Advent Lutheran Church - Mentor, OH

We believe in a God of new beginnings.   We believe in a God of transformation.   We believe in a God of conversion and conversation.   We believe in a God that never wants to leave us the way we are yet He meets us just the way we are.

I believe that God is love and that we are born to live in this love for Him, our neighbor and ourselves.   All this said, we find ourselves facing a new year that provides opportunity for us to imagine a better us.    As a church, we too have the opportunity to imagine a better community of faith.   I believe that God desires His children to grow closer to Himself, His Son and His Spirit.   I feel that my call among you is to cultivate an environment where each and every one of you can grow in a closer walk with God, just as you are and just from where you are.

God desires to have a relationship with us through grace, which is His love active in forgiveness.   God through Jesus Christ wants to renew your mind, your heart, your soul, and your strength.   God wants to teach you to love others as you love yourself.

We are a people of renewal, reformation, recreation, and resurrection.    We are created to glorify God in our lives, to let our lives speak through our thoughts, words, and deeds.   It is with humble confession of our weakness and dependency upon God that we can find the courage to live love.

I want to invite each and every one of you to join me on a journey into the heart of God in 2008.   This is an intentional walk of faith – a missional walk - to know Jesus and to discover opportunities to live Christ’s love in our daily lives so that our lives speak of peace and joy.

My prayer is to grow deeper in my walk with Jesus.   I desire to empower you to be a priesthood of believers and to learn and experience a deeper accountability to God and neighbor.   I realize I can only lead by example, by knowing Christ and making Christ known.

I quote Paul from Philippians 3:7-14: Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.   8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.   For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ   9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.   10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death,   11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.   12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.   13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,   14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Let this be the beginning of our New Year ’s resolution to God and one another.   Amen.

Pastor Kovitch
(January 2008)

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I pray for Advent these days and I pray for each of you. I realize that the Holy Spirit is active and growing amongst us which means that all of us will grow according to the measure of our faith. Let this time of resurrection hope open our lives to the possibility of being more for God and others than we could ever imagine. Easter people are God's people of hope.

Let's pray about these important issues to our Advent family:

	To see our faith and spirituality as a vibrant and growing center of all of our lives;
	To commit to a solution and proactive-oriented ministry that celebrates what is right with our work together and God's work in us;
	To love God more deeply, to love our neighbor more fervently, and to love ourselves more intently;
	To grow in relationships with others, be they friend, stranger, even enemy;
	To learn more what our mission as a church means: To know Christ and to Make Christ Known;
	To invest more and more of our time, our talents and our treasures into the growing mission and ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ at Advent;
	To pay down our mortgage as we continue to invest in our mission and ministry (to see our mortgage as an expression of our faith in building classrooms to expand our ministry);
	To see the church as God's people, the body of Christ;
	To recognize the logical growth of our faith moving outside the walls of our comfort into the streets and shelters;
	To see worship not as an option but a hunger in Word and Communion as we give praises to God, which is a remedy for fear and,
	To pray and work to make this world a better place for the next generation.

Let Christ dwell within you richly and let Jesus be the teacher of how we conduct our church life. (Read the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters 5-7 as beginning key passages.)

Pastor Kovitch
(March 2008)

I, for one, wish to thank Pastor Larry, Pastor John, and Advent's dynamic leadership (both staff and council), especially over the last sixteen months.   We can count our blessings as a family of faith to have such dedication to the cause of Christ amongst us.   These days call for congregations to be creative with ministry so to reach an ever- changing world with the unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ.   It is a true gift to Advent that we have both Pastor Larry and Pastor John as support staff when the need arises.   I want to take this opportunity to share with you the roles that all three of us play as your pastoral team.    At our last council meeting, I asked that we clarify the roles to better inform the congregation.   As the full-time pastor of Advent, I felt it necessary to recognize and honor the blessing of both Pastor Larry and Pastor John as they serve us in unique capacities.   Here is what came forward:

Pastor Joseph Kovitch, Senior Pastor: He is the clergy responsible for Word and Sacrament ministry of worship and spiritual leadership.   He oversees staff and is the main leader in the vision and mission of lay leadership in fulfillment of the objectives of the greater congregation both within and outside our community of faith.   He is also the key part of all pastoral duties such as visitation, relationship building, teaching, preaching, education, etc.

Pastor Larry Mackey, Visitation Pastor: Due to his disability status and need to cut back to better serve both family and self, Pastor Larry is becoming more of an assistant to Pastor Kovitch with emphasis on visitation through the Care Team as well as selective Bible teaching and worship/preaching as his schedule allows.   He is a key asset to Pastor Kovitch and a wonderful pastor to Advent through visitation, preaching and teaching.

Pastor John Anderson, Pastor Emeritus: This in honorary title for a wonderful pastor who has served Advent so well in the past as well as the present.   Pastor John was the pastor of Advent for 13 years before Pastor Kovitch came, and he has been available to fill in when needed and when he isn't serving interim parishes in the North East Ohio Synod.   In order to thank Pastor John and to honor his service to Advent who is still a member of Advent with his wife Judy and family, this title recognizes his dedication as a servant of God and his willingness to fill in as a volunteer pastor as need arises.

Advent is blessed to have a variety of ordained servants; however, pastors are only one dimension of Advent as you are also called ministers of God.    This congregation is grounded in the fact that pastors are servant leaders and not the only workers in the service of the Lord.   Each and every one of us is a part of the whole of mission in knowing Christ and making Christ known.   As we enter a new year of ministry, we focus on growing spiritually, both relationally and in service.   Stay tuned for more opportunities to empower and equip your servant hearts and minds through prayer, study, and action.

In His Service,
Pastor Kovitch
(February, 2008)