There s an App for Your Spiritual Gifts. Christine Eid, Director of Children s Ministries

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1 June 2015 There s an App for Your Spiritual Gifts Christine Eid, Director of Children s Ministries There s an app for that. It seems like this is the answer one receives so often nowadays. You want to figure something out in almost any area, and the reply is to get an app for your phone or tablet to help you out. And, if there isn t an app now, check again in a month or so, and there might be a new one developed! It s always changing. Recently, I was reading 1 Corinthians 12 for my devotion, and the phrase that came to my head was, There s a ministry for that! In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul writes of spiritual gifts and that everyone is given different gifts to use in service to the Lord. He continues to talk about the church being the body of Christ, and that everyone s gifts are important, from the least to the greatest, as together that is what makes the church. Some say that the roles that they play at church really aren t that important. But even a handshake and smile to a visitor is so important, because it is how people start to know others at Cross View, and they see Jesus through you. So, what gets you really excited? What do you LOVE to do? Is there a current ministry that you could plug into to fulfill that passion? Or, is it something that could be created into a new ministry to share your gifts in a new and exciting way? For every gift, There s a ministry for that!, whether current or new. During the summer, people think it s time to take off from Help Welcome Schmidt Family With Pantry Shower! Please help us welcome Vicar Toby and Rachel Schmidt and their children by participating in a Pantry Shower. Starting June 7, we will begin collecting non-perishable food, paper goods, household supplies and gift cards. A grocery cart will be in the narthex with a supply request list above it. Please sign-up for a particular item to contribute, or be creative with your own idea. We want to avoid over-duplication, so please refer to the list. These items should be dropped off by July 5. involvement in the church. But there is still so much going on! This month, we reach out to almost 200 kids in Vacation Bible School. In July, we host 50 elementary students for music camp. In July we also have opportunities to help at Trinity First School. Regular worship and special Bible classes for all ages take place each Sunday as well. Summer is also an opportunity to create and think about what new ministries might be able to happen in an area, as we plan for fall and the program year. How can you be involved during the summer months, and even more importantly, as we look into the new program year this fall? Talk to a staff member to share your thoughts and ideas. We d love to hear from you! And why do we do all of these things? To serve God by serving others. We use our gifts to share God s love to those around us, and join Jesus on the mission that He has place before us to make disciples. It s an exciting opportunity. Join us! Appreciation Celebration! Honoring Melanie McMichael, Dir. Finance & Administration Sunday, June 14, 9:30-10:30 AM, between services Please join us to thank Melanie for her years of service!

2 PAGE 2 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION Summer Education for Children & Adults, Everest VBS, Music Camp SUMMER EDUCATION BEGINS MAY 31 Sunday School has a different look during the summer months. Students join together for fun while learning of God s love and gifts to us. All children age 3 through entering 6th grade are invited to join us in the Fellowship Hall each week at 9:30 A.M. Our themes for this summer are: May 31 Living Sacrifices God wants us to put Him and others ahead of ourselves June & July Amusement Park Lessons From the Main Gate through all the rides, and ending a visit with fireworks, we can learn different lessons about our relationship with God. It s a fun time! Do you have a busy schedule with travel and time up at the lake during the summer? Each month, take out boxes will be available for you to do Sunday s lessons as a family. EVEREST! IS COMING! VBS - JUNE Our week of Vacation Bible School is filled with fun and excitement, as this year we see how we can conquer challenges with God s Mighty Power. VBS is open to children age 3 (potty-trained) through entering 4th grade, from 9:00-11:30 A.M. You can still register at net, however we do not guarantee that your student will receive a t-shirt at this time. Cost is $10 for the week. Bring a friend! (Students entering 5th grade and older are invited to volunteer during the week. Volunteer registration is available at the Cross View website.) MUSIC CAMP: STEP RIGHT UP! Open to students entering grades 1-5, our music camp meets 9 A.M. to 12 noon, July With a circus theme, participants will become performers of acts that show strength, patience, trust, kindness and joy all through the help of God! Join the center ring for a great week! Cost is $40 for the week. The performance of this year s musical will be Friday, July 24 at 11:30 a.m. Space is limited, and almost full, so sign up today! If we fill up, we will have a waiting list; if there is a cancellation, you will be notified. COMING THIS SUMMER FOR ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL Journey from