Bulletin Announcements

June 11, 2017

THOUGHTS ON STEWARDSHIP:  Matthew 28:19-20:  “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”  Behold the threefold Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  This is the Name we are baptized into.  We have been made a part of God’s family.  And so we are now called to live lives that are in harmony with our new family: we are to be godly, to live in God’s image.  As God is loving, and kind, and generous – so are we called to be.

NEED A RIDE? If you are unable to drive to church, we have an option that is available.  Please speak with Pastor who has the details.  Thank you.

OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL meets at 9:15 a.m. in the Choir Room which is located on the 2nd level (the west side).

THE ADULT BIBLE CLASS meets in the basement at 9:15 a.m.  In conjunction with the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation we are studying about that time period with “The Word Endures: Lessons From the Lives of Powerful Politicians”.

CAN YOU HELP?  We have a sign-up on the table in the narthex for Summer Sunday School.  The dates and lessons are listed.  We would like to have someone covering and to give Sarah Lange a break for the summer.  Once you sign-up, please speak with Sarah who will have the lesson for you.  Thank you for helping in this way.

NEXT SUNDAY is the deadline for items to be submitted for the JULY NEWSLETTER.  Mandy Kluender is our Editor for the church newsletter and any announcements you want to be published in the Newsletter should be submitted to her at mgkluender@hotmail.com or you may call her at (309) 838-9868.

NEW CHURCH SIGN:  In celebration of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation and with inspiration from Martin Luther, Good Shepherd will be “posting” a new church sign on the south side near the lower parking lot.  Parts will be interchangeable and be used for Outreach to our community.  Congregation involvement will include creative ideas for the signage and gifts toward the purchase.  Today you have an opportunity to take home a jar and fill it with coinage and bills.  The end of our collection will be Reformation Sunday, October 29, 2017.  We were already blessed with a sizeable gift so we are looking for $5,000.00 to complete the project.  May God bless!

THE JUNE FRIDAY MOVIE NIGHT will be held on June 30th at 6:30 p.m.  The feature movie that will be shown is “WHEN THE GAME STANDS TALL”.  This movie was inspired by a true story.  “When The Game Stands Tall” tells the remarkable journey of legendary football coach Bob Ladouceur, who took the De LaSalle High School Spartans from obscurity to a 151 – game winning streak that shattered all records for any American sport.  When then the streak is broken, and tragedy strikes the team, “Coach Lad” must teach his players – and the entire town – that it’s not about how you fall, but how you get back up.  Join us for another great movie, delicious food and wonderful fellowship.  There is plenty of room in the church.

FELLOWSHIP HOSTS:  The sign-up for help with coffee/doughnuts is posted on the wall by the north stairwell.  We need an individual/family to sign-up each week to pick up the donuts and make the coffee.  If no one is signed up by Friday of each week, the order will be cancelled.  We thank everybody who continues to help with this part of our church fellowship.

THE LUTHERAN HOUR:  “Look Back, See What God Has Done” is the topic for next Sunday.  The sermon text will be from Exodus 19:2-8.  God not only kept His side of the bargain – He kept our side of the bargain, too.  Reverend Dr. Gregory Seltz is the speaker.  Hear this Sunday’s message on the Lutheran Hour on WGN (720) at 6:00 a.m.; WJWR (104.7 FM) and WJWR (90.3 FM) both on Sunday at 3:00 p.m.  Also, if you can receive Lincoln, IL radio station WLLM (1370 AM) the program is broadcast two times on Sunday at 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.  Tune in!  You can also listen to The Lutheran Hour on your personal computer at RealAudio, www.lhm.org.

PRAYER CHAIN:  If you have a prayer request please submit them by email to Mary Anne Kirchner at makirchner@yahoo.com or you may phone a Prayer Request to Mary Anne; her cell phone# is (309) 532-2582.  The Prayer Request box is on the table in the narthex for any written requests.

