We are now open for limited in-person worship. Please click here to understand what that means.
We will still be streaming worship as we have been.
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/499545065?pwd=aXd4M3EwcmdOWTh0SC80TVNGeW44dz09
The service will also be streamed on Facebook Live from https://www.facebook.com/firstlutheransmtx/
We will go live a few minutes before 10:30.
This page will have worship items for each service. The instructions for accessing worship were getting cumbersome for here, so they have been moved to their own page. Only the two basic links are still here. For full instruction go to https://flcsm.org/worshipaccess/
Each Sunday we invite you to receive Holy Communion at home. You will use whatever elements you have available to be the body and blood of Christ. To celebrate communion via livestream is unusual. But we believe that Christ is present beyond our understanding and that this online gathering, for now, is the way we are gathered in community. The following is excerpted from a lettter on the subject from Pastor Tim, which you can find in full at https://flcsm.org/online-communion/
For our worship archives, see the following pages:
November 22: Early Advent 3
November 15: Early Advent 2
November 8: Early Advent 1
We are starting Advent early. The number of Sundays in Advent has varied, as have the ways it was marked and the themes to the season. Advent is a time for waiting. Something we are familiar with this year. But unlike most waiting, we know the end of the Advent waiting story.
This is a waiting in faith for an ending that is certain: the promises that God is in Christ reconciling the whole world. Does that mean there is nothing to fear, nothing to worry about, no reason to say we are tired of waiting? No. Advent hope has room for all of that, but also ties to our faith that tells us we know the end of the story. Just as we stood at the cross knowing that the end of the story is not the end of the story, we hear the prophet’s reminder that God is already at work to save.
In that sense, we have already been in Advent for a while. But this year we will make it official earlier. Advent was once marked for 6 to 7 weeks, and has had different themes to it. Sometimes it was celebrated in much the same way as Lent (Many may remember when it used purple as a sign of preparation and fasting as we do in Lent, rather than blue as a sign of hope.) We will be using many of the regular November texts but with worship and preaching around a theme of waiting and longing. We will also have some other texts that do not show up in our lectionary but give a richness to the coming of Christ.
This Sunday we are beginning with two readings from the Hebrew Bible, the Prophet Amos and the covenant that the people made with God through Joshua as they entered a new phase of life in the promised land.