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Yes, indeed! The “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” has come to St. Mark! A member of St. Mark nominated Pastor Beth for this challenge–to dump a bucket of ice water over her head and give a donation in support of research for ALS. This member lost her husband to this disease. Pastor Beth accepted this challenge!…
On Saturday September 13th, 4 St. Mark gentlemen – David N., Lloyd S., John M., and Ron W – will try to outdo each other with their barbecued culinary creations. Based loosely on the show, “Chopped”, they will get baskets filled with surprise ingredients they need to include in their barbecue dish. Judges from the…
Lessons for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost, from Matthew 16 and Psalm 138, beg us to ponder identity. Who is God? Who is Jesus? And who are we. We live in a world with violence, hatred, illness, poverty, brokenness. Pastor Beth’s sermon reminds us we have to ponder this, but we cannot let the world define who…
Trudy has sent another letter with many wonderful pictures of the work that the St. Mark crew are performing at the Ngateu secondary school in Arusha, Tanzania. A new side walk has been built, a colorful mural painted on the wall of the science room, and lessons in speaking and reading English. The students seem…
In today’s gospel, Peter asks Jesus to explain a parable that had offended the Pharisees. Jesus tells his followers that faith is about the heart and not about the rituals that we do. As Jesus is explaining this parable, a woman, a marginal person in their society, approaches Jesus in a loud voice begging that…
In our Gospel today, the 14th chapter of Matthew, we are reminded of the story of Jesus reaching out to save Peter as he was sinking, asking “Why did you doubt?” As Jesus reached out to his disciple Peter, he sends us out to pick people out of the water. He is always challenging us…
A group of 16 St. Mark folks have traveled to Tanzania, Africa in support of the SAFI School Project. Check out the SAFI Homepage to find out what SAFI is all about and the good work they do in supporting education in Africa. Check out the SAFI Blog to look at the interesting emails and…
Matthew’s gospel, 14:13-21, shows us once more Jesus demonstrating his compassion by performing one of his greatest miracles….the multiplication of the five loaves and two fishes to feed the thousands of followers who were with him in ‘a deserted place.’ Pastor Eric gave us examples of compassion in our present life stressing that every time…
Many thanks to the hard-working students in the Olympia High School Bear-GRuB program! They harvested all this beautiful produce today in the St. Mark Community Garden!
The story of the mustard seed from the Gospel of Matthew is just one of the parables Jesus used in his teachings. It illustrates how the smallest seed planted can grow into something much bigger…like a great tree from a seedling, or loaves of bread from yeast. Jesus described the Kingdom of God as “like finding treasures”, “like casting…