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Bulletin Announcements

June 4, 2017

NEED A RIDE? If you are unable to drive to church, we have an option that is available.  Please speak with Pastor who has the details.  Thank you.

OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL meets at 9:15 a.m. in the Choir Room which is located on the 2nd level (the west side).

THE ADULT BIBLE CLASS meets in the basement at 9:15 a.m.  In conjunction with the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation we are studying about that time period with “The Word Endures: Lessons From the Lives of Powerful Politicians”.

THOUGHTS ON STEWARDSHIP:  Acts 2:1:  “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.” Pentecost is the Old Testament harvest festival – it happens around the time when the wheat and oats are ready to be brought in.  Of course, this was a picture and foreshadowing of the great harvest of humankind that God means to bring in through the preaching of His Word.  God gives the seed, and God brings about the harvest.   From first to last, in things temporal and things eternal, we stand only by His grace.

PRAYER TIME:  We will meet for “Prayer Time” this coming Friday, June 9th from 7-8:00

NEW CHURCH SIGN:  In celebration of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation and with inspiration from Martin Luther, Good Shepherd will be “posting” a new church sign on the south side near the lower parking lot.  Parts will be interchangeable and be used for Outreach to our community.  Congregation involvement will include creative ideas for the signage and gifts toward the purchase.  Today you have an opportunity to take home a jar and fill it with coinage and bills.  The end of our collection will be Reformation Sunday, October 29, 2017.  We were already blessed with a sizeable gift so we are looking for $5,000.00 to complete the project.  May God bless!

“MARTIN LUTHER – THE IDEA THAT CHANGED THE WORLD”:  We met our quota on tickets and the movie is going to be shown at the Wehrenberg Cinema this coming  Wednesday, June 7th, beginning at 6:30 p.m.  We still have the link on our website: goodshepherdblm@frontier.com if you want to order tickets.  The ticket website is available up until four hours before the movie is shown.  Once all the tickets are sold; no more will be available.  We will have prayers and a brief Q and A after the movie.

FELLOWSHIP HOSTS:  The sign-up for help with coffee/doughnuts is posted on the wall by the north stairwell.  We need an individual/family to sign-up each week to pick up the donuts and make the coffee.  If no one is signed up by Friday of each week, the order will be cancelled.  We thank everybody who continues to help with this part of our church fellowship.

THE LUTHERAN HOUR:  “Never Alone” is the topic for next Sunday.  The sermon text will be from Matthew 28:16-20.  You can be certain about the place to meet God, His plan of salvation, and His presence  Reverend Dr. Gregory Seltz is the speaker.  Hear this Sunday’s message on the Lutheran Hour on WGN (720) at 6:00 a.m.; WJWR (104.7 FM) and WJWR (90.3 FM) both on Sunday at 3:00 p.m.  Also, if you can receive Lincoln, IL radio station WLLM (1370 AM) the program is broadcast two times on Sunday at 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.  Tune in!  You can also listen to The Lutheran Hour on your personal computer at RealAudio, www.lhm.org.

PRAYER CHAIN:  If you have a prayer request please submit them by email to Mary Anne Kirchner at makirchner@yahoo.com or you may phone a Prayer Request to Mary Anne; her cell phone# is (309) 532-2582.  The Prayer Request box is on the table in the narthex for any written requests.

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Stewardship Corner June 2017

One of the best known and beloved psalms is Psalm 23, the Shepherd Psalm.  There we learn that the Lord is our Shepherd.  And since He is our Shepherd, we will not want.  We will not suffer want because the Lord, our Shepherd, will lead us to green pastures and beside still waters.  In other words, the Lord, our Shepherd, will provide for all that we need in both body and soul.

Yet, we live as though this is not the case.  We live as though we actually suffer from want, that the Lord, our Shepherd, will not provide for all that we need.  And thus, we live as though the Lord is not our Shepherd.  And that means that we live as though we are not the Lord’s sheep.

