As we move deeper into the Trinity season, we see in the lessons of the church year that God shows mercy to people who cannot save themselves. In one lesson after another, we see this truth unfold. See the ‘Month Ahead’ for August at the end of the newsletter for a preview.

Pastor McClean was hospitalized again at the beginning of this month. He is at Mt. Sinai. We do not have much additional information at this time, but please pray that God would give him strength and healing.

The Sunday Bible class is continuing a study of selected readings from ‘Series A’ of the three-year lectionary each Sunday morning at 9:35 AM and we continue with the 8:30 AM Sunday spoken Matins services throughout the summer.

The need is still great to support our neighbors in need. Boxes for items for both the GEDCO Food Pantry and the Helping Up Mission can be found inside the door near the church office. Please give as you are able.

We are continuing to pursue the Specific Ministry Pastor program for our candidate, Scott Jones. That our request for his admittance to the program came late for the fall term is complicating matters, along with a change in leadership of the program and other revisions that occurred this summer. But we are continuing to pursue his earliest possible admission into the program. Look for additional updates in the coming months.

We have two more Free Flea markets for 2026. They are, according to our custom, each second Saturday of the month through September (August 8, September 12), 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM. Please see Judy Volkman for details or to volunteer to help.

We continue to remember in prayer Pastor McClean, Bridget Bauman, James Bauman, Albert Bell, Christopher Bell, Bertha Buchanan, Dana Carmichael, Elizabeth Coats, Timothy Doswell, Quilla Downs, Frank Ford, Iris Ford, Sean Fortune, Lynne Funck, Sherry James; Gloria Jones, Byron Masterson, Beth McClean, Julia Silver, Robert Siperek Jr., Lawrence Smallwood, Paul Swank, George Volkman, Gary Watson, Marvalisa, Sierra, Jonathan, and Steven Gibson.

We are into the dog days of summer, which means it is not always comfortable in church. But compared to many Christians around the world, we are still extremely blessed in the beautiful church that God has given us. And each week we have the opportunity to receive God’s greatest gifts in His Word and Sacrament. Please do come to receive these gifts if you are at all able.

See you in church!

In Christ and on behalf of the Church Council,
Paul Techau, Council President

The Month Ahead: August, 2026

Services and Their Readings

The Season: Trinity IX–XIII: Mercy for the Helpless

August carries the Church deeper into the green season of Trinitytide, through five Sundays that hold up one truth from many sides: God shows mercy to people who cannot save themselves. We meet a manager about to lose everything, a city that squandered the day of God’s visit, a tax collector who can only beg for mercy, a deaf man who cannot even ask, and a traveler left half dead on a lonely road. In every case the Lord comes to the helpless with a kindness they have not earned. As the month closes with the Good Samaritan, that same mercy turns outward, reshaping how we handle our money, our worship, our prayers, and our neighbor.

August 2     Ninth Sunday after Trinity

2 Samuel 22:26–34  •  1 Corinthians 10:6–13  •  Luke 16:1–13
Jesus tells a story that startles everyone who hears it: a manager, caught wasting his employer’s money and about to be fired, scrambles to secure his future before his last day. Jesus does not praise the man’s dishonesty; He praises his shrewd foresight, and He presses us to be every bit as clever about eternal things, using whatever earthly wealth we have to do good. No servant, He warns, can serve both God and money. Paul adds a steadying word from Israel’s years in the wilderness: God is faithful, and with every temptation He opens a way of escape so that we can stand.

August 9     Tenth Sunday after Trinity

Jeremiah 7:1–11  •  1 Corinthians 12:1–11  •  Luke 19:41–48
As Jesus comes within sight of Jerusalem, the shouts of Palm Sunday give way to tears: the city has missed the day of God’s visit, and its King weeps over the ruin to come. He enters the temple and drives out those who had turned a house of prayer into a den of robbers, echoing Jeremiah, who centuries earlier warned the people against hiding behind the temple walls while their hearts ran after sin. Our security was never in buildings or routines; it rests in repentance and living faith. Paul reminds us, meanwhile, that the one Spirit hands out a rich variety of gifts, each given for the good of the whole church.

August 16   Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

Genesis 4:1–15  •  1 Corinthians 15:1–10  •  Luke 18:9–14
Two men go up to the temple to pray, and they could not be more different. One, a respected and religious man, thanks God that he is nothing like the sinners around him; the other, a tax collector his neighbors despise, will not even lift his eyes, but only beats his chest and prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Jesus startles His hearers by declaring that the tax collector, and not the proud man, went home right with God, for he threw himself on God’s mercy instead of his own record. Paul confesses the very same thing about himself: once a fierce enemy of the church, he is now an apostle entirely by grace, “by the grace of God I am what I am.”

August 23   Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

Isaiah 29:17–24  •  2 Corinthians 3:4–11  •  Mark 7:31–37
In Gentile country a crowd brings Jesus a man who is deaf and can barely speak. Because the man cannot hear a single word, Jesus speaks to him through touch, placing His fingers in the man’s ears and touching his tongue; then He looks to heaven, sighs over a broken world, and says one word: “Be opened.” At once the man hears and speaks clearly, and the astonished crowd can only exclaim, “He has done all things well,” unknowingly confessing Jesus as the Creator come to mend His world. Isaiah had promised this very day, and Paul assures us that the new covenant of the life-giving Spirit shines far brighter than the old covenant of stone.

August 30 Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

2 Chronicles 28:8–15  •  Galatians 3:15–22  •  Luke 10:23–37
A lawyer asks Jesus how to earn eternal life, and Jesus points him to the Law: love God with all you are, and love your neighbor as yourself. When the man asks just who his neighbor is, Jesus answers with the story of a traveler robbed, beaten, and left for dead, passed by two religious men and rescued at last by a despised Samaritan who bandages his wounds, carries him to an inn, and pays for his care. The Law’s command to do this and live only shows how far we fall short, and it points us to the true Good Samaritan, Christ Himself, who found us dying and bound up our wounds. Paul explains that God’s promise to save by faith came long before the Law and can never be canceled by it: the inheritance is a gift, not a wage we collect.