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Hello Church! Turns out I skipped our prayers for the community. I could have fixed it, but I didn't realize my mistake until I had already sent us. So, I invite us to pray these prayers on our own.
Let us come in prayer before the triune God, Creator, Savior and Spirit. Holy God, you gather your people from east and west, north and south. We pray for the mission of the church throughout the world, that your steadfast love may be made known to all peoples. You laid the foundations of the earth and the waters are the womb of creation. The morning stars sing your name and all creation shouts for joy. We pray for your blessed creation, that it may continue to flourish and magnify your glory. You keep watch over all nations. We pray for countries experiencing violence, hunger, pandemic and unrest. We pray especially for these nations: Afghanistan, Mexico, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Myanmar, Artsakh, Azerbaijan, Somalia, Kenya, Congo, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali, Niger, Tunisia, Iraq, India, Nigeria, Cameroon, Syria, South Sudan, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania, United States, Pakistan, Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, Thailand, Indonesia, Iran, Columbia, Venezuela, Philippines, Turkey, Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Egypt, Ukraine, North and South Koreas, Morocco, Saharawi Republic, Angola, Laos, Peru, Senegal and Paraguay. Guide worldwide and local community organizations in their efforts to establish safety and justice. You are close to the brokenhearted and near to those in distress. We pray for those who are experiencing oppression. Liberate us from the systems and chains that bind us. Remove the barriers that separate us from one another. If it your will, please heal those who are sick, dance with those who have blessings to celebrate, and even care for those who have hurt us in the past. [We especially pray for safe travel for Bill S.’s children as they travel, and anyone we now name out loud or in the silence of our hearts. You dwell with us in this faith community. We pray for our leaders and elders, especially our committee teams. Grant them knowledge, patience, and kindness, that through their leadership you may be exalted in this assembly. Your love endures in all situations. On this Father’s Day, we pray for those who are fathers or wish to be fathers, for those with broken or strained relationships, for those who are missing their fathers, those who lacked a true parent in their lives, and for fathers who have lost children. Bless and strengthen them. You have made a place for all of your children to be close to you as an infant feeding from the breast of its mother. Console those wh0 grieve. We are grateful for the saints that have come before us and remind us of your gospel-promise of resurrection and new life, today and forever. We especially pray for the friends and family of Steve Krejchik who went on to live with the Lord this week. We lift our prayers to you, O God, trusting in your abiding grace. Amen.
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Weekly View From Da Pews
June 18, 2021 Matthew 18: 21-22 “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?” Jesus answered,”….seventy-seven times.” Seems to me God gives a lot more grace than we’d ever imagine. We could do the same. I’m not for watering down the truth or compromising the gospel. But if a fellow with a pure heart calls God, Father, can’t I call that same man, Brother? If God doesn’t make doctrinal perfection a requirement for family membership, should I? And if we never agree, can’t we agree to disagree? If God can tolerate my mistakes, can’t I tolerate the mistakes of others?... If God allows me with my foibles and failures to call him Father, shouldn’t I extend the same grace to others? (from “When God Whispers Your Name” by Max Lucado) I felt that this was a good message for this Father’s Day weekend. Just a reminder that we all have the greatest Father ever. Always in our corner, ready to give us a hand up or a boot in the butt when we need it. I find it a great comfort that I have a Father that I can take all my cares and my joys to. A great friend and a brother has been in the hospital this last week and this morning he passed away. It gave me comfort that I could reach out to my Father in heaven and that he would wipe away my tears of grief and replace them with shouts of joy because Steve was no longer in pain and his suffering had been replaced with the loving arms of Christ as he entered his heavenly home. Church council met last night and we had some very good discussion. We decided that we would hold a church wide picnic on August 22nd. This will be a good opportunity to get us all back together with a potluck type meal and good conversation. We also discussed reinstituting “All Committee” night. It was decided that we would again meet on September 14 at 6:30pm, in the Fellowship Hall. If you are a committee chair, now would be a good time to recruit some new blood into your committee in order to bring some new fresh ideas to the church. We also discussed fully reopening the church for worship and it was decided that we would shoot for July 4th. We will still have the parking lot service and also the Fellowship hall will still be available. And yes, we will be able to sing our hearts out in praise of our Lord. We are hoping that this will be permanent, however, if the infection numbers spike upwards due to the variants, we might have to re-examine our options. This Sunday our parking lot ushers are Pete Holzman, Bob Acker and Jerry Carncross. The sanctuary ushers are Sharon Kampon, Bill Priske and Sara Schroeder. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads. Yours is an awesome responsibility, not to be taken lightly. A great role model for you is our heavenly Father, slow to anger, quick to love and eager to guide us in the right paths. Enough for this week, see you all on Sunday. William
The Stewardship Committee is looking for a new team member to help count the weekly offering.
