Virginia Synod Logo New

 

  
                                                                                NOVEMBER, 2019
 
      
                         The Virginia 
                      LUTHERAN 
Bringing you news of the Virginia Synod since 1921.


Thrivent volunteers 
pack emergency supplies
   
          More than 40 volunteers assembled 1,500 first aid kits in a Thrivent Financial Project with God's Pit Crew from Danville at the Taubman Art Museum in Roanoke on Oct. 19. The kits will be placed in 5-gallon Blessing Buckets, ready for delivery to crisis situations.
            The Danville faith-based,crisis and disaster response team delivered 21,500 of the buckets last year and 11,000 so far this year, said Julie Burnett, program director for God's Pit Crew. The kits contain bandages, gloves, sanitizers and tissues.
In its 20-Year history, the team has hauled supplies for such emergencies as tornados at Oklahoma City and Tuscaloosa, AL. and Hurricanes Katrina and Michael, as well as California wildfires and aid to Guatemala.
In This Issue
Lutherans in the news
Bartholomew to head ELCA Conference
"Season of Doubt" Bishop Eaton
Attitude of Gratitude
Richmond statue honors Copenhaver
Floyd volunteers help asylum seekers
Churches call for respect, dignity in politics
New life for Konnarock School building
Pastor Fred Guy dies at 72
Regional bishops call for equity for women in ministry
Church should set an example in climate change
Wheatland has popular tractor pull
Why give to the church?
Dolph Moller dies at 87

Lutherans in the news

         
Tillman
 
Pastor Jeniffer Tillman has accepted a call to serve at Apostles, Gloucester. A Georgia native and graduate of the University of Georgia and Pacific Lutheran Seminary, she has been a chaplain, supply pastor and missionary before ordination in 2017.                                  
            Pastor Martha Sims, Grace, Winchester, has been asked to serve as the Reinartz Scholar at Southern Seminary for the week of Nov. 17. She will preach, be a part of a polity class and have time for study.
            Matthew Humphrey, son of Rob and Linda Humphrey, Grace, Winchester, has been ordained as a deacon in transition in the Episcopal Church. He has been assigned as a postulate serving two congregations in British Columbia in the Anglican Church of  Canada.
Retired Pastor Hank Boschen, former  mission developer in Virginia and North Carolina,, has transferred to the North Carolina Synod.
Retired Pastor Michael Weaver has come from North Carolina Synod for interim service at Ascension, Danville.
Bryan Katz has resigned from his lay campus ministry work at  Luther Memorial, Blacksburg, in order to serve as a pastoral intern at  Shiloh and  New Mt. Zion worshiping communities in  Montgomery  County . He expects to follow a one-year internship as a requirement for ordination.
St.  Philip, Roanoke, will celebrate the completion of the six-month internship of Katz on Nov. 15.
Donors at St. Philip, Roanoke, gave 110 pints of blood in a Red Cross operation. For many years, St.  Philip donors have given the largest amount of blood of any place in the region.
Kegley
George Kegley, St. Mark's Roanoke, received  a  Legendary Service Award for volunteering from Total Action for Progress (TAP), a Roanoke anti-poverty, community action organization.  
            Nita Smoot, former organist/choir director at Ascension, Danville, has moved to director of music ministry at Luther Memorial, Blacksburg. She holds degrees in church music from Belmont University and Southern Baptist seminary and has worked as organist/choir director and music director at several Lutheran, Episcopal, United Methodist and Baptist congregations.
            Sister Joan Chittister, a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, PA, will  present the James H. Taylor Memorial Lecture at Holy Trinity, Lynchburg, Friday, Nov. 15, at 7 p.m. Her topic will be "Radical Spirit." Chittister, former president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization of leaders of Catholic women, is known as one of the more influential religious and social leaders of our time. The lecture is free.
            A Strolling Afternoon Musicale, also known as an Organ Crawl, will be held Sunday, Nov. 3, at St. Stephen, Williamsburg, and at Christian Science and United Methodist churches and Temple Beth El.  St. Stephen also reported 188 smiles and thanks from students at Grove School who received new shoes from the church.
            A new collection of piano music by composer and piantist Thomas Keesecker
will be featured Monday, Nov. 11, at 7 p.m. at St. John , Abingdon. This is featured as an hour of piano music, reflection, poetry, laughter and hymn singing.
            Volunteers at St. Peter, Stafford, will participate in a semi-annual exercise in county emergency preparedness on Monday, Nov. 4  Volunteers are needed to play disaster survivors in a drill.
            Members of Trinity, Pulaski, are making candles available for use on tables in commemoration of the 400 th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving in North America, which occurred ib Virginia. This is a "Project in Unity in the midst of Diversity" of the Pulaski County American Evolution 2019 Committee. The committee said it wants "to bring all of Pulaski County together in the Spirit of Thanksgiving."
            Project Horizon, a domestic violence shelter in Lexington, is providing a two-day training where faith communities and child abuse and neglect intersect to be held at Lexington Presbyterian Church on Nov. 12-13. It will be led by Victor Vieth, who wrote a paper claiming that child abuse can be eliminated in three generations. 
            Amanda Silcox, an ELCA hunger advocate fellow at the Virginia Intrerfaith Center for Public Policy, will lead a Social Justice Sunday School class at First Lutheran, Norfolk. During Advent, a class will follow the ELCA Resource, "Troubling Waters for the Healing of the Church," in 18 sessions at First Lutheran.
            The University of Virginia International Center is seeking  members of  Peace, Charlottesville, to host one or more students forThanksgiving. At Peace, plans were made for a multi-age program, Peace at Home, on Nov. 10, from 4 to 6 p.m., for an afternoon of story-telling, games and journaling.                                                                                        

