China Trip



	July 2, 2006

Greetings to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Hello, my name is Ryan A. Drevlow and on this website I will be chronicling my trips to China and England respectively. Over the month of June my home church, Zion, allowed me to serve as a summer vicar of sorts. It allowed me time to preach, teach and visit people in the hospitals and nursing homes. Here I am reading the days lessons at Zion Lutheran.



		Along with reading and helping with liturgy I also preached twice. My first message had to do with the Old Testament Reading found in Ezekiel 17:22-24. In this prophecy God speaks of the fact that he will plant a tender sprig upon a mountaintop one day, that being the nation of Israel back from their exile. But there is a reality that is even bigger made full in Jesus Christ who was our tender sprig planted the mountaintop of Calvary.



	God has a word of promise for the exiles in 722 BC but God also has a word of promise for Israel in the form of Jesus Christ and God has a word of promise for us in his word and sacrament ministry but this is not the last word God has for us. Someday, when the world is spent and you and I are lying in our graves, rotting and turning to dust. Christ will say one word and it will be, “Rise!” and we will rise to live in perfect bodies on a new heavens and new earth for all eternity.



				My second sermon was on Job 38:1-11 and had to do with what we call a “The Hidden God.” A difficult thing for Christians is to look at their grace filled loving God and wonder why bad things happen to good people. There is this hidden God out there that is punishing Job even when he doesn’t seem to deserve it. Well, God’s answer to Job is basically, “Who are you to question me?”

This world can make us want to question God’s justice and search for an answer and the answer is that God has revealed to us everything we need to know about himself in his word, miraculous signs and in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John 14:11 “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me” and also “…my Fathers will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” God asks us if we really want an answer and he gives us one, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him!”


	In addition to these two sermons I also led a bible study debunking the book The Da Vinci Code. This was a three tiered bible study designed to first talk of the trustworthiness of scriptures then to talk of the divinity of Christ in new ways and then finally to talk about various historical and artistic facts that help us to properly understand and refute ideas held in the book.

My first week at Zion, I also helped with VBS as a crew leader. I had six kids of various ages and they were a lot of fun but sometimes a bit too much energy for yours truly. This was a great experience and I was glad I could be a part of it.

Throughout my time spent at Zion, I was doing hospital, nursing home and assisted living visits for our members. This was extremely helpful and I feel as though I learned a lot. I feel much more comfortable with this process now that I have done it a few times.

My time spent at Zion was wonderful and special. The church had nice things to say about my preaching efforts and my other activities. It is has been such a blessing to work at Zion this summer.

Pax.
Ryan A. Drevlow drevlowr@csl.edu


	[Home] [About Zion] [Professional Staff] [News & Events] [Ministry] [Gallery] [Links] [Sermons] [Ryan Drevlow]