Pastor’s Letter
phone : 256-762-7301 or 256-765-7755
Already, this month, we will be celebrating Palm Sunday! We will be setting our clocks back for daylight savings time. Once again, we will start to panic about getting our taxes ready. Some of us will use the weird way in which Alabama suddenly throws a switch to make it instantly summer, to do something about our January intentions to get back into shape. Suddenly fireplaces are shut for the duration of more clement weather. And so our lives march on, faster and faster. No matter. God’s grace attends all of it. Jesus promise still holds true, “I will never fail you nor forsake you.”
Because of several conversations at church, I would like you to consider whether you might be interested in a major ministry opportunity, starting some time after Easter. This opportunity is a several week event called “Intimacy Training Workshop”. Sheila and I have gone through the process ourselves, and have taught it at other churches, and once, here. Perhaps no other word in the English language is so capable as “intimacy” of generating both terror and longing at the same time. There is terror over the risks entailed in the genuine openness and personal vulnerability that is required for intimacy to grow and flourish. At the same time intimacy describes the deep longing of our hearts, because intimacy brings with it the surcease of loneliness together with true companionship.
Intimacy does not come easily—sometimes not at all to some people. And that is tragic. God made us to be intimate, first with him, and then with our lifelong partner, and finally to build intimate friendships with those whom we love—our family and our friends. Intimacy is not the same as love. Intimacy is always the goal of two people who love each other. Most of the time intimacy remains on the horizon. But sometimes there is that flash of real togetherness. And then you want even more of it. Intimacy does not come automatically. No one knows innately how to “do” it very well. We need to learn to be intimate. We need training in order for it to flourish. Those realizations formed the major premises behind the design of this program and its study materials, almost twenty years ago.
The program requires an hour or so or your time once a week for about eight weeks, where we meet together to learn and to share. It requires that each participant has their own workbook, and that each participant does some weekly homework assignments (mostly fun). I can guarantee that you will be very elated with the results of your efforts!
On March 20 (Saturday) two representatives from “Jews for Jesus” will be visiting our church for a shared evening meal where they will lead us through a Seder Meal—the forerunner to our communion service, and the same meal that Jesus experienced with his disciples on that night when he was betrayed. Mark this on your calendar! If you have not experienced Jews telling about their own meal, you are in for a treat. You will learn so much more about what communion really means, when you understand its roots. A lot of lights will come on in your head about the meaning of what we do every Sunday. Hope to see you there!
In Christ, Pastor Toso
Next Sunday, February 7, we hold our annual meeting where we will vote on a slate of candidates for our new council and authorize the spending plan for our planned ministry this year. Two of our candidates for the three open council positions are new—Richie Gaskell and Jose Guerrero. They join Sandy Dickinson, who is returning for a second term. Thank you to each of them for their willingness to provide this critical service to our congregation! In the council installation service, which will be held on February 14, we will all promise to uphold them in prayer in this coming year. It is easy to make the promise. It is easy also to forget to follow through on it. We depend, more than you may realize, on their gifts, wisdom, and talents to reliably steer our little ship safely forward.
We welcome next Sunday our new worship accompanist, who has his doctorate in piano, Tim O’Steen. His arrival will allow several things to happen. I won’t have to jump between piano and altar anymore. I will be able to join the choir as a bass voice again. Tim will be able to direct choir and shape our repertoire. He will also be able to play all our service music, including “Create In Me”, “Thank the Lord”, and the “Gloria Patri”, as well as music during communion distribution. It is extremely generous on his part to come aboard with only the promise that we will pay him as soon as we are able to. I hope that is sooner rather than later.
John Viescas is leaving us for a 9 month contract job in Information Services on the east coast of Florida. He has been the one maintaining our web site and, at worship, providing the power point presentation of our hymns. Wayne Gibour will step in as his worship replacement, but we have no one, so far, who can do the web site. If you are willing to look at the structures we have in place to do that, and to spend a couple of hours a month on that job, please let us know. The training isn’t too difficult. And it’s kind of fun to see your finished work published right out onto the internet!
Two new small groups are already having an impact upon our congregation. If you haven’t yet had a chance to join one, or are interested in adding a new group to our list, let us know. We’ll help you work it out.
Some of you may not know about the large umber of contributions sent to us from sister congregations in the LCMC. This January, alone, we received over $5000 from five separate churches, with one sending us a second check for $3000! We are interpreting these gifts as straight answers to prayer, given by God, who has been steadily blessing us, since we took the serious commitment last November of trying to “get out of the way” and seeking to be specifically obedient in areas where we had allowed negativity into our interpersonal relationships.
Finally, Sheila and I are looking forward to having as many of you as can come, to celebrate the Super Bowl at our house, starting at around 4PM this Sunday. Who cares which team you are cheering for? I’m in it for the ads and the snacks and the fellowship! (not necessarily in that order)
Pastor Perry Toso
The face of Lutheranism is the U.S. is changing rapidly following the ELCA national assembly’s decision last August to place itself in authority over the Word of God by voting into existence a ministry statement which directly violates clear scripture. By this vote, the delegates considered themselves capable of creating a new “truth”, unknown to either the Bible or to 2000 years of previous church history.
