THE SATURDAY MORNING BRASS PROJECT – six super-skilled players, presents an exciting program, with all freewill proceeds shared between Holy Trinity’s Pipe Organ Fund and the Project’s community activities. An audience sing-along will be featured, using our organ and its one-year-old zimbelstern!
WE GIVE THANKS FOR THE MINISTRY OF COMMUNION MINISTERS! Communion Ministers take Holy Communion to the home bound as an extension of our worship service. As we gather on Sunday mornings around Word and Sacrament we remember those in our fellowship who cannot be with us. Communion Ministers take the fellowship we share in the Lord’s Supper to them. Please give thanks for: Chaye DeMark, Mike Geyser, Sandy Philips, John Sapienza, Rita Sims, and Jen Ward!
THE MAY PRAYER CARDS ARE HERE! You are encouraged to take a prayer card bookmark home and use it to pray for those on the list. The prayer cards will be updated monthly. In addition to committing to praying regular- ly for those on our prayer list, Jen will be in touch with people for updates on their situations. If you have an update on an individual on our prayer card, you may contact the church office or Jen Ward.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
at 4:00PM
A production of Loudoun Lyric Opera
Did you know? The great composer, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 -1750), not only gave to the world great sacred music and scientific advances, he also wrote comedy. His charming “Coffee Cantata” (BWV 211) tells the story of a father, who is exasperated with his teenage daughter (sound familiar?), because she defiantly insists on drinking lots of coffee. In the end, various cunning interventions bring about a resolution, including the involvement of the daughter’s boyfriend. The characters sing beautiful melodies (featuring an Ode to Coffee), accompanied by strings, flute and keyboard. The audience will be seated bistro-style, at separate tables. Our Holy Grounds is the perfect setting for this fun concert! Coffee and cookies will be served by an HTLC youth team, with donations welcomed to HTLC ministries. Tickets will be sold at the door or from LoudounLyricOpera.com .
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
Ecclesiastes 3:1
Dear Friends,
This season of interim time with you has been a blessing. You welcomed me with great warmth and acceptance. With humor and grace, you have forgiven me my quirks, foibles and failings.
Most important, you worked hard, first with the transition team, and then with the call committee, to clarify your sense of you are, and where God is leading you. You are ready to call your next pastor.
There are a number of congregations in our synod in transition, some of whom do not yet have a transition pastor. In light of this need, the synod asked if my work among you is complete and if I would be able to move on to another congregation.
I have to answer this question affirmatively. Your Ministry Site Profile is complete and your call committee is poised to begin interviewing. Your council is strong and proactive. The faith community of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church is ready to move into God’s future.
God is calling me to a new future as well. I will be going to Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Herndon as their transition pastor beginning on June 1, 2016. My last Sunday with you will be Pentecost Sunday, May 15th.
During this interim season, we celebrated 50 years of ministry at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. As part of this celebratory year, you purchased new air conditioning units for your sanctuary, remodeled your narthex, and updated your website. You demonstrated support for the wider church, with special gifts to the synod, the ELCA Malaria campaign, and Gettysburg Seminary. We shared times of laughter as we welcomed children into God’s family through the sacrament of baptism. We have shared times of grief as we honored loved ones at funerals and memorial services. We have worked and struggled together, played and worshiped together.
I will never forget the season I spent with you. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as your pastor. Holy Trinity Lutheran Church will always have a place in my heart.
Please pray for me as I accompany Holy Cross Lutheran Church on their interim journey. I will continue to keep all of you in my prayer.
May God richly bless you!
The Rev. Margrethe S. C. Kleiber, Transition Pastor
The next baptismal Sunday at Holy Trinity is scheduled for May 15th !
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 28
People of all ages are welcome to receive the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.
Through Holy Baptism, God adopts us as beloved children and brings us into the community of faith. In keeping with this understanding, the sacrament of Holy Baptism is celebrated within the community of faith, during Sunday morning worship. For more information on scheduling a baptism for either yourself or your child, please contact the church office at 703-777-4912 or email office@holytrinityleesburg.org.
“Baptism is not simply plain water. Instead, it is water used according to God’s command and connected with God’s word. ” – Martin Luther
Training for Communion Ministers to the Homebound
Are you warm, inviting, and able to meet and visit with others in a variety of circumstances? Are you flexible and adaptable? Do you love the sacrament of Holy Communion and our congregation’s weekly sharing in this meal? God may be calling you to the ministry of carrying the gifts of word and sacrament to our congregation’s homebound members.
While this ministry will always be a regular and expected part of the pastoral call, it does not belong exclusively to clergy. In the same way that members of our congregation are trained to serve as readers, intercessors, acolytes, and communion ministers within the assembly’s worship, members can be trained to take part in this ministry of sharing holy communion beyond the assembly’s worship.
In fact, lay ministers participating in and leading this ministry meet a pastoral need in a way that our pastor/s cannot. Those who are homebound or absent from the daily and weekly life of the congregation often say what they miss about “going to church” is being included within the community of other church members. The various people who make up the life of the congregation are missed just as much as, perhaps even more than, the pastor is missed.
If you have gifts of hospitality, listening, companionship, and personal comfort in intimate settings, prayerfully consider learning more about this ministry at a training on Sunday, April 10th, following the 11:00 am worship service. We will gather in the alcove in the gathering area from 12:15 to 1:15 pm.
In Holy Baptism
our gracious heavenly Father frees us from sin and death by joining us
to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are born children of a fallen humanity;
by water and the Holy Spirit we are reborn children of God
and made members of the church, the body of Christ.
