An excerpt from October 2025 newsletter Dear Friends in Christ, October is a month of abundance and gratitude. The harvest comes in, the fields give their yield, and we gather around tables to celebrate God’s goodness. This year our congregations will mark the season with two special meals: Immanuel’s Fall Dinner on October 5th and Bethany’s Smorgasbord on October 26th. These dinners are more than food. They are moments of fellowship where we taste and see that the Lord is good and where we are reminded that Christ is present whenever we gather in his name. In this same month we also celebrate a different kind of harvest, the harvest of faith. Our confirmation students will be affirming their baptism, standing before the congregation to say “yes” to the promises God made to them in water and the Spirit. Just as the earth produces fruit in due season, so God nurtures faith over time. What was planted in baptism is brought forward in new ways as our young people take ownership of their confession and step into the fullness of their identity as disciples of Jesus. Baptism is at its heart a feast of grace. In the water we are joined to Christ’s death and resurrection. At the table we are fed with his presence. In both, God is at work creating community, sustaining us with forgiveness, and sending us out to serve. Whether at a church dinner, at the font, or at the altar, the theme is the same. God’s generosity is poured out, gathered up, and shared. As we celebrate the bounty of this season, food from the earth, promises from the font, faith maturing in our youth, may we be renewed in gratitude. Let us hold our confirmation students in our prayers. Let us enjoy our fellowship without end. And let us continue to live from the overflowing abundance of our baptismal life in Christ. In Christ, Pastor Jonathan
Pastor Jonathan shares his adventures while showing the three churches are within "walking distance" of each other.