In order to continue with this narrative, a brief definition of the alphabet soup used in the following paragraphs is needed. The three major Lutheran bodies in the U.S., listed in order of both size and conservatism, are the ELCA, the Missouri Synod, and the Wisconsin Synod. Smaller breakaway Lutheran groups include two or three much smaller associations such as the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (to which our congregation belongs). A group called Word Alone has until August served as a loyal opposition group within the ELCA. However, this Fall it halted all efforts to reform the ELCA churchwide and described all such future attempts as “futile.” Word Alone was the organization out of which LCMC was formed—a group of pastors and congregations who decided already in 2002 that all efforts to reform the ELCA were futile, and that it was necessary to get on with church life in a more biblical and Lutheran way.
In addition to the above is CORE—Lutheran Coalition for Renewal. This group, along with Word Alone, served until August as a theological protest group within the ELCA, developing its own teaching documents and congregation educational materials as a way of surviving in an increasingly apostate church body. CORE also concluded in August that eventual reform of the ELCA was impossible, and, at a September convention attended by over 1200 in Indianapolis formed a free-standing synod to relate both to congregations who were leaving the ELCA and to those still undecided in the ELCA as to their future affiliation. CORE will begin work on the constitution for the new church in March, drafts will be issued in July, and the CORE convocation will meet in Columbus, Ohio on August 26-27 to consider recommendations for reconfiguration.
The relationship between Core and LCMC is complex. Since the CORE group includes many former bishops and pastoral leaders of the ELCA, they were understandably inclined to use their own interior leadership. The initial hope was that, instead of re-inventing the wheel, they could be content to create a new “central district” within the LCMC. And this is still in consideration. However, I don’t think it will become the eventual choice. Although Core is actively helping other congregations out of the ELCA and encouraging them to consider the LCMC as they do so, I think CORE will finally decide to become a new Lutheran denomination, and not settle for becoming a district within the LCMC.
Jaynan Clark, the Word Alone president, made some surprisingly blunt statements in their Nov-Dec newsletter. “It is false for the ELCA to now give an impression of security and that this is no big deal….This is not a point of mere disagreement on an issue, but of pure departure from the Christian faith…..What was put up for a vote both times was the authority of the Word of God and whether the church has the right to mandate teaching and practices that are not scriptural….This is a matter of significance that knows no bounds historically, geographically or temporally. There are eternal consequences for leading Jesus’ flock astray.”
What we can expect locally (if by locally one can include Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee) is the formation of a whole new Southeast District of the LCMC, within the next year or so. That will open up whole new areas of cooperative ministry and fellowship for us!
Happy New Year, as we enter it together in the Name of Jesus! Pastor Toso
Pastor’s December Letter 2009
“He Came, He Comes, He Will Come Again”
It is truly alarming how quickly Advent and Christmas have come around again! It seems like we were just doing this. But the sun in the sky with its unique far- south lighting, and the last leaves drifting off the trees confirm that the calendar must be right. Unique to each of us are the memories and expectations that we bring to this time. As we get older, there is not a single Christmas without some admixture of loss and sorrow in with the joy and expectation.
So how do Christians treat the season of Advent properly? I think the answer to that begins with the word “realistically”. By realistically I mean that we should expect this season not to like any other, thus far in our lives. It doesn’t have to measure up to or exceed in joy any other Christmas. This year will be totally new. God will be doing something different this year. That is so good! It is part of the surprise.
Another thing that Christians do (since we’re the only ones who even know what Advent is all about) is to set about preparing for Christ’s coming in ways other that getting all the cards out, getting all the right presents for everyone, and getting the groceries bought. It involves the expectation that God means for His coming to very personal indeed! So…if you know that and if you believe that, then you will act on it in a specific way. Here is what you do. You keep your eyes open for when He will visit you.
A familiar Christmas story tells of a poor cobbler who was told that he would be visited in this way. So he got his shop all ready and cooked up a special meal and settled down to wait. His shop door rang, but it was an even poorer man who needed a pair of shoes. Since he could not pay for them, the cobbler provided him with a pair that fit him for free. And he settled down to wait some more. Again the shop door opened, but this time it was a mom and her child that need some food. So he gave them some of the meal he had prepared specially for that Christmas dinner. Late in the afternoon somebody else came by who needed a coat to stay warm, and so the cobbler gave him one of his.
Instead of a celebration day, it had turned out to be a day of interruptions! It got later and later, but nobody else came. So the man sorrowfully put out his light and went to bed. He told God that he had missed keeping his promise to visit. Then God said, “Of course I didn’t. I stopped by three times, and you helped me each time!” This story is simply another way of saying what Jesus himself said in Matthew 25, “As you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”
Although everyone can see that ending coming a mile off, what you can’t see is how God is going to visit you, this year. And you WILL know when Christmas “has happened for you.” It might be at church; it might be when you are all be yourself; it might be a special carol that does it, or a special sunset. I don’t know how it will happen. But if you look for it, He will come, and it will be especially for you. And you will be blessed. That’s how it is with God. He is so good!
He Came! He Comes! He Will Come Again!
Pastor Perry Toso
Pastor’s November Newsletter
Scottish preacher expressed this profound truth, of course speaking with his heavy Scottish accent:
God thought it
Christ bought it.
The Holy Spirit wrought it.
The Bible brought it.
The devil fought it.
But thank God, I got it!
Our church seems to be saying the same thing with our own more American accent!
November is another big month of events for our congregation. We are preparing our church for a special season by a yard clean up and trimming this Saturday. Remember to observe the change from Daylight savings time this Saturday midnight. Then, on Sunday, November 1, All Saints Day, we will receive five new members, baptizing three of them. (We have yet more prospective members in the wings.) On the same Sunday four of our youth will receive first communion, celebrating this with their parents. That same Sunday we get to hear a trio, who have been working hard on a special song by a new contemporary Christian artist. Then another BBQ chicken fundraiser is planned for the following Thursday (if you haven’t helped to serve on one of these Thursdays, please give it a try!) This month our church women who have been working hard at preparing Christmas crafts will hold a special sale jointly with some other churches.
