Weekly Sunday in-person worship at:
9:00 a.m. (Lopez Island), 11:00 a.m. (Friday Harbor), 1:15 p.m. (Orcas Island)
Livestreaming at 11:00 a.m.
Sermons and Reflections
Our Pastor
The Rev. Emma Donohew has been serving churches since graduating from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley California in 2012. She has served congregations in Seattle, Portland, and Bellingham, as well as guest preaching across the Pacific Northwest. In addition to serving as the Care Pastor for the Lutheran Church in the San Juans, Pastor Emma is the Mission Developer of Echoes, a 12-year-old experimental faith community that was founded at Bellingham Pride. Echoes considers the city their sanctuary. Each Monday evening they explore Dinner, Creative, Wild, Service, and Pub Church. Together they ponder how can we use our gatherings to invite people to share in God’s lavish love. When she’s not using spirituality as a lens for art and conversation, Emma can be found hiking in the North Cascades or beachcombing the shores of north Whidbey Island and Deception Pass, where she lives with her husband Eric and their dogs Madrona & Juniper.
You can reach Pastor Emma via email at pastoremmad@gmail.com
In addition to preaching a weekly sermon, Pastor Emma sends out short weekly reflections to parishioners of the Lutheran Church in the San Juans. These reflections cover scripture, current events, church news, and other items of interest. They are available below for inspiration and enjoyment.
Reflections-January 25 Nations wage war, gangs battle each other, families quarrel, communities of faith divide. We hear others say and even hear ourselves saying, “There is no other way.” In Jesus, the light of God’s kingdom draws near and a new way shines for us to follow. In Sunday’s gospel, Jesus first withdraws (Matt. 4:12). The word anachoreo (to withdraw) is used ten times in Matthew’s gospel—each time as Jesus’ response to violence or conflict. John the Baptist has been arrested, and tension is beginning to build. In Jesus, a new kingdom has drawn near, a kingdom of nonviolence and non-retaliation. Jesus’ withdrawal is not simply passivity but points to a vision of an alternate way of reigning as king. Jesus rules not with violence, abusive power, or through division but through voluntarily emptying himself of power, identifying with the oppressed and burdened, and healing that which is broken. Into this new reign, Jesus calls the disciples to follow him, a way that appears foolish and weak to those who cannot discern it. To those God calls, it is the wisdom and strength, the light and power of God. In the gospel for this coming Sunday, Jesus’ call of his disciples is like light shining into the darkness. I’ve been praying for the light when I can between zoom meetings, street protests, annual meeting paperwork, lobbying for overnight shelters to be open and sitting with those who can only ask “Why?”
Reflections-January 18 This start to the new year has been full, and serving two unique churches at the same time has its challenges. And this week when the annual paperwork for both communities is due, I am feeling a bit fatigued. Not to mention all that goes on in the world. So this week I am leaning on Jesus, the one who knows and understands our challenges. The one who feels our fatigue, our tiredness, our anger and our grief. May God continue to journey with us through all our emotions! A Prayer for the Tired, Angry Ones by Laura Jean Truman God, We’re so tired. We want to do justice, but the work feels endless, and the results look so small in our exhausted hands. We want to love mercy, but our enemies are relentless, and it feels like foolishness to prioritize gentleness in this unbelievably cruel world. We want to walk humbly, but self-promotion is seductive, and we are afraid that if we don’t look after ourselves, no one else will. We want to be kind, but our anger feels insatiable. Jesus, in this never-ending wilderness, come to us and grant us grace. Grant us the courage to keep showing up to impossible battles, trusting that it is our commitment to faithfulness, and not our obsession with results, that will bring in Your peace. Grant us the vulnerability to risk loving our difficult and complicated neighbor, rejecting the lie that some people are made more in the image of God than others. Grant us the humility of a decentered but Beloved self. As we continue to take the single step that is in front of us, Jesus, keep us from becoming what we are called to transform. Protect us from using the empire’s violence—in our words, in our theology, in our activism, and in our politics— for Your kingdom of peace. Keep our anger from becoming meanness. Keep our sorrow from collapsing into self-pity. Keep our hearts soft enough to keep breaking. Keep our outrage turned towards justice, not cruelty. Remind us that all of this, every bit of it, is for love. Keep us fiercely kind. Amen.
