King of Kings Lutheran Church &

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1 King of Kings Lutheran Church & Open Arms Lutheran Child Development Center Bringing the Light of Christ to our Neighbor! Volume 31 Issue 12 December 2018 NEW SPACE - NEW FACE - NEW GRACE When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us. So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. (Matthew 2:15-18NRSV) This month we celebrate the angelic message of the Christ child and join the shepherds in sharing the love and light of our Savior as we continue to make known the gracious and glorious message. We are shining and sharing: Spiritually - We decorate our sanctuary in preparation for celebrating the Savior s birth during our Hanging of the Greens on Dec. 2 nd. Our Singers and Ringers are rehearsing and refining their tunes to lead us in word and worship. We sing glad tidings through our Open Arms students as they are busy preparing to lead two Christmas Celebrations on Dec 4 th and Dec. 6 th for the congregation and community. We share the Good News through our Sunday School students and staff who are practicing and preparing to lead the 10:30am service on Dec 16th. We welcome several new families to our family of faith. Personally - We thank those fulfilling their term on various teams of our Open Arms and King of Kings Planning Council. We pray for those serving another term, and those filling openings for the first time. The many individuals who faithfully share and serve in countless ways so that our ministries run smoothly. We seek God s power and presence to enable us to fulfill our personal responsibilities and opportunities in response to the Christ Child seeking us out for His Kingdom. Educationally - Our Open Arm staff and lay leadership continue to strengthen current programs and look for new ways to expand our ministries spiritually, academically, and numerically. Our Sunday education staff as they generously volunteer their time to proclaim the Good News. Financially - We give through our food donations and Giving Tree ministry as we are blessed to help others experience God s Blessings. We grow in our tithing and sacrificial giving to support our current ministries and help offset our faith budget approved by the voters. We seek God s blessing on the Impact Phase of our New Space - New Face - New Grace Sustained Giving Stewardship Emphasis. In moving out into our congregation and community may we continue to follow the shepherds example: first, hearing; second, believing; third, responding; fourth, seeing; fifth, proclaiming. Your Servant in Christ, Pastor Dan 2 Peter 3:18 Open the storehouse of your praise today. Let your heart rejoice and be glad!

2 Read Through the Bible in a Year Calendar Scripture reading suggestions: 1) It s important to find yourself a regular time and quiet place to read the Bible; reading Scripture regularly and habitually gradually deepens your relationship with God. Remember, keep it simple. This is only a guide, not a rule. Use this to help hear and study God s Word. 2) Begin by praying. One very simple and good prayer to use is Psalm 119:18 Open my eyes, so that I may see the wonderful truths in your Word. 3) Take some time to be quiet with God, to think about what you read yesterday, and to think again about what you learned from that reading. 4) Read the passage for the day. Think what the passage tells you. Some questions worth asking yourself are: 1. Does this passage tell a story? Or is it a prayer or a poem, or perhaps part of a letter? 2. What is it mainly about? 3. Does it tell me something about what God is like? Does it tell me something about how to live in response to God s love and plan for me? 5) Try to summarize what you have learned from the passage. 6) Is there something here that I don t understand, that I need to think about a lot more, or talk to someone else about, or perhaps even look for more information? 7) Take some more time to be quiet with God-don t just ask these questions once over, but think about them for a while. Think again about yesterday s reading-how do the things you learned yesterday fit with what you learned today? 8) Keeping a notebook of what you learn can be very helpful. 9) Did you know that..when you carry the Bible, Satan has a headache. When he sees you reading it, he faints. Let s read the Bible every day so he keeps on fainting. Maybe one day he ll have a stroke and never wake up. The following is the next three months readings. DECEMBER 1/Romans 5-8 2/Romans /Romans /Acts /Acts /Acts /Psalms /Ephesians 1-3 9/Ephesians /Philippians /Colossians /Philemon 1 Timothy /1 Timothy /Titus /1 Peter /1 Peter 5 2 Peter /Psalms /2 Timothy /Hebrews /Hebrews /Hebrews /Hebrews Jude 23/1 John /1 John 4, 5 2 & 3 John 25/Revelation /Revelation /Psalms /Revelation /Revelation /Revelation /Revelation JANUARY 1/Genesis 1-3 2/Genesis 4-6 3/Genesis 7-9 4/Genesis /Job 1-4 6/Job 5-7 8/Job /Job /Psalms /Job /Job /Job /Job /Job /Job /Job /Job /Psalms /Genesis /Genesis /Genesis /Genesis /Genesis /Genesis /Genesis /Genesis /Genesis /Psalms /Genesis /Genesis FEBRUARY 1/Genesis /Genesis /Exodus 1-4 4/Exodus 5-7 5/Exodus /Psalms /Exodus /Exodus /Exodus l0/exodus /Exodus /Exodus /Exodus /Psalms /Exodus /Exodus /Exodus /Leviticus 1-3 2

