This summer, from July 18-22, the high school youth of Salem have a wonderful opportunity to join with 38,000 other Christian teenagers in New Orleans for the ELCA National Youth Gathering. The theme this year is “Citizens with the Saints,” based on Ephesians 2:14-20. That text reads:

“Jesus is our peace. In his life and death on the cross, Jesus broke down the dividing walls so that we are no longer strangers and outsiders...”

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. - Jeremiah 29:11

During the first week of February I attended a free training event, on behalf of Salem, called “Healthy and Safe Congregations.” This amazing workshop was funded by The Lutheran Community Foundation and led by FaithTrust Institute- a faith-based non-profit that is committed to ending domestic violence and abuse.

You might have noticed that Salem has been blessed with lots of baptisms lately! We’ve had some wonderful families from the congregation, the school, and the broader community bring their children to receive God’s promised gift of new life in Christ through the waters of baptism.

Of all the gifts that we give our children over the course of a lifetime, could there be anything more important or more powerful than the gift of promising to help them to know God’s love for them?

The arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, means that God is doing a new thing in the world and that God’s peace has finally arrived in human flesh!

So then, the holiday season for Christians is more than just a time to buy gifts and decorate trees, it is also a time for us to be ambassadors for peace in a world that knows so much injustice, brokenness, and despair...