Pastor’s Column

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ and at St. Paul’s:  Happy New Year!  That’s not a misprint, and it’s not a month early. By the time most of you read this, we will have begun a new year in the Church [Sunday November 27 is the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new Church Year.] A year of grace is ending, a year in which we here at St. Paul’s have experienced the grace of God in many ways, grace upon grace, as St. Paul put it. I feel I have received grace in extraordinary measure during this year now ending. And we enter a new year of grace together, as pastor and people, for the first time. I am looking forward to our journey through this new year together, and I am counting on grace, grace and more grace along the way.
    Several “calendar” items demand attention this month. At the top of the list is the official institution (a word not previously in my vocabulary; we would call it an installation) of this Lutheran pastor as the pastor of St. Paul’s Saturday December 10 at 2:00 p.m.. This is going to be quite an occasion! The Right Reverend Sylvestre Romero, Assisting Bishop of the Diocese of El Camino Real, will officiate. The Reverend Dean Nelson, Bishop of the Southern California West Synod of The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will preach. And Mrs. Edith Price, a member of The Lutheran Church of the Prince of Peace, Tulsa, Oklahoma (a congregation I served for 25 years) will offer a blessing. No doubt St. Paul’s legendary hospitality will once again be very much in evidence (Thanks, Bev!). And a special note of thanks goes to Bob Clunie, who is graciously providing complimentary accommodations for both bishops at The Moonstone Inn.
    Information about our 5:00 p.m. Wednesday Advent Services is elsewhere in this Epistle. I encourage you to take advantage of this Advent discipline.
    Our Wednesday services will be brief and will not preclude your participation in the ecumenical Advent celebration at Santa Rosa Roman Catholic Church at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday December 7. This joyous event offers Christians in our community an opportunity to come together around something that binds us together: our celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I hope St. Paul’s will be well-represented at this service.
    Our Worship Committee has been working hard, and a few observations are in order:
---  this year the candles on our Advent wreath will be lit during the reading of the Old Testament Prophecy. The hope is that this will call attention to promises in the Hebrew Scriptures that point ahead to the coming of our Lord and that it will represent visually the approaching of His coming (one candle on the first Sunday of Advent, then a second, then a third, and finally a fourth) as we move through the season.
---  as flu season approaches we will be taking steps to minimize the likelihood of passing our germs to one another at the Lord’s Table. I will disinfect my hands before consecrating the elements. The purificator used to cleanse the chalice will be moistened with high-proof alcohol. We will use wafers instead of bread.
    Christmas Eve is on a Saturday this year. Our Christmas Eve Service will be at 8:00 p.m. Again this year we will sing many of the familiar and beloved hymns of Christmas at this Service.
    On Sunday, December 25, we will have only one service, at 9:30 a.m. In previous generations this service, the Mass of Christ’s Day, was the main worship service of the holiday (holy day) season. You might find it a particularly compelling worship experience.
    Barbara and I will spend most of the week after Christmas with our daughter, Allyson, and her family in the Denver area.

    Your brother in Christ,
                Don