Bishop Tracie Bartholomew
will head ELCA Conference of Bishops
Bartholomew

New Jersey Synod Bishop Tracie Bartholomew, former associate pastor of St. Mark's, Roanoke, in 1989-91, has been elected chair of the Conference of Bishops of the ELCA! The conference, an advisory body of the ELCA, is comprised of the bishops of the 65 ELCA synods.
  Bartholomew, former vice chair of the conference, will serve a four-year term starting Jan. 1, 2020. She follows the Rev. William O. Gafkjen, bishop of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod. As chair of the bishops, she will have a voice in the ELCA Church Council.
   Bartholomew, who preached at St. Mark's on April 28 during the 150th Anniversary celebration, was recently re-elected to a six-year term as bishop of the New Jersey Synod and she will continue in that office.
    A native of New Jersey, she is a graduate of James Madison University and Southern Seminary. After St. Mark's, Bartholomew served at Good Shepherd, Lexington, before returning to a call in her native state. Her husband, Pastor Daniel Whitener Jr., served at Wheatland, Botetourt County, 1989-93. He now is pastor of Lutheran Church of God's Love, Newtown, Pa., near their home at Ewing, NJ. They have two children, Olivia and Ethan.

Season of Doubt
      by Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton
         Bishop Eaton

When serving as a parish  pastor, I would sometimes be  asked if it was possible to be  a faithful Christian and also  doubt. Could one be a disciple  and also question?  Parishioners would be  hesitant to ask for fear that they  would face judgment-Divine  and mine. Somehow, we've gotten it into our heads  that doubt has no part of faith, that questions are  disloyal, and that anguish and even anger are an  offense to God. 
We think of the heroes of the Bible, strong and  steadfast. We consider the lives of the saints and  martyrs as they stood resolute in the face of death.  Surely these heroes, saints and martyrs must be  models of faith. Our doubts and questions reveal how  short we have fallen.
When my family and I moved from Columbus to  Ashtabula, Ohio, we were able  to find a house that  had a little bit of land, about a quarter of an acre. I  could mow the lawn of our Columbus house with a  weed whacker. Now I had room for a proper garden.  I had to break through the grass in the backyard to  get to the good dark earth. I felt like the  Norwegian  pioneers from Giants in the Earth, and I probably had  enough sod squares to start a prairie sod house.
             I laid out my garden according to a plan I saw  in Martha Stewart Living. (Odd juxtaposition: sod  house and Martha Stewart.) Then I planted. Carrots were just some of the seeds I sowed, envisioning a bountiful harvest. I had pretty good luck that first year: corn, potatoes, radishes, tomatoes and carrots.
             Then winter came. 
So, before you scoff, you Alaskans, Dakotans, Montanans and Minnesotans, Ohio can have some long and intense winters too. Ashtabula is in the snow  belt. Before Lake Erie freezes, storms can whip across  the lake, pick up moisture and dump snow when they  hit land. We call this lake-effect snow. Buffalo, N.Y.,  has been known to get 7 feet of snow in a single storm.
Ashtabula isn't far behind. Snow and cold are fine in November and December. Thanksgiving feasts, Advent anticipation and Christmas joy make the weather and the long
nights seem cozy, and even like "the close and holy darkness" that poet Dylan Thomas describes in A Child's Christmas in Wales.