November is a five Sunday month, giving us the opportunity to catch up on some church finances. Thank you all for a very good month of October! Compass Bank responded to our request for a period of interest-only payments on our mortgage by requesting a pretty thorough documentation of every conceivable number characterizing our attendance, giving, and planned parameters for a year. We are sending them a letter thanking them for considering our request so kindly, but declining the process. On the subject of ministry support, stewardship Sunday will be the third Sunday of November. Besides a worship theme dedicated to that subject, we hope to have several volunteers share with you, in a temple talk time, what tithing has taught them, and what it can mean to us all. Christian witness is limited to simply reporting what God did for us. However, its power lies in this: that when we hear others’ stories, they confirm the truth of our own experiences with God, and challenge and encourage us on our own journey, a journey so filled with questions and problems. Finally, for those of you who don’t know, we received $1400 from our church yard sale, together with $350 from Thrivent, at least $700 of which will be sent to Restoration Ranch as part of our benevolence. Thank you to all of you who worked so hard to make that event a success!! Between the fourth and fifth Sunday of November is our mid-week Thanksgiving Eve worship with pie fest. And then, the fifth Sunday of November launches us into a whole new church year and the season of Advent. It’s going to be busy!
My sense is that our church is on the cusp of something very good. We’re just waiting to see what God will do next!
In Christ’s service,
Pastor Perry Toso
Pastor’s October Newsletter
This will be an exciting month for our church. The ministry chair for LCMC, Bill Sullivan, will be visiting us Sunday, October 18. He will preach for that service and then we will open up the fellowship hour for a question and answer time with him. Judee Donohue has a good idea she wants run by him. You may have questions or concerns. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear news and grow in understanding of our relationship with the LCMC. That evening he will visit a church in Prattville that is thinking about joining the LCMC0, then on to Gulf Shores, Atlanta, and some churches in Florida. We will soon have more sister churches in this Southeast part of the US!
The LCMC annual assembly is being held beginning this Sunday at Fargo, North Dakota. Over 600 people have registered so far! That’s double what we had last year. We are being overwhelmed with churches looking to escape the ELCA. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the LCMC is not adequately staffed for such an influx. But those are good growing pains.
Other good news is that we will be receiving new members this month—seven are planning to join, and we have eight more prospective members waiting in the wings. God seems to have heard our prayers about changing the demographics of this congregation. Our two Sunday School classes are going well, and each Wednesday now we have a confirmation class for our junior high aged youth.
You will see a Fellowship hall filled with sorted clothes and books and equipment readied to go at our annual yard sale event. Thank you to all who have contributed their things for sale and thank you to those who sorted it and readied it for the sale.
Our Whole Hog chicken dinner fund raiser is ready to go again this Thursday. If you haven’t helped serve before you might want to consider joining the team of volunteers, beginning at 4 PM. It’s great fellowship and it’s money raised that can go to benevolence.
With the change of season becoming so evident this week, thoughts begin to turn toward the end of the year festivals of Thanksgiving and Christmas. I omitted Halloween. But some women in the church are planning a festival of our own that will fill in for that. Watch for upcoming details.
Thank you to both Linda Austin and Don Anderson for each contributing to a memorable service while we were on vacation. That takes lots of work and lots of courage. I am so proud of the depth of faith shown by this congregation in so many ways!
May God continue to bless us and keep us in His Grace!
Pastor Perry Toso
Pastor’s Letter for September 2009
As you have heard from news reports, the ELCA, our former denomination, voted in national assembly to accept as pastors homosexual clergy, provided that they are living in a “committed relationship”. As I noted in my last letter, this action alienates and probably severs all meaningful church relations with virtually all Christian churches south of the equator—regardless of denomination.
- This is ironic, because while the resolution was passed under the banner of promoting “inclusivity”, in actual fact it produces the precise opposite, excluding the very large majority of Christianity opposed to this unbiblical position.
- Not only is the action ironic, it is unbelievably arrogant, by completely discounting the opinion and beliefs of the large majority of Christians simply because they live in less developed nations.
- An additional travesty is that the leadership of the ELCA forced this action upon the denomination completely without mandate for such action. As I wrote to the Times Daily, when the ELCA polled its membership about two years ago, the result was that far fewer than 30% of ELCA members were interested in pursuing this line of action.
Yet the resolution passed by a 67 to 33 margin!! This is a clear indication that the voting delegates were not randomly chosen, but that the deck was stacked by the bishops of each of the 65 synods. It demonstrates clearly that not only airplanes, but whole denominations can be hijacked. I grieve the loss of many venerable and reputable and irreplaceable Seminaries! The inevitable result is going to be an exodus of congregations from the already shrunken ELCA. I hope that many of them will consider membership in the LCMC, thereby increasing our ability to provide services such as seminary education and wider choices for LCMC clergy for call.
Our LCMC president, Pastor Bill Sullivan, will be visiting our congregation on the second Sunday of October. If you have not yet met him, you are in for a treat! He will be preaching for us that Sunday, and will be available to meet with our council, to hear about the current situation in our church. You are welcome to express your concerns and opinions to him, as well. Many of you have expressed concern, that, since departing from the ELCA, we have had only tenuous connection to the larger church. This visit is meant to allay some of those fears.
