St. Paul’s Helps Feed The Hungry

Once a month several of our folks shop for, prepare, deliver and serve meals for 100 or so hungry folks at the New Life Evangelistic Center in St. Louis. It’s actually very organized: we have shopping teams, cooking teams, etc. Last Saturday we did it again and I wanted to publicize it a bit here. So below are two pix (sorry for low quality and out-of-focus nature of the second pix) – the first is Mary W., Joh C., and Dustin E (who didn’t really want his pic here as people would think he’s Amish – gotta think of an appropriate nickname for him now) doing the cooking. The second pic is the same bunch plus Betty R and Sharon K, who together were the delivery and serving teams. They were actually much more focussed than this pic is!

Just another ministry that came up from the grassroots; another reason I love this church!

St. Paul’s New Telephone Prayer Line

St. Paul’s has a new telephone prayer line, thanks to the work of Sandi Haege and our Evangelism & Outreach Committee. If a person has a prayer concern, they can call 618-539-6181 24-hours a day and leave a message, which will be immediately picked up and passed on to our Prayer Warriors.

I’ve found this to be a valuable ministry in my previous church, as there were many people who spent lonely nights in need of some prayer and human contact. There we averaged 5-10 calls a day, several during the night. Here at St. Paul’s I don’t know how many people will use this ministry, but I’m very glad that our people, without my pushing or nudging, have been moved to make this ministry possible.

So if you have a prayer concern, or if you’re just curious about the prayer ministry, give the Prayer Line a call and leave a message, be it a request or a word of encouragement.

And if you’d like to join our prayer ministry, you can leave a message about that, too!

Renovated Sanctuary At Night

After our new piano arrived, I went to the sanctuary one evening to take some pix. It’s a beautiful place at night! These don’t really do justice to it, and these pix are just a touch blurry, but they give you the idea. Anybody wanna come sit here a while one evening and pray?

New Confirmation Pix

Gene Kramer, our 7th Grade Confirmation teacher, has uploaded 3 new pix of his class – and a great bunch of kids they are! Here’s one, taken after the “Trapped In Sin” exercise. To see the other two, go to St. Paul’s website (www.stpaulsfreeburg.org), click on the “Pictures” tab on the left, and follow the links.

St. Paul’s New Website

Check out our new website – the address is still www.stpaulsfreeburg.org – but newly designed. Lemme know your thoughts – and we could use pics for our “Pic of the Week” section.

New Website For St. Paul’s Coming

I’m hoping that St. Paul’s will have their new website set up by this Sunday, or shortly thereafter. It’s been an interesting process!

When our webmaster and choir director resigned, we found ourselves in the position of many churches –  at least, according to one excellent article that I read. According to this article, there have been many churches that had websites set up by creative, technologically oriented (“computer geek”) members. Those websites were creative and attention-getting, if not flashy. But those churches found that when their technogeeky members tired of the website, or otherwise moved on, they were left with a website no one knew how to maintain. Thus, the author of the article concluded, usability and maintainability are more important, in the long run, than technological dazzle.

So, when it came to developing a new website, I wanted something easy to maintain; something our church secretary or administrator could edit without having to learn HTML or other code. Something that was simple enough to be used regardless of change in personnel. And I found it.

Actually, Sandi Haege showed it to me. At Microsoft Office Live (click here) you can create your own website for free. Yep, free. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that “for fee” sites and software have. But it does the job quite nicely, in my book. Anyone who can use a word processor can use this site. Simple, easy, straightforward, basic. Kinda like our church, come to think of it!

So, God willing, our new site will be up soon. Our web address will be the same – www.stpaulsfreeburg.org – so I invite you to check it out and give us any feedback you have, good or bad.

Getting Very Close

Renovations are getting very close to being complete. Today, Saturday 9/26, I took these pix showing that the carpeting is almost finished, the pews are in, but there’s a lot of cleaning up and putting in place yet to do. The piano is coming on Monday 9/28, and I’m sure that, God willing, the place will be complete by October 4!

Just a couple of notes on the pix below – a couple of additions were made along the way, including a fan in the balcony for our balcony birds (see pic) and spotlights for the altar (also see pic).  Lights at the steps are also new (see pics). You’ll also see that the chancel carpeting has a color border at the edge, like the warning track in the outfield. The new computer/soundboard in the balcony sits on a raised step – it’s quite a view of the whole sanctuary.

There are a good many folks who have spent uncounted hours on this project – Nolan Shook, Dean Huston, Mary Weber, and many more whose names are escaping me right now. My heartfelt thanks to all of you!

Carpeting Soon!

The sanctuary painting was completed on Friday 9/18, with a couple of additions suggested by our members: accent color was added to the chancel arch and around the stained glass windows. In addition, Shirley Baumgarte thought it would look good to add some white accent to the accents – so we tried it out (see pic below) and indeed, the committee approved!

This Sunday we’ll be worshiping “in the round”, on our old folding chairs. Sorry balcony birds, but the balcony will be closed this Sunday! God willing we’ll have new carpeting installed on Monday and Tuesday, and next Sunday the project should be complete!

