Windsor Heights Lutheran Church

09/06/2026

Creation in Christ - Holy Communion, ACS 12

09/05/2026

The first of occasional posts throughout this Season of Creation, which runs from September 1 - October 4.

We mourn the loss of novelist, poet, and environmental advocate Wendell Berry, who passed away earlier this week.

Berry's writing, particularly his focus on local, community-based creation care, has been hugely influential for so many of us.

As we remember Berry today, we reflect on what his writing taught us about creation care:

1️⃣ Stewards, Not Owners

In his 1993 collection of essays, Berry wrote that in the Bible, we discover “that we humans do not own the world or any part of it.”

We do not inhabit a world of our making. Rather, we are guests, and we have been entrusted with stewarding what God owns.

2️⃣ God Created All of Creation

In the same essay, Berry noted that “God made not only the parts of Creation that we humans understand and approve, but all of it.”

God’s creation includes not just flowers and trees, but stinging insects and poisonous weeds. We have a responsibility to care for all of it, not just the parts we find appealing.

3️⃣ The World Is Worthy of Our Care

Berry wrote that “God found the world, as He made it, to be good, and that He made it for his pleasure, and that He continues to love it and find it worthy, despite its reduction and corruption by us.”

If God takes pleasure in the created world, it is certainly worthy of our care. Seeing it harmed should deepen our sense of responsibility.

Rest in peace, Wendell Berry.

09/03/2026

An Action Alert from ELCA Advocacy: Lawmakers are once again considering the SAVE America Act (S. 1383) attached to multiple legislative vehicles. Lawmakers should be aware of the challenge these attempts pose to eligible voters. Click the link below to learn more and to share your thoughts with lawmakers.

09/03/2026

Thanks to everyone who joined us for Elderberries today, and special thanks to Avery for leading our programming, centered around the Season of Creation! We'll see you all next month for the next round of Elderberries!

09/01/2026

WHLC is putting together a group to attend next summer's ELCA Youth Gathering! Our first brief informational meeting about next summer's gathering will be hosted on Wednesday, September 9th @ 7:30pm in the Koinonia Rm. This will cover all the basic info about the Gathering, its new schedule, registration, theme & more! If you are interested but cannot attend the meeting, please contact Zach. Once we have an idea of what our group will look like we'll start planning our trip next summer to Minneapolis!

09/01/2026

A nice blog post here, from the perspective of faith and science, about the importance of continuing to follow the way of love through times of uncertainty.

Bible & Science—Ministry Resource: Drew invites us to wrestle with uncertainty and the ways it shapes us in both theology and ideology

08/31/2026

While cleaning out the office this summer we came across some old food donations, mostly packaged dried goods. Most of the boxes are a bit out of date but are still unopened, undisturbed and were kept in a clean area. If anyone would like to take any of these items for personal use, or knows of a pantry or organization that would receive them, feel free to grab some the next time you are at church!

08/30/2026

14th Sunday after Pentecost - Holy Communion, ACS 12

08/29/2026

Use this link to make a gift to Lutheran Disaster Response
https://www.elca.org/giving/lutheran-disaster-response

08/28/2026

Today the church remembers Augustine. May his witness encourage us to see the complementarity of faith and science.

https://www.facebook.com/share/19JTke3J9i/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Today, we commemorate St. Augustine, one of the great saints and theologians of the early Church.

Dr. Francis Collins is an Evangelical Christian and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. His book "The Language of God" (2006) was very influenced by the Doctor of the Church Saint Augustine and his interpretation of Genesis. Here is a brief quote:

"Augustine was fascinated by the first two chapters of Genesis, and wrote no less than five extensive analyses of these texts. Put down more than sixteen hundred years ago, his thoughts are still illuminating today. Reading through those intensely analytical musings, especially as recorded in 'The Literal Meaning of Genesis,' the 'Confessions,' and the 'The City of God,' it is clear that Augustine is posing more questions than he is providing answers for. He repeatedly returns to the question of the meaning of time, concluding that God is outside of time and not bounded by it (2 Peter 3:8 states this explicitly: 'With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day'). This in turn causes Augustine to question the duration of the seven days of biblical creation.

"The Hebrew word used in Genesis 1 for day (yōm) can be used both to describe a twenty-four-hour day and to describe a more symbolic representation. There are multiple places in the Bible where yōm is utilized in a nonliteral context, such as 'the day of the Lord'—just as we might say 'in my grandfather's day' without implying that Grandpa had lived only twenty-four-hours." [1]

[1] Francis S. Collins, "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief," (New York: Free Press, 2006), 151-152