The snow and cold are accepted grudgingly in January and February, but by March we are so over it. We long to see new life. We long to see green. I remember when a snowplow accidentally went too far and uncovered 3 feet of lawn. We just stared at it.
When the snow began to melt, I inspected the  garden, thinking about a new season and new growth. Then I noticed something-the green tops of carrots. Some of the carrots had wintered over. Through the snow, through the cold, through the long nights, life had been happening. Without my knowing it, without my doing anything about it, the carrots made
it through.
             Doubt can seem like winter-long, cold, barren. It can feel isolating and lonely. These are natural and true experiences. What is not true is that doubt is the absence of faith. Doubt is part of faith. We hear it in Scripture, and Jesus never shies away from it. A father seeking healing for his son cried out, "I believe; help my unbelief!" and Jesus healed the boy (Mark 9:24). The risen Christ appeared to his disciples and some disbelieved for joy (Luke 24:41). Still, Jesus sent them out to tell the good news.
           Faith, like wintering-over carrots, still lives even in our winters. God still acts and nurtures even when we cannot. Doubt and questioning draw us into a deeper relationship with God.
          God can take it, and God will carry us through the winter.

A monthly message from the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America used with permission. Her email address is: bishop@elca.org.

Attitude of Gratitude
     by Pastor David Young, Bethel, Winchester
 
This month we celebrate Thanksgiving, a wonderfully American holiday that also can speak to a desired life of faith, albeit one that is often hard to come by.
The scripture that speaks most to me at this time of year is from St. Paul,
"See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you," (I Thessalonians 5: 15-18).
This can be difficult to do at best, if not seemingly impossible in many circumstances. Still, if this is the "will of God in Christ Jesus for you" then perhaps it is worth our effort to grow into an "attitude of gratitude".
None other than that preeminent theologian, SpongeBob Square Pants, invites us to do the same. Yes, you heard this correct. And since I am a firm believer that we can encounter grace, faithfulness, and words of wisdom in even the most unexpected of places (i.e. a song by a quirky cartoon character) I hold up the following lyrics for you today as a faithful response to the biblical mandate from St. Paul.
You can look up the song on YouTube if you'd like and I encourage you to do so. I really do love the sentiment expressed in these lyrics:
 
Oh, I've got a whole new attitude
A lifetime subscription to gratitude
Friend you've got to change your latitude
Live in attitude of gratitude
I am grateful for the life I am living
Who knows how long I will have it
I'm thankful for all I've been given
We make appreciation a habit
There's no time like the present day to have a present come your way
All you have to do is grab it
So now I think that you will see
There's nothing more you need
My friend, this ain't no platitude
Just an attitude of gratitude
 
Let's seek to build an "attitude of gratitude" that finds as many moments to give thanks as we find to complain or lament. Because they are there. They are. God provides them if we have the eyes to see. They are there for us to embrace if we can grow our "attitude of gratitude."

