Sunday School Christmas Program On Deck
The Grace Sunday School children have been working real hard for a number of weeks preparing for the Sunday School Christmas Program, which will be presented during worship this Sunday, December 17. The theme this year is "The ABC's of Christmas," which have the children working their way through the alphabet to tell the story and meaning of Christmas. The service will contain most of the elements of Sunday worship, including Holy Communion, but the children will be the ones who will lead us. Saturday worship at 4pm will be a traditional Third Sunday of Advent service.
New Evangelical Lutheran Worship Books To Be Placed Sunday
On Tuesday, a group of volunteers installed memorial and honorary bookplates into the new Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnals that were ordered by Grace members. These two hundred plus books were moved to the sanctuary on Wednesday evening. Still to be moved to the sanctuary from a Sunday School room are the 120 hymnals donated by Antioch Lutheran Church in Farmington Hills, Tom's former congregation which closed, and about 40 hymnals shipped from the ELCA Arkansas-Oklahoma Synod, donated by congregations in that synod which had closed.
At the end of worship on Sunday, worshipers will be invited to remove the green Lutheran Book of Worship and stack them at the end of the pew, and those wish to stay a bit longer will help install the new ELW's into the pew racks. The goal has been to get them in the pews in time for Christmas Eve, and it looks like that goal will be met. Thanks to all who donated toward this project!
Christmas Eve Worship Ready to Go
The deadline for ordering digital music from SOS (Substitute Organist Service) was Wednesday. The order included 15 minutes of pre-service Christmas music, which will begin a half hour before the 5:00 and 9:00 pm services. At the 45 minute mark, there will be 15 minutes of carol singing in which those who have gathered by then will be welcome to join in. The remainder of the service will be filled with the singing of traditional Christmas carols, including the singing of Silent Night during the lighting of candles near the end of the service.
Our Learning Track for Stewardship for All Seasons: Please Read and Respond!
This is a repeat from last week!
Our participation in Stewardship for All Seasons gives us access to a learning track which can increase our effectiveness as a congregation. Registration open to anyone in the congregation. The Stewardship Team has chosen
Option 2: Volunteer Recruitment and Retention - Best Practices
Congregations have long battled the 80/20 rule: that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. Now it is even harder, as many congregations report that 80/20 rule is becoming a 90/10 rule.
In this volunteer track for SAS, we will focus on the recruitment, retention and stewardship of church volunteers, as well as growing leaders in your congregation and identifying successful stewardship team members.
All tracks will be on Thursday at noon. The session dates and content are as follows:
- Jan 25: Overview--how do we recruit volunteers? We will consider the process of determining our volunteer needs, preparing recruitment materials, identifying prospective volunteers and how ministry team leaders go about inviting their service.
- Feb 22: Writing job or service descriptions. You will bring a list of volunteer opportunities at your ministry to this meeting and we will walk through how we write a job or service description together.
- March 28: How to retain volunteers. In this meeting we will talk about how to make your volunteers’ experiences worthwhile and fulfilling. We will review check ins, conflict resolution, continuing education and gratitude gatherings.
- April 25: How to grow volunteer leadership in your congregation. One of our goals in refining our volunteer program is to raise up new leaders and maintain a leadership pipeline. We will discuss how to identify potential leaders, give them varied experiences throughout your ministry, and invite them into leadership roles.
To register for this track, click HERE and scroll down to Option 2, and enter your name and email address. You will receive an email confirming your registration, and an email reminder with the Zoom link within 24 hours of each session of the Track. Then enter the dates and time (12:00 noon) on your calendar.
One More Advent Midweek Worship
The third and final Advent Midweek Worship service will be this Wednesday at 6:30 pm in the Grace Sanctuary. Pastor Matt will bring this message this week, and our worship music is Holden Evening Prayer. Spirit Supper will begin serving at 5:00 pm.
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