PS – that’s Emil changing the light bulbs in the sanctuary…

Sanctuary Renovations Begun!

After much planning and choosing, our sanctuary renovations have begun! As you can see, the chancel area is being opened up as well as some repairs being made. If all goes according to (our) plan, we’ll still be in pews this coming Sunday, 9/13. On 9/20 the pews will be out and we’ll be sitting in chairs, then the project will be finished on 9/27 or soon thereafter. Come check it out! – PS – Nolan found a chisel between joists when he opened the floor – wonder if Dave Scheid left it there back in ‘85?

Back From MD

Joh and I had a very nice vacation in McHenry Maryland – I’d never been to the far western panhandle of Maryland before, and found it’s very much like West Virginia in terms of landscape. I’ve posted here just a couple of pix to give you an idea.

I need to catch up on some items this week – Parenting Series, Confirmation, worship planning, etc. – but just a brief heads up here on Recon, which will start the second Thursday in September with a four week study of The Shack, followed by a 3 week study on baptism. So mark your calendars, get The Shack, and stay tuned!

Go To The Wall

The Vietnam Memorial Moving Wall has come to Freeburg, and I participated in the opening services. It was quite moving for me to see this wall, and the 58,000+ names on it. It all brought back a lot of memories, as I was in college during those wonderful years 1969-1973. While I have no relatives whose names are on the wall (that I know if), I have friends whose relatives died in that war.

I’m stunned to think of how much has changed since 1969 – the year of Woodstock, the year of the lottery draft. I asked one of my parishioners there at the ceremony what they were doing in 1969. She said she didn’t remember, she was in second grade! Knock me over!

In complete disclosure: I was a hippie wannabe in those days. I had long hair, participated in The Moratorium (lo0k it up if you don’t remember), marched in protests – no demonstrations though, I was too weenie for that. Times have changed; I’m older and wiser and far more conservative. Though I still have my questions about that war, I have NO questions about the men and women who didn’t get to go to Woodstock, didn’t get to go to college on daddy’s dime, who went half the world away to risk their lives in a crazy war, 58,000+ of whom never came back.

If we don’t remember, we’ll have learned nothing.

If we don’t remember, we’ll have nothing of lasting value to give to our children.

Go to the wall.

State of Illinois Owes Hoyleton $900,000

What does it mean when our representative government is a deadbeat?

One of the agencies St. Paul supports is Hoyleton Homes (www.hoyleton.org), which has for over 114 years served orphans, youth, and folks who slip thru governmental bureaucratic cracks. They are faith based and faith woven. They serve the vulnerable and those that other agencies will not or cannot help. And the state of Illinois owes them over $900,000 for services rendered over the past several months.

I don’t know where that #!*&$@#! $900,000 went – maybe Governor Rod could do a talking tour and raise that; or wait, what about a reality show?  Actually my suggestion would be to STOP all salaries and benefits for ALL state officers until the budget gets balanced; sure a lot of them would quit, but would that be so much worse than where these brilliant minds have put us now? But I know those kids at Hoyleton are living a reality show no one wants to be in. I know that Chris Cox and the Hoyleton staff are giving themselves (and I mean heart and soul).

I know there are lots of agencies hurting because of our deadbeat state. But Hoyleton is close to our hearts at St. Paul’s. So what are you going to do? Yes, you can make financial contributions. And you can send a letter to these freaking so-called representatives of our state. A polite letter can be found at Hoyleton’s site (www.hoyleton.org) along with contact info for state reps and officials.

Or you might send a more honest one from the heart (or as the biblical Greek would have it I think more fittingly, from the bowels).

UCC General Synod Winds Up

If you go to the UCC website (www.ucc.org) you may be able to navigate around the cheerleading and verbiage (what are “Big Things”, as opposed to little things – like “Church Stuff”?) to find the GS resolutions and their disposition at this year’s General Synod. Or you can click here.

This was a calmer, gentler GS than in recent years – you can read FWC’s Bob Thompson’s comments about that here . The resolution that I think would have stirred most controversy – In Support Of Physician Assistance in Dying – was referred to Justice & Witness Ministries “with the recommendation that it be considered in the study process established by the Twenty-Sixth General Synod in the resolution, “Legalization of Physician Aid in Dying” (07-GS-37).

FWC and UCC General Synod

The UCC General Synod is going on this week in Grand Rapids (for more info on resolutions, happenings, etc. go here). Faithful and Welcoming’s Bob Thompson is also at Synod and presenting a workshop. He’s in search of finding the “essentials” in which we’re to have unity. You can check his blog here to follow his progress and comments.

Mo VBS Pix

VBS Is Rolling!

It’s Wednesday today, and we’re right in the middle of VBS. The church is just packed with kids! We were anticipating around 160 kids and it looks like they’re all here! I’m really pleased to see 30+ older kids working as helpers.

I’m hoping to get pix up here in the next day or two. And if you want to get a taste of what our VBS is like, come this Friday (June 12) at 11:00 to see the closing program. But you might wanna come early as the sanctuary’s going to fill up fast!

