JULY-AUGUST 2018 The Lamplighter SPECIAL POINTS OF INTEREST: Ice Cream Social Vacation Bible School Worship-inthe-Park Our Savior Lutheran Church - ELCA, Quincy, CA Neighborhood Ice Cream Social We are planning an Ice Cream Social for Saturday July 14 th from 2 3 pm on our front lawn as an Outreach event. We would like to reach out to our neighbors to get to know them and invite them to learn more about us. We would like to provide some homemade ice cream choices. If you have an ice cream maker and would be willing to make a batch or two, please let Gina Rock know (470-3045). If you would like to contribute monetarily or by donation (toppings, bowls, cones, etc.), that would also be appreciated. A sign-up sheet will be passed around at church the next two Sundays. Please help as you are able. Vacation Bible School is July 23rd 27th 500 Years! INSIDE THIS ISSUE: CALENDAR 2 B-DAYS & ANNIV./ GOD S WORK / ASSEMBLY REPORT VOLUNTEER CHART / FINANCIAL SEC. TREASURER 5 SYNOD ASSEMBLY REPORTS HUMOR 7 PASTOR S LETTER 8 3 4 6 The VBS planning team has been working hard to get everything ready to welcome the kids of our community to the Methodist and Lutheran churches. Here s where we could still use your help: Hang up flyers and hand out brochures in your neighborhood (both available at church) prior to the event Sunday July 22nd after worship and coffee fellowship set up and decorate our Fellowship Hall for the Science area Donations for snacks and help with snack preparation each day talk to Gina Rock for details Help with initial Registration on Monday, July 23rd from 8 to 9 am Pray for the adults and children before, during, and after the event Attend our Celebration Worship Service at Pioneer Park on Sunday, July 29th at 10 am, followed by Potluck and BBQ
THE LAMPLIGHTER CALENDAR OF EVENTS: JULY-AUGUST 2018 SEASON after PENTECOST July Wed. 7/4 Happy 4 th of July! Tues. 7/10 VBS Planning meeting at Methodist Church 11 am Wed. 7/11 Behavioral Health Commission meeting Noon 2 pm Quincy Library, free lunch! Sat. 7/14 Ice Cream Social at church 2 to 3 pm Tue. 7/17 Dress-a-Girl meets in Fellowship Hall 1 to 4 pm Fri. 7/21 VBS helper training meeting 5:30 pm at Methodist Church with pizza Sun. 7/22 Set-up for VBS in Fellowship Hall after worship and coffee fellowship Mon. 7/23 Vacation Bible School 9 am to Noon Tues. 7/24 Vacation Bible School 9 am to Noon Wed. 7/25 Vacation Bible School 9 am to Noon Thur. 7/26 Vacation Bible School 9 am to Noon Fri. 7/27 Vacation Bible School 9 am to Noon Fri. 7/27 Ladies Night Out 6 pm (Location TBD) Sun. 7/29 Worship-in-the-Park 10 am with Methodist Church followed by Potluck/BBQ at Pioneer Park August Wed. 8/1 Behavioral Health Commission meeting Noon 2 pm Quincy Library, free lunch! Wed. 8/8 Sun. 8/12 Plumas Sierra County Fair come see our garden! Wed. 8/15 We host Community Supper Tues. 8/21 Dress-a-Girl meets in Fellowship Hall 1 to 4 pm Fri. 8/24 Ladies Night Out 6 pm (Location TBD) Sat. 8/31 Americana Bluegrass Festival at Fairgrounds Looking ahead: September Sat. 9/1 Sun. 9/2 Americana Bluegrass Festival at Fairgrounds Sun. 9/2 Worship service at Fairgrounds 10 am with Gospel music Mon. 9/3 Labor Day Sun. 9/9 God s Work, Our Hands Picnic at Pioneer Park Men s Coffee Group: meets every Monday (except holidays) at Midtown Coffee at 8 am PAGE 2 Please Note: Adult and Women s Bible Study is on sabbatical for the summer. Please pick up a July September devotional booklet in Sanctuary or Fellowship Hall at church.
