Rejoicing in Baptisms and Confirmations

We rejoice to announce the baptisms of Sherrie and her son Dylan into Christ's body the church on Sunday April 29. Sherrie and Dylan have been in preparation with Father Jerry for the past few months. Father Jay Magness represented the Bishop and celebrated these baptisms with us. We also rejoice in the confirmations of Cheryl (mother of Sherrie and grandmother of Dylan), Sherrie, Mein, James, Amy and Rachel on Sunday May 6 when Bishop Ted Gulick celebrated these confirmations with us. Amanda was also confirmed a week later by Bishop Ted at her mother's church. These have been in confirmation preparation with Father Jerry for the past several months. Let us pledge our lives of faith together to support and nurture the newly baptized and newly confirmed. As Bishop Ted looked out on our congregation he said we are God's dream of how the church should be, made up of many nations and cultures. He talked about Peter's vision in the reading from Acts. Peter tried to tell God that he was too pure to eat the many foods God showed him, but we cannot tell God what to do. God tells us and God told Peter to eat. And Peter went to receive Gentiles into the church, those "other people" who didn't keep the ritual laws of purity. Bishop Ted pointed out that the new law differs from the old law only in that Jesus said to love as He loved. And how did He love? Bishop Ted gave the example of Professor Liviu Lebrescue, the Jewish professor and holocaust survivor, who stood in the door and gave his life for his students during the Virginia Tech shootings. So did Jesus stand in the door for us, for all humankind. Bishop Ted asked "how wide are Christ's arms, and how big is God's hug?"