SERMON VIDEO - On A Journey Together - August 30, 2009

Sermon preached by Matt Staniz at Temple Lutheran Church. Includes reflection on recent ELCA Assembly decision to open rostered/ordained ministry to individuals in committed same-sex relationships. Also includes reflection on upcoming changes in the worship schedule at Temple Lutheran Church.

Bible Texts:

Deuteronomy 4:1–2, 6–9 (The Israelites believed the law was a divine gift that provided guidelines for living out the covenant. Moses commands the people to obey the law and neither to add to nor subtract from it. The Israelites are also to teach the law to their children and their children’s children.)

Mark 7:1–8, 14–15, 21–23 (Mark’s gospel depicts Jesus as challenging traditional ways in which religious people determine what is pure or impure. For Jesus, the observance of religious practices cannot become a substitute for godly words or deeds that spring from a faithful heart.)

James 1:17–27 (Christians are encouraged to listen carefully and to act on what they hear, especially by caring for those least able to care for themselves.)

Monica Staniz

TV Coverage of Pastor Matt & Mayor Nutter

The August 25th press conference with Pastor Matt Staniz & Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter for the ONE Campaign has been featured on the ONE.org blog and also through TV coverage on NBC 10 and ABC 6.

Watch the TV news coverage

Read the ONE blog coverage with video of remarks by Pastor Matt & Mayor Nutter


Sign the ONE Declaration & learn more at www.ONE.org

PICTURES & VIDEO - Pastor Matt & Mayor Nutter - ONE Campain Press Conference

Pastor Matt Staniz & Mayor Michael Nutter:

Philadelphia is a ONE City!

On Tuesday, August 25, Pastor Matt Staniz shared a press conference with Mayor Michael Nutter as Philadelphia was declared a ONE City. Cofounded by U2's Bono and other campaigners, the ONE Campaign was launched five years ago in Philadelphia.

With Mayor Nutter signing the ONE City proclamation, Philadelphia joins more than 130 cities across the nation working to mobilize public support behind initiatives to fight poverty, combat diseases like AIDS and malaria, put children in school and increase opportunity for those living in extreme poverty around the world.

MAYOR NUTTER'S REMARKS

PASTOR MATT'S REMARKS

Transcript of Pastor Matt's Remarks
Today is a good day in the "City of Brotherly Love". Today, Philadelphia once again lives up to that name by placing the name of our city side-by-side with the ONE Campaign, a movement more than 2 million strong committed to to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease. The ONE Campaign is a vital movement in the world today. It reflects the type of love that we must have for each other: a love that is reflected in justice, equality, and action. This is Philadelphia-style "brotherly love" at it finest!
I want thank Deesha Dyer and the volunteers she guided for making this day possible. Every letter, every phone call, every ounce of effort and every second of time that you gave has produced results. Thank you. Everything that begins today, begins because of you.

And thank you to mayor Michael Nutter for hearing Deesha and the volunteers. Thank you, mister mayor, for declaring the city of Philadelphia a ONE city. It really is a natural fit. It was just a few blocks east of this building on Independence Mall where the ONE Campaign was launched in 2004. A year later, it was few blocks up the Benjamin Franklin parkway where over a million of us gathered for "Live 8" and raised our voices to "make poverty history". Philadelphia has been at the heart of this movement. Today we proudly celebrate that this movement reflects the heart of Philadelphia.

This declaration is evidence of visionary leadership rooted in hope: hope for a future shaped by action today. As we celebrate this commitment to fight extreme poverty, mister mayor, we also look forward to working together, every one of us, to keep these promises being made today to our poorest sisters and brothers around the world. I am also convinced that as we make these commitments to the poor around the world, it will also guide our continued efforts to care for our friends and neighbors right here in the city of brotherly love. Raising a voice on behalf of the poor is how faith creates action, it is how compassion creates justice, it is how being concerned leads to changing things.

Today we stand together as ONE. We stand as ONE with the poor. We stand as ONE with the billion people trying to survive on less than a dollar a day. We stand as ONE with the thousands who are dying of preventable and treatable diseases. We stand as ONE with millions of people committed to changing these realities. Today we stand together as ONE Philadelphia. We are the city of brotherly love, and we are a ONE city!

A ONE Family: Pastor Matt Staniz, Monica Staniz, Amber Staniz

ONE Phildadelphia Press Event - August 25, 2009

Don't forget to come out for the ONE Philadelphia press conference with Pastor Matt Staniz and Mayor Michael Nutter on Tuesday morning!