Living with Christ and in the communion of saints,
we grow in faith, love, and obedience to the will of God.
Evangelical Lutheran Worship p. 27.
“Christ is risen!” proclaims the pastor on Easter morning.
“He is risen indeed! Alleluia!” responds the congregation.
But…what does this mean? What does Jesus’ resurrection mean for us? Equally important, what does resurrection mean for this congregation?
The church’s teaching on baptism points to an answer. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem as the truly human and truly divine One, God identified with humanity. In Jesus, God joined God’s very self to our brokenness, our sinfulness, and our death. Christ’s identification with suffering humanity led to Good Friday and the cross. When Jesus died—he died our death.
When Jesus rose on Easter morning, he lived our resurrection. Baptism is the sign of this resurrection. Through baptism God joins us to the death and resurrection of Jesus. God frees us from sin and death.
We don’t have to wait until our physical deaths, however, to know resurrection. With the future assured, this means our resurrected life begins now.
A resurrected life can acknowledge the pain of its past—including its sins, its failure to love God and the neighbor—yet not get stuck in guilt and shame, but move forward in hope.
A resurrected life is confidently rooted in the love of God, trusting that “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”
A resurrected life is free. Free to love. Free to take risks. Free to fail. Free to experiment. Free to learn. Free to grow. Free to ask for help. Free to ask for forgiveness. Free to claim a fresh start every day.
As human beings we will never get things right 100 percent of the time. Resurrection assures us that life is not about perfection but growth.
I trust that this is reassuring for us as individuals. I also trust that this is reassuring to us as a community of faith. For baptism also applies to the church. Baptism creates the church. Baptism makes us Christ’s body in the world, living his resurrected life in the communion of saints.
The church’s resurrected life is one that can acknowledge its past, including its brokenness and its conflicts, its failures to love God and its neighbors, yet not get stuck in this past, but move forward in hope.
The church’s resurrected life is confidently rooted in God’s love, giving it the ability to share this love with the world.
The church’s resurrected life is one of freedom for the sake of the gospel. It is a community that knows the freedom of taking risks, of failing, of asking for help, and of asking for forgiveness. The church is free to reinvent itself for the sake of proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ for each new generation.
The church is a human community. It will never get things right 100 percent of the time. But as it lives Christ’s life in the world, it will discover that resurrection is not about perfection but growth in faith, love, and obedience to the will of God.
My prayer for Holy Trinity, as it calls a new pastor, is that it will live more deeply into the promise of its resurrected life.
“Christ is risen!” proclaims the pastor on Easter morning.
And the congregation responds, “He is risen indeed! And so are we! Alleluia!”
Blessings,
Pastor Margrethe
Dear friends, the synod has promised to send Holy Trinity’s call committee a list of names by the end of this month. Soon you will be interviewing candidates and calling a pastor! Given that the process is moving forward, the synod has asked me to consider other congregations in need of transition pastors. While nothing is definite yet, it is likely that I will be moving on in the near future.
The question I am sure is on everyone’s mind is “What will happen if Pastor Kleiber leaves and we don’t have a new pastor?” There are two possibilities as I see it.
1. You will be close to calling a pastor but still some months away from that pastor’s arrival. Your council works with the synod to find an interim pastor who will lead worship and provide pastoral care during the time between my departure and the arrival of your new pastor.
2. You will be very close to calling a pastor who may arrive within just a few weeks. Your council works with the synod to find supply pastors to preach. Pastors from nearby churches offer to help in case of pastoral care emergencies.
While, I do not yet have a covenant with a new congregation I want to let you know that the process of moving on has started. When a new assignment has been confirmed I will let you know.
Let me also say that I continue to delight in our ministry together at Holy Trinity. While this congregation faces enormous challenges you also have enormous potential. You have some of the finest staff I have ever known and a dynamic, forward thinking council. I plan to enjoy the remaining time I have with you. I will not be absent until I am actually gone!
Blessings to you all!
Pastor Kleiber
Join us in the alcove for a six-week study of the life of St. Paul, beginning Sunday, April 3rd, at 9:45 am. We will be using Pastor Adam Hamilton’s book and video.
Learn more about each week: The Call
MARCH IS FINANCIAL EDUCATION MONTH AT HOLY TRINITY!
March 6 and 13 – Family Finance & Budgeting Workshop
Karla McGovern will present a class on helping you and your family build healthy money habits. This class will be based on Nathan Dugan’s book Money Sanity Solutions: Linking Money & Meaning. This class is intended to help you be more intentional about how you share, save, and spend money. It is applicable to anyone but would be especially helpful for young adults and parents with children at home.
March 20 – Faithful Planning; Faithful Lives
How will you be remembered? What values will you leave behind with your final planning?
On Sunday, March 20, at 9:45am, Alice Benson, ELCA Regional Gift Planner for Metro DC Synod, will be here at HTLC to share inspiring stories of ways other faithful Lutherans have planned for the financial care of their loved ones – their families, church, and other Lutheran ministries they love. Planning ahead can go a long way in changing the world for the sake of the Gospel – perhaps by including a charitable bequest in your will or adding a beneficiary designation for a 401(k) or IRA retirement account. Alice doesn’t sell anything other than the concept of leaving a legacy for ministry.
If you have already done something in your planning and would like to share your story, please contact Alice ahead of time at alice.benson@elca.org or 301-963-6570. If you will be out of town and will miss this presentation, you can contact her to learn of ways you can leave a legacy for ministry.
All of these classes will be held during the Sunday School hour (9:45 – 10:45) in the Gathering Space area.