The quieter summer days have quickly given way to a more frenzied pace from day to day, making me every more grateful for the additions to our ministry team and the volunteers that are back in action alongside us. This is an interesting time of ministry transition as we are bringing new staff on board and at the same time rolling out our fall programming. While I am still involved deeply with worship and our various programs from week to week, I’m also recognizing a shift to more strategic support of our growing team.
Staff Transitions
- Associate Pastor: Pastor Betsy has agreed to accept the letter of call we have extended to her. The final letter is under review by the Bishop’s office. Betsy is prepared to begin her ministry on Oct. 1 (though she will be at a Cross-Gen conference through Oct 6). I have spent about 1.5 days with her in preliminary planning along with Pastor Ruth and Cori.
- Youth Director: An installation service for Cori is scheduled for 9/30 at 10:45am.
- Funeral Coordinator: I have met with the one candidate we have and Deb Cordes has identified the members of the interview committee.
Program Notes
- “Telling Our Story” is our theme for the 2018-19 program year. Theme verse and supporting information is being widely distributed. Special thanks to Professor Rolf Jacobson, co-author of the NL, who was our guest preacher on Rally Sunday and helped to introduce the Narrative Lectionary (NL), one of the tools we’ll be using to explore our theme this year.
- Our use of the NL began on 9/2 with the Noah/Flood story. The symbolic rainbows will decorate our community spaces in September and October to remind us of the promises God has made for us.
- God’s Work, Our Hands Sunday featured an in-worship service project re-introducing “blessing bags” to the congregation. There are more bags available to be distributed, please take as many as you would like to give away.
- Rally Sunday was the official launch of fall programming. A re-designed Sunday School program was introduced. All children (ages 3yrs to 6th grade) will begin the morning together for some music and story telling, then break into some age specific groups for additional activities based upon the day’s story. A fantastic post-worship celebration, featuring a mobile Ninja Warrior course, was well-planned, well-attended and enjoyed by all.
- Our Adult Ed committee has worked hard to plan adult forum topics and speakers inspired by the lectionary.
And finally…
Peter Christ, Lead Pastor
Recently, Anne and I and eight other members from Prince of Peace had the honor of representing Prince of Peace at the annual gala for Lutheran Social Service. It was an amazing night of highlighting the full breadth of the ministry we share with our partners at LSS and a great reminder of how much we can accomplish for the sake of God’s world when we come together as one church. What a joy it is to partner with each one of you to deliver on that same goal as Prince of Peace.