From Pastor Eric’s Study – September 2025

As the years go by it seems like time is steadily accelerating. When I was a child, I remember summer feeling like a season that lasted a year, and now it feels like it flashes by in only a matter of weeks. Our perceptions of the world are constantly changing. With time, the unfolding journey offers ever fuller glimpses of gratitude, and it always challenges us with the progression of change.

Our faith speaks at its heart of God's constancy, of a love that is woven into the fabric of creation, a love that never gives up on any part of that creation. Last week, as I was canoeing in the Canadian wilderness with family and friends, I was captivated by a family of loons. The gift of time allowed me to sit on a rock and watch the two parents coach their little chick in diving and fishing. The last day there was this tender moment when one of the parents popped up from the depths with a small fish in its beak and began swimming across the lake to a visibly excited chick. Growth comes with change and learning; it also is interwoven with extraordinary compassion. At our best this is how we navigate change together as a community as well. We watch out for one another, we nurture those who are still learning, we learn from those who are around us with wisdom or a fish to offer. We keep reminding each other that through it all, God’s love is integral to the fabric of our journey.

Another season is quickly upon us, and this fall we will be embracing another change at Peace Church. The council has decided that it is best for us to continue with a single service at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings. I’m grateful for the wonderful participation that we had from the congregation when we surveyed people’s feelings about one or two services. I was also overwhelmed with the majority of responses being that people would adapt to what was deemed best. Clearly any choice of service time was going to have a few detractors… they always say “you can’t please everyone.” Still, we continue on the journey together hopefully watching out for and nurturing one another. I pray that our simplifying to one service will give us a chance to more fully live into our unity as a community. I also hope that it simplifies some of the demands of volunteers. Sunday School and Pre-Confirmation will resume during this 9:00 am worship time starting September 7th. This will be “Rally Day” with a celebration as a part of the service and classes. We’ll give thanks for being regathered and into the rhythm of our program year.

We will also have a chance to “bless the backpacks” during worship on the 7th. Please bring your pack or bag so that we can offer a blessing that reminds us that we never journey alone.

As always when we engage in times of change, it is important that we keep communication open. Let the council and your pastors know what is working, what is not working. God's not done with us yet, and we’re certainly not done growing and learning as a community of God's people.

May God bless us in this season’s changes!

From Pastor Eric’s Study – August 2025

By the time that you read this we will be celebrating the REVEREND Jakob Kröner as a newly ordained pastor. It has been an incredible journey that has led him to being ordained within the United Church of Christ, and here at Peace Church. Early in his conversations about staying in the United States and pursuing ordination within the UCC, we encouraged Jakob to speak to the leadership of the German church- where he was ready to be ordained- to share his sense of call to pursue ordination here. Their response was incredibly faithful and humbling as our German partners affirmed that God was doing a wonderful new thing. They celebrated where God was leading Jakob and offering new possibilities for all of us.

The life of the church is always God’s – it is to be Spirit led. Oh, there are plenty of times when those who lead and serve the Church grow impatient waiting on God and take things into their own hands. Shoot, even Sarah and Abraham grew impatient waiting on God's promise. That is not the church at its strongest. Instead, we are strongest when we open ourselves to what God is doing in our midst. We often find God showing up in unexpected ways, like a German Vikar being ordained among us. Our proclamation that “God is Still Speaking” requires that we are still listening.

Part of the Rite of Ordination includes the laying on of hands and inviting the Holy Spirit to claim the minister and ministry to which we all bear witnesses. The clergy gathered lay their hands upon the ordinand in a tradition of “Apostolic Succession.” Some traditions are much more detailed in the ways that they trace the lineage of hands laid-on all the way back to the disciples (it’s like genealogy for nerdy clergy types). Within the UCC we simply accept that each generation has shared in passing on the blessing received to those who follow. Usually, many generations are present at any ordination coalescing in that moment when we participate in passing on the mantle, the blessing, to those who will join in humbly serving God and the Church. At first glance it may seem like it’s all about the one being ordained, when really it is always about the way that God is still faithfully at work in the world throughout the generation.

For thousands of years God has been calling teachers and prophets, servants of God to care for and inspire the people of God that together we might continually bear witness to God's love in the world.