Unbelief to Faith May 21- June 28 (no class June 14; Melanie McMichael farewell) The passage from unbelief or antagonism toward God to faith in Christ as Lord and Savior is a road that s different for each person. Follow the stories of four individuals from widely dissimilar pasts that arrived at the same conviction: Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, and because He is, they must tell others about it. Lost Books? July 12 August 2 (no class July 5) Have you ever wondered if some texts were intentionally excluded from the Bible and why? In Lost Books? the Men s NetWork looks at why some ancient writings failed to make the cut for inclusion, why other texts most definitely met the standard, and why others, including those gospels found in the last century, came up short. Mormons: Who They Are, What They Believe August 9 September 6 The Mormon Church (aka The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) means different things to different people. From its feel-good, family-oriented TV commercials to its Grammy- and Emmy-winning ) Mormon Tabernacle Choir to its bicycling missionaries, the Mormon Church is high profile all the way. Founded in the early 19th century, this religious movement boasts more than 15 million members and 85,000 missionaries, ranking it in the top five of Christian denominations in the U.S., according to the National Council of Churches. OUTREACH AND MISSIONS Summer Service Opportunities Include Trinity First & Montana Mission Trip TRINITY FIRST SUMMER BRIDGE TO SUCCESS JULY 14, 15, 16 Here s an easy and fun way to be of service this summer! From July (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday), Cross View will help with Summer Bridge to Success at Trinity 1st Lutheran School in the Franklin neighborhood of south Minneapolis. We will serve the students breakfast, help teachers in the classrooms with individual studies, host lunch and help with afternoon activities of crafts and games. On Thursday, we will chaperone a trip to Como Zoo, with a sack lunch. Each day s activities are from 8:30 A.M. to 3 P.M. Sign-up sheets will be available mid-june. If you are available during the day, this is a great way to get involved serving others! MONTANA MISSION MOVES FORWARD We are excited to report that 16 Cross View members have committed to taking the Montana Mission trip to Crow Agency, Montana (with room for more!). The congregation has been very helpful with their Construction Partners or Like Us contributions. Gifts are still being received. The more our trip is supported by you, the more projects we can accomplish while we are there! On June 17, 6:30-8:00 PM, the group will meet to hear from Patty Juarez, World Servant Program Director, who has led three trips to Crow Nation and is getting ready to lead another trip leaving June 26th. She will lead us in a cross-cultural pre-training. That evening we will also divide responsibilities among the group to better plan and accomplish our construction projects and sports/ art camp curriculum.

3 CROSS VIEW YOUTH Service Projects & Summer Sunday School SENIOR HIGH YOUTH Service projects are going to become a big part of our youth ministry here at Cross View, and we have already started making that part of our yearly routine. Seven youth and two adults took the time out of their busy schedules to help out Doug and Alex Wheeler with their home renovation. While they were there, the youth learned how to do demolition on a couple of bedrooms, and not the demolition that already occurs in their bedrooms at home. They took all of the sheetrock off of the walls, pulled out all of the old insulation from those walls, pulled nails and screws from the walls, and got to learn that cleaning up the sheetrock mess is a lot less fun than tearing it all down. While that was going on there was another group outside doing some yard work. They worked hard at raking all of the dead leaves, grass, and sticks off of the lawn to make it look nice and clean. They also got the fun task of moving river rock from surrounding the house to a big pile in the back yard. The best part was being led in devotion by the Wheelers on how God is continually working in our lives to mold us and shape us into the people He is going to use for His kingdom work. It was a great experience and gave us an opportunity to serve some members of our congregation. SUMMER SUNDAY SCHOOL Youth Summer Sunday School will be combined for Junior and Senior High. They will all meet in room 222 starting Sunday May 31st. Cross View Cards and Games Winners Announced! Cross View Cards and Games celebrated the completion of the 2014/15 season with a delicious pot luck dinner on Friday, May 8, followed by an abbreviated game night and closing meeting. Entering the May game night, winners of both the seasonal Bridge trophy and the Games (non-bridge) trophy were indeterminate. For the Bridge trophy, Carla Schumacher and Milt Grimm had identical scores; for the Games trophy, Linda Baule and Reg Schroeder had tie scores. Applying the results of the game night in May, congratulations to Carla as the clear winner of the Bridge trophy, and to Linda & Reg as co-winners of the Games trophy. At each monthly gathering of the 9-month Cards and Games season, each participant donates $2, so usually $30 - $40 is banked each month in a Cross View savings account. During the closing meeting, the group voted to donate $400 to support Cross View ($200 to the Montana Mission trip and $200 for kitchen accessories [serving platters and a 3-gallon beverage dispenser]). Special thanks to Mel Davis, Marlys Meintsma, and Carla Schumacher for their service as coordinators of this group during the past year! The 2015/16 season will begin in September; watch for sign-up information in August at the Connection Center. PAGE 3 Help Us Secure Support from Thrivent Financial Are you a member of Thrivent Financial? If so, we want to know! Thrivent is a financial services organization that helps Christians be wise with money and live generously. Thrivent believes that all we have is a gift from God and that generosity is an expression of faith. One way they help their members express their generosity is through their unique member-advised programing, like Thrivent Choice and Thrivent Action Teams. Thrivent choice gives eligible members the power to recommend where some of Thrivent s charitable outreach funds are distributed, and Thrivent Action Teams bring people together for a one-time project to help others be wise with money and live generously. Cross View would like to take advantage of these great opportunities, but in order to do so, we need you to let us know! If you have questions, please contact Julie Reidhead at Julie.reidhead@thrivent.com Men s Ministry On April 25th these men of Cross View gathered for a Men s Ministry service event organized in conjunction with the nationwide Men s Network Workday 2015, sponsored by Lutheran Hour Ministries. The men gathered for coffee, juice and doughnuts, and a brief devotion before heading off for a beautiful Saturday morning of fellowship and service to a member in need of help with window washing and light yard work. YAMS Miniature Golf Save the date for the next YAMS event: Miniature Golf at Centennial Lakes in Edina, followed by dinner at Pinstripes on Saturday, June 13th. Please sign-up at the connection center by June 7th. Contact Megan or Patrick Rooney with questions.

4 Cross View June 2015

5 The First Year with Our New Structure A Retrospective View A year ago, our congregation voted to change to a policy-based governance model, and at that time it was suggested that we evaluate how things went after a year, and compare back to our original expectations. The Church Council had that discussion at our meeting in May. Many of the current Church Council members have served in a similar position when we were previously operating with the structure of the six boards. Whereas the agenda in previous years was often heavy in reviewing and approving reports from the staff and the six boards, we agreed that today we see our discussions focusing much more on the future vision and moving our ministry at Cross View forward. Our discussions are now more in-depth, as well. Dedicating extra time for a strategic planning retreat in January was a further benefit. Sometimes we need to resist our former tendency to be managers and remind ourselves that we have empowered the director-level staff to manage, but overall we are spending much more time talking about the future and it has been good. One of the intended benefits of our change was to improve the speed of decisionmaking. We did, indeed, enjoy several examples of that. For instance, as the Associate Pastor Call Committee gathered new information, they sought authorization to make adjustments in the plan; we were able to do that quickly, resulting in securing a vicar! The Church Council has also instituted a policy to eliminate the amount of red tape involved with smaller purchases, and for larger ones, the Church Council has been able to provide the necessary approvals at the first meeting that the need arose. We did look for opportunities to fine-tune things. We do not see anything in the new Bylaws that needs to be changed immediately. We will be reviewing our policy document and probably making some updates to that, but that will be a normal annual occurrence. I will have a goal to try to contain our monthly Church Council meetings to 2 hours. That has been a little difficult as we had some startup activities for this first year. We also began formulating a new 3-year strategy, but now that many of those items have been addressed, I expect to fall into a nice routine. I sincerely would like to thank our amazing Cross View staff for another fantastic year of ministry, taking our recent changes in stride! Thank you also to the many volunteers who transferred from serving on a board to now serving on a Ministry Action Team. And thank you to the dedicated leaders who I have had the utmost honor to serve alongside on the Church Council in this exciting time. The Lord has blessed us richly with talented followers of Christ to grow His kingdom! Let s keep moving forward together! In service to Him, Gregg Poppe Congregational President CROSSWAYS INTERNATIONAL CALLING Cross View Members Invited to CI Seminar 8/31-9/4 As I reported in previous editions of The Clarion, Chloris and I now live in Friendship Village. I have been invited to preach there on two occasions, and on May 21 I taught the final session of CI s See Through the Scriptures, which was attended by about 30 people. The response of those who attended was heartwarming. We are pleased to report that the bishop of the geographically largest Anglican diocese in the world (extending across northern Canada) is again