2018 VOLUME 28 NUMBER

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1 American Lutheran Church ALC Alert Smith Center, Kansas FEBRUARY 2018 VOLUME 28 NUMBER 2 From Pastor Lorna - Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Recently someone asked me how the date for Easter is determined so I provided it here. This year the moon is full on Saturday, March 31, therefore Easter is on Sunday, April 1. How is the Date of Easter Determined? In 325E the Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox (first day of spring, March 21.) There is a word we associate with Easter that might be unfamiliar to you. It shows up in the communion liturgy during Lent. The pastor says or sings, You bid your people cleanse their hearts and prepare with joy for the Pascal Feast What does Pascal mean? It comes from the Hebrew word for Passover. For the Jewish people, the Pascal Feast happened the day the Passover Lamb was sacrificed and some of the meat prepared for their festive meal. Christians recognize that Jesus is our Passover Lamb. His death on the cross was the sacrifice that frees us from slavery to sin and eternal death. We celebrate the freedom Jesus won for us on the cross on the day of Jesus resurrection, Easter Day. So, our Easter Celebration is sometimes referred to as our Pascal Feast or the Feast of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. But it isn t Easter yet. We have things to accomplish before we get to that great celebration. We have a journey of preparation to undertake, a time of cleansing our hearts as the liturgy says. The traditional spiritual disciplines to help us on our journey are repentance, fasting, prayer and helping the poor and needy. As followers of Jesus, those are things we should be doing all the time, not as grim duties we must perform, but as tool we use to remove some of the distractions in our lives and focus on our spiritual journey to strengthen our relationship with God. Lent, however, is a season when we focus on them with particular intensity. Our midweek services this year will focus on Luther s Small Catechism and the role it can play as a tool on our journey of faith. I hope you will join us on Wednesday evenings for that study. This year we have Ash Wednesday services at St John on Feb 14. The first midweek service will be at American on Feb 21. We will continue to alternate places during Lent and Maundy Thursday services will be at American this year. God s blessings on your journey. Grace and Peace,

2 From the Desk of Pastor Lee February 2018 Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. This phrase, spoken to each one of us, begins our individual and collective Lenten journey. As ashes are placed upon our forehead, we are reminded that those ashes are a sign of our future. The dust from the decomposed and burned Palm Sunday branches from the previous year is a stark dose of reality that the inevitable someday will come when we return from the elements from which God formed us. Some of you may think that this Ash Wednesday ritual is a little morbid and depressing. Indeed, Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent are not like the cotton-candy and bubblegum spirituality that seems to plague so much of popular Christianity. Most Lenten hymns do not have the upbeat rhythms that stir those euphoric feelings inside of us, which we sometimes, in our spiritual immaturity, mistake as a sign that God is closer to us than when those euphoric feelings are absent. Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season, however, remind us of an important and ugly Christian truth: we are all sinners and sin leads to death. A sobering message, a message from which many Christians wish to distance themselves for fear that such a message will not attract people to already declining congregations and denominations; however, whether this truth is proclaimed or hidden, embraced or rejected, it is still the truth. And as heirs of the Reformation, as members of Christ's Church that is faithful to the fullness of Christian history and not just to the fickle fads and tastes of our time, we must proclaim this truth no matter how it is received, and we must receive it no matter how it is proclaimed. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. We are also challenged to remember that this truth, while somber and sobering, also leads to a greater truth and promise that Jesus speaks directly to each one of us: I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live. - John 11:25. This is a promise, a gift and a truth that is born from the ashes of sin and death. From the sobering truth of our sin and death comes the greater truth of forgiveness and resurrection in Jesus' name. So, while it is tempting to look away from the somber reality of Ash Wednesday, to close our ears to the truth that alone in our sin we are nothing but dust, our Lenten discipline also call us to focus on the greater truth of Jesus victory over the grave. When we cheat ourselves out of our Lenten journey, we run the risk of trivializing the destination that is our Easter victory; we run the risk of forgetting that even in the most somber and sobering realities of our mortality, the greater reality is Christ and everlasting life in his name. May this Ash Wednesday and Lenten season be one in which we learn to live in this greater reality together. Your Friend in Christ, Pastor Lee

