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March 2010 Newsletter |
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Set your clocks AHEAD one hour, |
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GLORIA DEI NEWS |
UPCOMING EVENTS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Our MEALS ON WHEELS date for March is Thursday, the 4th. If you would like to be a part of this ministry, please call Shelly Lausche at 651-631-9040 for all the information! KOA/50+ March 18 – 12 noon EPIC continues to collect cans for missions. We are sending the proceeds to the Jake Gillard family who is serving in Uganda. The Board of Social Ministry will not meet this month. EASTER GARDEN Easter Sunday is April 4th! If you wish to contribute to the Easter Garden this year below is a list of flowers available. We are ordering again from Bachman’s and need your order by March 28th. A sign up sheet will be on the entryway bulletin board. As always, you can bring your own too! Below is a list of the flowers:
MARCH IS MINNESOTA FOOD SHARE MONTH - PLEASE REMEMBER FOOD FOR THE SALVATION ARMY. We have been delivering foods from our grocery cart monthly, but due to the economy there is big need to continue this effort. Things that are needed are canned fruits, soups and vegetables, canned beans, spaghetti sauce and noodles, macaroni and cheese, crackers, peanut butter, jelly, cereal, etc. Please remember those less fortunate. If you would rather, you could send a monetary donation to them. Thank you! SAINT PATRICK (c. 387 – 493) As one of the earliest Christian missionaries travelling abroad to spread the Christian faith, Saint Patrick is important because he serves as a testament to the overall missionary legacy of the Church. Patrick’s example would inspire later missionaries to undertake great missions to evangelize abroad. OFFICIAL ACTS MEMORIAL RECEIVED |
EXULTATE'S FESTIVAL CHOIR & ORCHESTRA will present They Shall Have Rest - The Requiems of Gabriel Faure’ and John Rutter. Come hear 100 of the area’s best voices and instruments perform. Concerts are:
Call Exultate for tickets ($15-$20), 651-707-0727 (also available at the door). There also are two free tickets in the church office on a first come, first served basis. TWO RIGHT FEET DANCE PRESENTS Tickets $15 if preordered online at
LUTHERAN MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER BETHESDA BUS TOUR April 8 & 9, 2010
For $149 per person, this includes lodging (one night, double occupancy), bus fare, entrance fees to the attractions listed above, and three meals (plus one continental breakfast). You are responsible for any other meals and shopping expenses. There are posters at church with reservations forms and the itinerary, or you can call Mary Schaumberg, Development Technician, at 1-800-383-8743, ext. 3470 and she will get you all the information you need. |
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“Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable... I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” - 1 Cor. 9:25, 27 - ESV In his preface to The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis denies that his insights into the art of temptation were "the ripe fruit of many years' study in moral and ascetic theology." No, he said, quoting Coverdale's translation of Psalm 36, 'My heart'—I need no other's—shows me the wickedness of the ungodly.' Spiritual exercise demands an accurate self-knowledge (impossible without the illumination of the Holy Spirit) if we are to recognize the perversity through which we stumble. Spiritual disciplines such reading Scripture, Bible study, and prayer are analogous to weight-lifting equipment. So in the Lenten season if one uses the spiritual-building equipment God has provided in a disciplined way the spiritual life of the person will be stronger to meet every situation they meet. In my pre-Seminary training I had the opportunity to translate portions of a sixth century lectionary which included an interesting section for the Lenten season. It included a very regimented schedule for spiritual conditioning which included doing it with a trainer or partner. Sure, it was a time of no TV, video games, sports or any of the other distractions we have today, but I was impressed by the self-control an individual would need to spend so much of their day to spiritual conditioning during a time when personal responsibilities were more on having food on the table and a roof over their head. There's something to be said for following an ancient Lenten regimen with another person, instead of choosing your own adventure. Most of us are not capable of being our own spiritual directors. We don't have the perspective needed to choose the things that will really change us. (Deep down, we may not even want to change. I like to say, "Everyone wants to be transformed, but nobody wants to change." Another such conditioning program in the 1650s, was written by the vice-chancellor of Oxford University, John Owen. The Mortification of Sin in Believers, emphasized the importance of knowing your own sin-prone, twisted self. The book's starting point was Romans 8:13: "For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live." Without ignoring the role of the Devil, Owen taught that the real enemy of believers is the sinful nature that continues to plague us. The problem is not temptation—discrete impulses to fulfill a lust—but the human nature out of which lusts arise. He worried that "very many have little knowledge of the main enemy that they carry about with them in their bosoms." Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, likewise focused on the importance of self-knowledge in fighting sin and building a disciplined self. Real self-knowledge is dangerous to the Devil's work. Screwtape to Wormwood said: "You must bring your patient (that’s you) to a condition in which he/she can practice self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about their real condition which is perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with them or worked in the same office." The devils also want your priorities inverted, your spiritual discipline distracted. Such inverted priorities echo the great African theologian, Augustine of Hippo. Augustine thought of sin as a matter of "disordered love." That is to say, we seek happiness and satisfaction from things that in their very nature cannot satisfy or make us happy or build us up in the body of Christ. Lenten discipline trains us like athletes, strengthening our earthly bodies and souls, healing the body of believers in our local church, and forging a union with the body of Christ throughout time. During Lent, we are called to exercise self-control and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, we "press on" to combat those sins that lie ahead, made stronger by our Lenten disciplines, "for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13-14, ESV). |