Our team consists of four, two-person teams, that are scheduled to count once every four weeks, with additional times scheduled during Lent, Easter, Christmas, etc., when we have additional services. You would work with your partner to count the offering after service, reconcile the deposit and drop the deposit off at the HomeTown Bank in Poynette or Harmony Grove. If you would be interested in joining our team, contact Sharon Kampen at 608-635-4745 or kampensg@yahoo.com. Sunday School is planning to open the doors in September. We will have a fun curriculum called Friends with God. We are recruiting teachers and also volunteers for special events. If you could help in any way, it would be greatly appreciated. Please contact Mary Dibble at dekorrasundayschool@hotmail.com. We are looking to register children who will be entering 4K in the fall. If you are interested to register your child, please contact Mary Dibble at dekorrasundayschool@hotmail.com Congratulations Jaime Benson! Jaime graduated from Luther Seminary on Sunday June 6th with a Masters in Divinity. She continues to work through the process for her first call as an ordained pastor. The Council will release any monies in the “Jaime Benson Seminary Appeal Fund” on July 31, 2021 will be given to Jaime as a graduation gift. After date, it will be renamed the “Seminary Appeal Fund” and any gifts made into that fund will be used to support seminarians throughout the synod. Return of All Committee Night – Starting Tuesday, September 14th at 6:30pm The council president asks that committees set one of their meeting times to “All Committee” night, beginning on Tuesday, September 14th at 6:30pm. The plan is to continue All Committee Night on the second Tuesdays of the month after that date. If your committee chooses to meet on a different date/time, then you are asked to send a representative to All Committee Night. Right now, the committees are the most robust vehicles for mission and ministry in our congregation. Council will continue to meet on the second Thursdays of the month to act on recommendations and requests from the committees. Looking for a High School Youth to Represent the Whole Church The ELCA congregations in our area have been asked to recruit a confirmed youth in High School to represent the church at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in 2022. It will happen from August 8 -12 in Columbus, OH. The Churchwide Assembly is the top decision-making body of our confession. Current information on the assembly can be found here: https://www.elca.org/churchwideassembly. Please email Pastor Sterling at PastorSterling@centurytel.net or call the church office if you are interested. Vacation Bible School We are looking for volunteers who would be interested in assisting with a summer vacation bible school. At this point, we need to brainstorm what you would want VBS to look like taking COVID restrictions into account. Please contact Sheila Gempeler sdgemp1949@gmail.com or 608-712-2771 if you would be willing to attend a meeting to talk about this, we encourage ideas and volunteers and especially need some input from parents! Weekend VBS will take place on Aug 20 and 21 from 5 PM to 7:30 PM The theme is Anchored, Deepening Faith in God. Please email Sheila Gempeler at sdgemp1949@gmail.com if you have questions, want to register a child, or would be able to volunteer. Teachers and teacher helpers are needed. We welcome Middle school youth as teacher helpers or to assist with outside games and activities. Confirmed youth may also be teachers if they are interested. Scholarships for Post High School Study DEADLINE JULY 1ST The Steuer-Mitchell Perpetual Education Fund has been established at Dekorra Lutheran Church (DLC) through a generous gift from the estate of Robert E. Mitchell. Two scholarships are available this year. We hope to award a scholarship to both a Lodi and a Poynette student. Go to https://bit.ly/3rEGqu1 (or www.dekorralutheran.org/news and look for the 3/19 post) for how to apply. Sermon Series on the Fourth Gospel – Sundays at Worship, April 25th – July 11th We are going to take a break from the usual schedule of readings. Instead, we are going to do something special and ambitious; over the next three months we are going to attempt to have an experience of Christ through the signs, explanations, and complete narratives in the story of Jesus we call “John”. You will likely notice that our typical tiny samples from many books each Sunday have been replaced with abundant stories from John’s Gospel. The aim is to experience the entire Gospel, from the first verse of the first chapter to the last verse of the last chapter. ONGOING AT DEKORRA AA – Fridays at 8pm Council Meeting– 2nd Thursday each Month at 6:30pm Blood Drive – Mondays, 1pm to 6pm, August 2nd and December 13th, 2021 Registering ahead of time encouraged. Walk-ins may be limited. Bible Studies
Faith Bible Study will be canceling their July meeting. The group will resume August 18 at 9:30am and continue to meet thereafter on the third Wednesday of each month at 9:30am. Anyone is welcome to attend the Bible study! DLC Book Club 2021 – Always at 1pm
Quilting – Thursdays at 1p Worship Committee – 1st Wednesday of the Month, at 1:00pm Constitution Committee –Will meet on June 16th and June 30th at 6:30pm Hospitality Committee now meets on the second Thursdays of the month, at 9am (Next meeting is July 9th) Yellow Bags Food Ministry –
OUR STEWARDSHIP OF WORSHIP AND GIFTS
Weekly View From Da Pews
