Sympathy to Family of Linda Merrill
We extend our sympathy to the family of Linda Merrill, who died on July 13. Visitation is tonight (Friday, July 21, from 4-8 pm, and I will officiate the service on Saturday, July 22, 6 pm, all and Wonderly Horvath. You can view and read the obituary for Linda HERE.
Bathroom Renovation Project Moving Forward
On Wednesday, Grace President Jerry Moses met with representatives from construction and electrical contractors who will be doing the renovations on bathrooms for the Dining Room and Preschool on the lower level, and the addition of a men's and women's room across from the handicap accessible restroom in the back corner of the church nave. Jerry will provide an update on this project prior to worship this weekend.
LIFT Worship at Birchard Park Ready to Go
The Fifth Sunday All-LIFT Service is ready to go, with Grace, St. John's, St. Mark, Hayes Memorial and Camino De Vida participating. Grace will still hold Saturday worship at 4 and Sunday worship at 9, which will be an abbreviated service. Don't forget to bring your lawn chair. Fellowship at 10, worship at 10:30, and a small project of park trash pickup at 11:30. Also, a non-perishable or hygiene item for Bridge of Hope food pantry. Volunteers are needed -- Pr. Paul has prepared a Signup Genius page for us for this event, which you can view and volunteer at HERE. You can also help to get the word out by sharing the Facebook flyer for this event with your FB friends, which you can find and share HERE.
LIFT Planning Fall Activities
The LIFT Board met last Sunday for our regular bi-monthly meeting. In addition to updates regarding recent summer activities, the Board and Pr. Paul is turning attention to fall activities. Some activities that are being planned include:
- God’s Work Our Hands Sunday service project on September 10
- Blessing of Animals
- Great Hymns of Faith
- Leaf raking
- Reformation Service (5th Sunday
- New Year's Eve (Sunday morning)
Fresh Expressions 101 Coming to Zion Sandusky
Fresh Expressions is an international, cross-denominational, creative movement of Christians working alongside existing congregations to cultivate new forms of church for those who have never been involved in church or who have left the church. The purpose of Fresh Expressions isn't to get people to attend a traditional or typical form of church on Sunday mornings. The purpose of Fresh Expressions is to connect with people, especially those who would never enter a church building, to form new faith communities in places where people are already gathering in contemporary culture. "Fresh Expressions are places where the people of God communicate the love of God in new and compelling ways.
Heather and Pr. Paul have attended Fresh Expressions training here in our synod, and now there is another opportunity to explore this new way of doing ministry. Pr. Phil Gardner, one of our retired Eastern Conference Pastors, recently sent this email to Conference leaders:
Greetings, Eastern Conference folk!
Zion, Sandusky, will welcome Fresh Expressions trainer the Rev. Dr. Matthew Lake on Saturday, September 23, to offer us a first blush at what I’d call the opposite of “megachurch” as a strategy to bring Christ Jesus to people who don’t and likely won’t do traditional church. A continental breakfast will be available at 8:30, and Matt will offer a presentation from 9:00 to noon. We hope you and your people will want to attend. More information will be forthcoming, but please accept this as a teaser to help get the event on your calendar.
Zion is hosting, and funding is being provided by the Legacy Fund of St. Paul, Sandusky, and the Zion Foundation. So, it’s FREE!!!
Reply with any questions you may have. Thanks.
You can view a flyer of this event HERE.
Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church Holds First Meeting
The ELCA Churchwide Assembly voted to establish a Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church, the first meeting of which was held recently. To learn more about this commission, its members, and its first meeting, you can go HERE.
Constitution Revision Committee Works on Chapter 11
The Constitution Revision Committee (Linda, John Avers, and I) met on Wednesday to continue our work of getting our Constitution up to date. For this meeting, we addressed Chaptere 11, which deals with Officers, and includes the edit that was proposed for voting at the last annual meeting. This action was tabled until a more complete process on updating the constitution could be completed, which is what we are working on. This issue inA this chapter is to identify president, vice-president and secretary as officers elected from the membership of Council, and for the treasurer to be appointed by council, which will ensure that someone with the skills needed for this office can serve in this capacity. Next month we will move on to Chapter 12, Congregation Council
