My brothers and sisters in Christ,
I received this from an internet site I subscribe to called Pastor’s Workshop. Just a little late but still timely: Thanksgiving is not about denying the reality of hardship; it’s about remembering that hardship is not the only reality.
Eloide does such a nice job on the monthly Messenger. These dates are listed there. I want to make sure we are covering our bases.
December Schedule
December 6 & 7 – Second Weekend of Advent– Blood Drive on Saturday, December 6. Cookie decorating on Sunday, December 7.
December 13 & 14 –Third Weekend of Advent – Musical Cantata, both Saturday and Sunday
December 20 & 21 – No Saturday Service. Children’s program on Sunday
Christmas Eve Service – 3:00 p.m. (New time)
December 27 & 28 – Normal worship schedule
Our Sunday School children will be decorating cookies this Sunday, the 7. I thoroughly enjoy the smell of cookies being baked before service. We have been doing this for a couple of years. From personal experience, our people who can’t make it to our services really enjoy just being remembered. Can you make a dozen of your favorite? Remember that they need to be here by 9:00 a.m. on Sunday. If you can help us deliver them, that would be helpful also.
This is Pastor speaking. I understand why you don’t want to say, “The sky is falling,” all the time. Who doesn’t like to get caught up in a good snowstorm forecast? I think we all remember the joy of having a snow day. However, I wasn’t going to get fooled again. We have had many Winter Storm Warnings” over the last couple of years, and they generally fizzle out. We might get a dusting, but that is about it. I think last year, we had one snowfall of over 4 inches. “The sky is falling. The sky is falling,” or in other words, “Winter Storm Warning. Winter Storm Warning.” I wasn’t going to get disappointed again.
Wow, what a Saturday. It actually happened. Snow, wind, cold temperatures, the works. It was great, unless you had to go anywhere, then, not so good. Instead of a snow day, we had a no-worship day. Even Sunday wasn’t so great. I am glad many of you stayed home. It is another reason why we have our video system. Instead of streaming live on Saturday, we did it on Sunday. I hope many of you enjoyed the service.
One of the items we still had was to welcome our new members. If I counted correctly, we welcomed 14 new members to our church, with an additional 5 who were traveling. There were many new people up in the sanctuary. It was a little crowded, which was good to see.
If you did see our service online, you would have seen the church decorated with quilts, gifts, and food items. I wanted you all to see how generous our congregation is to all sorts of causes. We have quilts made by the quilters that are being packed up this week and being shipped out. We have gifts collected for foster children that are going to be collected tomorrow and given away. Then, we have the food that we collected for our food baskets, which were stacked in a car right after service. What you didn’t see is the money collected for these food baskets. Kay Raineri will be going shopping for additional food items for the baskets soon.
This congregation is so generous and so awesome. Thank you.
The video that we played before church on Sunday was, God Is In This Story by Katy Nichole and Big Daddy Weave. If everything we do can be explained by us, then what is the point? But with the quilts, gifts, and food, how can you explain it by the doings of our church? God must be in this story. The story that is being written about St. John’s Lutheran Church in Peru, IL. We are not a perfect church. I hope our new members are not expecting one. They will be disappointed. It is an imperfect church, led by an imperfect pastor, with imperfect people making up the congregation. That will always be. However, when God is working through us, being the author (not us) of our story, we can do some amazing things. I hope you all want to be part of this story that God is writing.
Crossed marked and spirit sealed,
Pastor Tom
815-223-1144
Readings for Second Weekend of Advent– Weekend of December 6 & 7
Isaiah 11:1-10 Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 Romans 15:4-13 Matthew 3:1-12