Welcome! We're a small church doing BIG things with the help of God!
We believe that God loves, values and embraces each person as a beloved child. Therefore, we welcome people of every age, size, color, culture, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, marital status, ability and challenge. We welcome people from all faith traditions, those with doubts, and those with no sense of faith at all. We also commit ourselves to the pursuit of environmental, economic, social and racial justice.
Our mission is to meet God, practice community, serve Christ and live generously!
We have become extraordinarily practiced at contempt.
It is different from disagreement. It is different even from anger.
Anger says, “What you did is wrong.”
Contempt makes a judgment about what you are.
It is the eye roll. The sneer.
The little laugh when somebody we dislike says something foolish.
It is the pleasure we feel when someone on the other side gets humiliated.
It is taking the worst example of a group of people and using that person to explain everybody in the group.
A player misses the shot, drops the pass, strikes out, or makes the mistake that costs the game.
Within minutes, strangers who have never met him are flooding his social-media accounts.
You're worthless. You should never play again.
Sometimes they go after the player's spouse or children.
Think about that.
A human being failed at something while millions of people were watching.
Something every one of us has done—failed.
And our response can be: Make him hurt. That is contempt.
We pray for guidance. Then become irritated by the guidance.
We ask: “Lord, where are you leading me?”
But what we really mean is:
“Here is where I would like to go. Could you please come with me?”
And most of the time, the road we have chosen isn't a bad road. The problem comes when the future we have imagined becomes the only future we are willing to follow Jesus into.
Because then, without quite realizing it, we've moved.
We've gotten out from behind Jesus.
And we're standing in front saying, “No. Not that way. This way.”
But faith has to leave room for the possibility that God can see farther down the road than we can.
“… we live in a culture that has elevated independence almost to the level of a virtue. We want to be financially independent. We want our children to become independent. Older adults fear losing their independence. We admire the self-made person. We don't want to be a burden.
And some of that is healthy.
But Paul says something startlingly different about the Christian life:
We belong to one another.
The congregation celebrated with cake and presented Dr. Pridgen with an engraved crystal plaque thanking her for her leadership.
QUILT GROUP
We're doing what we love and living out our faith in the process.
Each quilt is a way of reaching out and touching someone else someplace else with God's protection and love.
Join us the 4th Tuesday of the month (January through November) from 9:00am - 2:30pm--and bring a sack lunch and sewing supplies. We work and talk...And eat and talk...and talk...and talk... and create as many as 70 quilts per year!
Building houses with Habitat for Humanity and on mission trips to areas impacted by hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Our Green Team plans and leads Earth Day activities for the students at John Diemer Elementary School every year.
Most years we have participated in Pride events by walking in the parade or having a booth with information about area Lutheran churches.
To help little ones get through worship, we provide activity packets to bring with them into the service.
Our gathering space (just outside the sanctuary) has a children’s play area with trains and other toys as well as coloring books and crayons. There’s plenty of room for adults to enjoy coffee and conversation while supervising children.
Rachel Griffard Smith and Jack Smith teach our children’s Sunday school class for ages 1 to 11. They bring a lot of energy and children really enjoy their teaching. Sunday School is from 9:15 to 10:00 Sunday mornings.
Every month we fill bags with groceries for the Metro Lutheran Ministries food pantry in Kansas City, MO.