June 04, 2021 ! Corinthians 7:19, 23 The important thing is obeying God’s commands. You all were bought at a great price, so do not became slaves of people. For all its peculiarities and unevenness, the Bible has a simple story. God made man. Man rejected God. God won’t give up until he wins him back. God will whisper. He will shout. He will touch and nag. He will take away our burdens; he’ll even take away our blessings. If there are a thousand steps between us and him, he will take all but one. But he will leave the final one for us. The choice is ours. Please understand. His goal is not to make you happy. His goal is to make you his. His goal is not to get you what you want; it is to get you what you need. (From “ A Gentle Thunder” by Max) This Sunday we will have a special congregational meeting after church. We will be discussing the plan to upgrade our audio and video systems at church. We will take a vote at this meeting to continue with the proposal that is being presented by Fearings. This is the culmination of our efforts that began a couple of years back. We had decided to establish a fund to start collecting the monies needed to upgrade those systems and install video screens in the sanctuary. The need for this improvement has been demonstrated by the pandemic and our outdoor worship and now our dual indoor and outdoor worship. The improvements that we are asking you to okay, will bring Dekorra up to date technically and enhance the worship experience. At the meeting this Sunday I will be asking you to OK the contract with Fearings. The total cost of this project is $37,055. We have just over $10,000 in the screen fund at this time. I will also be asking the members to allow council to borrow up to $30,000 from Hometown Bank in Poynette to finance this upgrade. It will be a five year pay back. I will start the meeting with a motion to approve the above question and I will ask for a second to the motion. We will than have an open discussion period so that members can voice their opinions. After both pros and cons have been presented we will hold a vote to approve or not approve this plan. I hope that we have a good turnout for this meeting. It will be held in the sanctuary. Find attached the usual items. William, a Disciple of Christ Christianity, in its purest form, is nothing more than seeing Jesus. Christian service, in its purest form, is nothing more than imitating Him who we see. To see His Majesty and to imitate Him, that is the sum of Christianity! williamaschleichert@gmail.com 608-697-4434(c)
Vacation Bible School – Families interested in their kids participating in a short Vacation Bible School this summer during the evenings of Friday August 20th and Saturday August 21st , should RSVP to Sheila at sdgemp1949@gmail.com by 5pm on Friday, June 18th. This early RSVP will help us get a sense of what we will need to make this faithful and fun experience happen for the kiddos this year.
Scholarships for Post High School Study DEADLINE JULY 1ST The Steuer-Mitchell Perpetual Education Fund has been established at Dekorra Lutheran Church (DLC) through a generous gift from the estate of Robert E. Mitchell. Two scholarships are available this year. We hope to award a scholarship to both a Lodi and a Poynette student. Go to https://bit.ly/3rEGqu1 (or www.dekorralutheran.org/news and look for the 3/19 post) for how to apply. Sermon Series on the Fourth Gospel – Sundays at Worship, April 25th – July 11th We are going to take a break from the usual schedule of readings. Instead, we are going to do something special and ambitious; over the next three months we are going to attempt to have an experience of Christ through the signs, explanations, and complete narratives in the story of Jesus we call “John”. You will likely notice that our typical tiny samples from many books each Sunday have been replaced with abundant stories from John’s Gospel. The aim is to experience the entire Gospel, from the first verse of the first chapter to the last verse of the last chapter. “Healing Seekers” Prayer and Healing Worship – Next Meeting, June 15th, at 1:00p The death of a close friend or loved one is not the only thing that causes us grief. The death of a community or relation, or even being unwilling separated from a community or relationship can cause pain. This is true whether that community was a group of friends, a workplace, or even a congregation. This service will be a time of worship, hearing and interpreting scripture, prayer, and constructive conversation about the grief and pain that comes from losing a community. Weather permitting, we will meet outside among the trees in the back behind the church. Otherwise, we will meet in the sanctuary using indoor safety protocols. You do not need to be a member of Dekorra to participate. The only requirement is that you are struggling with the loss of a community and are open to healing that hurt. A special invitation is extended to anyone who used to be connected to the Christian community at 1st Lutheran in Lodi. Please see the pastoral column in May’s newsletter for more information. Sharon Hatch’s- Sending Service will be on June 13th Ann Carncross’- Installation Service will be on June 20th ONGOING AT DEKORRA AA – Fridays at 8p Bible Studies Hope Circle, 1st Wednesdays of the Month, 1p
Blood Drive – Mondays, 1p to 6p, August 2nd and December 13th, 2021 Registering ahead of time encouraged. Walk-ins may be limited. Council – will take place on JUNE 17th, 2021 DLC Book Club 2021 – Always at 1p
Quilting – Thursdays at 1p Worship Committee – 1st Wednesday of the Month, at 1:00p Constitution Committee –Will meet on June 16th and June 30th at 6:30pm Yellow Bags Food Ministry –
OUR STEWARDSHIP OF WORSHIP AND GIFTS Last Week Attendance: 80 General Offering: $1740.00 Vanco Giving: $ 1371.00 Habitat for Humanity: $25.00 Screens Fund: $20.00 Jaime Benson: $10.00
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