GRACE LUTHERAN CHURCH & SCHOOL September, 2018 Volume 17, Issue 9 Gracelines INSIDE GRACELINES From Our Pastor 1 From Our Pastor 2 Offering & Attendance School News 3 Welcome Back Education Sunday Scholarships Church News Stewardship Note Stewardship (Con t) 4 Pastors Conference Prayer Quilts Prayers & Squares Ladies Bible Studies 5 Music Ministry Thrivent Dollars Visit the Homebound Church Directory Abundance Sunday Church Information 6 Liturgy as a Life Coach From our Pastor Rev. Michael Mueller I heard a story about a farmer who would sing out quite loudly while he went about his chores. He especially loved to sing when the noise of his tractor masked what he was singing. But it didn t cover it as completely as he thought. His pastor caught him in a memorable rendition of Holy, Holy, Holy. We Lutheran pastors both hear and sing the liturgy in many places other than church often a person who is quite out of it in the hospital when receiving a last communion will break out in liturgical song, such as the farmer sang, or wake to recite the Lord s Prayer perfectly. It becomes part of our DNA and it takes very little prompting for it to come out. Perhaps you too have caught yourself sing Behold the Lamb or Thank the Lord. It happens without our thinking about it. When we Lutherans pray this liturgy and it is a prayer each Sunday, and Baptism and Confirmation and Funeral and Wedding and Communion, etc., we are taught by this liturgy much more than we realize. It becomes a part of our lives, and if we listen to its lessons, it teaches us about our faith. For you see, worship is really all about us receiving gifts from God, not about us giving gifts to God (Romans 11:35-36). It all comes from Scripture and is 2000 to 4000 years old. Does that make you squirm a little and want to protest? But Pastor don t I have to worship God? or do something? The question is what can YOU do without your faith? Nothing! How do you obtain faith? It is given to you through the Word in your Baptism and through being breathed into you through the Bible. This faith given to you enables you to confess a loving God and what He has done for you. You do this confessing in the Divine Service every Sunday. You get God s gifts of grace Word and Sacrament. You simply confess what by faith we believe, and then receive those gifts. Once again we see that it is in our nature to fall back upon wanting to Continues on page 2 Gracelines Calendar and Gracelines are monthly publications of Grace Lutheran Church & School 856 W. Newgrove Street, Lancaster, CA 93534-3092 Telephone 661.948.1018 Fax 661.948.2731
Gracelines Page 2 of 6 My mind belongs to Jesus. He redeemed it with His blood. When evil thoughts torment me, I choose to think on good. Liturgy as a Life Coach (continued from page1) help ourselves (Romans 9:16). We want to take our own salvation into our own hands and be in control of our own destiny. Trouble is if we were to succeed in that, we would be lost forever. But liturgy helps us with that tendency because it will not allow us to help ourselves. It lays bare what by nature we want to be in control and then instead gives us what we need forgiveness of sin. All of the liturgy shows us what our true needs are and how God-for-us has met those needs. God first puts the words into our mouth so that we can speak to Him: O Lord, open Thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise (Psalm 51:15). The grammar of the Gospel is always God as subject doing the action to us as passive object. Thus, we sing about this Holy God, like that farmer and the angels in Isaiah, because it is God who has saved us, not we who have saved ourselves. The very prayers that we need to hear and say are there: Create in me a clean heart Help, save, comfort and defends us Grant us Thy peace. And, then too we get the response we need to remember when God gives us His promises: God, who is faithful and just, will forgive us our sins this is My Body, which is given for you this cup is the New Testament in My Blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins He shall come to judge the living and the dead. These lessons are taught slowly, through repetition. It becomes a rhythm of life for the faithful. It should not, therefore, surprise us that it can rouse a person from a coma or from the hallucinations of the ill. From your Baptism to the last moments of life, the liturgy is there with just the right words for that moment. No wonder we love to hear it sung on Sunday and rebel when it is taken away, for it gives gifts that are priceless! Offering Attendance Collected the Month of July 2018 $32,114 Year -to- Date $203,322 Building Fund (BTBC) Collected 852,756 Available funds 294,082 July 22 Sun 131 Aug 1 Sun 115 July 25 Wed 0 Aug 22 Wed 8 July 29 Sun 122 Aug 2 Wed 5 Aug 5 Sun 112 Aug 8 Wed 8 Aug 12 Sun 116 Aug 15 Wed 2 Average Attendance July 2017 125 2018 122
