It’s only about the size of Rhode Island, but for at least 3,000 years, the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, an area that we now call the Holy Land, has produced more revelation, more religious fervor and more bloodshed than practically any comparable stretch of real estate on earth. And yet, few of us, even good, devoted Christians, know as much as we should about why or how. Perhaps that’s because we don’t spend as much time and effort on adult religious education as we should.

At Saint Nicholas, we put a lot of effort in educating our young people in the basics of the faith. We usually have a hundred or more youth in Sunday School and the saints who teach them are among our most effective and entertaining communicators (Andre Dangin and Carol Blatt are teaching the 5th graders – yikes, I wish I were a 5th grader again). I’m very proud of the work we do teaching our youngsters. Remember that last year the 8th graders won the Bible Bowl!

In this month’s column, I want to highlight the work we do teaching our adults, partly to encourage you to take advantage of all the adult education opportunities. We have, of course, the Sunday Exchange, led by Glenn and Ann Wolfgang. Very informal, with a membership that varies from week to week, this group talks about the sermon and the readings and what they meant to the people in the group that week. I sometimes visit (more often I wish I could be a fly on the wall), but the group talks about whatever it wants to and sometimes that doesn’t have much to do with that week’s sermon.

On Sundays at 10:15, there’s also a group meeting in Pastor Wendy’s study who are exploring a book “Honoring Our Neighbor’s Faith.” Led by Amaré Merz, each week the group learns the basics of a different faith or denomination. I’m going to try to sit in on some of these sessions. This kind of knowledge is so important in a world where we need to live peacefully with so many different groups.

Also Sunday at 10:15, Barbara Harris is leading a study of Kelly Fryer’s book “Reclaiming the ‘L’ Word.” The book is a very readable look at what is distinctive about Lutheranism. This book has been required reading for first year seminarians at Gettysburg partly because it gives a compelling and attractive vision for the way we want Lutheran churches to feel and act. Wednesday mornings beginning at 9:30 a.m., Barbara also leads a Bible study “The Red Words -- Jesus’ Words in Mark’s Gospel.”

Finally, I wanted to put in a plug for our Wednesday night Soup and Study. We meet on the first and third Wednesdays each month. This year we are looking at the role of the Holy Land in world history, religion, politics and destiny. As many of you know, Linda and I spent time in the Holy Land this past January with a group from the seminary. Yes, we’ll show some of our slides but there is so much material on the history and culture of the ancient Near East that we’ll be learning and discussing from a wide variety of sources. Come for a light soup supper at 6:00 p.m. and stay for discussion from 6:30 to 7:30. If you have high-schoolers, bring them along for the In Crowd who meet with us for a lively supper before their meeting. As meetings end, we all come back together refreshed and enlightened.

There are lots of opportunities for both our young people and our grown-ups to learn about the faith at Saint Nicholas. The next time you see Erika Demme, please thank her for helping to organize all of these wonderful learning opportunities.

Come join us!

P.S. Congratulations to Linda Gaertner on completing a full year as editor of Nicholas News!
(Thanks as well to all our great contributors, proofreaders, and production folks who make my job so easy. Ed.)

Pastor Greg