The Arc Encounter

Interested in Visiting the Ark Encounter?
Judy Bridges and Janet Hesse are taking a bus tour through Uniglobe Travel Oct 13-14th. Spots are still available for those who want to visit this popular tourist destination. For more information contact Judy at 860-276-1563, or call Uniglobe Travel at 800-825-7314. 

Bigger Than Imagination
Experience Bible history at the life-size Noah’s Ark! Meet Noah, his family, and the animals on the Ark. The family-friendly Ark Encounter theme park near Cincinnati also features a zoo, zip lines, and timber-frame restaurant.

Located at: 1 Ark Encounter Dr, Williamstown, KY 41097

Patriotic Prayer Luncheon

Patriotic Prayer Luncheon
As we look ahead to the 250th Anniversary of our nation’s founding in July, let us come together in prayer, praise and thanksgiving for the goodness God bestows on the United States of America.

Saturday, June 27, 2026
11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Guest Speaker:
Pastor Grimenstein served as an active-duty U.S. Army chaplain from 2004-2011. He primarily served with the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) at Ft. Bragg, was involved in missions in Afghanistan/Middle East, and at SHAPE in Belgium. Pastor will be sharing about the unique mission work LCMS military chaplains perform on a daily basis.

Use Sign Up Genius to RSVP to this event:
Sign Up Genius Link

Benefitting LCMS Ministry to the Armed Forces

Men’s Fellowship Event

BOCCE: A Men’s Fellowship Event
Join the Men’s Fellowship Group for an afternoon of lawn bocce, food and fellowship on Saturday, June 13th from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on the church grounds. Sign up in the narthex.

Questions, call Rich Berardelli at 724-480-5501

Pastor’s Corner

Use it Well! 
On Trinity Sunday we celebrated the confirmation of two new members into our congregation. During the public examination, we sang several hymns which related to a portion of our Small Catechism. When it came to the section on “Baptism,” we sang a portion of a hymn with two of the stanzas below (please note the section I underlined): 

O Christian, firmly hold this gift 
And give God thanks forever! 
It gives the power to uplift 
In all that you endeavor. 
When nothing else revives your soul, 
Your baptism stands and makes you whole 
And then in death completes you. 
So use it well! You are made new – 
In Christ a new creation . . . 

“All Christians who Have Been Baptized” 
#596 st. 5 & 6, Lutheran Service Book 

When it comes to baptism, we may think of it as something we usually do to infants and then . . . that’s it! What struck me about the above hymn is that, in regard to baptism, we are to “use it well.” We may wonder, “how on earth do I ‘use’ baptism? In fact, how do I use it ‘well’? What does this mean?” That’s a good question. I always like to say we Christians have a baptismal life in Christ, and that baptismal life continues to happen every single day. 

So, when it comes to my baptism, how do I “use it well”? How about this: when I sin, I can remember Christ poured His sacrificial blood over me in the waters of baptism; I am forgiven. How do I use it well? When I am tempted, I remember Christ made me a new creation in baptism, I am literally a new person and am no longer forced to follow my sin ever again. How do I use it well? When there are fights with others, I can forgive them just like Christ forgave me. How do I use it well? Maybe the greatest way is when death is near, I can remember Christ has made me His own. I have been united with Him through baptism into death (Romans 6). And if my baptism has united me with His death, then it will certainly also unite me with His resurrection! (Romans 6) 

Baptism is never done and over with. We truly have a baptismal life, so use it well every single day! 

-- Pastor Grimenstein 

The Plans I Have for You?

‘The Plans I Have for You’?  On Choosing the “Right” Path 
By Roy S. Askins, The Lutheran Witness, February 2026 

“He has to spill coffee on his shirt by 7:05. 7:05 at the latest,” one dapper, fedora-wearing “adjuster” said to the other. If not, David Norris would end up on the right bus bonding with the wrong woman, causing a serious deviation in the chairman’s carefully crafted plan. The movie The Adjustment Bureau (2011) plays out a determinist reality: What if some quasi-religious being scripted out your life and used a cadre of special operatives (should we say “angels”?) to ensure you stayed on the plan? 

Many Christians drift into a similar determinist perspective when speaking with young adults considering big life decisions: “God has a career picked out for you.” “God has a spouse chosen for you.” While well-meaning, such ideas can introduce confusion and fear. How am I supposed to know what the plan is? What if I pick the wrong career? The wrong spouse? If it’s all planned in advance, what if I do the wrong thing? Does God send someone to spill coffee at the exact right time to correct the plan? 

Many have used passages such as Jeremiah 29:11 to point to a secret divine plan: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” The surrounding passages add a bit of context, however. Through Jeremiah, God promises the Israelite exiles in Babylon that in 70 years, He will return them to Jerusalem. Why? Because God knows the plans He has for the exiles. The passage was written for a very specific audience, not as a promise that God has scripted out every decision in our lives. For our immortal God, foreknowledge is not the same as determination: God certainly knows what jobs a Christian will hold in his lifetime — but this is not the same as selecting those jobs. Another familiar passage is Romans 8:28: “For those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose”. God does, indeed, work all things for good; this does not mean your every decision is fated to happen a certain way. Scripture never promises that God will offer specific plans for each Christian’s life. Yet God works His overall plan and purpose for the good of His people. 