In Jakob’s ordination (as in the ordinations at Peace of Eric Ogi, Gretchen Martin, and Susan Kolb) we should be humbled that God is still choosing to show up and work through us. The celebration in which we share is a beautiful acclamation that God isn’t anywhere near done with us yet. We are invited, each of us, to be participants in nurturing and celebrating God's gifts as they unfold among us.

Rev. Jakob Kröner is called and ordained to a particular form of ministry, but every single part of the church is called to be a part of the priesthood of all believers – to be ministers wherever they are, in whatever they do, joining hands with the faithful through the ages in order to share the extraordinary love of God that is offered to the world.

I celebrate each of us being woven into the sacred story of God. May God bless us among the timeless threads of God's grace.

From Pastor Jakob’s Study - June/July 2025

The moments that define our life are moments of transition, of change, of achievement, or of loss. When something breaks into our lives, often something we did not look out for, for better or worse, it rearranges our reality, opening new options, and closing off others. Ordination is one such moment, an unrepeatable and unique moment. A moment that suddenly feels so close, after such a long time, it’s almost surreal.

Technically, of course, I am not yet approved for ordination – in fact, some of you who read this will have a hand in that approval I hope for, as you get to cast a vote on my fitness to be a minister of the United Church of Christ during my Ecclesiastical Council on June 29. In the afternoon, at 2 pm, I will lead a short worship, there will be introductions and greetings from the conference, and then I will present my ordination paper. After this first part, everyone present will be able to ask me questions regarding my spiritual path, my pastoral experience, and my theological education. Then I leave the room, and people will vote.

It’s been a long way. My path has been a meandering, somewhat disoriented one, not a straight arrow heading to a specific target, more a caterpillar heedlessly eating from this leaf and that, mostly blind to its surroundings or any ultimate purpose of its path. Whether I transitioned into a chrysalis or even a butterfly (or a moth!) by now I’m not sure. When I first picked up my studies I certainly didn’t see myself in ministry, let alone being ordained in any church. Like Jonah, one of my favorite Bible characters, I ventured all kinds of places, before grudgingly giving in to God’s call. Unlike Jonah, however, once I answered, I loved every minute of it (well, almost every minute). In fact, even if I would like to be with the Lord above all, I will answer for a million more years, if that is His wish. I have been called. I must answer.

Just like my namesake Jakob in the Bible (yes, in German his spelling is like my name), my path led me to all kinds of quirky places. It is not lost on me that I spent my first two adventures abroad in the most significant cities of Christian history – namely Jerusalem and Rome. Now, close to this pivotal moment in my journey, I feel blessed to have made such experiences in these places, places that are imbued with our collective past, the land of our spiritual fathers and mothers, Israel, and the city that still houses the leader of Catholic Christianity, Rome, unbroken – if not unshaken – lines of religious history, all the way back to Abraham when he first ventured forth from his father’s house.

But I didn’t discover my love for ministry in any grand city of the world, Berlin included, but in a tiny village, not unlike the one I grew up in. It was a fearful step, that one. After a decade of studies, to step back into the countryside, away from the center of everything important, away also from the noise. I took a chance. Whenever I went back to my home village, Kahlwinkel, I felt the dark, brooding shadows of the past haunt me. In fact, I had worked so hard to have a chance in the real world, to live a life of scholarship in places of import!

Again and again, God calls us to the margins. He calls us to the places we don’t dare to look at, even the places that haunt us. He takes our hand as we confront our inner demons, spectres, and, yes, our inner, wounded child. But moving to the village of Arnsdorf for my Vicariate was no confrontation at all, as I feared – it was a time of healing, of spiritual spring, of learning. And even then, God had even more funny ideas – why don’t we take this one step further and you serve in a village on the other side of the globe? Huh!

Dare I say that Eric and I have been each others’ answer to our prayers? I was looking for a mentor, a brother in Christ to further guide me in the arts of ministry, and I wonder if Eric was looking for a supporting figure alongside his own call, someone to help take on our post-Covid work in the church. But that would be his story to tell.