JULY-AUGUST 2018 BIRTHDAYS AND ANNIVERSARIES PAGE 3 July Birthdays Dave Peters 5 Alan Baitinger 20 Sylvia Thomas 28 July Anniversaries Diana and Mark Howard 3 August Birthdays Tim Surber 6 Jim Burnworth 13 Kendrah Fredricksen 21 Rick Foster 29 August Anniversaries Karen & Jim Oster 30 God s Work. Our Hands. Please continue to give to our ongoing causes: C.A.N. Food Bank Please help us fill the shopping cart. (They can always use more Ramen.) PCIRC Some items their clients could use include: soap, shampoo, lotion, tissues packs, wipes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, nail files, nail clippers, Band-Aids, small mirror, Lip balm, etc. Change for Church Goes to ELCA World Hunger (pick up a box in sanctuary). Box Tops for Education There is a glass jar to put these in on back shelf in sanctuary. Dress-a-Girl/Dress-a-Dude Kits are available on table by office in Fellowship Hall. Mark your calendars, our GWOH Picnic is scheduled for Sunday, September 9th Gina s Report on Synod Assembly First, I want to thank the Council for allowing me to go this year. It was a very enlightening experience for me as a new Lutheran. As your Mission and Ministry person, the highlight was meeting Tita Valeriano, whom we elected on Saturday as the Director for Evangelical Mission for our synod. She is a lovely person who exudes the joy I feel in my heart. I spoke with her numerous times and she agreed to visit our little congregation when her schedule allows. I m sure pastor will tell you all about the other issues we voted on; including some changes in the Constitution. Next year the assembly will only be a one day affair at the Lodi Grape Festival grounds. There were many workshops to choose from so Cindy picked the ones she wanted and I picked different ones to attend. The first one was on Biblical Storytelling nothing new or exciting there. The second one was on Sharing Your Faith it was very interesting as it was a lay presentation. The most important thing I took from it was that no matter how much effort you put into the sharing, the eventual outcome is so much more. We must put 100% effort into sharing God with others and He will do the rest! There is nothing in the world like sharing God s love and Jesus sacrifice with someone who hasn t experienced that kind of unconditional love in their life. Thank you so much for allowing me to go to the assembly.
THE LAMPLIGHTER PAGE 4 Month Day WEEKLY VOLUNTEER SCHEDULE Please sign up on chart in back of sanctuary or email/call Pastor Kendrah with dates/positions for which you can volunteer. Below is the schedule of dates for the next two months. Please help fill in where you can! Thank you! Assisting Minister Clean Church Altar Care Refreshments July 1 Lori Simpson Gina Rock Gina Rock July 8 Jim Oster Gina Rock Gina Rock July 15 Fred Surber Karla Burnworth Karla Burnworth July 22 Gina Rock Gina Rock July 29 August 5 August 12 August 19 August 26 Claudia s Report
JULY-AUGUST 2018 FINANCIAL REPORT JAN. - MAY 2018 PER FRED SURBER PAGE 5 If you have not been to church recently, and have not seen the new windows yet, please be sure to check them out!