A Quick Caveat About Free Will 
In fact, for many matters related to daily life, God gives His people freedom to make decisions. “Our churches teach that a person’s will has some freedom to choose civil righteousness and to do things subject to reason” (AC XVIII 1), our Lutheran forefathers confessed. Many daily decisions fall into this category, such as the clothing you wore this morning; even your career and spouse. And while your heavenly Father does send His holy angels to guard and keep you, their work is a far cry from a bureau of well-hatted men making minor adjustments to your life choices to keep you on “the plan.” 

It is in a spiritual sense that your will is “bound”: Apart from the enlivening work of the Holy Spirit to convict you of sin and create faith in your heart, you cannot understand spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14). You were dead in your trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1–3). You cannot earn His favor, for your righteousness is as filthy rags before Him (Isa. 64:6). You cannot choose God; rather, He chose you (Jn. 15:16). In this arguably much greater sense, you do not have free will, while in many earthly areas of life, decisions are left in your hands. 

The Problem with a Plan 
If God has a secret plan for your life that you must uncover, the essential problem is that this plan is, well, secret. Scripture does not spell out specific plans for your life. God has not hidden the plan in Hebrew codes for you to decipher. Perhaps a “still small voice” will direct you? This notion finds its genesis in Elijah’s attempt to escape Jezebel in 1 Kings. God finally speaks to him in a whisper. But like Jer. 29:11, nowhere does this passage promise that all Christians will receive direct revelations from God. What most people experience as a voice in the mind guiding them is simply the internal dialogue of a human being. For the Christian who regularly attends worship and is in the Word, this voice will have been trained by the Word . . . formed so that in the crucible of life, it desires the paths of God. But it’s not God speaking directly into the mind. 

This leaves the Christian who is searching for the “right path” with only his own experiences to help him determine whether he has found it. “God will make sure it’ll happen” or “God will let you know,” he’s told. In other words: If you choose the wrong path, you’ll be unhappy and won’t enjoy the work you’re doing. But eventually, you’ll figure out what you were supposed to be doing all along, and you’ll be happy. 

Do you know what else we call this thinking? Prosperity Gospel — using our material possessions and personal emotions to decode God’s attitude toward us. God never promises that you’ll be happy if you’re in the right career; He never promises that life with your spouse will be pure bliss. Indeed, cross and trial will come for every Christian. Jesus promised it (Matt. 10:38). 

The Right Choice 
At the same time, God does not leave us without guidance. Here are a few thoughts. 

God gives clear advice for vocations. He orders life for husband and wife, parents and children, parishioners and pastor. He may not tell you whom to marry, but He does direct husbands to love their wives as their own bodies, and wives to “submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (Eph. 5:22, 28). Study the Ten Commandments and the Scriptures. Does this potential career ask you to violate God’s commandments? Does it provide you an opportunity to serve your neighbor in a godly way? Review the Table of Duties in the Small Catechism. How would this potential career fit into those duties? 

Second, when it comes time to make career choices, you have options. We confess in the explanation to the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them”. God has given you freedom to use the reason He has given you. Ask these questions: Which careers fit your particular skills and interests, while also serving your neighbor? Which careers enable you to provide for a family, support your church and serve your community? 

Third, God has also settled you into a family and a community. Talk with your family, with your pastor, with wise members of your congregation. What advice do they have? What have your parents noticed about your abilities and interests, or about your potential compatibility with a spouse or a career? 

And with all this advice in mind, make the best decision you can. Know that God will work through you. When trial and struggle come — as they most certainly will — this is not a sign from God that you should stay or go. For that, turn to God’s Word. In marriage, conflict is not an opportunity to depart but to grow in love toward your spouse. In your career, trial can be the best opportunity for growth. Jumping from career to career is often not what’s best in serving your neighbor. Making the right choice, in the end, is not a matter of discovering a hidden plan, secreted away in the mind of God, but rather of being in the Word. Hear it preached. Read it regularly. In this beautiful gift, you are being formed and strengthened. From this place, make your decisions. And He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. 

VIDEO: Sunday, June 7, 2026 - Complete Service

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Audio: Announcements, Readings & Sermon for Sunday, June 7, 2026

AUDIO: Announcements, Readings and Sermon for Sunday, June 7, 2026

Rev. Mike Kettner

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Old Testament Reading -- Hosea 5:15—6:6 
I will return again to my place,
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,
and in their distress earnestly seek me. 

“Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes early away.
Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
I have slain them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment goes forth as the light.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. 

Epistle Reading -- Romans 4:13–25 
The promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. 

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. 

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the ninth chapter
As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. 

And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” 

Bell Choir -- Crown Him with Many Crowns (8:00 a.m.)