Page 3 of 6 Gracelines School News GRACE LUTHERAN SCHOOL BEGAN THE 61st YEAR WITH 107 STUDENTS! Continue to pray for more students! Education Sunday - September 10 - Grace kicks off the education programing for the year. Students from Grace Lutheran School sing at the worship service. After the service, there will be a celebratory ice cream social for the young and the young at heart. FUNDING OUR FUTURE! Scholarships help families send their children to Grace Lutheran School. Tax deductible donations are accepted year-round! Consider an extra donation to help students attend GLS as we live out our mission here in the Antelope Valley. QUARTER DIP IS COMING! FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 5:30-7:00 PM. Church News Stewardship Note It s September, and everything is in full swing again: back to school and back to church attendance after vacations and weekends away. And since everything is back into full swing, it s a perfect time to get back to basics, back to the foundation. At the end of the first of his chapters on the virtue of faith in Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis provides a helpful reminder, by way of analogy, for the foundation of stewardship. He wrote: Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So then, when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, Daddy, give me six pence to buy you a birthday present. Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is
Gracelines Page 4 of 6 six-pence to the good on the transaction. When a man has made these two discoveries God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. (128 129). This is the first thing we are given to confess about stewardship, and it has to do with ownership. God owns everything, and we are simply managers stewards acting on His behalf. This is true not only of all that we have in this life (Deuteronomy 8:17 18), but also all that we are in this life (1 Corinthians 6:20). The rest flows from here. Since we are stewards, or managers, of what belongs to God, entrusted to make use of it according to His will, there is an expectation of responsibility and accountability. For the Lord said, Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more (Luke 12:48b). And from this comes blessing and reward: Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master (Matthew 25:21). We have everything we need to support this body and life from our God s fatherly divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in us. We have everything we need for our spiritual life also from His merciful hands. On account of the sacrifice of His Son, our Lord Jesus, through the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments, we have the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and everlasting salvation delivered to us with absolute certainty that it is ours not as stewards but as sons (Galatians 4:1 7). Let us then, as His own sons, press all that He gives to us into the service of His church and to His glory. In His Grace, Lee T. Jackson Pastor Mueller will be out of the office from Sunday afternoon September 23 thru Wednesday, September 26. If have any needs while pastor is out of town please call the church office or your elder. Prayer Quilts Prayers and Squares have now given many prayer quilts to members and friends of Grace. A quilt is available by completing a request form from the Parish Hall Bulletin Board and taking it to the church office. A quilt can be ready for tying within two weeks or we do have some on hand. Ladies meet every Monday to work on quilts. Join us at 9 AM in the modular. Prayers & Squares is seeking cotton fabric for prayer quilts. We can also use sheets for world relief quilts. Please bring to the church office. Thank you!
Page 5 of 6 Gracelines Mary Martha Bible Studies will resume on Thursday, September 13 at 9:30 a.m. in the Modular. We have fellowship and goodies until 10 and then the study. All are welcome. The gate is closed so call the office at 948-1018 and you will be clicked in. Please do not honk. Please bring your Spring Quarterly as they study will be from that magazine. Ladies of Grace Bible Study will resume on Wednesday, September 12 at 9:30 at the home of Wanda Vandrey. All are welcome. Grace Lutheran Adult Choir will be starting up on Thursday, September 13 Those wishing to join the choir may come then. It will begin at 7:00 p.m. in the church. For further questions you may speak with Candy Doerfler. Thrivent Members Please check your available Choice Dollars and designate them to Grace Lutheran Church. We have a few members that if you have a few minutes in your schedule that you may be able to stop and visit or call they would really like it. Alice Adams- 855 Jackman, Lancaster 93534, 661-943- 5454, Ruth Johnson-540 W. Avenue J-10, Lancaster,93534, and Norma Ludicke- 3052 Milling St., Lancaster, 93534, 661-940-5855. If you haven t done so already your church directory is available on the table in the Narthex. Please look for your name as they are alphabetic. If you don t see your name please let Teri in the church office know and she will get you one. Abundance Sunday Collection for Grace Resource Center for the month of September is diapers for children and adult..
GRACE LUTHERAN CHURCH & SCHOOL 856 W. Newgrove Street Lancaster, CA 93534-3092 NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION PAID LANCASTER, CA PERMIT No. 200 We re on the Web! See us at: www.gracelancaster.org CHURCH STAFF CHURCH BOARD OF DIRECTORS Pastor Rev. Michael Mueller President Paul Steiner Church Secretary Teri Morgan Vice President Lee Jackson Treasurer Diane Grooms SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION Recording Secretary Tina Carlon Principal David Ingwersen Member at Large Mona Schultz School Secretary Christine Calvert Council of Elders Donald Crane Pastor Mueller pastor@gracelancaster.org Church Office church@gracelancaster.org