St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church & Preschool West Seneca

St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church & Preschool West Seneca St. John's is a 150 + year old congregation of people just like you: radically loved by God!

06/18/2026

A piece to ponder on June 18, 2026
Romans 6:1b-11
1b Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8 But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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“A popular word these days is ‘reinvent.’
Have you turned 40? You will want to reinvent yourself, and there's plenty of help in a bookstore or on the Internet.
Have you gone through a divorce? You may need to reinvent yourself.
Have you just been the victim of downsizing? You will definitely need to reinvent yourself.
Have you retired? If you don't reinvent yourself, you'll be dead within five years.
Have you just gotten married? No need to reinvent yourself; your spouse will handle that.”
Homiletics, June 14, 2017

Peace and blessings this day.
Pastor V.

06/17/2026

A piece to ponder on June 17, 2026
Psalm 69:7-10 [11-15] 16-18
7 Surely, for your sake I have suf- | fered reproach,
and shame has cov- | ered my face.
8 I have become a stranger to | my own kindred,
an alien to my | mother’s children.
9 Zeal for your house has eat- | en me up;
the scorn of those who scorn you has fall- | en upon me.
10 I humbled my- | self with fasting,
but that was turned to | my reproach.
[ 11 I put on | sackcloth also,
and became a by- | word among them.
12 Those who sit at the gate mur- | mur against me,
and the drunkards make | songs about me.
13 But as for me, this is my prayer to you, at the time you have | set, O Lord:
“In your great mercy, O God, answer me with your un- | failing help.
14 Save me from the mire; do not | let me sink;
let me be rescued from those who hate me and out of | the deep waters.
15 Let not the torrent of waters wash over me, neither let the deep swal- | low me up;
do not let the pit shut its | mouth upon me.
] 16 Answer me, O Lord, for your | love is kind;
in your great compassion, | turn to me.
17 Hide not your face | from your servant;
be swift and answer me, for I am | in distress.
18 Draw near to me | and redeem me;
because of my enemies de- | liver me.
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“Down through the centuries the church has been portrayed as a boat on the sea of the world with the mast in the form of a cross — and since 1948 this has been the logo of the World Council of Churches.

This symbol of the church as a boat is a permanent feature of many a church building. For the central feature of a traditional church is the ‘nave,’ a term derived from the Latin word for ‘ship’ or ‘boat’ (navis).

The origins of the symbol of the boat are sometimes linked to the story of Jesus’ calling of the disciples to be ‘fishers of people.’ However, almost certainly the main origin of the symbol is to be found in Jesus’ stilling of the storm on Lake Galilee. What a wonderful metaphor for the church tossed around by the storms of this life.”

—Paul Beasley-Murray, “The church as a boat,” Church Matters, November 10, 2016.

Peace and blessings this day.
Pastor V.

06/16/2026

What was Jesus' first miracle?

06/16/2026

A piece to ponder on June 16, 2026
Jeremiah 20:7-13
7 O Lord, you have enticed me,
and I was enticed;
you have overpowered me,
and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all day long;
everyone mocks me.
8 For whenever I speak, I must cry out;
I must shout, “Violence and destruction!”
For the word of the Lord has become for me
a reproach and derision all day long.
9 If I say, “I will not mention him
or speak any more in his name,”
then within me there is something like a burning fire
shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot.
10 For I hear many whispering:
“Terror is all around!
Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”
All my close friends
are watching for me to stumble.
“Perhaps he can be enticed,
and we can prevail against him
and take our revenge on him.”
11 But the Lord is with me like a terrifying warrior;
therefore my persecutors will stumble,
and they will not prevail.
They will be greatly shamed,
for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonor
will never be forgotten.
12 O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous;
you see the heart and the mind;
let me see your retribution upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.

13 Sing to the Lord;
praise the Lord!
For he has delivered the life of the needy
from the hands of evildoers.
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“Finding meaning and maintaining hope despite inevitable pain, loss and suffering is a crucial life skill. In 1949 the Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist and psychologist Viktor Frankl coined the term ‘tragic optimism’ to describe this conundrum.

Tragic optimism emerged out of what Dr. Frankl observed to be the three tragedies that everyone faces (not only those of us who have seen the worst of the world, as he had). The first tragedy is pain, because we are made of flesh and bone. The second is guilt, because we have the freedom to make choices and thus feel responsible when things don’t go our way. The third is loss, because we must face the reality that everything we cherish is impermanent, including our own lives.

Tragic optimism means acknowledging, accepting and even expecting that life will contain hardship and hurt, then doing everything we can to move forward with a positive attitude anyway. It recognizes that one cannot be happy by trying to be happy all the time, or worse yet, assuming we ought to be. Rather, tragic optimism holds space for the full range of human experience and emotion, giving us permission to feel happiness and sadness, hope and fear, loss and possibility — sometimes in the same day, and even in the same hour.”
—Brad Stulberg, “How Not to Fall Into Despair,” The New York Times, November 29, 2024.

Peace and blessings this day.
Pastor V.

06/15/2026

A piece to ponder on June 15, 2026
“There’s an old story about an American Methodist medical missionary named George Harley. In 1926, after completing medical school, George and his wife Winifred sailed for Liberia to serve as missionaries. He declined an offer to become chief of staff at a hospital in the capital city, Monrovia. Instead, they headed for the bush.

After walking for 17 days and nights, the two of them established a mission station. They constructed three simple huts: a medical dispensary, a chapel and their residence. In no time at all, they were treating hundreds of patients a day. There, Winifred gave birth to their first child, a boy they named Dickie.