If we can get commitments from all our youth, we will be able to offer two Sunday School classes this Fall, in addition to our first confirmation class in a while. We look forward to getting those programs underway as part of a continuing effort to address the aging demographic of our church. Judee Donahue will be teaching the younger students aided by Judy Etienne, and Michael Anne will be teaching the older students. In addition, the worship experience for our youth is being strengthened by providing worship bulletins especially designed for the younger set, but still expressing the same theme for the day as is being presented to the adults.
As you know, Charles and Ayako (who formerly sang in our choir before moving to Japan) will be getting married the third Saturday of September at our church. Please keep that young couple and their day of celebration in your prayers.
In His service, Pastor Toso
Pastor’s Letter for August 2009
This month the ELCA will be voting on the proposed new “ministry standards” to formally include actively gay clergy onto the roster and potentially into the leadership of every ELCA congregation. For a church so interested in ecumenicity, they don’t seem to care much that, by this action and vote, they are irrevocably cutting themselves off from virtually all Christian communions south of the equator. (where more Christians live than north of the equator!) The new standards have been forced through the required layers of bureaucracy during the last several years . I have read the materials required of all the voting members, and must say I am appalled at the level of deviousness with which each crucial point is presented. (To read the materials for yourself go to elca.org and read the materials under the heading “faithful journey”). The “representatives” from each of the 65 synods in the U.S. have been handpicked by the bishops for their correct position on the issue, and everything is pretty much fore-ordained as far as the conclusion goes. Even the objection of 29 synods that this shouldn’t be passed by mere majority vote has been buried/steamrollered. (To say nothing of the objection that conventions just don’t have the authority vote on God’s Word!!) It also does not seem to matter that both attendance and giving have plummeted in the ELCA largely over this issue in the last several years, mirroring the death spiral which the Episcopal church in the USA has already experienced. The ELCA can hardly wait to get there!! Because this is the case, another assembly has been already called for the month of September in Indianapolis, and this is why I am telling you all this. The prospect of doubling or even tripling the size of L.C.M.C. is quite good. A lot of truly Lutheran congregations will be looking for a life boat at that convention, or a place to live, where the Word of God is still recognized as authoritative and normative for the church’s faith and life. L.C.M.C. already has done all the work and demonstrates that it has a viable ministry committee, education program, pastoral pension/medical benefit program, and staff to coordinate everything. The wheel does not have to be re-invented for these congregations to pick up and move on in their “faithful journey”. Check out the news as it unfolds in Minneapolis. Let’s see how the Spirit deals with this one. My younger brother, Joel, has been tapped to be the new church president of one of St. Paul’s larger congregations (Roseville Lutheran). Their council is currently going over all of this stuff, and, to tell the truth, it is just very, very painful. A human tragedy which requires so much love and understanding, has been rendered incalculably worse by seeking to resolve the tension through asserting that any sexual expression is as good as another.
Our own seas are stormy for entirely different reasons. We sadly say farewell to Grace Bible on August 9. Join us for a farewell brunch following their service on the 9th. They have contributed not only to the stability of our finances, but to our friendships, as well. I’m glad to hear that some/many of them really do not wish to go. We pray for God’s richest blessings on them as they seek to bear witness to the love of our Lord Jesus in their new location on Florence Boulevard.
Please note the upcoming activities planned for our church on the calendar, and plan to participate when you can.
Some of you have been asking about Ayako and Charles wedding. Evidently only those who were members in the choir got invitations. That’s our best guess. It also might have to do with the not inconsiderable cost of having the reception at the Marriott.
Pray hard for our church leadership in these up coming weeks as we face serious challenges for our future life.
Together In His Grace, Pastor Toso
Pastor’s July Newsletter
The first big piece of news this month is that the roof replacement is finished and our roof no longer leaks! Interior repairs had to include carpet, wall and repainting that were more extensive than originally estimated because of a freak rain storm that swamped the entire educational unit at the beginning of the re-roofing. In the end, the damage exposed the fact that our sanctuary and our educational units were poorly or under-insulated, and now they are properly done.
The second piece of news is that Grace Bible is ending their rental agreement with us at or around July 31 of this year. They have been contributing $2000 per month for the usage of this church’s facilities. With this income every month we have been able to stay roughly current on our cash flow. Without it, our church will definitely have to come up with a plan, within the next 30 days, to address the shortage which it will cause in our budget. The real net difference is somewhat less than $2000, however. We estimate that their usage of the facility has driven up our utility bill at least $200 per month. So that lowers the gap to be covered to $1800. Next, we are pursuing renewing our insurance with another carrier, who won’t be insisting on such an outrageously high deductible. Our current carrier proposes that we pay them $5176 per year. We already have a comparable bid in from the insurance carrier recommended by the LCMC that will cost us $3500 per year (which operates with a $1000 deductible.) That $1600 per year, or $135 per month savings, reduces the gap per month to $1665. Divide that by 4.3 weeks per month, and that comes out to $387 per week which our net income will have to show by August.
We plan to have a new member Sunday the last Sunday of this month. We’re looking forward to welcoming Judy Etienne and her two boys, Chris and Jason.
The canoe trip on Bear Creek had to be rescheduled. We hope to do it when everyone is available in July or August.
The women of the church have been assembling weekly to work on the crafts project for this coming November’s pre-Christmas sale. Some of the proceeds should be matched by a proposed Thrivent grant.
