Shepherd's Gate VISION OF MINISTRY Caring for the whole person in Christ’s name. Volume 16 Issue 10 Table of Contents Notes from the Pastor Birthdays Anniversaries Board of Elders Sunday School MDO Ladies Guild Scrip Cards Stewardship Thrivent Greeters Ushers October, 2014 Page 2 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 7 Page 8 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 14 Page 14 2 2 No matter how much we'd like to, the one thing we cannot change is the past. It's kind of a hard truth if you think about it. Some time ago, I noticed the phrase "things I regret" trending on twitter. People were expressing regret over all sorts of strange decisions. Wearing skinny jeans, watching Twilight, tweeting about watching Twilight. Others were a bit more personal. Things like not being honest, trusting the wrong person, hiding an addiction, or hurting someone they love. The truth is, we all have a list like this. A list that speaks to the painful residue that lingers from a broken relationship, a secret sin, or a destructive habit. Save the occasional tweet, these are not the stories we like to share with others. And yet they are part of our lives nevertheless, even if they have been tucked away somewhere deep in our hearts. I travel a lot and inevitably, bags are lost. I hate it. So I recently found myself back at the airport baggage claim surrounded by bags that had been left behind or remained unclaimed. It reminded me of how much I wish there was a place where I could drop off or leave behind all the "baggage" from life and live freed from pain or regret. Unfortunately, that's not how the grace of God works. The Bible doesn't promise that God will make all new things. What it promises is that God can make all things new. That means that while God does not erase our past, God can redeem it, no matter how much baggage we have accrued. The Bible is filled with stories of people with redeemed baggage. Abraham's fear, Jacob's deception, Judah's affair, Ruth's background, David's adultery, Peter's betrayal. The list goes on and on and on. As we celebrate the Reformation we thank God for a man named Martin Luther who brought us back again to Christ, His cross, His death and resurrection as the only means of salvation. Luther, with all his baggage of sin, knew he could not on his own drop them off. He knew he needed a Savior. As he opened the word of God, he discovered the amazing message that we are saved by Grace alone through faith by the amazing death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. At the cross our bags of sin have been dropped and paid for by the blood of Christ. This truth changed Luther and Christianity and brought us back again to the clear teachings of scripture. So why not you? Why shouldn't the next great story of redeemed baggage and life transformation be yours? God does not want this year to be just a repeat of last year. He wants this year to be the 3 2 turning point. The time when you find true forgiveness for that sin, true freedom from that habit, true healing of that hurt. But to get there you have to stop ignoring the past or burying it away inside. You have to bring it to Jesus and ask him to make something new and redemptive and beautiful through it. Will this be easy? No. Will it require a pride-swallowing, help-seeking, God-trusting attitude? Absolutely. But if you take the call of Jesus seriously, it means you won't be the same person a year from now that you are today. AND… it means the baggage you're carrying from the past--no matter how heavy or painful--need no longer define your present or determine your future. Dr. Salminen, Pastor 4 2 OCTOBER BIRTHDAYS NAME DATE Chelsea Connolly Marylu Boettger Wendy Hoskins Amanda Hicks Jessica Beaufore Brennon Rommeck Blake Roll Joyce Caulkins Ryan Randolph Sandy Henry Hunter Long Gary McCallister Nichole Thornton Camden Armbrustmacher Max Wardin Megan Brandt Ginni Brzak Becky McKean Eunice Teidt Dick Miller Mary Rappuhn Andy Deveau Alexis Ernst Haylie Gingrich Marilyn Miller Dylan Seidel Amy Anderson Amy Davis Carol Andrews Tammy Baumgardner Abigail Brewer Chuck Nobis Bruce Biship Rebecca Park Aaron Mitchell 10/3 10/5 10/5 10/6 10/8 10/9 10/9 10/10 10/10 10/11 10/11 10/12 10/12 10/14 10/14 10/15 10/15 10/15 10/18 10/20 10/20 10/21 10/21 10/21 10/22 10/22 10/23 10/23 10/24 10/25 10/25 10/27 10/28 10/28 10/30 5 2 OCTOBER ANNIVERSARIES MARRIED Douglas & Krista Heyer Matthew & Amanda Buck Bruce & Barbara VanVleet Lisa & Thomas Roy Carl & Patricia Seidel Jamie & Sarina Rincker Scott & Rebecca DeWitt Chuck & Constance Nobis Mike & Debbie Paradise Jeff & Jamie Armbrustmacher Michael & Stephanie Boettger David & Sharon Zell Chris & Victoria Zell Wm. Scott & Dana Flegler Michael & Sandra Henry Kenneth & Liz Nobis Jerry & Nancy Pacholke Sr. DATE YRS 10/1 10/2 10/2 10/3 10/3 10/4 10/11 10/11 10/12 10//16 10/21 10/22 10/23 10/25 10/25 10/28 10/30 20 4 54 27 44 11 11 34 12 21 8 48 10 17 17 48 30 6 2 Board of Elders By: Duane Davis If you have any questions or concerns, or would like a visit or any spiritual care, please let your Elder know. In addition, Duane is also available to answer any questions or concerns. Contact Elders on 989-224-6796 Elder Family List Duane Davis, Head Elder Triantaflos, Michelle – Zimmerman, David Allen Bebow Brewer, Joshua – Dunigan, Richard Darrell Buck Martens, Sara – Motz, Jan Dan Harry Kartes, Jessica – Martens, Elwin Al Hayes Anderson, Earl – Bower, Al Bill Mayers Griffith, Patty – Johnson, Jennifer Robert Mitchell Duquette, Lloyd – Griffith, Joan Matt Nobis Motz, Nicole – Reed, Becky Eric Thompson Rickman, Kris – Sherrill, Eugene Aaron Park