Church Update:
Sunday School starts at 9:15 am and Worship will follow at 10:30 am . Worship services will be filmed and live-streamed on Facebook.
Welcome to Zion’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of Perry Township.
We hope that you find this site to be helpful in learning about our church, activities, and committees. Visitors and new members alike are always welcome at Zion’s Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Sunday Services – 10:30 am
Sunday School – 9:15 am
(No Summer Sunday School June – Aug)
Zion’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
Where there’s always something exciting happening.
Letter from Pastor Stephanie:
As we move through the Easter season, the church calendar gently carries us toward Ascension and Pentecost—two moments that remind us that God is still at work even when life feels uncertain, stretched, or in-between. This year, those themes feel especially close to my heart.
Recently, as many of you know, my husband was hospitalized for 27 days. Anyone who has sat beside a hospital bed knows how time begins to feel different there. Days blur together. Waiting becomes its own kind of work. Hope and fear often sit side by side in the same chair.
In the middle of this season, I found myself returning again and again to the words of Julian of Norwich, who wrote during a time of plague, uncertainty, and upheaval:
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
Julian did not write those words because life was easy. She wrote them because life was hard. She wrote them because suffering was real and loss was near. Yet she believed—deeply—that God’s love held the final word.
That promise echoes beautifully in the season ahead.
Ascension feels like a strange celebration at first. Jesus departs. The disciples are left looking up at the sky, wondering what comes next – a moment of holy uncertainty. They are between what has been and what will be.
If I’m honest, that is exactly what hospital hallways felt like.
In between test results.
In between treatments.
In between prayers whispered and prayers answered.
The disciples must have felt that same mixture of confusion and hope. Jesus tells them to wait. To trust. To believe that God’s story is not finished yet.
And then comes Pentecost.
The waiting gives way to wind.
Silence gives way to voices.
Fear gives way to courage.
The Holy Spirit arrives not as a gentle whisper, but as a rushing promise: You are not alone.
This is the movement of our faith.
From uncertainty — to promise.
From waiting — to presence.
From fear — to courage.
During those long hospital days, I experienced Pentecost through you. Through prayers, cards, messages, and quiet acts of care. Through the steady reminder that the Spirit moves powerfully through community. You have been the rushing wind.
Julian of Norwich also wrote that “the greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.” Some days that gladness feels easy. Other days it feels like an act of faith. But it is always rooted in the same truth: God is present, even here. Especially here.
As we journey toward Ascension and Pentecost together, may we remember that the disciples’ story is also ours. We are a people who wait. A people who hope. A people who trust that God continues to breathe life into weary hearts and anxious days.
And so we hold on to the promise:
All shall be well.
Not because life is simple.
Not because the road is easy.
But because God is with us in the waiting—and the Spirit is already on the way.
With gratitude for your prayers and with hope in the risen Christ,
Pastor Stephanie
Reminder
Join us for Sunday School at 9:15am
With Worship to follow at 10:30am