The Lamplighter JUNE The Busy Bees (WELCA)

Transcription

1 The Lamplighter JUNE 2018 ATTENTION EVERYONE! Please join members and friends of St. Andrew on Saturday, June 23, 9am-1pm. We will spend that day sprucing up the building and grounds and tackling anything else that needs to be done all hands needed! Pizza will be provided. Hope to see you there! The Busy Bees are collecting new and GENTLY used shoes. If you have any shoes to donate, please place them in the boxes in the narthex at SA and at HCLC. See Edith Blake at SA or Lesa Farless at HCLC, if you have any questions. Thank you for your support! A large copy of St. Andrew s directory is located in the narthex. Please take a look and make any needed changes to your entry. Attention all new members - please add a new entry with your name, address & phone number. Copies of the new updated directory will be available on Sunday, June 10. Alzheimer s & Dementia Caregiver Support Group Tuesday, June 12 th SA The Busy Bees (WELCA) The June meeting will be on Sunday, June 10 after worship at HC. See Edith at St. Andrew or Lesa at Holy Communion for details. All are welcome - hope to see you there! Wednesday, June 13 th 12:00pm at SA Bring a bag lunch. Drinks & Dessert are provided.

2 DIAPERS FOR MOTHER S DAY: Thank you to all who donated diapers on Mother's Day for the H.E.R. Shelter in Portsmouth. The Social Ministry Committee collected diapers through the month of May and they were delivered to the H.E.R. Shelter. FOOD PANTRY: Thank you for your continuing support of the food pantry at SA by donating nonperishable food items. Thanks to your generosity, we have continued to maintain a well stocked supply of food items. St. Andrew Farmers Market Update It is with deep sadness and regret that the SA Farmer s Market will not be opening this summer. A combination of health and other issues beyond our control forced us to make this decision. We thank everyone for all the support given to our market in the past! Dorothy Matsel Dear St. Andrew Family, Wow! I was so touched by your thoughtful cards, letters, gift cards, cash & flowers on Administrative Professionals Day! What a pleasant surprise to find them when I walked into my office! Your kind sentiments and generous gifts made that day a very special time for me and for many days to follow. Thank you for spoiling me!!! God bless you all, now and always! With much love and gratitude, Nell

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4 Instead, in the last generation or two, we ve made big and megachurches the standard, one that most churches will never reach and one, I believe, many of us aren t supposed to, because we re called to small. There s nothing wrong with big and megachurches; I m grateful for them. How can we not celebrate it when 2,000 to 20,000 people gather in one church to worship Jesus? That s fantastic! But it s also cause for celebration when 2,000 to 20,000 people are worshiping Jesus across 20, 200 or more different churches in groups of 500, 200, 50 and 10. St. Andrew had an AWESOME Pentecost service on May 20 th. You could feel the Spirit in all your being! THE CHURCH IS SMALL SO WHAT? By Karl Vaters May 16, 2018 Excerpted from Small Church Essentials By Karl Vaters EMBRACING THE SMALL CHURCH WITHOUT SETTLING Several years ago at my church s annual denominational conference, I was listening to the leader give his state of the denomination talk. As part of his assessment, he cited statistics that I had heard many times before. I ve come to learn they are surprisingly universal across denominational lines and geo-graphical regions. Over 90 percent of our churches are under 200 in weekly attendance, he told us. And 80 percent are under 100. He continued to speak, but my mind drifted as questions surfaced: What if that s not a problem? What if when Jesus said I will build my church what he had in mind wasn t a bunch of pastors wringing their hands because their congregation isn t as big as someone else s congregation? What if Jesus idea was for churches of all sizes to work together, with mega, big, small and house churches each contributing something special to the whole? What if by trying to fix a problem that isn t a problem, we re actually working against a strategy that God wants us to enact? A strategy that sees our small churches as a vital tool to be used, not a problem to be fixed? Jesus has been building his church for 2,000 years using all kinds of people, all types of methods, all styles and sizes of churches. Great churches don t happen by mistake. No matter what size they are. They take prayer, planning, hard work, cooperation and the calling of God. But no church can be a great church if they don t know they can be a great church. Too many small churches and their pastors are laboring under a false impression a lie, really that their church can t be great until it becomes bigger. We need to put that lie to rest, starting in the heart and ministry of every pastor of every small church. A LOT OF CHURCHES ARE SMALL SO WHAT? Since the church I pastored (and still pastor) was well under 250 when I heard the message of that denominational leader, I knew the expected response to the statistic should be Our church is small too. Oh no! But something inside me broke that day. Instead I thought So what?! So what if our church is small? So what if we re one of my denomination s 90 percent? So what if half the people in our denomination are attending small congregations instead of big ones? If they re doing good, outreaching, Jesus-honoring, kingdom work, so what if they re small? As I ve come to learn since then, the percentage of small to large churches says absolutely nothing about the spiritual temperature of the churches in any denomination or geographical region. If a group of churches are in a state of growth and impact, it will include the planting of new churches that are almost all going to be small. So, when the spiritual health of a region or denomination is growing, there are more small churches popping up, keeping the percentage of small churches high.