3 Greetings from your Campaign Director! First and foremost I wanted to say a Big Thank You to everyone who has assisted and participated in the New Space, New Face, New Grace Campaign thus far. There are many working behind the scenes making calls, sending out letters, stuffing envelopes, calculating numbers, cooking/cleaning, developing handouts and planning for the future. It s extremely exciting to see the progress on the new addition and we are so very grateful to the Labors for Christ workers for their hard work. As we continue to move forward into the Christmas Season; I wanted to send out a quick thank you to the congregation for your recent financial commitments made over the past two weeks. As you recall; this campaign is not only about building the New Space, it s also about growing as a congregation, updating our Church home and meeting the needs of our brothers and sisters in our community. Sixty-one households have returned their pledge cards and so far our total pledges are $475,000 and still growing! I pray that you will continue to evaluate your personal talents and the time that you can give to King of Kings Blessings to you and your family this Christmas Season! Kevin Kufeldt Construction Continues! The cold weather and blizzard conditions haven t stopped the progress, the work continues on the new addition in spite of the snow. The electrical panels are in, the furnace will soon be installed, the security alarms are now in place, and soon the insulation and drywall! Our Celebration Thanksgiving Dinner was held on Sunday, November 18th and approximately 125 people attended. The decorations and food were wonderful. Thank you to Pat Hymer, Judy Anderson and all their helpers who coordinated this event. 3

4 Our Christmas Program is QUICKLY approaching! This year our Sunday school classes (Pre-school thru 6 th grade) will be performing in their Christmas Program on Sunday, December 16, 2018 during the 10:30am worship service. The Christmas program is such an important way for our Sunday school kids to be able to deliver the news of Jesus s birth! We will be rehearsing only 3 times before our big debut. It is extremely important that your child attends each of these practices to ensure that our Christmas Program will go smoothly! Please bring your child to the church and ready to go on: Sunday, December 2nd, 1pm-3pm Saturday, December 8th, 9am-11am Saturday, December 15th, 8am-10am Sunday, December 16 th, 9am-10:15am (during the Sunday school hour) If your child is in the Pre-K/Kindergarten class, please plan on bringing your kiddos to practice on: Saturday, December 8th, 10am-11am Saturday, December 15th, 9am-10am Over the years, we have discovered that 2 hours is too long for the little ones. 1 hour rehearsing songs and where to sit/stand will be perfect! We look forward to helping our Sunday school kiddos to remember the true Reason and magic of this Season. As always, we appreciate the opportunity to teach your children about God s love and look forward to helping to develop your child s faith in God. Please contact me if you have any questions! Blessings, Ali VanDellen alivandellen@gmail.com

5 OUR SUPPORT OF THE LORD S WORK KING OF KINGS MEMBERSHIP Baptized Confirmed Family Units ATTENDANCE October (Avg.) RECEIPTS EXPENSES NET OCTOBER $20, $26, $17, $26, YTD $231, $265, $210, $264, King of King s Elected 2018 Officers/Parish Planning Committee Pastor: President: President Elect: Treasurer: Dan Wehmeier Dale Melancon Kevin Kufeldt Ron Borgstahl Support/Admin. Leader: Dan Popp Worship Ministry Leader: Deb Evans Youth Ministry Leader: Ryan Church Family Ministry Leader: Tana Melancon Elder Chairman: Open Arms Director: Herb Klemp Angela Thrasher $2, $24.10 $20, $ OPEN ARMS TEAM Team Leader: Rich Webber Team Members: Jody Church, Katie Doroh, Lyle Miller and Erin Schrepel OPEN ARMS RECEIPTS EXPENSES NET OCTOBER $75, $89, $66, $89, $8, $ YTD $810, $897, $764, $895, $46, $1, Thank you to the following Thrivent Financial members who directed their Choice Dollars to King of Kings in October - Jean Germer If you have any questions about Thrivent Financial or Choice Dollars, please contact mail@thrivent.com or Jean Germer at Board of Mission Directors Pastor: President: President Elect: Support/Admin. Leader: Elder Chairman: Open Arms Administrator: Open Arms Team Leader: 2018 Elders: Dan Wehmeier Dale Melancon Kevin Kufeldt Dan Popp Herb Klemp Angela Thrasher Rich Webber Herb Klemp (Head Elder), Richard Ahrens, Ryan Church, Greg Gartner, Scott Karr, John Klein, Kevin Kufeldt, Dale Melancon, Mike Pegel, Rich Webber and Joel Whitmer. 5