Richmond statue honors
Laura Lu Scherer Copenhaver

A bronze statue of Laura Lu Scherer Copenhaver of Marion, a prominent teacher, writer, business entrepreneur and Lutheran leader, has been unveiled on Capitol Square in Richmond.  A great-great-granddaughter kissed the statue and members of the Copenhaver family came to the unveiling.
            Copenhaver is remembered today as the founder of Rosemont Industries, which produced bedspreads, hooked rugs and other textiles from her home.  She employed women and contracted work in Southwest Virginia. Although she died at 68 in 1940, her sister, May Scherer, operated the firm two years and other members of the family led it until 2013. She was information director for the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation and this organization supported the statue, one of 12 honoring prominent women..
            Her story is "an example of someone who saw a need in her community and found a creative way to help address it and really made a difference through using local women and their traditional skills to create products that could be marketed  across the country, and in fact, the world," Sandra Treadway, librarian of Virginia, told the Roanoke Times. Rosemont Industries products were popular, selling in other countries.
Copenhaver was a member of the Literature Committee of Women's Missionary Society of the former United Lutheran Church in America and the Executive Committee of the former Women's Missionary Society of Southwestern Virginia. A prolific writer and teacher, she taught at Marion College for 20 years and wrote fiction, poetry and pageants for the ULCA. Her work was published in AtlanticMonthly and Scribner's Magazine. Her poem,"Heralds of Christ," became a well-known hymn.
Her influence with the Women's Missionary Society led to the establishment of the Konnarock Training School.  In 1922, she spoke of the need to minister to the people of Appalachia at a national Women's Missionary Society convention.  
Copenhaver and her husband, Bascom Eugene Copenhaver, had four daughters and a son. Her father, Dr. J..J. Scherer, was the founder and longtime president of Marion College, and her brother, Dr. J. J. Scherer Jr., was a longtime president of Virginia Synod.  

Floyd volunteers help asylum seekers

Members of Zion, Floyd. are joining a community effort to provide supplies for asylum seekers traveling through Roanoke. Supplies stored at Zion are taken by volunteers for Floyd Friends of Asylum Seekers to a bus station in Roanoke.
  The asylum seekers come from Haiti, Honduras, Central America and Mexico and they're traveling to sponsors in New York, New Jersey, Maine and Washington, said Tara Orlando, who meets them at the bus. The mission of Floyd friends is to "provide assistance and a warm welcome to asylum seekers during brief bus stops in our region. From collections, we prepare and distribute hot meals, supply kits and clothing."
   Interim Pastor Terry Edwards said this is a "group effort" and the storage at Zion is for people in need.
   Orlando packs her car with food, water, toys, clothes, shoes, quilts and other items when she travels to the bus station.In addition, she told a Roanoke radio station, the volunteers "bring a message that we care and that we love them and that we're glad they're here."

Churches call for respect, dignity in politics

The ELCA is one of nine church bodies observing Golden Rule 2020: A Call for Dignity and Respect in Politics this Sunday, Nov. 3, just three days before an election for many local and state offices. Their call extends for the year before the 2020 election.
 Christians from a wide range of theological and political views will take action to express their concern about the polarization in the nation and affirm the need to apply Christian principles to political discussions. Participating congregations will reflect on Jesus's teaching  that we "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and pray for the country.
 Congregations may participate by incorporating the Golden Rule message into their educational programs or worship services throughout the 2020 campaign season.
They may have a short liturgy on the need for dignity and respect in politics; preach a sermon on the Golden Rule; distribute a pledge affirming the desire to practice the Golden Rule in politics or sponsor a joint prayer service with another congregation where most people have different political views.
  Sponsors of the movement said, "As Americans, we are hungry for a respectful tone in our politics and public life. Studies show increasing concern and sense of urgency that we must do something now or face increasingly disastrous consequences because of these divisions. They also show that many are ready to take up the call to connect across divides and weave a new fabric of dignity and respect together."
   The participating denominations are National Association of Evangelicals, American Baptist Church USA, Presbyterian Church USA, ELCA,  Mormon Women for Ethical Government, U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Council of Churches and Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.  