THE LAMPLIGHTER PAGE 6 Cindy s Synod Assembly Report There were many things at the Synod Conference that impressed me but I would like to share just one of them in this article. There was a speaker named Rozella White who talked about The Art of Neighboring. She spoke Friday and Saturday and presented a quick picture of what she teaches in her longer program that she has done many times. The focus of her talk was about how to get to know people and to welcome them into your life and your church. She started with our own personal feelings. First we are to love God. Then we need to love ourselves. And finally we can love others. When we repent, we can love ourselves as we should. Once we repent, we will be able to see our own assumptions and biases about the world around us. With this knowledge, we will be able to begin to understand ourselves. And then the hope is to turn our judgment about others into sincere curiosity about the people in the world around us and to listen to them, without judgment, discuss their lives and how they have come to the place they are currently in. Rather than seeing someone as old, a hippy, a Texan or an Iowan (her examples, you can use any category you wish), you may begin to see them where they are at this point in their lives. People are fascinating and everyone has a wonderful story to tell. It may be happy or sad, full of turmoil or free of pain, but it is that person s story if you will just sit and listen. And you will find that your life will be changed by hearing their story. It is important that you let yourself feel about that person, rather than using your brain to analyze what they are saying. It is easy to let our mind criticize others for their circumstances or choices, but we must work at not allowing ourselves to do that. We should act from a place of mercy with compassion and curiosity about how people got to where they are. And we need to have patience, love and respect for everyone. Finally we must be authentic with others. We should share our stories as we are asking others to share with us. (I can say that I understand this thought but my mind says no way! ) This also means figuring out your agenda and being honest with it. If you want to increase your congregation, bring children into your church or increase the diversity of your congregation, this is your agenda. We must be clear and honest about our agenda otherwise it becomes chaos. Every life has meaning. Everyone has gifts I think that is the key. Pastor Kendrah s Synod Assembly Report on Hospitality Workshop One of the workshops I attended was Hospitality vs. Strategic Friendliness led by Dr. Sandra Dager. She talked about the need to understand what the church is supposed to be a Christian community. Bonhoeffer said the church was a gift from God with grace as its foundation. Christ is supposed to be at the center but often we get in the way. Dr. Dager asked what fills the space between people? It should be Christ, but often it is not. The goal of the community should be to be genuine. She warned of becoming a social club. Dr. Dager also talked about the gift of confrontation. When visitors come, they may question why we do things and cause us to rethink what we ve always done. Confrontation is not the same as aggression. It is the offering of an obvious presence. It forces us to tear down our limits and boundaries in order to reach out to others. Hospitality is one of the richest Biblical truths. It is fundamental to humanity. Are we receptive hosts? To do so, we must quiet our suspicions. Strategic friendliness, on the other hand, is commodification of the guest. No one wants to leave church feeling like a commodity. To be hospitable, we must create free space to love our neighbor. We must be careful not to put conditions on hospitality, because that can quickly turn to hostility. We should strive to seek a balance based on love. Hospitality is a dialogue between some bodies. Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person. Dr. Dager closed by saying that it takes commitment to be hospitable. Do whatever it takes to welcome all to our Christian community.
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Our Savior Lutheran Church - ELCA, Quincy, CA 298 E. High St. P.O. Box 1396 Quincy, CA 95971 Pastor: Kendrah Fredricksen Phone: 530-283-2546 E-mail: oursavior95971@yahoo.com Website: quincylutheran.org Mission Statement: We are a church family who worships together, serves our neighbors, and shares the love and grace of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Theme Verse: Isaiah 54:10: For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you. PASTOR S LETTER Dear Church Family, Looking back for a moment, three of us attended Synod Assembly at the beginning of June. Please take the time to read the reports contained within this newsletter to see what we learned. In addition to my report on one of the workshops I attended, I took 8 pages of typed notes. You ll be glad I did not attach them to the newsletter (but I d be glad to give you a copy)! Overall, I really enjoyed Assembly this year. The guest speakers were great as were the Bible studies. We talked about important issues and did business without any major conflicts. I left feeling uplifted and hopeful for the future. Also in June, we hosted the first of two Community Suppers for the year. We served tritip beef, beans and salad. Everyone who attended really enjoyed the delicious food. Thank you to everyone who helped with the Community Supper in any way. It is such a fun way to do God s Work with Our Hands! Looking ahead, summer is here and with it comes a wave of new activities! While we are taking a break from our group Bible studies, we have plenty of other fun things going on: an Ice Cream social, our Fair Garden, VBS, Worship-in-the Park and more. Check out the calendar on page 2. If you re not out of the area for these events, we hope you will join us for as many of them as you wish. I d like to close with a completely different topic: prayer. Please remember to keep each other in your prayers. Many have physical, emotional, spiritual or other issues going on that we may not know about. If you haven t seen someone in church for awhile, why not pick up the phone and give them a call? I m sure members would be glad to get a call from someone other than just the pastor! Never underestimate the power of prayer. God works miracles every day. God may not answer in exactly the way we desire, which is why it is good to remember to pray that God s will be done. Let the power of prayer transform you and the world! In Christ s Love, Pastor Kendrah