Go & Tell the Story

 By Deacon Timothy Siburg, Director for Stewardship Merry Christmas, People of God!!! What joy it is to think about God’s presence with me and with all of you on this most holy of days. Admittedly it’s been a hard year. It’s been a weird year. It has not been one that anyone could have dreamed of, imagined, or hoped for. But all that said, God has been present in it and continues to be just as God always is- Emmanuel, our God with us. Our God who has come into the world yet again as we celebrate today, and will continue to celebrate in the rest of the twelve days to come. Our God who comes and is with us who opens hearts, hands, minds, and our very own imagination.  Seeing God at work in the world is one of the true gifts of serving on synod staff. I witness God’s activity in, around, under, through, and for all of you every day. In processing this witness, I often share with my spiritual director about where I have sensed God’s presence and movement, and what God sightings I have had

 By Morgan Tranmer, Administrative Assistant at the Nebraska Synod This year has brought to light the many places that I see God working in my life. COVID-19 quickly changed my daily patterns from community focused and social to lonely and isolating. In the matter of a few weeks, I had changed careers, moved to a new city, began to quarantine at home, and lost the many aspects of community that I valued. The political climate was shifting, people were calling for overdue social change, and I became increasingly anxious about the future, my role in this world, and how I would continue to serve my community in a positive way.  So where have I seen God in all this? I tend to struggle with this question. My fear is that this simple question leads us to wonder where God is present only in the positive moments of our lives. It is easy to say that we see God in a beautiful sunrise or a random act of kindness.  However, sometimes those ‘God moments’ can be hard to find while working through an

 By Rev. Ricardo Riqueza Greetings in Christ,  For those who do not know me, my name is Ricardo Riqueza. I am the pastor at St. John's in Marquette and Trinity in Polk. I am also not a native Nebraskan. I have done ministry in many places and have seen much of the United States. I did ministry in California, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and now I am here in rural Nebraska. In each place I saw God in different ways. I have been very blessed to experience all those states, where I was able to learn and grow. In California, I did my teaching parish in Berkeley and the church was very passionate about social justice. I saw God in Berkeley in people’s passion to care for all God’s creation regardless of gender, national origin, and sexual orientation. People in Berkeley were living God’s commandments in their daily lives.  In Arizona, I did my internship in Phoenix in a congregation consisting of people from Mexico. The people at the congregation were Spanish speakers and most were struggling

 By Bishop Brian Maas I love Advent. I love it for the clean slate it represents as the start of the liturgical year, I love it for its theme of growing light in a time of increasing darkness, I love the memories of our children lighting Advent candles every evening while singing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”—the first hymn they learned by heart—I love our scorch-scarred Advent log, with one candle for every day of Advent, I love the peace of Advent in a time of cultural commercial craziness; I even love the blue of the paraments. This year, Advent is harder for me. My experience of the season, like everything else, is shaded, tainted, tempered by the reality of pandemic—and of the cultural divisions it only magnifies. There is less anticipation in my Advent, and more simple, ordinary waiting. The hope that always bubbles up is this year more heavily reliant on faith—on simple, stripped-down trust. The theme for this month is “Where do you see God?” This year, most days—especially as our h