New life planned for
Konnarock School building

The Blue Ridge Discovery Center is seeking to fully restore the former Konnarock School for Girls, a Lutheran institution operated from 1924 to about 1960 at the foot of White Top Mountain in Washington County.  The Center is the third owner of the building after the school. It was used by the
U.S. Forest Service and Konnarock Retreat House later saved it from destruction and donated it to the non-profit Discovery Center.. The Center, a 501-c3 organization, has a mission of "inspiring curiosity, discovery and stewardship through the wonders of the Blue Ridge."
 Aaron Floyd, executive director of the Center, said it is raising money to fully restore the historic girls' school and turn it into a Discovery Center. The building needs to be overhauled, he said. The exterior shell, including bark shingles, is in good shape but interior finishes, doors and windows should be rebuilt.
 More than $1.8 million has been raised in grants, donations and tax credits toward a $2.25-million restoration goal. A match is needed for a $200,000 Cabel Foundation Challenge grant. Floyd said $165,000 is needed to reach the goal.
  Floyd welcomes contributions at Blue Ridge Discovery Center, 6402 Whitetop Road, Troutdale, VA 24378, or at https://blueridgediscoverycenter.or/donate.

Pastor Fred Guy dies at 72
Fred and Friel Guy

Pastor Fred Guy. a son of St. Mark's who preached an anniversary sermon here in March, died Tuesday of a rare brain tumor. He was 72.
A native of Newport News, he grew up in Roanoke and married Friel Killinger of St. Mark's. After graduating from Emory & Henry College and earning a master's degree at Radford University, he taught school until he graduated from Gettysburg Seminary. Ordained at St. Mark's in 1986, Guy served as associate pastor at Holy Trinity, Lynchburg, and at Trinity, Newport News, until his retirement in 2016. The family moved to Huntersville, NC, and he served as an interim pastor.  
 Surviving are his wife, Friel Guy; two sons, Morgan and Ryan Guy; his mother, Mable Morgan Guy; two grandchildren and two brothers.
 A memorial service will be held at Kimball Memorial Lutheran Church, Kannapolis, NC, at a later date.

Regional bishops call for
equity for women in ministry

Bishop Bob Humphrey and the other five bishops of ELCA Region 9 have adopted an agreement addressing issues of gender equity for women in ministry, entitled "Bishops' Relational Agreement for Boundaries, Candidacy and Call Process."
 This comes after months of study by the bishops and comments from a Women's Core Team of women rostered ministers on regional synod staffs, including Pastor Kelly Bayer Derrick, assistant to the bishop, from Virginia, and the Rev. Lucille "CeCee" Mills, associate director for evangelical mission in North Carolina Synod and a former Virginia pastor. The agreement, announced on Reformation Day, will be reviewed, adapted and affirmed annually in July.
  The Women's Core Team started with a commitment to reformation and then agreed to work together as region to "address systemic issues facing rostered ministers who are women." Together, " we will work to create a cultural change in our region through deepening trust and relationship-creating authentic avenues for reporting, responding, training, advocacy and care."
    In specific actions, the bishops committed to finding ways to raise the profile of women ministers by regularly inviting them to preach at synodical gatherings, especially  at synod assemblies, and striving for gender parity in appointments as deans and other public leadership roles.
     Issues of pay equity will be addressed through a region financial work sheet that will be part of the call process for congregations. Use of the work sheet will mitigate financial offers affected by the intersection of race, gender and age, according to the agreement.
     The agreement contains an overhaul of the current approach to boundaries in each synod, by establishing clear objectives, outcomes and pedagogy (teaching) to be used throughout the region. The document expands this work to include gender and racial justice, as well as topics like intersectionality, micro/macroaggressions and power. The agreement makes clear that the synods will operate in the same ways on boundary violations and participation in boundary training.
   The bishops recalled that in August, more than 97 percent of voting members at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly approved a social statement, Faith, Sexism and Justice; A Call to Action, which names patriarchy as a sin and advocates for a church and a world marked by gender equity. Bishop Humphrey said that this agreement and regional work to improve protocols for candidacy, call process and boundary training is "a very clear way that we are living into this call for action as we strive to be a church of gednder equitable leadership."
    "The women who serve as rostered ministers in this church are remarkably gifted leaders," Humphrey said.