This last month we said farewell to Mildred Gann, who died suddenly at her home. She had been a long established Sunday School teacher along with Pete Akers back in the 1980’s. A health disability kept her from attending church for about the last decade, and so many current members did not get a chance to meet a very encouraging saint, who was faithful to her Lord right to the end.
With the departure of Grace Bible, we will need to consider placing on our wish list two items: a projector for our hymns ($499) and some kind of computer and display screen ($0-349). If you know of anything that will fill the bill, please let any council member know!
In Christ, Pastor Toso
Pastor’s June Newsletter
The church roof should be replaced by the time you read next month's letter. The church council and the committee overseeing the bids have done a thorough job and gotten us a good contract. It took a long time for our insurance carrier to finally come up with some figures, but they were good enough to complete the estimate based upon our $1000 deductible, which we had at the time of the loss, rather than using our current $13,000 deductible for storm damage. After the roof work and the interior repairs are complete, the council will be proceeding on the consideration of the new bids for our church insurance, which renews on June first. If appears that the LCMC insurance carrier will be able to offer us a considerable savings. And that is before Hicks Insurance, our local agent has offered us any bids.
Many of you were able to see Chuck Rogers again, as he came all the way over from Georgia to help us celebrate our 10th anniversary of the dedication of the new building. Harold Lewis reviewed the history of the project briefly, and Chuck Rogers filled in a few details. After a reception in the Fellowship Hall, everybody met out at Lewis cabin on the lake to complete our celebration of Memorial Day. Harold and Gene Warfield won the annual disk pitching contest, wrenched from the reluctant hands of the “Polish Team” of Chuck Novak and Wayne Gibour.
Our church is celebrating two significant wedding anniversaries in June. On Sunday, June 6, our congregation is holding a recognition day for the faithful ministry of Art and Sally Owens to our church. It will also be the week that they celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary! Then, on Sunday June 27, Wayne and Mickey Gibour will be back from up north to celebrate with us their 50th wedding anniversary! Don't miss these special occasions to mark God's wonderful gifts to us.
We are submitting to Thrivent three proposals for fund raising for our church this year. The first has already been approved, and that is for $1020 to match funds raised by the “Whole Hog Chicken Dinner” effort. The second project proposal is for the women's craft fair pre-Christmas sale. The third proposal is for our annual garage sale, probably sometime in October. We hope for something in the range of $1200 for each of the latter.
As we slip into the routines of the church in summertime, we will be looking for people who are willing to contribute special music for us, including instrumental pieces, for our weekly services. Contact any of our worship committee members--Claudia, Sandy, Sheila, Tricia, Butch, or Harriett—if you would like to help adorn our worship in this way.
We are delighted to welcome Judy Etienne into our church family, and we will be officially receiving her as a new member very soon. She has already made a difference as she has helped to welcome two recent visitors to our congregation and make them feel a part of the family.
That's the news. And it's mostly above average! Keep up the good work and stay in touch, if you have to be away for awhile!
In Christ, Pastor Toso
Pastor’s Easter Newsletter 2009
Easter was fun this year. But if it does anything, Easter points us to new life. To that end, two structures of our church are getting energetic attention, in response to the congregational meeting, where it was voted that “effective structures” was the one area of the eight “quality characteristics” that most needed our attention. The first structure is small groups.
Small groups are incredibly important, no matter what size congregation you belong to, because no worship service, however magnificent, can fulfill the intimacy needs which every Christian has. Worship services are not designed to be a venue where one is held accountable before friends concerning the constantly needed Christian disciplines of study, prayer, and service, as small groups are. Nor can worship services provide a place where personal needs are shared and personal concerns are cared for and prayed for in a such confidential way. Small groups create a unique place where trust grows in an encouraging partnership so that real growth in faith is accelerated. Once you have come to belong to a small group you will ask yourself how you ever lived so long without one in the past! Small groups and worship work together to create a holistic support to Christian growth and life
Small groups at Good Shepherd got off to a poor start the first time we tried it, both because the card we used to guide groups was too cumbersome, and because the groups were not overseen adequately. Consequently, some groups failed to function altogether and quit, some became simply social gatherings, and one became actually counterproductive to church growth! This time around we have addressed both the card issue and the oversight issue. The revised (and greatly simplified) card, which we want every group to use, simply asks you to review your past week by asking
- If any Bible verse, reading or message influenced you;
- if any event challenged your faith;
- what difficulty or concern may have been on your mind;
- what was the moment you were most aware of Christ;
- what opportunities you may have had to witness to others;
- what ideas you may have about people you might help in the coming week;
- and personal prayer requests.
Sheila has agreed to be the small group “shepherd”, helping to organize those who have expressed an interest into groups, teaching people about what to expect from small groups and what not to expect, and visiting and encouraging existing small groups to answer any questions that they may have. If you are not yet a small group participant, give it a try! You’ll be glad you did.
Our second effective structure is the women’s planning group for the November “Pre-
Christmas Craft Fair.” The men have been regarding this semi-monthly gathering with a mixture of wonder and amusement (and maybe a little envy). But no one can argue with the enthusiasm being generated. Mystery and surprise and using such a variety of gifts and people are always good.
So there you have it. Two significant changes. Two new structural foundations to make our church more effective. May God bless them!
May God continue to bless you with renewed life and faith in this Easter season!
