From the Pastors Desk

A Busy Month!

From the Pastors Desk - September 01, 2024

I’m trying to figure out what happened to the summer!!?? It seems like just yesterday it was the beginning of June and now, wow, it’s already the beginning of September! Speaking of September, we have quite a month planned here at Good Shepherd.

First, on Sunday, September 8th we will celebrate God’s Work Our Hands Sunday. We are collecting the items requested for The Refuge of Hope and Hammer & Nails. We hope to get a great collection of items so that we can box up the items on God’s Work Sunday and then celebrate with donuts, juice, coffee and other snacks. I have applied for, and received, one of Thrivent’s $250 action grants which will go towards purchasing some of the requested items and the tasty donuts (at least I hope they’re tasty!).

Sunday school starts back up this month on September 15th. This year we will dive into one of the Great Courses study guides and videos. The topic we will cover over the course of the year is How Jesus Became God. There are 24 lessons, each with a 30 minute video and study guide. This course was created by Professor Bart D. Ehrman who is an American New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books and has authored six New York Times bestsellers. This course is based upon his book, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee.

This month council begins meeting again as well. Our first meeting back from summer break will be Wednesday, September 11th at 7pm.

The quilting folks will be back as well, returning for the 1st and 3rd Fridays each month.

Finally, on September 29th, we will be worshiping with Zion UCC once again for a fifth Sunday service oriented worship with lunch following. It is Good Shepherd’s turn to organize the service projects. I am in need of some folks to help plan those projects. Don’t worry, Lutheran World Relief’s website has numerous kits that can be assembled as service projects. We just have to purchase the items. Please remember that the worship service will take place at 10am. If you plan to stay for lunch please sign up on the back of your attendance card.

So here we are looking forward to another busy church year. Thank you all for being a vital part of it!

Faithfully,

Lei Fahrner

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