Greetings from Swedlanda!
It’s starting to look and feel a bit like fall at Swedlanda. We have had quite a bit of rain over the past week, about 3 1/3 inches, so not much has been happening in the fields. Hopefully things will dry out soon. I think it’s time for me to bring my flowers in.
The Bowling Alone reference is a book written by Robert Putnam, a sociologist who believes that social capital is essential to communities and the church is the greatest repository of social capital; bonding capital is the glue which holds us together. The Sunday lessons reflect on how God has created us for relationships. We are made for one another and for God. “Blest be the tie that binds/Our Christian hearts in love.”
This Sunday we started our educational hour, which is held after church now. We had 20 people present and I think it went very well. We discussed a book called The Centered Life, written by Jack Fortin. It addresses several issues that people have been discussing. Fortin would refer to it as our fragmented lives, which means feeling too busy with no time to do things, feeling overwhelmed, and concerns about spending enough time with God in prayer or reading the Bible, and so forth. There was a lively discussion about many of these things. Fortin believes that the remedy for fragmented lives is to center our lives in Christ. So we are really talking about our Christian vocation. I hope you will join us at a forthcoming Sunday. Coffee and cookies are available too!
This past week, the women from the Palmyra Covenant joined the women of Swedlanda for their unit meeting. 
We had a nice meal and then the Covenant women provided the program: a very humorous song, a skit, and a trio. It was a very nice event.
I hope you are finding time to center your life on Christ. I will be gone for a week of vacation, so I don’t expect to have a blog next week.
God’s blessings,
Pastor Stewart
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