Pastor Perry Toso
Pastor’s Letter, April 2009
“Crown and thrones may perish,
Kingdoms rise and wane,
But the Church of Jesus,
Constant will remain.” (from “Onward Christian Soldiers”)
That striking assertion is amazingly true! Think about it. Jesus’ church was founded at the height of the Roman Empire. All the might of that empire was turned against Christianity for at least two of the first four centuries of its existence, only serving the strengthen it. Then the Roman Empire collapsed in the fourth century AD, followed by the rise and fall of the invading Huns and Goths. The “Holy Roman Empire” lasted for awhile, but collapsed in all but name during the sixteenth century. The sixth century saw the expansion of the Mohammedan empire, which reached its zenith until being pushed back first from Spain and then from the Balkans in the sixteenth century. Then came the period of the great colonial empires of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, all of which came to an end during the middle of last century. Meanwhile China had its dynasties, and great kingdoms rose and fell in Africa. But Jesus’ kingdom has never fallen! It has remained constant. It was the only source of safety and education and healing for great stretches of the Dark Ages. And it continues to grow and thrive.
So if that is true, several other things are true, too. And it is well to remind ourselves of them in times of distress or trouble. First of all, who is our Lord and present companion and shepherd? It is the same Lord, who has upheld His church through all the attacks of the evil one through all the centuries. Second, though the ways of God in maintaining his church are often inscrutable to us, and seem pathetic and weak (as in the martyrs who witnessed faithfully to their deaths in Nazi prison camps), still the church triumphs and gives the only hope that exists, Third, when Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my Word will not pass away,” he is talking about something more powerful than syllables resonating in waves that reach our eardrums, or the symbols written on a page. He is talking about his kingdom. He is talking about that power which establishes and defeats all opposing kingdoms. He is talking about the promise to you, whose warrant for effectiveness and truth, root in what you can see. And what can you see? Well, you can see that he was speaking the truth. For his kingdom has not fallen, just as he said it would not. So then the character of his word has proved to be reliable. I can then grow confident in the face of current realities which I cannot fully understand that I am part of the only reliable and fail-proof realms in the world.
This lent, as we look to the cross, see there the foundation stone for all the above.
Pastor Toso
Pastor’s February Newsletter
The Annual Meeting is just behind us and we have a good new slate of officers. They will be installed at our second service this month, at which time you, as a congregation, will promise to pray for them as they take up the various responsibilities in their areas of leadership. We promise to pray for them pretty easily, and then most of us forget to keep it up. It is not a light responsibility to be given charge of designing ministry for God’s church. Please remember these people, who have volunteered to be your servants, in your daily prayers. There is a lot of power in that!
This month, on the fourteenth, we will be offering to each of the couples in our congregation, and to all interested couples in our community, the opportunity to renew their marriage vows, in a ceremony where we ask God’s blessing on each one of them. It is the first event like this, and, we hope, an event that we will be able to repeat. There will be special music, a service dedicated to the theme of marriage, a reception, pictures, and a place for friends and guests. Join us for what promises to be a joyful occasion!
Another first for our congregation occurs this Thursday, where we will be testing out the viability of using catered meals as a fund-raising tool for our congregation. Chuck Novak has done some research on a company that seems to be able to fit our criteria, and to provide an excellent meal. Again, your support is critical to getting this off to a good start. Hope to see you on Thursday.
Finally, the congregational council has penciled in to their date books Saturday, February 28th as a day to come together to assess what we do well toward succeeding as a healthy church, and what we need to work on. A special instrument is studied, where eight different activities that all successful churches seem to do well are listed. We discuss each parameter as a group and seek to place our congregation on a scale relating to that activity. Not very many average congregations do well on all eight, while almost all congregations do well on at least a couple of the activities. After getting measured out by this instrument, we will be much better equipped to design ways to address the areas which we need to work harder on.
As we get ready for another season of Lent, keep your eyes out for the little works of grace that seem to be popping up all over within this congregation. God is so good!
In Christ, Pastor Toso
Advent/Christmas Letter -
Nov./Dec. 2008
Advent means “Christ Coming to YOU”
I don’t know when I started the practice, but I think it was during the 90’s when I was serving at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Scottsdale, Arizona. Arizona is one of the most magical places on the planet in which to celebrate Christmas. I suppose it is the combination of the quiet of the desert, the unbelievable clarity of the winter air, and the special glow of the sunsets at that time of year that make the end of the day an almost holy moment. It just felt blessed—like advent is supposed to be. Combined with that, many members of our church had been through a “Cursillo” weekend—a weekend which was a short course in Christianity, and which resulted in small groups being formed to hold one another accountable, each week, for our Christian disciplines of prayer, study, and worship. One of the specific questions that had to be answered each week was, “What was the moment this week when you were most aware of Christ?” That became my advent question and expectation.
So I began to prepare for and to expect for a moment each and every year in which “Christmas would happen” in the sense that I knew that I was visited by Christ in a special personal way. I have never been disappointed. During the years of answering the question, “When were you most aware of Christ this week?” I learned something that shouldn’t be very surprising, but which is quite impressive: Christ meets you where He said He would—in His Word, in worship, and among His people! You find yourself saying to your grouping brothers, “When I was at worship last week…” or When I was praying..” or “When I was studying with my Christian bothers and sisters…” or “When I was doing my Christian service (visiting someone, for example)…” I really was aware of a special moment where I felt blessed.
So here is my challenge to you, as we all begin a new advent season: start looking for the moment in which Christ visits you this Christmas. He will. And you will know two things for sure about this moment. First, it is for you. Second, it is a real benediction, the real irreplaceable gift. If we are not paying attention, we may miss the moment. So, besides expecting that personal visit and benediction, prepare for it. Really pray, “O come, O come Emmanuel” and really believe the words, “How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the wonders of his heaven.” Get ready to be surprised!