teaching See Through the Scriptures to his clergy, equipping them to share it with their people. Praise God! Each year, the members of Cross View make funds available to support the worldwide mission of CI. As an expression of thanks, CI invites the members of Cross View to attend a CI seminar for the cost of materials only no seminar fees. We will be conducting a 4-½ day event from August 31 through September 4 in CI s office in Bloomington. During that event, we will briefly survey eight of CI s ten short courses, devote 2-½ days to the study of The Divine Drama, and spend the remaining two days working our way through CI s major course, Crossways. The CI office is located at 7930 Computer Ave., Bloomington. PAGE 7 Meet The Spiritual Care Team In this and future Clarions you will have the opportunity to get to know the people serving on the Spiritual Care Ministry Action Team, led by Pastor Steve Wheeler. RoseAnn Meier In 1998, at the recommendation of Jon Moreen (Marj Moreen s grandson and my student at Hopkins High) my husband Rich and I visited Cross View. We felt at home here and soon joined the congregation, meeting faith-filled friends at church bridge games and later in a newly-formed small group. As you might know, it is easy to become involved in activities here. We both found many opportunities to use our talents. I have been able to serve as council secretary, Adult Choir member, Stephen minister, VBS story-teller, deaconess, host at Families Moving Forward, and helper on various committees and projects. Rich and I both like the fact that Cross View serves not only its members, but people in the metro area as well. My passion is teaching at all levels, pre-k through adult, and my pastimes are many; favorites are reading, art collecting, decorating, travel, sailing, singing to Him in my car, enjoying the subtle humor of friends, and getting to know people in a deeper way. It is a joy to serve again on Worship and Spiritual Care. See you in church! Worship & Spiritual Care Ministry Assignments: WSC member Membership Alpha List Connie Landreville Ash Buska Steve Schrader Buuck Dietel Deb Piepho Dingels Frauenshuh Mike Reed Froseth Hawkins Sarah Fincham Heimkes Kelly Tim Clavin Kelzer Leanger Tom Koch Leer Modrow Delpha Harris Moksnes Peterson Marius Fine Peterson (Par) Rolfs Vern Hanson Rooney Schroeder Susan Bruns Schroeder (Reg) Swetman RoseAnn Meier Swiggum Volbrecht (Vacant) Voth Zellar Women s Ministries The Women s Daytime Book Club will read Mrs. Lincoln s Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini for our June meeting. We will meet at the home of Marge Rehmer on Monday, June 22, at 1:00 P.M. for discussion and fellowship. All women of Cross View are invited to join us.

6 Cross View Lutheran Church 6645 McCauley Trail West Edina, MN Return Service Requested NON-PROFIT US POSTAGE PAID TWIN CITIES, MN PERMIT NO June 2015 SCHEDULE Sunday Worship: 8:15 AM (Traditional) & 10:45 AM (Contemporary) Sunday Christian Education, 9:30 AM Office Hours: Tues.-Fri., 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM; Closed Monday Developing fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ along life s journey Rev. Steve Wheeler, Pastor ext 203, steve@crossview.net Jan Stockman-Sater, Early Childhood Ministries ext 222, jan@crossview.net Christine Eid, Children s Ministry ext 215, christine@crossview.net Jonathan Zellar, Youth & Young Adults MInistries ext 207, jonathan@crossview.net Melanie McMichael, Finance & Administration ext 204, melanie@crossview.net Rebecca Waller, Music & Fine Arts Ministries ext 210, rebecca@crossview.net Jason Paulson, Contemporary Music jason@crossview.net Sarah Garner, Organist sgarner@crossview.net Sarah Solberg, Parish Secretary ext 200, sarah@crossview.net Gregg Poppe, President Rev. Dr. Harry Wendt, Crossways International Todd & Kim Roeske, Evangelistic Missionaries in Alaska Mark Peske, Serving Among the Ojibwe, Bemidji, MN Stephen & Krista, Missionaries in Asia The Clarion is published monthly by Cross View Lutheran Church, 6645 McCauley Trail West, Edina, MN, (Office), (FAX), (ECC). Items for inclusion may be dropped off in the church office or sent via to rebecca@crossview.net. EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTER Summer Fun in Cross View ECC Summer fun is on the way. Cross View Early Childhood Center (ECC) is looking forward to a wide variety of activities. With Vacation Bible School, Family Fun Day, pony rides, sports fun, swim day, mud day, popsicles and field trips coming, it looks to be a full and busy summer. We also enjoy having our school campers return and join us through the summer. Cross View Early Childhood Center accepts children from 6 weeks to 5 years of age for the year. School-Age Camp is offered in the summer for K 4th graders. All students receive meals and snacks through our program. Cross View ECC is currently full. If you are interested in the program, we are happy to give tours and talk with you. However at this time, we are maintain a waiting list for those interested in attending the program. The wait can currently be from 3 9 months. Don t delay if you are interested. We never know when a family may move and a spot will open up. Annual Notice of Nondiscriminatory Policy Cross View Early Childhood Center admits students of any race, color, national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan school-administered programs.