Dear Members and Friends of Holy Trinity,

Here are this week’s updates to pass along to you:

• We were blessed to have Jeff and Roz Eckardt return to worship with us this past Sunday at the Late Service.

• You will recall that last week I asked if you had any suggestions for a handyman.  I received two responses that I share with you:
  • Barry Kerringan 216-262-2768
  • Scott Moss, one of our members, 432-878-8104 (Scott is only available to help on Tuesday afternoons)

• On Saturday of this week, the Crafty Ladies group will meet from 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM in Fellowship Hall.

• By now, every family in the congregation should have received their Stewardship Packet.  They were given out this passed Sunday and then on Monday we mailed the remainder to the congregation.  Please prayerfully considered how you will participate and support the ministry we do together in the Lord’s name at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in 2026.  Inside your packet is a Time/Talent/Treasure brochure.  This is the time to indicate the dates you would like to place flowers on the altar, volunteer to serve on a committee, serve on the Altar Guild, and as worship assistants (to name just a few opportunities).  On Sunday, and then again on October 26, as part of the offering, a wicker basket will be passed around for you to return your Time/Talent/Treasure sheets, and we will ask God’s blessings upon these commitments.  Or, if you wish, you can mail them back to the church office.

• On Sunday, you are invited to wear something with the color of pink as part of our Breast Cancer Awareness Sunday.

• After each worship service the Trick-Or-Treat-So-Others-May-Eat bags will be passed out. If you will not be here Sunday, we will place a few bags in the narthex for you to pick up during the week, if you would like to participate in this food drive for AIM.

• Sunday, I will be preaching on the First Reading of Genesis 32:22-31, as we look at the story of Jacob wrestling with a man (or is it an angel?). We will be taking a deeper look at those times in our lives when we wrestle with God and the blessings that can result.

• We keep in our prayers:
  • Marisa Adrian – upon her recent styloid surgery
  • Dave Rasche – who was moved this afternoon to AnMed Rehab (room 200)

In Christ,

Pastor Fischer

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

We remember Martin Luther, born in 1483, nine years before Columbus
discovered America. He studied law at the age of 21; became a priest at 23
and a doctor of theology at 28; wrote and nailed the 95 thesis at age 33 and
34; was ex-communicated and became a fugitive at 38; translated the Bible
into German at 40; and died from a stroke at the age of 63, an
internationally admired leader. His teachings stressed justification by
faith, universal priesthood of believers; and supremacy of scripture which
form the cornerstone of Protestantism. [Please wear red on this Sunday.]
Martin Luther was eight years old when Christopher Columbus set sail from Europe and landed in
the Western Hemisphere. Luther was a young monk and priest when Michelangelo was painting
the Sistine Chapel in Rome. A few years later, he was a junior faculty member at a new university
in small-town Germany, intently studying the Scriptures, “captivated with an extraordinary ardor
for understanding Paul in the Epistle to the Romans.”
In these days Luther was tormented by the demand for righteousness before God. “I did not love,
yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly
murmuring greatly, I was angry with God.” Then, in the midst of that struggle with God, the
message of the Scriptures became clear, like a long-shut door opening wide. When he realized that
a “merciful God justifies us by faith … I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered
paradise itself through open gates.”
What Luther discovered is the freedom of Christians trusting God’s mercy in Christ. As he later
wrote, “Faith is God’s work in us. It changes us and makes us to be born anew of God. This faith is
a living, busy, active, mighty thing. It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly.
Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that believers would stake
their lives on it a thousand times.”
This discovery set Luther’s life on a new course —both his own life and his public service as a
preacher and teacher. When a church-endorsed sales team came to the Wittenberg area in October,
1517, Luther was concerned that the promotion and sale of indulgences undermined the promise of
God’s unreserved mercy in Jesus and the faith that trusts that promise. His 95
Theses or Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences became the first of a life-long
stream of books, sermons, letters, essays, even hymns in which he expressed his confidence in this
life-giving promise from God, the Gospel, and its liberating implications for all of life in church
and society. [Please wear red on October 26, Reformation Sunday.]