Then after Christmas this year, we will really have some stories to tell. And they won’t be about how all the family was home for this year, or about just the right presents, or about hanging the star on the highest bough, or what a great deal we got during the Christmas sales events, or about the great Christmas cooking, or about how all the above just didn’t happen.
It will be a story about how Christmas really happens, which these lines from O Little Town describe so well: “O holy Child of Bethlehem descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today…Oh, come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Immanuel!”
End of the Church Year -
OCTOBER 2008
“Who honors me, I will honor, declares the Lord” I Samuel 2:
Next Sunday is All Saints Sunday, a reminder that we stand in a faithful line of people, called saints. Each of us can remember with love and affection one or two people who were or continue to be significant in our journey to faith. Besides my Dad and Mom, I remember Bertha Rorstad, my high school teacher, and Maghnild Nybroten, my elementary school teacher. Both were single women, who by becoming missionaries in a far off country, also surrendered much hope of ever finding a marriage partner. And sure enough, they lived their whole life single. When I remember their faces they are always smiling. They modeled for us kids joy, love for us, and a very evident personal daily commitment in their devotional walk with the Lord.
Bertha died in her eighties some years back in Northfield, MN. Now, we all know that the number of people at a funeral is inversely proportionate to your age. So there should have been very few people there that day – especially since she had no children or grandchildren. But – she did! Lots of us now in our 40’s, 50’s and 60’s showed up! All the hymns, the whole service in fact, served to remind us of God’s faithfulness. We had learned it, partially, through her. Now we saw, at the end, God’s faithfulness to her. I have seldom known a funeral with such celebration and warmth. God was there in a special way. It was the first I had seen some of the missionary kids for 30 and even 40 years. Yet the undeniable bond of both faith and family was still there after all this time.
Maghild Nybroten was given such an ancient awful Norwegian name that she went by “Mugs”. For us kids, though, she was always Miss Nybroten. She gave us our first reading lessons with Dick, Jane and Spot (those crushingly tedious readers). She taught us, in cursive writing lessons, that we were supposed to roll our skinny bony arms around, like she did, on that nice cushion she had that went from her wrist to her elbow. For me, she captured a lot of the magnificence and attraction of what it means to be feminine, even if she was older and single.
Into her 90’s and still radiating God’s joy, God just took her home this year from her retirement in Minneapolis. God is so good!
Thank God for parents, teachers, pastors, and other adult friends who know God and who have something of God’s spirit shine through for us and for our faith. But what these people do best is point away from themselves to the good given to them, by God the Father. You can see by saint’s lives not only that you can trust God to be faithful, but also how much fun it is.
This Sunday, Good Shepherd will mark another year’s step on our journey of faith, by reading, name by name, those who have preceded us this year into the ranks of glory. May we be faithful like them! May God use us, like them, to show others the way!
The first tickets for the Mystery Dinner Fundraiser are being sent out. Interest in the community is running high. We’re getting lots of requests from people who attended last year. The script for this year’s mystery is much more fun even than last year’s and the cast is having a ball in their rehearsals. Judi Richard has secured Hannalore’s German restaurant as our main provider for the meal. The setting for this year’s who-dunnit is a Napa Valley vineyard, where the owner suddenly disappeared five years ago, only to be discovered just recently under the wine cellar floor boards. Tickets this year are $25 per person and all proceeds go toward the four charities we supported last year—Florence Help Center, Rape Response, Safe Place, and the Shoals Family Center. The dates of the theater are Friday and Saturday nights, September 19 and 20. Don’t miss it!!
By the time you get this, Harold’s election campaign will know whether he is elected to Florence City Council from the 6th district... However it turns out, I want to express my appreciation to this church family for the large number who pitched in to give significant time and effort toward Harold’s election. You have demonstrated in this effort that this church family is a family that really works. Thank you one and all!
You have now received the edited copies of the Church Constitution and the new By Laws. Council has worked really hard to make them both responsive to your suggestions and to the current needs of the church. Only a couple of places are going to get discussion that I am aware of. One point is the attempt to describe who is and who is not a member. It is necessary for each church to address this issue both responsibly and pastorally. But how to do both is proving to be extremely difficult. What do we do about kids who have grown up in the congregation, but who have moved away; or members who serve in the military; or current members who no longer attend but have given us no indications that they want to be removed from membership? What about the size of our congregational rolls as it impacts our constantly reviewed church loan? Remember the special meeting to discuss this follows worship on September 21.
Summer is almost gone and it’s time to gear up for Fall. And for us that means getting choir practice started again. And, should we continue to practice on Wednesdays? Let’s shoot for our first practice for September 17 or 18.
Financially we are holding steady. We were about 7 days behind on our cash flow on the first Sunday of June, and we were just about exactly in the same place on the first Sunday of August. God bless all of you for your generous support of God’s ministry here at Good Shepherd!
In Christ, Pastor Perry Toso
Summer is fast disappearing. We had a good Handy Festival, once again with Laszlo Gardony as our featured jazz piano performer. Because Wednesday night was also the street night for the festival, and because we heard only weeks before he arrived that we would indeed secure Gardony as our artist, the attendance at our Brats and Brownies pre-concert meal was not nearly as well attended as last year. Nevertheless, the kitchen crew still turned a little profit on their efforts. The brats, the German potato salad, and all the desserts were just sensational, as usual!