6 THANK YOU,THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANKS SO MUCH! Thank you very much for your gifts of $ and $ to support the mission of Metro Lutheran Ministry. We are blessed by your generosity and desire to help the people who turn to us when they have nowhere else to go. We thank the generous members of King of Kings Lutheran Church. Jim Glynn, Executive Director Metro Lutheran Ministry (MLM) Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Thank you for doing something wonderful by making a gift of $ to Bethesda on Thursday, October 25, 2018 given in support of Faith Village, KS. Please know that your gift is already creating a better life for a person with disabilities. Thank you! Mike Thirtle, President & CEO Bethesda Lutheran Communities Thank you for your continued support of Lead a Child. Collectively, groups like yours are making a tremendous impact as we work together to share Christ s love thru Christian education all around the world. Blessings, Dr. Phil Frusti, Director Thank you so much for your ongoing support of the Gardner Food Pantry. Your volunteers who deliver are always so nice and the food that is delivered helps stock the pantry shelves. With gratitude, Carlotte & Cris, Managers Southwest Multi-Service Staff Your talents and voices are needed. No experience necessary. There are many ways that a youth or an adult can contribute to the worship service at King of Kings: 1. Singing - participate in a youth choir or adult choir that can be an important part of the worship service on Sunday morning. The choir meets at 7:00 PM on Wednesdays. 2. Handbells - The adult ringers meet each Wednesday evening at 6:00 pm. 3. Playing an instrument - You have heard several of our members play their instruments in church and have heard how it has added to your worship. Please me a response to this invitation to join our music ministry willnauk@hotmail.com or come to our rehearsals on Wednesday, December 5th or any Wednesday evenings. This would be a wonderful New Year s resolution. 6

7 LWML- The years are going so fast it is hard to believe we just had Thanksgiving. I hope that you and your family were able to attend the annual Thanksgiving dinner. We expected a nice group and were pleasantly surprised at all the members that attended, there were 125 people there. It takes many hands to do this dinner. Pat Hymer and I had help from the LWML ladies, some of their husbands, Dale, Dan, Paul, Rick and the youth group. A big thank you to all the people who made side dishes, did prep work, served and cleaned up. The Melancon family treated us with wonderful photos at the Photo booth, Pat provided props. Everyone really enjoyed the booth, thank you to all of them for making our day even more special. Please put the annual Christmas party on your calendar, Sunday, December 2nd. We have a wonderful time visiting, sharing recipes, and exchanging gifts. We are meeting at Rachel Wehmeier s home at S. Hickory St., in Gardner. The party starts at 3:00pm. Please bring a $10 gift for the gift exchange and either a dessert or appetizer to share. If you participated in the prayer pal program this year also bring your prayer pal gift to the party. At this party that we draw names for our new prayer pal for next year and reveal this year s. Hope to see you there. Joyce Webber, our quilting leader, is given us all a holiday break and we will get together for quilting in the new year. REJOICE! for unto you a child is born, wishing you peace, love and joy this Advent season, Yours in Christ, Judy Anderson During the Advent Season which started on Dec. 2nd, a very special little tree stands just outside the sanctuary. It is a tree of love and sharing, called the Giving Tree. On each colorful tag is an item needed by someone in our community. Please take one and bring back your gift unwrapped to the church by Sunday, December 9th and place it beneath the tree. Thank you for making Christmas special to those in need in our community. Lutheran Laymen s League (LLL) KING S MEN The King s Men will meet to share breakfast at 7:00 a.m. Saturday, December 8th and for their regularly scheduled fellowship and Bible Study. All men of the church are encouraged to come and enjoy the good food, fellowship and God s Word. For more information call: Pastor Dan

8 Christmas Eve Candlelight worship service Monday, Dec. 24, :00 & 11:00 PM Christmas Day Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2018 One Worship Service with Holy Communion 10:00 AM We have two services: 8:00 a.m. & 10:30 a.m. 9:20 a.m. Bible Class, Sunday School and Confirmation Communion will be celebrated at both services. There is a staffed nursery available 10:30 a.m.-noon. Be sure and tell your friends and neighbors about these services. They need the light of Christ too! We re on the Web: King of Kings Lutheran Church 306 East Madison P.O. Box 364 Gardner KS Daniel Wehmeier, Pastor Paul Helmer, Assisting Pastor Paul Hoppe, Assisting Pastor Phone: info@kingofkingsks.org Open Arms Lutheran Child Dev. Ctr. openarmscdc@kingofkingsks.org Phone: Fax: JESUS LIVES FOR Bringing the Light of Christ to our neighbor! 8