The medical practice was thriving, but not one of the locals ever set foot in the chapel. ‘They let me doctor their bodies, but they wouldn’t take my gospel,’ George later explained to a friend.

Then tragedy struck. Their 4-year-old son contracted a tropical fever and died. George constructed a little coffin out of wood and laid Dickie in it. He lifted it onto his shoulders and started down to the clearing where he could bury his boy.

‘One of the old men in the village saw me and said, ‘Where are you going?’,” George recounted. ‘And I said, ‘My boy, he’s gone away. He died.’ And the man said, ‘Here, let me help you.’

The man helped George dig the grave and the two of them lowered the small coffin into the ground. After they’d covered up the grave, George recalled, ‘I just couldn’t stand it any longer. I fell on my knees and began to cry my heart out. The old man cocked his head, squatted down beside me, and looked at me so strangely. He sat there for a long time, and then he jumped to his feet and went running back through the jungle, screaming at the top of his voice, ‘White man, white man — he cries like one of us!’

That night, he and Winifred were in their hut, sitting at the table, quietly grieving. ‘There was a knock at the door. The first knock in five years. I went to the door and there stood the chief. I looked past him, and there stood every man, woman, and child in the village. The next Sunday morning, the whole village was in the chapel, and outside, and looking in the windows. From that time on, I was in.’”

There must be more than just dispensing medications, or advice. We must be empathetic and have compassion, to feel with others, and try to understand.

That story ends with this: After George had told this story, his friend said: “George, to get through, to break in, you had to give your son.’ George said, ‘Yes, but what do you think it cost God?’”

Peace and blessings this day.
Pastor V.

06/14/2026

Moses tells the Israelites that they are called to be a priestly kingdom and a holy people. Jesus sends out the disciples as laborers into the harvest. In baptism we too are anointed for ministry, sharing God’s compassion with our needy world. From the Lord’s table we go forth to proclaim the good news, to heal the sick, and to share our bread with the hungry.

06/13/2026

A piece to ponder on June 13, 2026
Matthew 9:35—10:8 [9-23]
35 Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
10:1 Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.
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“During the 1930s in Germany, theologian Karl Barth said, ‘When the church bells ring and call the villagers to worship, they come with one question on their hearts. The question is, ‘Is it true?’

In our time, the question many visitors bring to church is, ‘What’s in it for me?’ Some of the largest churches in America are designed to look more like shopping malls than houses of worship — a different boutique experience for every taste. A few even include a Starbucks franchise! They seek to attract church-shoppers in much the same way malls attract regular shoppers. As these churches hold multiple worship services throughout the week, they target different appetites.

The menu may include a traditional service, a contemporary service, a ‘hybrid’ service combining both, a country-music service, a hip-hop service, an ethnic music service, and so on.
Jesus said ‘Go, and make disciples of all nations.’ He never said, ‘Segment the market!’”

Homiletics, March 8,2026

Peace and blessings this day.
Pastor V.

06/12/2026

A piece to ponder on June12, 2026
Matthew 9:35—10:8 [9-23]
35 Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
10:1 Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.
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“The author Anne Lamott tells why she makes her teenage son, Sam, go to church ...

I make him go because I can … I outweigh him by nearly 75 pounds. But that is only part of it. The main reason is that I want to give him what I found in the world, which is to say a path and a little light to see by. Most of the people I know who have what I want — which is to say, purpose, heart, balance, gratitude, joy — are people with a deep sense of spirituality. They are people in community, who pray, or practice their faith — people banding together to work on themselves and for human rights. They follow a brighter light than the glimmer of their own candle; they are part of something beautiful.”

— Anne Lamott, “Why I make Sam go to church” in Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (Anchor, 2000), 100.
Peace and blessings this day.
Pastor V.

06/11/2026

A piece to ponder on June 11, 2026
Romans 5:1-8
1 Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
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Richard Hong, a Presbyterian pastor in New Jersey, shared a story on Facebook of a time when, far from home, he intuitively knew where to go to access what he needed.
Hong was not yet a pastor at that time in his life. He was in Frankfurt, Germany on business. In the few hours he had left, he was looking for a store where he could buy a decorative nutcracker as a gift for his assistant back home. In his words:
:I speak very little German, but I went from store to store looking. At each store the clerk would simply show me what they had. It wasn’t what I wanted. When I asked if they knew where I could find what I was looking for, they simply shrugged and said, ‘Sorry, we have what we have.’

I was walking along a main shopping street when I saw it: a big neon Mickey Mouse. A Disney Store! I knew they didn’t have nutcrackers, but I went in and asked if they knew where I could find what I wanted. The clerk gathered all the sales associates on the floor. I heard a vigorous discussion resulting in a recommendation of a nutcracker specialty shop near the central train station.

The sales clerk asked me why I stopped in. And I said, ‘because I know that Disney trains their people to be helpful no matter what.’

And then it struck me: why isn’t that what people think when they see a church steeple? Why should a neon Mickey Mouse signal to me that it is a place of friendly assistance, but a church does not?”
(And yes, I found the store and the nutcrackers.)
—Richard Hong on Facebook, November 12, 2021.
Peace and blessings this day.
Pastor V.

Address

3512 Clinton Street
West Seneca, NY
14224

Opening Hours

Tuesday 8am - 12am
Wednesday 10am - 12am
Thursday 8am - 12am
Friday 8am - 12am

Telephone

+17166682152

Website

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