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Please reach out to Susie in the Church Office with any changes to contact information for you, your family, or adult children no longer in your household (phone numbers, mailing and email addresses, etc). The office email address is secretary@zlcb.org. 

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Zion’s Communion Statement

Communion Statement 
We believe that in the Lord’s Supper, Christ’s physical body and blood are present in the bread and wine (1 Cor. 11:23-25). We also believe receiving the Lord’s Supper is an act of church fellowship. Scripture cautions that those who receive without recognizing Christ’s body and blood will bring judgment upon themselves (1 Cor. 11:27-29). Therefore, out of love to our guests, we invite to our altar to receive the Lord’s Supper those who are baptized, confirmed, repentant members of Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod congregations or sister congregations. If you are visiting us today from another Christian denomination, we welcome you to come to the altar to receive a baptismal blessing. Please signify by crossing your arms over your chest upon kneeling. 

In preparation to receive the Lord’s Supper in a worthy manner please consider reading “Christian Questions with their Answers” on Page 329-330. If you are interested in exploring membership, please talk with Pastor Grimenstein or call the church office. 

Our Worship 
Our worship services are based on traditional church liturgies in which God speaks to us in His Word and we respond to Him. These liturgies were used by the early church almost 2000 years ago and are rich in biblical meaning, connecting us to our past -- and future -- in Christ Jesus. There is a depth to Lutheran worship that can take time to appreciate, thus you may find that you don’t understand everything that is happening the first week you visit. That’s OK, we encourage you to keep visiting! 

Pastor’s Corner

A Grave? or . . . a Gate! 

… and the grave that shuts us in
shall but prove the gate to heaven.
Jesus, here with You I die,
there to live with You on high. 

Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus LSB #685 st. 3 

Sometimes, I am struck by something I hear in church. We hear fascinating things in our readings, our liturgy, but especially in our hymns. The stanza from the above hymn caused me to pause a few Sundays ago. The words gave a striking image that I don’t know if I’ve thought about before: “. . . and the grave that shuts us in, shall but prove the gate to heaven.” 

We’ve all been to funerals. If there is a viewing, our loved ones will be laid to rest in a casket. They will usually wear their Sunday best. The casket is lined with fabric; there is even a pillow for the head. We pay little attention to the lid. But we should. The same thing goes for a loved one who is cremated. We admire the nice case in which our loved one’s remains are resting, we pay little attention to the lid. How do we view the lid of a casket or an urn? Is it our enemy? Are we angry because that piece of metal is separating us from our loved ones? Either way, I doubt we view the lid of a casket or urn favorably. But we could. We should. 

I said earlier that I was captivated by this hymn stanza. Here is why: from our perspective, the lid is a barrier between us and our loved ones. But think about it from the deceased’s perspective. What will the lid of that casket look like to them on the day Jesus returns? Because I tell you the truth, a day will come when our loved ones awaken from the dead, and the lids of their caskets and urns will be cracked open with an unbelievably warm light shining in. And our loved one will see a crucified hand pry that lid open and there, in that moment, he or she will see Jesus Himself face to face and eye to eye. 

So, as Christians, how should we view the lid of a casket or an urn? We could look at it as the “grave that shuts us in.” But we can also see that lid as the “gate to heaven!” We can see it that way. I think we should see it that way. And thanks be to Christ, all of us will see it that way one day. 

-- Pastor Grimenstein 

CANCELED: Ladies Bunco Night - Friday May 15th

CANCLED:
Ladies Bunco Night
Friday May 15, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. in Zion’s Fellowship Hall
RSVP to Tracey Harris tharris@zlcb.org by May 13th
Bring an appetizer or dessert to share

So what’s Bunco?
Bunco is a dice game with twelve or more players, divided into groups of four, trying to score points while taking turns rolling three dice in a series of six rounds. A bunco is achieved when a person rolls three-of-a-kind and all three numbers match the round number which is decided at the beginning of the round. Video of how Bunco is played — view below
No experience necessary!

VIDEO: Sunday, May 10, 2026 - Complete Service

View the bulletin for Sunday, May 10, 2026
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Audio: Announcements, Readings & Sermon for Sunday, May 10, 2026

Audio: Announcements, Reading, Sermon and Men's Choir for Sunday, May 10, 2026

Rev. Dr. Edward O. Grimenstein

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View the bulletin for Sunday, May 10, 2026
Archive of AUDIO “Readings & Sermons”
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First Reading -- Acts 17:16–31 
While Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. 

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for 

“‘In him we live and move and have our being’; 
as even some of your own poets have said, 
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ 

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” 

Epistle -- 1 Peter 3:13–22 
Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. 

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. 

The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the fourteenth chapter
[Jesus said:] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 

Men’s Choir (10:30 a.m. service)
Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus

Bible Study for Sunday, May 3, 2026

Bible Study for Sunday, May 3, 2026
Hosted by Rev. Dr. Edward O. Grimenstein, Pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, Bridgeville, PA

For our study of the Gospel of John, we covered the following passages: John 10:1-6, John 10:7-10, John 10:11-16, John 10:17-21, John 10:22-30, John 10:31-33, John 10:34-39 and John 10:40-42.
Visit Zion Lutheran Church online at https://www.zlcb.org/