5 On the other hand, if a group of churches are in an unhealthy state, the existing churches will be declining in size, so the number of small churches increases that way. Either way, whether we re doing well or doing poorly, there will always be a lot of small churches. We need new ways to look at church health and growth ways that include, but are not limited to, numerical, people-in-the-seats growth; ways that measure health, vitality, outreach and more. For months after that denominational conference, the question our church is small, so what? kept nagging me. I knew that moving from oh no! to so what? was just a first step to an important, perhaps life- and ministry-altering destination. So what? is not an answer. Alone it s a rebellious spitball from the back of the class. If it doesn t lead somewhere better, it s an annoyance at best, cynicism at worst. Then, one day, something shifted. We were working on an upcoming event dealing with all the small church issues of trying to do more with less, when it hit me. Instead of asking, Our church is small, so what? we needed to ask, Our church is small, now what? We re not a big church. We don t have the resources they have. We can t do what they can do. But what can we do now with the resources we have now? Is that even a thing? As it turns out, it is. There s a lot of ministry that can be done by churches while we re small. Including a few things that can be done better because we re small. Those mental, emotional, and spiritual leaps from oh no! to so what? to now what? became the starter steps of one the hardest, but most important journeys of my life. They can be for you too. Pause right now and ask yourself that question: Our church is small, now what? How would your ministry, your church, your life change if you could jump from oh no! to now what? Taken from Small Church Essentials: Field-Tested Principles for Leading a Healthy Congregation of Under 250 by Karl Vaters ( 2018). Published by Moody Publishers. Used by permission. Tell me more about the book Small Church Essentials» Read the Karl Vaters article Small Church America Revisited» A SIMPLE NOTE THAT CHANGED A LIFE By Samuel Rodriguez May 20, 2018 Excerpted from Shake Free By Samuel Rodriguez Pastor Sam! a male voice said. You don t remember me, but I sure remember you! The speaker had recently friended me on Facebook, asking whether I was the Sam Rodriguez who had served as youth minister at a church near Allentown, Pennsylvania, back in the nineties. At first I wasn t able to place the man s name, but after studying his face in the photos on his profile, I recognized him as one of the members of the church youth group where I d pastored. I recalled him as an angry, troubled teen who attended only sporadically and rarely engaged with me and the rest of our team. I remembered that his family hadn t attended our church and he d apparently come to the youth group with friends. Withdrawn and sullen, he made it clear that he didn t believe much of anything I had to say. I couldn t imagine why he wanted to contact me nearly twenty years later, but I responded to his friend request and told him I remembered him. We then exchanged s, and this man (I ll call him Mike) asked whether we could schedule a call. I gave him my number, and we arranged a time to talk, but the more I thought about it, the more worried I became. What if Mike blamed me for not pushing through his defenses back then and doing a better job of connecting? What if I had somehow given him a negative impression of who God is and what the gospel is all about? Whatever Mike wanted, I was about to find out. Mike, I said, how in the world are you, brother? How long has it been? We spent the next 10 minutes catching up on our lives. Mike shared that he had really struggled back when he attended the church youth group. Reeling from his parents divorce, he had turned to drugs and alcohol to numb his pain. He even confessed that he was often high when he came to our youth services. His life had continued to deteriorate as he struggled