Smalldon, Harold – Tiedt, Eunice 7 2 Sunday School by Judy Roll Our Sunday School program, Knights and Roses, is once again in full swing. The program started with a special craft designed to help the children understand the capital campaign. Each child has decorated a jar to keep at home and used to collect change. Once a month, all the children can come forward during offering and put their “Building for Jesus” money in a container we will station at the front of the church. Our hope is that the children can feel a part of this great event in our church, while at the same time working towards their mission patch. If you would like to have a jar in which to collect the spare change in your household, we have extra jars. See Judy Roll for your “Building for Jesus” jar. MDO (Mother’s Day Out) by Judy Roll Mother’s Day Out resumed on Tuesday, September, 9th. This year’s program includes the familiar face of Stephanie Boettger, who joined the team last January. New to our kids, is Debbie Paradise who recently retired from RESA. Each comes with the experience required to provide our Mother’s Day Out children with the love and nurturing environment that will help the little ones to grow as little lambs of Jesus. We look forward to all the fun and activities that are sure to take place this fall at St. John’s Lutheran Church’s Mother’s Day Out program. Please invite everyone you know who has a toddler/preschooler to consider enrolling their child in MDO. We will once again focus on early childhood socialization skills, turn taking and letter/number recognition. These activities are accomplished thru independent and organized games, art and play. Classes are on Tuesdays and Wednesday from 9:30 am to 12 pm. Visit our website at www.sjlutheranchurch.org for registration forms or contact Judy Roll at the church office for more information. 8 2 Ladies Guild & LWML News By: Nita Terpening LADIES GUILD NEWS The regular meeting of the Ladies Guild was held on September 8 with seven ladies present. We appreciate the dedicated ladies who continue to come to the meetings. At the same time, we continue to issue an invitation to all the ladies of the congregation to join us in the Fellowship Hall on the second Monday of each month. We meet at 10:00 and are usually finished by 11:30. Our meetings are casual and friendly. Won’t you think about coming? FAREWELL TO OUR FRIEND, JOAN GRIFFITH Joan seldom attended our meetings but she did contribute to the success of our Cookie Walk. She made so many great cookies over the years, and it was help like this which we appreciated so much. Without the help from people like Joan, we would never survive because our group is so small. Joan was one of our “silent Ladies Guild members” and we will miss her a great deal. Our condolences to her family. MITES COLLECTION DATE CHANGED The new date for MITES collection is OCTOBER 19. It had originally been scheduled for Oct. 5. Please put October 19 on your calendar as the date to bring in your MITES boxes. THANK YOU Thank you to our anonymous donor who gave us $100 for quilting supplies. Your generosity is greatly appreciated. Incidentally, this is the third time that this family has given a donation to the Ladies Guild to be used for quilts. 9 2 LAYETTES FOR LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF (LWR) We completed 28 layettes to be sent to LWR with our quilts in October. This will be the last year we do the layettes because LWR is getting very picky as to what they will accept. In the past, we had several ladies who would garage sale and find gently used baby items which we used in the layettes. However, we are down to just one or two ladies going to these sales. Baby items are getting very scarce to find so we have had to either buy or make these items. Plus, we must enclose four cloth diapers in the layettes and these diapers are getting very expensive. Often we can’t find them in the stores. Therefore, we will no longer be accepting items for baby layettes. We suggest if you have anything you wish to donate, you contact the Baby Pantry or give it to Safe Center. QUILTS Our 100 quilts are completed for Lutheran World Relief for this year and are ready to be shipped. In addition to the quilts, we also have three blankets that will be sent. We have already started working on quilts for next year so if you are interested in helping, please come to the church on Monday mornings. We meet in the basement and would welcome help in cutting blocks, sewing, or tying off the quilts. No experience is necessary, we will give you training in doing these jobs. We are in need of material and thread for making the quilts. Also, if you have any sheets, we would appreciate receiving them. We never turn anything away. NEXT MEETING Our next meeting will be October 13 at 10:00 in the Fellowship Hall. We will be discussing our Cookie Walk/White Elephant Sale which is scheduled for November 15. We hope you have been searching your recipe boxes for some good holiday cookies to bake. If you aren’t into baking fancy cookies, we welcome any other kind. The community response to our Cookie Sale has been wonderful and cookies of any kind are snapped up. 10 2 Scrip Cards by Judy Roll What is Scrip? Scrip is a fundraising program currently being used by our church for our education programs. All you have to do to get on board is purchase gift cards for things you would normally buy. In turn, our congregation receives a rebate for those cards ranging from 1% to as much as 16% of the face value of the card. Paper order forms for scrip are available at the church or for those of you who are more computer savvy, simply go to www.shopwithscrip.com and check out all of the participating retailers. There are just under 700 to choose from. If you would like to place an order online, simply enroll using our organizations enrollment code BB99516D3418L and order away!!!! Cards ordered by Wednesday AM will be in the church office by Friday and can be paid for by check, cash or thru online prestopay. Also, check out our list of “In Stock Scrip Cards”. These cards are in stock and ready for purchase at the church office Monday thru Wednesday from 9 am to 3 pm. In addition to those times, cards can also be purchased after each Sunday morning worship and following Monday evening worship. 