The location of the event is Room #202 in City Hall (Mayor's reception room).

The event begins at 10:30am. Please plan to arrive between 10-10:15 so that we can make our presence as visible as possible.


Full info below:

Mayor Nutter to Declare Philadelphia a ‘ONE City’

ONE, launched in Philadelphia in 2004, joins again with city in fight against global poverty, disease.

Philadelphia, Penn.—On August 25, Mayor Michael A. Nutter will join local members of the global anti-poverty organization ONE to declare Philadelphia a ‘ONE City’ against global poverty and disease. Cofounded by Bono and other campaigners, ONE was launched five years ago in Philadelphia in an event at Liberty Mall.

With Mayor Nutter signing the ONE City proclamation, Philadelphia joins more than 130 cities across the nation working to mobilize public support behind initiatives to fight poverty, combat diseases like AIDS and malaria, put children in school and increase opportunity for those living in extreme poverty around the world.

The ONE City event comes five years after ONE was launched in May 2004 at a kick-off event and rally in Philadelphia. The event, held in front of Independence Hall, was attended by faith leaders, heads of leading anti-poverty organizations, African citizens and activists, celebrities and policymakers from the right and left.

Five years on, ONE is a grassroots advocacy organization with more than two million members, including thousands in Pennsylvania. ONE works closely with policy experts, African leaders, and anti-poverty activists to support initiatives that are saving lives and helping the world’s poor secure access to basic needs in order to make a better life for themselves and their children.

What: Philadelphia declared a ‘ONE City’

Who: Mayor Michael A. Nutter
Deesha Dyer, Philadelphia ONE Leader
Pastor Matt Staniz, Temple Lutheran Church, Havertown

Where: Philadelphia City Hall Room #202 (Mayor’s Reception Room)

When: 10:30 a.m., Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Contact: Brian Sweeney, ONE Field Organizer, brian.sweeney@one.org , 717.644.3034

In just the last several years, America’s global poverty-fighting and disease-fighting efforts have delivered historic results. U.S. support for programs like PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria—initiatives backed strongly by ONE and its membership—have contributed to putting nearly 4 million people living with HIV/AIDS globally on lifesaving medicines, up from just 50,000 people in 2002. Millions more are surviving malaria thanks to the delivery of bed nets and medicines by U.S. and other donors. Some 34 million more children living in sub-Saharan African countries have gone to school for the first time, largely thanks to simple debt relief.

ONE is a global advocacy and campaigning organization backed by more than 2 million people from around the world dedicated to fighting extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. For more information please visit http://www.one.org/
Monica Staniz

SERMON VIDEO - Grown Up Faith: Knowing Jesus...Together

Sermon preached by Matt Staniz at Temple Lutheran Church in Havertown, PA on August 2, 2009.

Sermon title: Grown Up Faith: Knowing Jesus Together



Scriputure text: Ephesians 4:1–16

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it is said,"When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people."(When it says, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.
Monica Staniz

SERMON VIDEO - Beyond Us, Yet Within Us

"Beyond Us, Yet Within Us"- Sermon preached by Matt Staniz on July 26, 2009 at Temple Lutheran Church in Havertown, PA.



Sermon Texts:
John 6:1–21(feeding of the 5,000)

Ephesians 3:20–21"Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
Monica Staniz

PASTOR MATT TO GIVE REMARKS WITH MAYOR NUTTER

Pastor Matt has been invited to speak at an August press conference hosted by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter announcing Philadelphia's designation as a ONE city. The ONE Campaign is a worldwide effort to end extreme poverty.

On behalf of the ONE Campaign, Pastor Matt invites you to attend the press conference on Tuesday, August 25th, 10:30 AM at City Hall. If you commit to attending, you will receive a free ONE T-Shirt to wear to the event. Please sign up at the church or RSVP to Pastor Matt with your T-shirt size by Sunday, August 2nd.

SERMON VIDEO - Holy Time in an Overscheduled World

Sermon preached by Matt Staniz at Temple Lutheran Church, Havertown, PA on July 19, 2009.



Sermon Text: Mark 6:30–34, 53–56

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

Sermon Webcast - Wake Up, Dead Man

VIDEO - Pastor Matt Preaches at SEPA Assembly

Here is the video of Temple Lutheran Church's pastor Matt Staniz preaching at the 2009 SEPA Synod Assembly on May 9, 2009. The sermon is based on Acts chapter 17 (Paul visits Athens).



Highlights of the 2009 SEPA Synod Assembly are available online at http://sepaassembly.info/09.