Reflections-January 9, 2026 This week has been rough, maybe there is such a thing as too much bad news. I’ve been sticking to this prayer these past few days: Don’t Give Up. Overwhelm is part of the empire’s playbook. Change is Possible. Together. God is with us. Don’t give up. As followers of Jesus. Hope is not always easy, but it persists: God's realm has and remains undefeated by all empires that have tried to crush it. Quietly growing wherever people choose love, generosity, and peace over power, greed, and violence. It is seen in acts of justice, in neighbors helping, and in resistance to Christian nationalism. We can’t control everything, but control our own choices, speaking truth, resisting domination, and building the alternative world Jesus proclaimed, one faithful step at a time. Hope endures not by ignoring our overwhelm, but recalling that empire is temporary. So I offer you this prayer or reverse prayer when things feel upside down: The "reverse prayer" of St. Francis by Rina Wintour & Pat Lavercombe Lord, make me a channel of disturbance. Where there is apathy, let me provoke; Where there is compliance, let me bring questioning. Where there is silence, may I be a voice. Where there is too much comfort and too little action, Grant disruption. Where there are doors closed and hearts locked, Grant the willingness to listen. When laws dictate and pain is overlooked… When tradition speaks louder than need… Grant that I may seek rather to do justice than to talk about it; Disturb us, O Lord. To be with, as well as for, the alienated; To love the unlovable as well as the lovely; Lord, make me a channel of disturbance. Amen. We continue to move forward in our process of hiring an administrator with Saint David’s in Friday Harbor and have interviews coming next week. Please say a prayer we find the right person to help us in the beautiful work of church administration that will aid not only in our multi-island coordination but also our transition process! Let me know if you have any Prayers. Blessings, Pastor Emma
Reflections-January 4, 2026 I hope that the New Year finds you well and your 2026 is off to a good start. Even during winter, light is returning, slowly each and every day. May you relish the lengthening light. And may this art and blessing find you. Katalambano -by Amy Scott Robinson When light shines in darkness, the darkness is gone. In darkness, light cannot be swallowed or won, Contained or attained, or explained, grasped or gained, Seized or perceived, acquired or obtained. The dark doesn’t get it. The dark hasn’t found it. The dark cannot wrap understanding around it, For darkness cannot comprehend light, or know it, Cannot overwhelm, overcome, overthrow it; The dark has not conquered or crushed or controlled it The dark doesn’t get it. The dark cannot hold it. In Jesus was life, and the life was the light, because He held life – lightly – So that we’d hold it tight. I am grateful that retired Pastor Dennis Conrad can preach and lead worship on San Juan and Orcas Island, and Pastor Marc Hander, the Community Engagement Manager of Lutheran Community Services NW (Bellingham) can lead on Lopez Island. I look forward to being back with you all next Sunday. Blessings to each of you, Pastor Emma
Reflections-December 27, 2025 I hope you all had a blessed Christmas! I am grateful to all who were on Island and able to attend our services on zoom, in person in Friday Harbor or on Lopez Island (a packed house at Center Church!) and those who were able to travel - I hope it has been filled with good things and ease of movement. I am working my way back from Bothell today grateful for time with family, good food and best of all naps. This week’s scripture is not an easy one, but it's an important part of the birth story of Jesus and the Holy Family. Christians know that Jesus was born to die for us; and thus, in our worship the reality of death is never far from our celebrations of life in Christ. The gospel this Sunday is the horrific story of Herod killing all the young children of Bethlehem in hopes of eliminating Jesus from the scene. It’s difficult and reminds us that there are always schemes at work trying to prevent God’s goodness and grace. Becky Moore shared this James Taylor song “Home By Another Way” at her Nativity Presentation earlier this month and it provides a good soundtrack to this week’s scripture where the Holy Family escapes to Egypt and the wise men find themselves warned to return home on a different path! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMNWOLzRgpI Come to worship: in the midst of death, we praise God’s steadfast love, and we receive the blessings God gives. "Blessing of the Innocents" by William Holman Hunt Hunt’s painting is the first of three versions of this unusual subject, which has its origins in the biblical narrative of the Flight into Egypt. When the final painting was exhibited, the artist provided an explanatory pamphlet. King Herod, threatened by the newborn “King of the Jews,” ordered the slaughter of all male infants in Bethlehem. Here the fleeing Holy Family is enveloped by “the embodied spirits of the martyred Innocents.” The infant directly below the Christ child displays his torn garment, a prefiguration of the wound in Christ’s side at the Crucifixion. “Airy globes” display Jewish dreams of the union of heaven and earth at the advent of the Messiah. In the largest bubble one can make out the sleeping figure of a patriarch with a “ladder or pathway up and down, which is traversed by the servants of God.”
Reflections-November 26, 2025 Contemplation and Pastoral Notes: Endurance Not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls. —Luke 21.18-19 The endurance of love is not superhero strength but faithfulness, kindness in the face of fear, love amid the unknown. And when we are too weak even to rise up, divine Love endures in us. Remain faithful to that light shining within you and despite all loss and suffering, your soul will be fully yours; you will not perish, you will endure. - Steve Garnaas-Holmes This Sunday’s scriptures deal with the challenges of life both in the past and those we deal with today. The Greek word translated here as “endurance” is ὑπομονῇ (hypomonē), and among the gospel accounts is only used by Luke. It is also clustered strongly in Romans and Revelation. It is difficult to wrestle with needing endurance to “gain our souls” when we may be tired, uncertain, or feeling helpless. By looking at communities of endurance in scripture and in our own recent history and our own contexts can offer a sense of encouragement in equal measure to the conviction these words can evoke from us. May we keep the faith and not give up hope.
The following pages provide access to sermons given by our former Pastor Beth Eden during her tenure at the church between 2018 and 2025. The section listings begin with the most recent sermons first and provide access to her sermons given yearly back to 2018.
2023
Coming Soon
2022
Coming Soon
2021
Coming Soon
2020
Coming Soon
2019
Coming Soon
2018
Coming Soon