General Synod Resolutions

The UCC General Synod is coming up June 26-30 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A list of the resolutions coming before the Synod can be found here. Number 18 of the 25 resolutions (In Support Of Physician Assistance In Dying) may be the most controversial. Six of the resolutions have to do with re-structuring.

I’d be very curious about a poll of people sitting in UCC pews, asking questions such as:

• Can you name 3 resolutions coming before Synod this year?
• Do you know where Synod is being held this year?
• Or when?
• On a scale of 1-10, how much do you care what Synod says and does?

I’m not being sarcastic here – I’m truly curious about the honest response of the folks in our pews. If it’s what I’d guess it to be (A: no, no, no, nearly zip) I wonder why that is. Why the gap between Joe pew-sitter and the hierarchy of the denomination?

In part I think it’s due to the increasing size and bureacracy of our society. Goverment, schools, health care institutions, etc. are becoming so big and bureacratic that’s it’s very difficult to maintain human relationships. We substitute forms, regulations, and procedures. It’s what’s going on around us and the church apparently is not immune from that influence.

But that’s only part of what’s going on. As a pastor, I feel like I’ve spent the last 24 years trying to persuade the folks in the congregation to support the hierarchy, the structure, the denomination, the causes, the issues. If the denomination is us, why do we have to keep persuading us to support us?

Alban Institute published a book years ago by Loren Mead, entitled The Once And Future Church. It changed my thinking and I recommend it to you. It posits a change in paradigms for the church. To make it short (I really do recommend you read the whole book; it’s not long): since Constantine the church has been modeled after the Empire. Citizens and church members were expected to:

1. Support the apparatus
2. Pay taxes
3. Be subject to the draft

Real ministry was “over there” in Africa or China somewhere, to be done by specialists called evangelists or missionaries. The job of folks in the pew was to support the structure that supported the missionaries.

According to Mead, the model worked extremely well from the 4th thru the 19th centures. Then things changed (see William Willimon’s book Resident Aliens on this); now we can no longer assume that our fellow citizens are Christians; nor can we assume our kids will grow up Christians because they were born. The mission field has moved from “over there” to across the street. There are many other changes too, but the point is that the model that worked then does not work now. The people in the “front lines” aren’t the people up in the hierarchy – they’re the people in the pews. It’s the people in the pews who need to be trained and supported in doing evangelism, proclaiming the gospel, knowing the faith.

The upshot is, instead of the folks supporting the hierarchy in doing the hierarchy’s work, the hierarchy needs to be supporting the folks in doing the folks’ work. I mean the actual folks in the pews, not a few select folks of a particular political persuasion.

I think until we get that, denominations will continue to make pronouncement after pronouncement, pass resolution after resolution, with fewer and fewer people listening or even caring.

Schafale Ordination Anniversary

Today we celebrated Pastor Herb Schafale’s 50th Ordination Anniversary at both services, followed by a luncheon – make that a banquet! The attendance was great – the sanctuary was full at the second service – so the hymns (mostly Herb’s favorites) were powerfully sung. Especially enjoyable was “The Work Is Thine” from the old E&R Hymnal. The choir did a fine job on that.

The banquet fed some 170 people. When I saw all those folks, the full sanctuary, some of whom came from as far as Indiana to honor Herb’s anniversary, I was moved. It made me realize (again) that I’m standing on the shoulders of many others here who came before me. I was 8 years old when Herb was ordained, and that helps me feel hopeful that my work here might someday be remembered too.

Thanks to Sandy Dickens for taking  plenty of pix- I’ve included several below for your viewing pleasure. To see all 42 of Sandy’s photos, click here.

Word Of The Day – New Addition To My Blog!

OK, I’m a smart-aleck (sp?) – I use polysyllabic words sometimes just to impress people. My favorite bumper sticker is “Eschew Obfuscation”. The subject came up in one of our Reconfirmation Classes – a really fascinating group of adults who are growing in knowing the Faith – and when someone asks what the heck I mean, I so kindly and pastorally invite them to “look it up” – hey, it’s how my mom taught me!

So it seems only fair that I include a “Word Of The Day” on this blog – it’s in the column at the right, right up there at the top so you can expand your vocabulary and seeming erudition without actually reading what I’m posting. Isn’t that sensitive?

For all of you who attend Recon, let V.C. know about this as I’m sure she’ll appreciate it OH so much!

Here Comes The Bus!

Our new church mini-bus will be arriving sometime the first week of June. Right now we’re planning on dedicating it on June 21 between services. I think it will be busy right away, picking up folks to come to worship from Freeburg Care Center and Cedar Trails. To see the final graphics job, click on this: St Pauls UCC 2

Since Opal Linss’ generosity made this bus possible for us, it only seemed appropriate to name the bus after her – being a Miata driver I see vehicles in terms of relationship not ownership – you’ll see it right by the entry door.

If you’re interested in being a driver or helper, please contact me at the church office (pastor@stpaulsfreeburg.org) so we can get you trained.