As I’ve said many times before, and never enough, my experience since arriving here has been nothing short of amazing. The joy with which I was welcomed into the Peace family, and gradually into Cedar and other places beyond, has been overwhelming. As I’ve also said before, in Germany I often had to earn my place. It took years to enter people’s hearts. Here I felt like I got the skeleton key handed to me on the doorstep. “Come right in! Also, have some pizza.” It confused me, because I felt loved without even having done anything for it. Oh right… that’d be grace. Like, that idea this whole Christianity thing is all about.

So yeah I see very much an unbroken – if not unshaken – line from Jerusalem to Rome to Berlin (so far, so good) to Arnsdorf (??) to Kewaskum (??!!). I am Jakob, the wanderer, and I’ve seen my share of ladders to heaven, and the most unlikely places to say: “Truly, the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it!” (Genesis 28:16)

I would feel honored to once again have your support in this part of my journey, whatever the next step down the road will be. I’m sure God has his own ideas about that. Usually there’s no spoilers as to what’s next. But Jakob got all the reassurance he needs: “I am with you and will protect you wherever you go. I will not abandon you without having done all –” (Genesis 28:15)

It’s okay, Lord. You had me at “I am with you.”

God bless you all as we journey into this summer.

Pastor Jakob

From Pastor Eric’s Study - May 2025

Christ has Risen! This proclamation might continue to ring in our ears for some weeks as we continue in this season of Easter. This year I was delighted to receive “Christ has Risen” on Saturday from Berit in New Zealand and the Walkers in Korea, what a delight to begin hearing that announcement ring out around the world a day ahead of us. This is a time when we keep thinking about how the story of Jesus' resurrection is relevant in our lives today. Easter is a celebration of hope, of new life, and the power of love, the affirmation of how non-violence triumphed over fear and the addiction to power and bullying-violence that fueled it. In Jesus’ day it was the triumph of God over the ways of the Roman Empire and their oppression of those who didn’t support them. Easter is the proclamation that choosing the power of love over the love of power actually works. Our story sometimes feels like a fairy tale. Still, the Easter proclamation is a power that sustains us profoundly on life’s journey.

In this hemisphere it always feels like creation is joining in the Easter proclamation as crocus blossoms fill the front yard and daffodils and lilies begin pushing up. This year, with Easter arriving so late, the weather and sun’s lengthening days all reinforce the feeling that creation is sharing in the glorious witness. This year those thoughts were given pause while talking with Berit in the southern hemisphere. I’m reminded that not all people get to see the same signs around them. Down-under, the days are shortening and fall is unfolding. It makes me wonder how churches decorate for Easter, or think about all of creation joining in the exultation. It is a clear reminder that our Easter promise isn’t rooted in external realities but rather, in an unseen promise of a love of God that will not end.

Last week we finished a four-part series on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The last session spoke of how his faith sustained him as he was imprisoned by the Nazis for having been involved in underground operations trying to smuggle Jews to safety. He was imprisoned for trying to live his faith. From prison he wrote: “I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use of everything. I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us to resist in all time of distress. But he never gives it in advance, lest we should rely on ourselves and not on him alone.” Bonhoeffer spoke of a depth and humility of faith that can too easily get lost in a world that abuses faith for political ends instead of relying on it as the strength to live God's kingdom ways.

In our study we also encountered a quote from Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl who wrote: “the last of the human freedom – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way … Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.

Our world is not always crocuses and daffodils and lengthening days. Lots of times the world feels dark and fearful, broken and exhausting. And Easter’s proclamation bursts into that world even more vigorously. Love is the answer. The selfless, humble way of Jesus wins over and over again.

The proclamation of Easter isn’t dependent on external forces of seasons or proclamations. It is the transformative love of God that we are invited to proclaim with the fullness of our beings. We are directed to live out the command of Maundy Thursday, to love one another as Jesus loves us. The resurrection is the proclamation of a grace for all - without cost, without prejudice, or division, dehumanizing or the diminishing of another. The resurrection promises power to Jesus’ demand to love one another. The cost of that radical, extravagant love was death. But the story of God in which we find hope to be bold, is that He has indeed Risen! That is the victory of Jesus way over the ways of the empire and a broken world. May we choose that freedom and that proclamation.