How do we do this?  We do it when we put anything else before Him and His provision for us.  When we think that going to work is more important than receiving the gifts that He won for us on the cross, a violation of the First and Third Commandments.  We do it when we fail to give generously of the first fruits of what the Lord has provided for us because we think we don’t know what the future will bring, even though He has promised that He will lead us to green pastures and still waters.  We do it when we think that the Lord is only in the business of helping those who will help themselves, we do this because we have a mind set on earthly, temporal things and not on heavenly, eternal things.  We do this because we have stopped hearing the call of our Shepherd, which comes through His Word.

The Word of God is how our Shepherd calls us to himself.  Through that Word, the Holy Spirit gathers and enlightens us with His gifts.  Through that Word, we are kept holy and nourished in the one true faith, the faith that follows our Shepherd wherever He leads us.  He promises to lead you to your true home, to the land flowing with milk and honey, to a better country, not of this world, but a heavenly one.

And so, here’s the good news:  The Lord is your Shepherd still, even, and especially, for wayward sheep.  For Jesus seeks and saves those who are lost.  He finds the lost sheep and carries them back to the fold.  He is the Shepherd that lays down his life for His sheep.  The Lord is your Shepherd.  Let us live then as His sheep.

Celebrating June 2017

Birthdays

Paula Hardy 6/2
Jordan Doddek 6/3
Oliver Mosier 6/5
Brad Gerike 6/6
Diane Benjamin 6/7
Deborah Huber 6/7
Eric Orr 6/7
Mike Field 6/8
Kent Warren 6/11
Penny Culp 6/13
Tracee Martin 6/13
William McNeely 6/14
Chris Patterson 6/14
Richard Ross 6/14
Ruth Gerike 6/15
Marlene Hitch 6/16
Isabella Kessler 6/18
Erin Dirks 6/21
Eugene Fuller 6/23
Steve Davis 6/29
Martha Prescher 6/29
Bryan Reichert 6/30

Baptismal Birthdays

Craig Culp 6/1
Dorothy Herberts 6/1
Doris Hoffman 6/1
Harriet Campbell 6/2
Morris Dale 6/3
Brad Gerike 6/7
Diane Benjamin 6/19
Gerald Semelka 6/20
Terry Trost 6/28

Pastor’s Notes June 2017

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Throughout the centuries, the relation between Islam and Christianity has been a challenge.  Within a hundred years after the prophet’s death, Muslim armies had conquered Spain and penetrated into France, only to be stopped at the battle of Tours in 732.  We think also of the Crusades to win the Holy Land back from the Muslims.  In Martin Luther’s day the Turkish Muslims menaced Europe from the east.  In the original German of the hymn “Lord, Keep Us Steadfast In Thy Word,” the Reformer prayed, “put a stop to the murder by the pope and Turk.”

Today the struggle continues.  It is not to be won with weapons or money.  Rather, victory is in the Word of God and prayer, as Christians are urged to “contend for the faith” (Jude 3) and “take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17).  We as Christians should also know something about Islam in order to refute some of their beliefs.  We might even read the Qur’an so that we better understand their teachings.

The Qur’an urges Mohammad himself, “ask forgiveness of thy sin” (Sura 40:55).  Yet nowhere does it mention sin in connection with Jesus.  The Qur’an offers a fallible prophet who lies buried in Arabia.  The Bible presents a sinless Savior who has conquered death.  The Bible presents an eternal home that is given to us wholly through the merits of Christ Jesus.  As the thirteenth century scholar Riccoldo da Montecroce wrote in his refutation of the Qur’an (Confutatio Alcorani, which Luther translated into German and which is now available in English), “The fact is:  Christ lives, Mohammad is dead.”  A former Muslim from Iraq put it this way, “Allah calls on Muslims to sacrifice their sons so that they can go to paradise; God sacrificed His Son so that we can go to heaven.”

In Christ,

Pastor