News & Updates
Windswept – February 2016
O taste and see that the LORD is good;
happy are those who take refuge in him. —Psalm 34:8
One of God’s greatest gifts are the five senses God has given us to take in and enjoy all that God has made.
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Windswept – January 2016
Happy New Year! This seems to be the time of year when many of us think about what was and what may come, and we resolve-sometimes successfully and sometimes not so much-to try to “better ourselves”, quite often in the area of living a healthier lifestyle.
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Windswept – December 2015
What are you waiting for? When have you longed for the dawn? Waiting – for all kinds of things – is part of our human condition, isn’t it? We wait for longed for events, for births, spring-time, reunions, and promotions. We also wait for test results, an illness to pass, for a loved one’s forgiveness, for conflict resolution, for the gentle death of an aged love one. When will the dawn come?
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Windswept – November 2015
“Because of God’s Great Mercy” is the title of Spirit of Joy’s stewardship emphasis this year. We begin the emphasis by remembering all that God has done for us. God has created us and made us God’s own people. God has chased us with goodness and mercy through our trials.
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Windswept – October 2015
REFORMATION ROOTS: 500 years ago, the world was a different place in many ways than it is today. There was no separation of Church and State; there was great fear of plagues and death, there were relics and rituals, fire and brimstone. It was an era of striving—to be clean of sin by confessing enough and doing all the right things.
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Windswept – September 2015
Ann Burnett, a professor of communications at North Dakota State University, started noticing 15 years ago how the Christmas letters she received from family and friends were changing. More and more of them began to highlight the pace and accomplishments of another year, instead of sharing “blessings of the season.”…
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Windswept – June 2015
KING DAVID: OLD STORY; OUR STORY (Newsletter Excerpt) One of the more complete—and complicated—human stories told in the Bible is the story of David. Scripture passages like the one above from a sermon by St. Paul teach us that David was a man after God’s own heart. Accounts of David’s life told in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) also make it very clear that David’s heart was not always aligned with God’s. […]
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Windswept – May 2015
CALLED TO SERVE (excerpt) 13 teens and 3 adults from Spirit of Joy will be embarking on a trip to Detroit, Michigan the week of July 14-19 to take part in the triennial ELCA National Youth Gathering. Our group will be 16 participants out of 30,000 who will be descending upon Detroit for 5 days of worship, education and service work. The days will be long, the nights of sleep will be short, and the trip will prove to be a challenging experience that will help us grow on our faith journey. […]
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Windswept – April 2015
MORTAL THOUGHTS (excerpt) When Katherine and I traveled home on our vacation last month we had a four hour layover in the Salt Lake City airport. That gave us plenty of time to walk laps in the C concourse and peruse the latest magazines and bestsel- ling paperbacks. On one of our laps I stopped long enough to purchase a special collector’s edition of the Scientific American. The cover promised “Secrets of Staying Young.” […]
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