11 2 Stewardship by Marilyn Miller Giving Sacrificially During this Capital Campaign we are being asked to consider sacrificial giving. Our ordinary support of this congregation is through tithes and offerings, but sacrificial giving is something much more extravagant. Makoni described sacrificial giving as “the act of strategically giving something precious and costly or something one can barely afford as an act of worship and devotion to God. It is well considered but painful giving, giving up something, time, talent, life, treasure…often marked by extravagant and reckless abandon—cannot be frequent!” Sacrificial giving May come out of scarcity more than abundance May not make much difference in funding God’s work but Makes a huge difference in the life of the giver. Giving sacrificially can only be occasional or you will become negligent in some responsibilities! Is driven by intense love, and yields uncommon harvests. Is intended to be a blessing, rare, costly, strategic under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Strengthens faith and promotes spiritual growth. From T. Makoni nurturingchampions.com Genesis 35 and 36 describes a time when Moses shared God’s instructions for his people, including their offerings for construction of the Tabernacle. The response was overwhelmingly generous; leaders went to Moses and asked him to tell the people that gifts were so plentiful they could not use or store them. Moses had to ask the people to stop giving! Prayer: Father, it’s so easy to say that we trust in you and in your provision for us and yet we so often find our deepest security in what we own or in our savings. Help us to distinguish between our wants and our needs. Teach us to simplify the former and trust you for the latter. Set us free from any financial bondage that we may suffer from, that we might be free to give as you graciously provide. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. Jeff Marian,Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Burnsville, MN 12 2 Thrivent submitted by Marilyn Miller Thrivent members can make a calendar note of November 2, when the Annual Chapter Dinner and election of leaders will be held at 4 pm in Smith Hall at the 4 H Fairgrounds. Reservations may be made anytime by calling Marilyn at 224-2549. More information will be mailed soon. Change is on its way. The new lodge model pioneered in the Rocky Mountain area is being implemented in our area and elsewhere. The transition promises to involve more members in relevant, meaningful activity that strengthens families, neighborhoods, churches and communities. The Action Team concept is expected to function with quick, uncomplicated responses which any member can negotiate. In order for the chapter board to exist and function in 2015 at least 2 new member leaders must be identified. It is time consider whether you might serve in this capacity, as a way of strengthening local access to Thrivent resources. A minimum of about 5 hours each month are needed, and currently the board is meeting on the first Tuesday evening of each month, about nine or ten months of the year. Email is required for communication and use of the internet is essential to Thrivent information, policies and procedures. Thrivent members and friends who supported the annual Pancake Breakfast in August brought in $750 dollars as a match for the $1740 net proceeds of the breakfast. This brings the total for this annual Ladies Guild fundraiser to just under $2500, for the purpose of funding commercial kitchen appliances in 2015. Thrivent benefit members who have Choice Dollars assigned this fall need to pay attention to how to use them. Nationally only one in four eligible members “uses” their Choice Dollars. They can be assigned to any participating non profit, and last year the total of Thrivent Choice and Community Cares dollars reaching our congregation totaled almost $7000. We CAN make a difference by exercising our options! 13 2 For the third consecutive year, Thrivent has been named to a very special, honored list of the “World’s Most Ethical Companies.” The prestigious list is made up of organizations that demonstrate ethical leadership and corporate behavior. "As a membership organization of Christians, we strive to conduct our organization with highest ethical standards," says Teresa Rasmussen, senior vice president, general counsel and secretary for Thrivent Financial. "This award acknowledges that commitment, and we are proud to again be named to this prestigious list." 14 2 Greeters for October by Jan Workman and Doris O’Connor 8:00 a.m. Service October 5th 12th 19th 26th Jim & Doris O’Conno r John & Carolyn Beck Russ Wright Jan Workman 10:30 a.m. Service September 5th 12th 19th 26th Jan Workman Darrell & Darlene Buck Darrell & Darlene Buck Shirley Bebow Ushers List for October by Al Hayes 10:30 a.m. Service October 5th 12th 19th 26th Ron & Michelle Welch Richard & Norma Crowell Terry & Pat McDonald Rachel & Carmen Hicks
© Copyright 2024