1. education
2. school

A NEWSLETTER FOR MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF ST.
LUKE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH
IN DEVON PA
JUNE,Worship
2015
Outdoor
&
Annual Church Picnic
Dedication of our new labyrinth
Sunday, June 7
Worship at 9:30; the picnic follows.
For the Picnic:
Last names beginning with:
A-M bring sides or salads
N-Z bring desserts
Main course and Beverages provided. Dress
is casual. Please bring Your own lawn chairs
or blankets for worship and picnic seating.
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FIND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR?
Welcoming All
Worship this Summer
page 3
Equipping Everyone
Vacation Bible School
page 4
Serving Others
Global Mission News
Blood Drive
Feeding Thousands
page 5
page 6
page 7
Telling Our Story
Financial Summary
June Birthdays
page 9
page 10
CHURCH OFFICES: 610 688 0122
LOOK LINE (PRAYER REQUESTS) 610 688 LOOK (5665)
ONLINE AT WWW.SAINTLUKEDEVON.ORG
Lead Pastor, The Rev. Susan Ericsson 610-644-3835
[email protected]
Pastor for Youth, Family & Service, The Rev. Matt Staniz
[email protected]
Director of Church Music, Jack Charles, AIM 610-287-9366
[email protected]
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~ WELCOME EVERYONE ~
Summer Worship
9:30 a.m. Sundays
We continue with the one-service Schedule through Labor Day.
Summer Midweek Worship
Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.
in the Chapel.
Gather for Midweek Worship, a quiet evening service with Holy
Communion, Wednesdays July 1 through August.
It's a great opportunity for a different experience or for those who
may be out of town on the weekends.
Members of St. Luke bring the word at the services. This year’s
theme is “God’s Work, Our Hands”.
Rejoicing Spirits is a joy-filled worship service for children and
adults with developmental disabilities, their families, friends,
caregivers, and the St. Luke family. We rejoice this month on
Sunday, June 28 at 4:00 p.m.
We hold a Rejoicing Spirits worship service on the fourth Sunday
of every month at 4:00 pm … think of it as the fourth at four!
Our goal is to fill a spiritual need for those who may not be able to
attend church services in the community on a regular basis. You
can lean more at rejoicingspirits.org
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~ EQUIPPING EVERYONE ~
Vacation Bible School 2015
August 3-7 9:00 a.m. to noon
At G-Force, kids will experience God's Love in Action as they
explore how God puts our lives into MOTION! Each day will focus
on an ACTION WORD:
Move! Act!
Care! Follow!
Share!
Kids will have a great time exploring these ACTION WORDS
through Bible Stories, Games, Crafts, Music, Snacks and more!
VBS 2015 will include a water day (weather permitting), Thursday
evening program and Water Ice Social, and the opportunity
through our offerings to help purchase and support the packaging
of THOUSANDS of meals for Philabundance this fall.
VBS registration is open for children age 4 through 6th grade.
There is no registration fee for Vacation Bible School, but
registration is required by June 30, 2015. Go to
SaintLukeDevon.org and click on the “Register for VBS” button
on the home page. Offering donations (which will support the
purchase and packaging of the meals for Philabundance this fall)
can be made online or during VBS sessions.
Get involved!
There are a number of ways to be a part of
VBS. Teaching or assisting in the classroom, helping with
registrations, the music program, recreation, snacks, crafts –
Contact Pastor Staniz [email protected] for more
information or to help out.
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~ SERVING OTHERS ~
GLOBAL MISSION NEWS
HOST FOR A DAY.
The Global Mission team is looking for St. Luke
members who would be interested in hosting our
two visitors from Mikanjuni Lutheran Parish for a
day when they are with us in October 2015.
Hosts for the day will include driving guests to the local activities
on the itinerary for that day and eating lunch with them.
Tentative dates of the visit are October 3-11, 2015. If interested
in being a host, contact Nancy Shaw, team leader, at
[email protected].
Thank you St. Lukans for your generous contributions to
Compassion House at SEKOMU. SEPA Synod congregations raised
$13,000 for the new building!
The Summer Choir
Summer Choir begins Sunday, June 14 at the 9:30 service.
Rehearsal each Sunday morning runs from 8:45 to 9:15. The
anthems chosen for Summer Choir are easily learned in the halfhour rehearsal preceding the service. Please join us for this fun
filled experience.
Get a brief, short-term experience of joining the choir
Participate if Thursday evening rehearsals don’t work for
your schedule
Join in if you are home from school for the summer.
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~ SERVING OTHERS ~
BLOOD DRIVE
Friday, July 10
1:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Schlack Hall
MAKE YOUR APPOINTMENT TODAY!
Go to www.redcrossblood.org
and use sponsor code: stlukeofdevon
or see the article on the home page at SaintLukeDevon.org
Watch your Sunday bulletins for information about signing up
after Worship on Sundays
Summer Food Drive
We begin a collection of food for the Great Valley Food Cupboard
this month. In addition to the usual non-perishable goods, they
can use juice or juice boxes, cereal, crackers, snack items,
oatmeal, granola bars and honey at the moment. “Shopping lists”
are at the Welcome Center.
If you’re able to provide these for one of the 200 individuals
served each month by the Food Cupboard, please drop them off
in the box outside Schlack Hall. The GVFC is based in the Baptist
Church of the Great Valley, just up the road.
