LCMS Life Ministries and Lutherans For Life both are offering resources designed to help congregations observe “Life Sunday” on Jan. 17 or an alternate date.
Life Ministries, a program area of LCMS World Relief and Human Care (WR-HC), is providing free online resources including a sermon study, a bulletin insert, a psalmody, and hymn suggestions.
The new sermon study, based on John 2:1-11 (the Gospel reading for the second Sunday after Epiphany in both lectionaries), was written by Rev. Christopher Esget of Immanuel Lutheran Church, Alexandria, Va. He is a member of the LCMS Sanctity of Life Committee and will serve as the host pastor for the pre-march LCMS worship service on Jan. 22 in Washington, D.C. To download the resources, go to www.lcms.org/lifesunday.
New bulletin inserts, a Bible study, sermons, and a children’s mess
“Speak the Truth of Life,” based on Eph. 4:15a, is the theme for the 2010 Life Sunday observance, which is designed to coincide with the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Jan. 22, 1973, decision that legalized abortion.
“We live in a world that needs to hear the truth of life. ‘Your Word is truth,’ said Jesus. That Word needs to be spoken and applied to the issues. It needs to be spoken in love,” LFL Executive Director James I. Lamb says in a cover letter with a sample mailing of the new materials that LFL sent in October to congregations, LFL groups, and other “friends of life.” LFL is a pan-Lutheran organization based in Nevada, Iowa.
LFL’s new Life Sunday materials include six sermons:
- In “Whose Body is It?” from 1 Cor. 12:27, Rev. Mark Barz speaks of God as the creator of our bodies and Jesus as the redeemer of our bodies and concludes with our responsibilities as the body of Christ.
- In “The Mask of Virtue,” based on Is. 5:29, Rev. John Eidsmoe, a pastor in the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations, shows how people live in a culture that tries to mask what is evil by calling it good. Says Eidsmoe, “There are no truth-in-packaging laws for evil and falsehood,” but he then points to a Savior who overcame evil so that we might be declared good in Him.
- In “Speak the Truth of Life,” from John 8:12, Rev. Ken Klaus stresses the urgency of those who have been rescued by a living Savior to speak the message of rescue to others. He concludes, “But there are still many, many all around us who continue to live as they always have, in darkness and with death. It is our job to speak the Lord’s truth in love, to let them know there is another life possible.”
- In “The Truth of Life,” based on Eph. 4:14-16, Lamb says the truth about life needs to be spoken first and foremost within the church as “Christ’s people are exposed to so many untruths in society.”
- In “Really Good News,” from Is. 62:1-5, Lamb says that “sometimes you just have to use an adverb. The Good News about the birth of our Savior is more than Good News. It’s really Good News because the Lord will restore His sinful people so completely in Christ that they will be a righteous light to the nations.”
- In “Living and Defending Life under the Cross,” based on Rom. 12:12, Dr. Laurence White says, “The cross contradicts every attempt to define the value of human life in terms of size, or health, or age, or pleasure, or race.”
All six sermons may be downloaded free from the LFL Web site at www.lutheransforlife.org.
Also new from LFL are:
- bulletin inserts (7 cents each, item no. 140BI).
- “Just for Kids” bulletin inserts (7 cents each, item no. 702BI).
- reproducible Bible study (50 cents each, item no. 104BS).
- childrens message (50 cents each, item no. 1826).
- CD ($5, item no. 1815CD) that includes all six sermons, plus the worship service, childrens message, and Bible study, plus a “Memorial Service for the Pre-Born Killed Since 1973” which is suggested for use on the eve of Sanctity of Life Sunday.
For more information, visit the LFL Web site or call 888-364-LIFE (5433).
Posted Nov. 4, 2009