Church should set an example in climate change
      by Paul Jersild

Ruth Ivory-Moore, a Virginia resident, is the ELCA program director for Environment and Corporate Social Responsibility, a most important part of our church's advocacy effort based in the nation's capital. In a recent presentation at First Lutheran, Norfolk, Ms. Ivory-Moore stressed not just the importance but the urgency of current environmental concerns.
She cited the church's 1993 social statement which recognizes that "care of the earth is a profoundly spiritual matter," a truth which we Christians should emphasize in the ongoing national debate over global warming. Our faith is intimately linked to stewardship, which compels a deep and abiding sense of responsibility for a most fragile and vulnerable earth.
What does it mean for our church to be an "advocate" when it comes to this subject of the  environment? We are active on several fronts, addressing both the private and public worlds, both corporations and government. Changing corporate behavior which is destructive of the environment is one challenge we face. The energy business needs urging in its transition from coal, oil, and gas to solar and wind energy. It is a complicated affair, with the needs of displaced workers requiring help, and the developing of new jobs that promise a satisfactory income.
Annual corporate meetings give opportunity for both individual Christians and the  organized church to bring a witness. And of course the government at all levels plays a strategic role in paving the way to responsible environmental practices. Both Congress and the executive branch need continual urging in meeting their environmental obligations.
Ms. Ivory-Moore, who lives in Loudoun County and works in Washington, brings a background of chemical engineering and corporate legal counseling to her work, including particular focus on environmental law and climate change. She stressed the importance of our recognizing the wide-ranging impact of climate change, beyond current events of climate devastation.
Disappearing ice caps, rising oceans, highly destructive hurricanes, and the resurgence of viral diseases grab our attention today; more serious yet is the long-term impact, such as the disruption of agricultural production creating widespread hunger and malnutrition, and the inundating of cities, making much of the world uninhabitable and turning millions of people into refugees in search of new homes. Not surprisingly, poor people are the most vulnerable in coping with the changes we face. Without resources, they will need massive assistance through government action.
In light of all this, our country's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord has been a fateful event. Climate change, by its very nature, is a global threat which requires a global response. It calls for international commitment and international cooperation. It also requires an informed citizenry in each nation, alert to the changes that threaten us and willing to take on the sacrifices which those changes will require. At both the national and local level we should expect our church to set an example of an informed and committed response, making its own contribution toward avoiding the prospect of ecological disaster. Our faith in God the Creator demands nothing less.  
 
 Rev. Paul Jersild is a member of First Lutheran, Norfolk, and retired faculty
of Southern Seminary.

Wheatland has popular tractor
pull  and a productive church garden

      Twenty tractors, hay rides, bouncy house, face painting and food drew a crowd to the annual Tractor Treat event at Wheatland, Botetourt County, on Oct. 19.   Some of the tractors were antiques and others were newer models.
      The parking lot was full all day and "a wide array of people" came out for the fall   celebration, said Pastor Chuck Miller. The event and the church's productive garden were the subject of a feature story in the Roanoke Times.
       Wheatland's acre garden produced an estimated 1,100 pounds of squash, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, onions and beets for the Botetourt County Food Pantry at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Fincastle, as well as for members and the public shopping at a roadside stand.
      "We are living out the Gospel, what Christ asked us to do," Miller told the newspaper. "Literally, we are taking care of our neighbors. It's a wonderful ministry to be a part of. We just want to be a mission and help God's children."
       About 30 members and volunteers helped Miller work the garden, a tract near the church.

