make.
(Phill Mellstrom, Worship Development Worker for the Faith Action Programme. www.churchofscotland.org.uk)

05/29/2026

05/24/2026

O God, on this day you open the hearts of your faithful people by sending into us your Holy Spirit. Direct us by the light of that Spirit, that we may have a right judgment in all things and rejoice at all times in your peace, through Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Prayer of the Day from sundaysandseasons.com.
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