3 American Lutheran Church Council Meeting: January 17, 2018 The council met on 01/17/2018 in the parish hall with Wyatt Rhoades, Barbie Timmons, Marcia Bose, Denton Lehmann, and Pastor Lorna present. Call to order: council president Wyatt Rhoades called the meeting to order with agenda approved. Pastor Lorna opened with prayer. Minutes: Barbie moved and Denton seconded to amend and approve the December minutes. Motion carried. Treasurer's report: Marcia moved and Denton seconded to accept report. Motion carried. Pastor's report: Pastor presented her written report. She requested a change in worship times (switch worship times with St. John) on 4/22/2018 (St. John confirmation Sunday) and 5/27/2018 (Memorial service for cemetery at St. John). Committee Reports: Worship and Music: Wyatt: no meeting Outreach: no report Parish Education: no report Facilities: Denton: The parish hall flooring committee met. Denton showed council the tile the committee picked. The committee also suggested carpet be used near door entries instead of putting a mat over tile. The council approved the tile choice. Council OK with use of mat over tile at door entries. Denton reported the committee recommended the church also replace the carpet in the pastor's study with a bid of approximately $2,000 from Huffman. The council will review this recommendation at a future meeting after the flooring project is complete. As discussed at previous meetings, the woodwork around windows and baseboards will be lightly sanded and refinished in parish hall. Hallway furnace: Wyatt and Denton explained the hallway furnace thermostat is being changed to a temperature that is not the same as other thermostats (programed) in building. When it is changed to higher setting than programed thermostats, it causes the furnace for hallway to run for long periods and possibly overheat and shut off. Mutual Ministry: Marcia: The Parish mutual ministry committee met. The Parish mutual ministry committee discussed committee membership terms. They will take the following recommendation to Parish council-current committee members serve another term, possibly three years, and then the committee be replaced with all new members. Old Business: New council members for Wyatt reports that Dorothy Hommon and Kathy Frieling agreed to have their names on ballet for election for council position. Proposed budget 2018: Barbie presented the budget sheet that will be presented at annual meeting in February. New Business: Auditing 2017 finances-irene Baumann. Theron Haresnape, and Vernon Reinking agreed to serve on this committee. Audit is on 01/21/2018. Annual meeting: Wyatt presented an agenda for annual meeting on February 4, Barbie moved and Marcia seconded to ask St. John if we can switch worship times on that date and have annual meeting start following 9 am worship. Motion carried. Deadline for annual meeting reports is January 23, Lent offering: Marcia moved and Denton seconded we give Lenten offering to R.E.S.T (The Refugee Empowerment and Support Task force). This is a non-profit organization started in 2015 by former YAGM members to help Burundian refugees staying near Kirehe District (the area where Ryan Bose lived as a YAGM in ). Motion carried. Pastor Lorna asked Marcia to have Ryan provide more information for newsletter and have pictures

4 available from his recent trip to Kirehe. Smith Center Chamber of Commerce: Barbie received a bill for $50 for our church membership. Council agreed to remain members. Congregational report for synod: Barbie asked council for responses for questions on yearly questionnaire from synod. Next meeting: February 18, 2018 at 7:30 pm (tentative) to be confirmed after annual meeting. Meeting adjourned and closed with Lord's Prayer. Marcia Bose, secretary

5 VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES ALTAR GUILD: Altar Guild will welcome anyone willing to volunteer to help. If a month at a time won t work for you, find a friend to take it on with. LECTORS/CANTORS/USHERS: If you are willing to serve as a lector, cantor or usher, please let Lori know and she ll work you in to the rotations. NURSING HOME SERVICES: Seeking members to participate in the nursing home worship services. American Lutheran leads the service once every eight weeks. Services are held on assigned Sundays at 2:30 pm at Long Term Care and 3:15 pm at Smith Center Health and Rehab. Your presence would be much appreciated by the residents. NEWS/UPCOMING EVENTS ANNUAL MEETING: The annual congregational meeting will be held on Sunday, February 4, immediately following worship. LENTEN FISH FRY: Outreach will be hosting a fish fry on Sunday, February 18, immediately following the worship service. Fish will be shared and prepared by Randy Baumann. Members are asked to bring a side dish, bread or dessert. Please join us! SEMI CIRCLE DATE AND TIME CHANGE: Semi Circle will now be held on the second Monday of the month at 1:30 pm. Please join us if you can! SAVE YOUR LABELS! The Council has decided to participate in the Best Choice Save-A-Label program and encourages members to participate by clipping and bringing your Best Choice bar codes to the church. Designation of the funds raised will be determined at a later date. A large envelope is in Lori s office mailbox for you to put them in. Thanks!

6 2018 LENT OFFERING The council has decided to give Lent offerings to The Refuge Empowerment and Support Task Force, a non-profit organization that Ryan Bose was involved with forming after returning from YAGM time in Rwanda. From the website (the-rest.org): Our Mission Rebuilding and Empowering Refugee Communities The Refugee Empowerment and Support Taskforce (REST) believes that the world s top experts on refugee and humanitarian crises are refugees themselves. This guiding principle is the basis of what we call the shoulder-to-shoulder model. The REST creates a continuing dialogue with refugees and their neighboring communities, listening to the problems they face every day. The REST works shoulder-to-shoulder with these communities to develop projects that are sustainable, community-focused solutions to those problems. (All our programs are proposed by refugee community groups.) We then work with these refugee communities to turn their proposals into reality and implement them. Our methodology empowers refugees, helps them reclaim their agency, develops communities, fosters self-reliance, and improves lives. History In early 2015, as Burundian refugees began settling in Mahama Refugee Camp, three friends met in Kigali, Rwanda and discussed ways they could help. The Refugee Empowerment and Support Taskforce was born from discussions between Edward Makara, a Rwandan student, and two American volunteers: Ryan Bose and Jacob Sprang. Since 2015, Edward Makara has been working with a community of Burundian refugees living in Mahama. Through his shoulder-to-shoulder model, he organized a small community leadership board within the camp, comprised of refugees interested in improving the quality of life in Mahama Camp. After achieving 501(c)(3) status in 2016, the REST and its Rwandan partner, the Disaster Response Initiative (DRI), began working with Burundian refugees by funding community-led projects in Mahama Camp. To date, the REST has organized a tree-planting campaign, a women s sewing collective, and a high school scholarship program. For more information, you may visit their website at or speak to Ryan Bose.

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