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CONNECTING YOU TO UGANDA, EAST AFRICA Rev. Jacob & Michelle Gillard…building up God’s leaders in the LCMUMichelle writes… Life is going well for our family. We are very happy here and we are all flourishing but you can always throw up a prayer for sick tummies or funny fungal rashes. Agriculture & Christian Living: There is one thing I always say about Ugandans, "All Ugandans are farmers in one way or another." Most Ugandans I know will be able to tell you how to plant and harvest well in this fertile land, even if they don't farm for their occupation. Linda & Delano Meyer serve as agricultural missionaries for LCMS World Mission. They were successful farmers for 22 years in Minnesota but have served in West Africa for the last 15 years. They live in Sierra Leone. Jacob, Amelia and Evangeline did some traveling with them as they conducted workshops all over the country. Having the Meyers come and share about agriculture and Christian living was a blessing to this country. Story time is going well. Every Thursday at 5 p.m. Amelia, Evangeline and I take popcorn, puppets, songs and a book with us down the road. It is a short walk to meet up with the kids in the village. They love the puppets a great deal. They also like stories with "sound effects" like animals or funny voices. I laugh so hard when the translator copies my voices. When I make an oink...they make the sound for oink in Luganda. Isn't that funny. Same animal...but different oink. Jake adds… Please pray for the LCMU as they grow together as a relatively new church body. What else can you pray about? More missionaries! Our boss was visiting with us last Monday. One thing that came out of the conversation is the need for more missionaries in Uganda. These would be a GEO positions (2-year commitment). GEO missionaries are often college-aged or retirees - but not always. They could be single or a couple. They’d be based in a small to medium sized town and travel to villages within a 40 mile radius to stay for days at a time, teaching and mentoring Lutheran leaders. This is in the possibility stage right now and we don’t have any position descriptions on the LCMS WM website but please pray with us for more harvest hands in Uganda.
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| STEWARDSHIP | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
"Stewardship Target Number One" Focusing first and foremost on the identity of the steward. Aiming at the right target helps if you want to hit it. While that might sound simplistic it is funda-mental. Where you aim is important. For too long many congregations have been aiming almost exclusively at “stewardship” what the steward does, and saying little about the identity of the steward. According to George Barna, this is important because many church-goers, have an identity problem. He says, "Let me also point out that a major reason why most local churches have little influence on the world is that their congregants do not experience this transforma-tion in identity. Our research indicates that church- goers are more likely to see themselves as Americans, professionals, consumers, and unique individuals than zealous disciples of Jesus Christ." (Revolution, pages 87-88) If church-goers aren't thinking of themselves as Christians or disciples they certainly aren't thinking of themselves as stewards. Yet, everyone is a steward by birth. From that moment on God entrusts to us gifts from His gracious hand. Our responsibility is to steward them according to His purpose. The truth is we are stewards whether we recognize God as the giver or not. It is in baptism, however, that we become Christian stewards. There God calls us into His family. It is in that family that we are formed by God's Word as stewards who understand that He is the Owner and Redeemer and Sanctifier, that we are stewards by His grace, and that we are accountable and responsible to the Owner. |
committed, godly stewards. This false start assumes that unchanged hearts will follow the radical new ethics of the kingdom of God. It assumes that somehow repentance, conversion and the new life in Christ does not include a fundamental redemption of our attitudes toward possessions. And it assumes that the call to be people of the kingdom of God does not call us simultaneously to a radical new relationship with creation as well as with God and our neighbor. It assumes, falsely, that the call to be a steward is not the necessary prerequisite to the life of biblical stewardship. (Page 17) Titus 2:11-14 helps us understand this identity as steward, "11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works." Focusing on who the steward is in Christ is vital to helping stewards understand that what they do is a response to the gospel. Aiming only or primarily at what the steward does misses the mark. CURRENT FINANCIAL STATUS
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| WORSHIP SCHEDULE FOR MARCH | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Midweek Lenten Services: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic book, “Life Together” describes in challenging ways what it means to be the body of Christ in community. His insights apply to congregational life in both modern and postmodern times. It gives practical advice on how life together in Christ can be sustained in families and congregations. The role of personal prayer, worship in common, everyday work and Christian service becomes the meal for those who are hungry for the real life of Christian fellowship.