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~ SERVING OTHERS ~
In celebration of our
60th anniversary,
Saint Luke has committed to
package a total of 60,000 meals
during 2015. However, with
partners from throughout the community, the sky is the limit! 1012 people can package 2,000 meals in an hour. The ingredients for
those meals, along with everything needed for safe, clean
packaging, can be provided for $500 (yes, that's right: 25 cents per
meal!). St. Luke will be opening our doors to groups across our
community. All that is needed are people to package the meals
and funds to provide the ingredients and supplies. On Saturday,
October 17, 2015 (the week of World Food Day), volunteers will
gather at St. Luke Lutheran Church to package meals. Visit
SaintLukeDevon.org and on the “Feeding Thousands” article on
the home page you will find a link to sign up for a table (or various
other volunteer jobs). Interested groups should have a contact
person connect with us at [email protected] so that we
can work together to fight hunger. Funds to cover the cost of
ingredients and supplies ($500 per 2000 meals) must be raised
and sent to St. Luke Lutheran church on or before September 17.
If you know of groups through school, scouts, or local business
that you think would be interested in participating please get
them involved! We can provide written materials to distribute (or
just direct them to the website)! This event is fun, appropriate,
and meaningful for just about everyone! Elementary-school
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~ SERVING OTHERS ~
children can participate alongside adults. Senior citizens can work
alongside teenagers. Volunteers will work for approximately 2
hours, but most tasks are very simple to learn. Volunteers who
need to sit while working can be accommodated. Volunteers that
like to move around and carry big bags of rice or macaroni will
also have plenty to do! If you have particular questions for your
group, let us know!
Our past events have distributed food through both Philabundance
and Chester County Food Bank. We expect to work with these
groups and are also exploring the possibility to send some of the
meals to Liberia to continue relief efforts after the recent Ebola
outbreak. We are committed to making sure that every meal is
donated through channels that will quickly and effectively get the
meals to people who are facing hunger.
Please contact Meredith Moore ([email protected]) or
Pastor Matt with questions.
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Financial Summary
We are still facing a growing deficit, significantly larger than last
year, which is directly attributed to current giving being too low to
support the budget we adopted at our annual meeting in
February. Last year through the end of April our deficit was about
$15,000. This year we are facing a deficit of almost $84,000. This
larger than anticipated deficit has caused us to at least
temporarily curtail gifts to the Synod as well as the funding of our
Major Maintenance Reserve. In addition, all Councilors have been
asked to analyze their budgets for opportunities to reduce
spending. We prayerfully ask that you consider reviewing your
stewardship commitments especially as we approach the
summer. We do not want to reduce mission support or make
additional cuts to our programming, but those decisions may be
necessary. Any accelerated gifts in an effort to address our
deficit would be greatly appreciated.
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June Birthdays
1 Lynne d'Entremont, Megan Connors
2 Julie Lojek
3 Miranda Miller, Herta Flanagan, Joan Praplaski
4 Joanne Crozier, Stephanie Funk, Rob Loose
5 Katharine Gilbert
6 Judy Milby
7 Peter Shickel
8 Melora Bauman, Kelsey Loose, Laura Grace Ailor
9 Lois Mamourian, Hannah Kelly, Brayden DiPrinzio, Thomas
Slomeana
11 Lindsey Varrelman, Joyce Bustard, Roberta McCandless
12 Thomas Silvia, Jodi Donohue, Donna Weinstein
13 John Bernier
14 Karen Lenker, Anita Mayberry, Ryan Jones
15 Karen Vermillion, Alexandra Rokke
16 Carrie Stackhouse
17 John Nansteel
18 Don Christensen, Lukas Milby, Kaitlyn Williams-Koester, Ingrid
Spangler
19 Kenneth Cowperthwait, Mark DiPrinzio, Linda Brown
20 Jason Heid
21 Scott Clay, Anne Johansson, Marie Cuthbertson, Judi Silvia
22 David Baugher, Courtney Hanifan, Mike Derkacz
23 Robert McClay, William Houck
25 Ann Kruzel
26 Claire Jenkins, Avery Fuhr
27 Alessandra Russo, Allison Hickey
28 Deborah Clay, Monica Gilbert, Rebekah Houck, James Madden
29 Mark Reber
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~ TELLING OUR STORY ~
Jesus welcomes everyone –
No exceptions!
Jesus was famous for extending a radical welcome to everyone he
met, crossing over all kinds of human-made lines and boundaries.
Having received Jesus’ radical welcome ourselves, we extend that
same welcome to all people. At Saint Luke, every person’s identity
is recognized and celebrated as a gift from God –no exceptions!
Whatever our race, culture or color, we are welcome here.
Whatever our marital status, gender identity, sexual orientation,
age, political philosophy, physical or intellectual ability, we are
welcome here. If we are inked, pierced, both, or neither, we are
welcome here. When we come with squirmy toddlers, expressive
infants, or no kids, we are welcome here. Whether we have a
background in the Lutheran church, some other church, or no
church, we are welcome here. Whether we are excited about
what we believe, or are unsure if we believe anything, we are
welcome here.
This welcome extends to the celebration of Holy Communion:
Jesus welcomes everyone to his table -- no exceptions!
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