6 to hold down a job. Two failed marriages and a couple of kids along the way were part of the collateral damage. Then one day last year I was moving some boxes in my garage, Mike said, and found the Bible my mom had given me for my sixteenth birthday. I can t remember ever reading it, let alone taking it to church with me, but I must have, because when I opened it up, there was a note from you that said, I know you re hurting. I don t have all the answers, but I know a God who does, and he loves you very much. I m here if you need to talk, followed by Jeremiah 31:3. Just out of curiosity, I flipped to that verse. When I read it, I started crying. All of a sudden, I realized that God had always been there, trying to love me, trying to show me the way, protecting me from myself and all the crazy stuff I was into. Well, long story short, I went to church the next Sunday, and that s when I accepted him into my heart as my Lord and Savior. Praise God, Mike! I had tears in my eyes, marveling at God s goodness. You probably don t even remember writing that note, Mike went on, but God used it to speak to me and remind me that he has always loved me. I know I wasn t really involved much in youth group, but I could tell that you really loved all us kids. You wanted us to know how much Jesus loves us. Well, now I know. CALLED AND COMMANDED I have to confess that I didn t remember writing that note to Mike. During my youth ministry when I didn t feel as if I was getting through to some of the kids, I would sometimes slip a note of encouragement into their Bibles or backpacks. So even though I didn t think I had made any impact on Mike s life, I later discovered that God used a note that probably took me thirty seconds to write as a reminder of his love for Mike. Regardless of how we express it, we re called to love others the same way Christ loves us. It s curious, too, when I think about it, because often the words, actions and moments that mean the most to other people aren t necessarily the same ones I would pick. But we all have the power to influence one another s lives. And that s the beauty of human relationships within the kingdom of God: We re responsible to love others as we love ourselves. We can t control how, when, or whether they will respond and fortunately we don t have to. We re just called and commanded by Jesus to love those around us: A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:34 35). Even though we all need other people in our lives, finding a way to love them with the love of Jesus and to trust God for their well-being can still be a challenge. In his Word, God makes it clear that his desire is that all of us will be in a loving relationship with him: The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). He pursues us just as a shepherd goes after even one missing sheep, relentless in his quest until he brings each lost lamb home. Sometimes, however, I suspect we allow our relationships with others to get in the way of our faith in God and where he wants to take us. It may be a matter of caring too much about what others think of us or focusing on ourselves when we should be thinking of others. Like Paul on his voyage to Rome, we must allow God to work in the lives of those around us at his own pace and in his own time. We can t save them, but God can! HAPPY SUNDAY JUNE 17, 2018

7 SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY 1 2 Laura Scardina, 6/5 Sherri Garris, 6/17 10:30am Ladies Brunch 10:30am 3 2 nd Sunday after Pentecost 10:00am Worship 4 9am-12pm June 4-22 Montessori Summer Sch (education wing) :00am Bible Study 8 10:30am Meals on Wheels rd Sunday after Pentecost 11 7:00pm Social Min. 7:00pm Civic League 7:00pm Boy Scouts 12 7:00pm Worship&Music 13 7:00pm Toastmasters :00am Worship 12:45pm Busy Bees (HCLC) 12:00pm Lunch Bunch 10:00am Bible Study 6:30pm Council 7:00pm Caregiver s Support Grp 7:00pm Boy Scouts 7:00pm Toastmasters 17 4 th Sunday after Pentecost 10:00am Worship HAPPY FATHER S DAY! JULY 2018 NEWSLETTER ARTICLES ARE DUE 7:00pm Boy Scouts 20 7:00pm SOS 21 7:00pm Toastmasters SPRUCE UP ST. ANDREW DAY! 9am-1pm 24 5 th Sunday after Pentecost :00am Worship 10:30am Meals on Wheels 10:00am Bible Study 7:00pm Boy Scouts 7:00pm Toastmasters

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