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Dear Church Family, It is amazing how much we golden agers reminisce. Those happenings of yesteryear are often much clearer in our minds than those of yesterday. Many memories are pleasant, others painful. If you are blessed with still being “two of you”, you probably have heard those stories over and over again. Perhaps the recent status of our country’s economy brought back memories where one of us, with big ears, overheard her dad tell her mom that he was down to his last nickel. The other of us grew up in a home where the father was not speak easy with his children. No conversation was permitted at the dinner table. Children were to be seen and not heard. A reluctant son had to nervously ask his dad for some coins to go to the shoemaker to repair his loose sole. As he stammered with his request, he asked for money to go to the blacksmith. The not so speak easy dad replied, “You are going to take your shoes to the blacksmith?” Where am I going with this? Be patient with me. How many times do we stutter and stammer when we have requests for our Heavenly Father? Each Sunday we seem to have more prayers from the altar than we have people in the pews. Those requests might be for our own flock, or for people near and dear to our flock. When Pastor Brinkman was here he often told how complicated his life was made by the letter “M”. At that particular time he was dealing with a music director and two secretaries who were “M”-bellished. As he retired in Florida, he found as he did some vacation coverage, that the Florida churches also had “M’s” in the office. Jeannie, always grateful for newsletter help, thanked in the bulletin a pair who were home ill, and forgot to mention the pair that was there. Your reporter sent a prayer request up in the offering plate for the wrong brother (I had a choice of four) going to Iraq. We humans stumble and stutter when we make our many requests of God, but we don’t have to fear of saying it right. Our Heavenly Father knows who we have in our hearts and gets it all straightened out. Just as an earthly father recognizes that a loose sole could not be repaired at a blacksmith shop, so our Heavenly Father knows that the strength of our souls depend on His loving grace. To God be the glory! |
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Too Old? You're Joking! Defeatists say ‘Yesterday’; winners say ‘Yes’ today. It’s too late to lament the past. That’s lost forever. But it’s never too late to move into overdrive. The present is ours to charge with defiant faith. You’re too old,’ the mission board told a rejected candidate. God, who’s a little older than most of us, must have thought he was too young. He waited two more years before sending him to the field. At 63, Clara Mcbride Hale began caring for addict babies. The number she has helped now runs into the hundreds. Consider George Muller’s figures. He is said to have traveled 200,000 miles, using his linguistic ability to preach in several languages to an estimated three million people. Now admittedly, Muller traveled extensively overseas. If I had a choice between traveling a thousand miles on horseback or a thousand miles by sailing ship, I’d go by plane. But here’s the spice: Muller’s statistics only began after his seventieth birthday and continued for the next 17 years. In 1968, two middle-aged tourists, florists for over 30 years, were so moved by what they saw in Kenya that they decided to return as missionaries. Denny and Jeanne Grindall, with no engineering skills or even formal Bible training and very little money, instigated the building of a dam almost 80 foot high and piped the clean water nearly three miles to tribes people. The Maasai became so responsive to the Grindall’s message that 20 churches were opened and hundreds came to Christ. The following e-mail was from Gordon Ogden: Please pray for my ministry in marriage and family counseling. (I am 70.) Today I will work with child sexual abuse, teenage depression, adult depression, and marital discord. My weeks are filled with such. or consider his followup email: Tomorrow I go to Monterey to see my friend Phillip, a Marriage, Family, Child Counselor like myself. He is currently running two recovery groups, plus his individual counseling, plus working out at the gym three days a week, plus attending conferences and driving all over the place. Phillip will be 90 in June. What a role model for a guy 20 years his junior. Think of it this way: if growing old is as bad as sometimes claimed, how come so many people do it? I don’t care if you’re so long in the tooth you’ve blown your entire savings on toothpaste; so out of touch that you’re fazed by newfangled things like the