Why give to the church?

(Thoughts from a member of Peace, Charlottesville.)

Why should our family pledge and give to the church?  That was a question that I asked myself as a new member of Peace about 12 years ago. I mean there are lots of other people giving.... so why should our family promise to give when there are car payments, a mortgage, taxes, student loan debt, bills and living expenses for a family of 4 (now 5)? Giving to the church would just make it that much more difficult for me and my family financially, right? So we just gave what we as a family were comfortable giving...and that was whatever was left over.
Over my 12 years at Peace I have been transformed by the Grace of God in ways that I could never have expected. It started with an epiphany that I did not get to where or who I am by myself.  Being in this community awakened and helped me reflect on my life and how I got to the present. I won't bore you here with my life story, but suffice it to say that the fingerprints of God are all over my life as he quietly guided me in directions to make me who I am. In hindsight, I didn't actually pick my paths or have a plan, but God did and he continues to mold, shape and call me.
More recently God was calling me to make a change in my work life and I resisted that for about two years. Resisting this call only made everything harder and I resisted because I was afraid. While not happy in my work, I was financially stable and the bills were getting paid so why risk that? I continued to let that comfort be my master until one day I was so miserable, frustrated and worn out that I heard God ask me again to walk by faith and not by sight. I said yes, but I am afraid. He said don't be. In that moment my heart was lifted and my life changed. I let God be my master and learned that saying yes to God and allowing change leads you to abundant blessings of all sorts.
As I think back about why our family would want to leave our comfort zone or give to the church I smile because God has shown me the answer to that question. I still have bills, taxes, car payments, a mortgage, student loans, college tuition and living expenses for a family. Giving where you don't 'have' to is not easy and frankly not meant to be. The difference now is that we see we are blessed by a God that has given everything and will provide what is needed. How can we not give 10% of all that he has provided back to his kingdom so that Grace and Good News can be shared with someone else?
I am forever grateful to God for the community of Peace. You - the Peace community - helped open my eyes. I see how God is working in my life and the world. It is with joy that we give our God-given resources back to him by supporting Peace, through which lives are changed. We are called to rejoice in these wonderful things and share them with others as a way of giving thanks.
This year pledges are due by October 27. I invite you to count your blessings and gifts so that you may consider what portion you give back.  God has plans for us and will give us what we need. Blessings and Peace be with you all!  

Dolph Moller dies at 87

            Adolph "Dolph" Moller. former synod treasurer and loingtime leader of Virginia Lutheran Men in Mission, dies Oct. 14 in Richmond.
 A native of Brooklyn, NY, he was a garduate of Wagner College. He retired as an accounting manager after 43 years with Allied Siognal (now Honeywell).  Surviving are a daughter, Patricia Hensley; two sons, Christan A. Moller and Paul F. Moller; 10 grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held Nov. 16 at 11:00am at Christ the King Lutheran Church, Richmond.  In lieu of flowers, the family asked that contributions be made to Christ the King or to Lutheran Men in Mission.
 

THE VIRGINIA LUTHERAN

A MONTHLY NEWS PUBLICATION OF THE VIRGINIA SYNOD, ELCA

 

Editor:  George Kegley   
Voice: 540-366-4607;  Email: georgekegley@verizon.net
Post:  301 Tinker Creek Lane, NE, Roanoke, VA  24019


Deadline for submission of articles is the 15th of each month.
Articles received after the 15th will be published the following month. 

 Photographs must be separate from text and in .jpg or .png format only.

 

Any portion of this publication may be reprinted

for use in local church publications with appropriate credit.