I’ve been thinking for a long time what to write for this blog, because there was nothing specifically during the last week. This week has been such a more relaxing week … so be prepared, I will be short this time.<\/p>\n
As I wrote in last blog, on Sunday (7\/29) I was in Dr. M. Luther Lutheran Church in Muskegon. I got an invitation from ex-pastor of this church, from Kenneth and two members of the church to go with them on Tuesday evening to Grand Haven to have a dinner. It was a wine-tasting dinner. I am very pleased that they invited me to this event \u2013 it was my very-first time on such an event (I mean, to be on wine-tasting dinner). What was most interesting about this was the fact that the foods that was served was with spinach or mushrooms \u2013 the cooks probably knew that I will be there, and so they added this two things to (I think) all food … but what is here interesting is the fact that I do not like these two things … but I have survived. However, it was delicious.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday I had my first experience with Food Pantry, which this church does for the “socially weaker” members of congregation and the Whitehall community. It started in the morning with the breakfasts which was prepared for them. Each people that had come here is from different “family background” and I was warned about that so I wouldn\u2019t be surprised later. But … I met here very nice people, with whom I could talk. In my country (in Serbia and probably also in Slovakia) there is nothing like this and churches does not doing this. Mostly, other organizations like the Red Cross or other humanitarian organizations do … But in my home church in Kys\u00e1\u010d, there is something similar and it\u2019s done by women from the “Otl\u00e1rny kr\u00fa\u017eok \u017eien” (we could say it simply in english: Church Women’s society) \u2013 they do an amazing job! They are helping people who need it – it includes buying foods, clothes but also they support financial (I need to admit that when I went to the Seminary, they also supported me financially [because I don’t have a scholarship] and I am extremely grateful to them!). Also, on Wednesday we went to kayaking with some of our members down to the White River and after that we had potluck dinner in Church. After that we had Bible Study which was different from others that we had (during my stay) – we watched the movie : Come Sunday –\u00a0the story of Carlton Pearson, whose change in belief cost him his church.<\/p>\n
On Saturday (8\/4) I was invited to a wedding and baptism to Ludington, MI. It was a\u00a0outdoor wedding. Wedding (and also baptism!) was held by a lay person. I can\u2019t say that it was bad – it was nice. However, what I was not prepared for was the course of these events. The wedding and baptism goes according to ELCA’s order – but some parts were omitted. What I didn\u2019t like about this wedding was sermon. In my view, Lutheran sermon in which the word Christ or God (God is good, but Christ must be there, otherwise the sermon might be told in a synagogue) is just a normal conversation \u2013 and this sermon was just casual conversation with three people \u2026 but I\u2019ve survived it. Newlyweds were happy, they didn\u2019t mind. Immediately after marriage, the son of this couple was baptized, but also the bride. It was a nice event, but again \u2026 when we want to act the Lutheran baptism, we must realize the two main principles that Dr. M. Luther said: at baptism there must be(!) water and WORD<\/a>. Unfortunately, there was just water (if we do not include \u201cformula\u201d in ELW before an baptism act). Let’s just think about this. Is this correct? I’m still thinking about this, and that’s question also for you \u2013 What do you think? Feel free to leave comment below.<\/p>\n Bye for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been thinking for a long time what to write for this blog, because there was nothing specifically during the last week. This week has been such a more relaxing week … so be prepared, I will be short this time. As I wrote in last blog, on Sunday (7\/29) I was in Dr. M. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americantime","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=725"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":750,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions\/750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}