Members or Membranes.

Hello Again!
Are we just a body part and not a body? What is church? Is it only a building, used once a week to get 'good religous instruction on rules for living'?

Church is what we believe about the church: the church is people. People gathered together to do all the various things that make the church an organized structure. But is that all that a church is?

Listen now to Pastor John as he presents this topic which has become a focal point for todays churchgoers.

Click to download: Members or Membranes.

Illawarra Lutheran Parish
21st January 2007
Epiphany 3

Prayer of the Day.

Life-giving God, we thank you that your Son brought good news and sets us free from captivity. Fill us with your spirit, so that, as we are made holy, we live as your holy people. We ask this through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Prayer Points.

• Give thanks for Jesus presence amongst us.
• Give thanks that God works through his Church-the body of Christ.
• Pray for commitment and enthusiasm to work as part of a team.
• Give thanks for the easing of the bushfire threat in Victoria.
• Pray for those in our communitysuffering ill-health or hospitilization: Helga S., Fritz T., Christine F., Horst M., Hardy & Wendy B., Wolfgang G., Harold & Spodra M., Josie K and Bertha K.
• Pray for Pastor Brenton Fielder and the Dubbo/Gilgandra parish.
• Pray for a commitment from all our members to be regular participants in worship in 2007.
• Pray for all those considering positions on church council.
• Pray for the renewal and growth of small group ministries in our parish.

Todays Readings.

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21

Major and Minor Festivals this week.
Conversion of St Paul
25th January
White

St. Paul was born at Tarsus, Cilicia, of Jewish parents who were descended from the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Roman citizen from birth. As he was "a young man" at the stoning of Stephen and "an old man" when writing to Philemon, about the year 63, he was probably born around the beginning of the Christian era.

To complete his schooling, St. Paul was sent to Jerusalem, where he sat at the feet of the learned Gamaliel and was educated in the strict observance of the ancestral Law. Here he also acquired a good knowledge of exegesis and was trained in the practice of disputation. As a convinced and zealous Pharisee, he returned to Tarsus before the public life of Christ opened in Palestine.

Some time after the death of Our Lord, St. Paul returned to Palestine. His profound conviction made his zeal develop to a religious fanaticism against the infant Church. He took part in the stoning of the first martyr, St. Stephen, and in the fierce persecution of the Christians that followed.

Entrusted with a formal mission from the high priest, he departed for Damascus to arrest the Christians there and bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he was nearing Damascus, about noon, a light from heaven suddenly blazed round him. Jesus with His glorified body appeared to him and addressed him, turning him away from his apparently successful career.

An immediate transformation was wrought in the soul of St. Paul. He was suddenly converted to the Christian Faith. He was baptized, changed his name from Saul to Paul, and began travelling and preaching the Faith. He was martyred as an Apostle in Rome around 65 AD.

Excerpted from Lives of the Saints

Here is the doctrine of the Mystical Body. It cannot be said too often or with too much emphasis that the lesson of this feast is: Our Lord teaching this doctrine Himself! (Christ had ascended into Heaven.)
Paul knew that. He was chasing Christians, and Christ said to him: "Why dost thou persecute Me?" We are part of Christ in His Mystical Body, the Church, and when Saul hunted Christians he hunted Christ.

Thought for the Week

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
Flannery O'Connor

Photo credit: 'Cathedral Door' by Brian Lary, Madison, WI, USA.