Sheila and I were deeply impressed by an artist whom we would like to suggest as our first choice for an artist for our church next year. His name is John McAndrews. He plays piano and guitar to accompany his singing. He is a solo act and thus has no back up group, such as drums or bass. I suppose that the best way to describe his act would be to say that he is somewhat like Billy Joel. He does jazz standards as well as a lot of his compositions. If you want to hear what he is like, go to his excellent website, by doing a search on his name.
Plans are moving quickly now for preparing for our next mystery theater production in September. We still have parts and places to be filled. Call Judi Richard if you are interested in participating in any way.
Our prayer and Bible study group on Wednesday continues to grow. But that is just a step in the longer term vision of moving our church from being a “prayer ministry group” to being a full fledged “church of prayer”, where everything is undergirded and supported by prayer. As the apostle Paul reminded us last Sunday in our Romans 8 lesson, our vocation as the new people of God in this in between time is to suffer gladly for His sake, and to intercede for His church and for the world, until Jesus comes again. Prayer is something we have to learn. It doesn’t just come naturally; otherwise the disciples wouldn’t have said to Jesus, “Teach us to pray!” They must have asked that after watching Jesus really “lean into it” in a conversation with his Father in heaven. That kind of praying was not rote petitions strung together. It was exciting. It was vital. They wanted to learn to pray like that. So do we!
Monetarily we have made momentous progress in bringing our ministry plan (our budget) to a workable, achievable size. Through staffing changes and mortgage reduction (-$13,000 per year), and income from our new congregational partners (+$21,000 per year), we have reduced our expenses almost $3000 per month. Although we are seeing about a $200 increase in our utility usage, that is about the only significant expense involved in this new arrangement. Our council is still waiting to see if we will now be able to make up some of our overdue bills (that is, the pastor’s salary.) Our church caught up to being only 7 days behind on our cash flow as recently as the first Sunday of June. We will see now how that compares to the first Sunday of August.
But here is the critical key! Now that we are so close to being “out of the woods”, I personally think that continued talk of shutting our doors or selling the church is not only no longer warranted, and is highly damaging to our community of faith! I think talk like that unnecessarily drags down the morale of a very long-suffering body of God’s people. The call here is to be encouragers of one another to praise God for His goodness in getting us faithfully thus far, and not to be whiners, like the children of Israel in the wilderness. (You know how God felt about that!!) Yes, we are still “in the wilderness”, just like them, in our walk of faith. The challenge for us, just like the challenge was for them, is to believe that God will give us each day our daily bread, and will wonderfully provide for all of needs on our own journey Home.
In Christ, Pastor Toso
Pastor’s Letter on Christian Freedom, According to Paul
We have been spending the last several weeks in worship reading though the book of Romans, and learning about the importance of our Christian freedom, or our freedom in Christ. Americans, in particular, have so many misconceptions about freedom. The most prevalent American misconception, possibly, is that freedom consists in autonomy. The visual picture here is the iconic Marlboro man, his own boss, on the open plains. But tell your arm, or any member of your body, to be disconnected, and it would not only cease to function, but it would die. So also God’s children, when they are disconnected from the head of the body, who is Jesus Christ, die. Therefore, freedom conceived as autonomy is a lie--a deadly lie at that..
Another misconception about freedom is that we are free agents who get to decide whether there is a God or not, and when it suits us, to serve him. The facts of the case are otherwise. The Bible reveals that we do not get to choose our “god”. We are by definition already slaving for the evil one, or, if we have been rescued, serving God our Father from the heart. So the fact of the case is this: You’ve got to serve someone. You are not, nor were you ever, nor can you ever be a free agent. If you are not serving Jesus, you are slaving for the power of death, wearing a mask.
Another misconception is that we in some way “elect” Jesus as our personal savior. Faith is then defined as a volitional event, our personal commitment to, or our choice of Jesus. Salvation (however loudly denied) thus becomes a human work. And if Jesus disappoints us, why, then we’ll elect someone else! (We thus make the biblical narrative, congruent with, and controlled by our American narrative.) But how does this square with Jesus’ clear word in John 16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you to go and bear much fruit—fruit that will last.”?
Another misconception (and this one is deadly in its destructive power) is that when we read in Paul’s letter that we are free from sin, we understand that to be “sinless”. When that misconception rules, the game is on. Embarrassed by the fact that our life surely doesn’t live up to this billing, we engage in holy pretences, in destructive spiritual games of one-up-manship , or in understanding that the righteousness which saves us is somehow our own performance or virtue.
In the place of all these misconceptions, Paul places the Cross of Jesus Christ, and the deliverance won there, and the righteousness showed there (God’s faithfulness to the covenant promises made to His people). 1) Jesus was not autonomous. At the most critical point He said, “Not my will but yours be done.” 2) Jesus was not a free agent. He understood himself as “sent” by the Father to accomplish the Father’s will. And for three years he was strictly obedient to that agenda. And that agenda was to set us free from sin death and the power of the devil. 3) Jesus did not “elect” God as his Father. He was and is God’s own born Son. So you. You are God’s own born son or daughter, through being baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. You were baptized into His body. 4) And Jesus was the only sinless one to ever walk this planet. Also the only one who ever will have that title. Jesus was the only really free man the world has ever known. Learn it from Him! So let your freedom inhere in this: that you have Christ alone, the Cross alone, Grace alone, Faith alone, and the Word alone, as your true freedom. That’s the only freedom which exists on the planet. And it is yours.
In Christ, Pastor Toso