King James Bible; so old your grandchildren are in nursing homes; so frail you have to rest up to watch television: God can still use you. Of course, if you’ve already passed eighty-five, I can’t promise you’ll write 8,000 songs. You might, like Fanny Crosby at that age, have to settle for only 250 hymns a year. If you’re ninety-one and still don’t know what you’ll do when you grow up, throw a party. If you’re ninety-five, it’s time to go to Bible School. That’s what David Sizer did. The last I heard, he was 101, still preaching in a prison and five retirement centers every week. Dr. Bernhard Johnson tells of a tiny man in Brazil aged 105 who had led hundreds to the Lord. Uninspired? A further detail should cure that. He did not know the Lord until he turned 103. So if you’ve graduated from make-up to poly-filler, hang on to your dentures, it’s ministry time. - adapted from a website now long lost to memory |
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| CHRISTIAN RADIO | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE LUTHERAN HOUR March 7 - "Does God Love You?" March 14 - "The Sinner's Friend" March 21 - "A Big Loser" - Philippians 3:8 March 28 - "The Crucified Christ: Victim or Victor?" - Guest Speaker: Rev. Wayne Palmer TIME OF GRACE Straight talk about God’s Word and real hope for this life. A strong gospel message delivered in an informal Bible study style. Pastor Mark Jeske - St. Marcus Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
WOMAN TO WOMAN March 6 - Life on Planet Mom March 13 - Enjoy Food Again March 20 - Search of Balance March 27 - Stop the Abuse ISSUES, ETC.™ broadcasts live weekdays from 3:05 to 5:00 PM Central. During those times, you can listen via webstreaming by clicking “Listen Now” on the Issues, Etc.™ can also be heard live in St. Louis from 4:05 to 5 PM Central on 1320 AM Bott Radio Network and from 3:05 to 5 PM Central on KNGN, 1360 AM in McCook, NE. |
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LIBRARY NEWSThe Church Library continues to be updated and organized by Pat Wilson!! See what books and magazines are on the shelves. Here are two books you might want to check out! Taking the Devil to Court The concepts presented in this book have revolutionized people’s lives! Based on scriptural principles and lifting up Jesus Christ as our Wonderful Counselor, Taking the Devil to Court exposes the enemy’s strategy against believers – a strategy that has debilitated them and made them unfruitful in the Kingdom of God. “”Taking the Devil to Court”” is an exciting, straightforward approach to releasing us into the freedom that Christ has intended for us.” When Calls the Heart Young, pretty, cultured and education, Elizabeth’s eastern upbringing in a rather well-to-do family has not prepared her for a teaching position on the Canadian frontier. But she squares her shoulders and takes on her formidable task with love, humor and determination. She is just as determined not to become romantically involved with a frontiersman. And then she meets Wynn . . . But Beth discovers that he also has determined never to marry; that he would “never ask a woman he loved” to share the perils in the life of a Royal Canadian Mountie! Can Beth change his mind? Will Wynn listen...? |
Each month the Board of Evangelism will be putting tips in the newsletter on "How to be a Master Greeter". Here is another tip to help build lasting relationships between you and the visitors that come to Gloria Dei. 5 Things You Need to Know about Visitors Your visitor has changed his Sunday schedule to be a part of your church. He probably has gotten up earlier and dressed better. He certainly has changed his Sunday routine. He has braved your parking lot, overcome the fear of who he will meet at your door, and faced the uncertainty of knowing where to go into your building. He has faced the uncertainty of understanding your style of worship, and your style of singing. He has made a bigger effort and has taken greater risks to be in your church than you have. To him it is a monumental Sunday. He deserves to receive your most positive greeting. He deserves your friendliest welcome. |
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Happy Birthday:
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Happy Anniversary:
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March ServantsElders:
Counters:
Greeters: OPEN Ushers: Dale Raschke, Roslyn Norman Altar Care: Keith & Vi Rocek |
March ProvidersFlowers:
If you sign up for flowers or candles after the newsletter is published, be sure and let Jeannie know. We want to make sure that flowers are ordered and you are properly acknowledged in the bulletin notes. |
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