VOL. XXXVI no. 3 July ‘08 Lincoln, Kansas

The Lutheran Hour

The stations broadcasting the Lutheran Hour are WIBW 580 Topeka at 7:30 a.m. and KHAZ 99.5 FM Hays at 7:30 a.m., Salina KQNS 96.5 FM at 8:00 a.m., Lexington, NE KRVN 880 at 10:00 a.m. All dates are Sunday.

Electronic Transfer Giving

Is there still time to send in the automatic transfer sheets? Yes, this can be done at anytime. We will continue to promote this way of funding. In time it may grow into more people sharing in this experience. If you need another form, write or call Thunder Bank or the church office.

Can I change the amount? Yes, the amount may be changed at any time, as well as the date that it is removed from your account

Newsletter Changes

The Talking Friend is now in its 36^th year. We will continue to mail the Newsletter and e-mail it also. Church calendars will be available at the beginning of each month in the bulletins and extra copies will be placed on the glass cabinet in the education wing. If you want to receive the Newsletter electronically, please call, send or give us in some way your e-mail address or e-mail to the church at stjlutheran@nckcn.com. Then you would receive only an electronic copy and would not receive a paper copy. Thank you.

A NEW CHALLENGE

Let's give the Greene's a big boost. Soap is badly needed in developing countries so the LWML has chosen as one of its mission projects-and is inviting all members of the congregation to join us-in gathering bar soap on each of the four 5th Sundays of the year: March 29, May 31, Aug. 30 and Nov. 29. Small grocery bags will be distributed the previous two Sundays prior to each collection date to serve as reminders. Containers to receive your contributions will be found in each entry way. Let's surprise Ken and Muriel by boosting the poundage for the Lutheran World Relief pick up trucks in a big way.

YOUTH GROUP

The Youth are meeting the 2^nd Wed. evening of each month for their monthly meetings. The youth are also trying to do a group activity each month together for fun and fellowship. The youth went on a St. Louis trip over spring break this March. It was a Mission/Fun trip Pastor Schneider drove the bus this year. The group visited the seminary and participated in two Mission Projects in St. Louis. The first project involved visiting the kids, donating toys, and touring the Shriner's Hospital and doing clean up and repair work at Hope Lutheran Church in SW St. Louis. The youth then visited the City Museum, Grant and Joyce Glatt's farm where they enjoyed a bonfire and wiener roast, as well as touring Meramec Caverns. The youth group also held a bake sale booth at the Lincoln Car Show and Christmas in July festivities this year and plan to have a similar booth at the Post Rock Festival on August 30th. Pastor Schneider is going to try his hand at making blooming onions at the booth with proceeds going to renovate the Sunday School rooms, local missions fund, and the youth group trip. At this time we are also planning a youth sand volleyball and cookout at Ron and Jo Buttenhoff's Quarry property on Sat. Aug. 8th beginning at 6:00pm. We also thank the youth who play for Worship services and also services at MAHC. and for those who sang and played for worship as well. You are much appreciated!

The new officers are as follows: President-Taylor Biggs; VP-Rachel Meyer; Secretary-Alexandria Feldkamp;Treasurer-Shelby Errebo.

SUNDAY SCHOOL AND WEEKDAY SCHOOL

The third Quarter marked a change in worship and SS times to allow Pastor Schneider to teach the Adult Bible Class. The new times for Sunday School is 10:00am. with worship at 11:00am. Parents, please bring your children to SS! It is a wonderful way to learn about Jesus! The teachers put in a great deal of time and effort getting prepared and teaching so SS would be a great tool in your child’s Christian education. Please pray for both our teachers and our students. The SS and WDS kids are collecting items for needy families served by the Ysleta Lutheran Mission in Texas and Arkansas. Items needed are toys (new and used), hygiene items such as toothpaste, soap, school supplies and disposables such as plates, napkins, cups and paper towels. The children will be collecting these items until December at which time they will be sent. For more information on this project please contact Sonja. Thanks to the children and youth who have served the Lord by presenting special music during our services and for acolyting. We thank the many young people who share their talents…We thank all those who continue to help with our WDS program on Wednesdays. WDS will begin on Wed. Sept. 16th with the parents meeting on Wed. Sept. 9th at 7:00pm. As usual the bus will pick the kids up after classes at the Elementary School. Confirmation will also begin on Wed. Sept 16th. the bus will pick the kids up at 5:30pm if needed. Supper will be provided by the Confirmation families and Pastor Schneider.

VBS

Once again the St. John Vacation Bible School was a great success as 130 kids participated. Our program was entitled "Gadgets Garage" from CPH. The children then held their worship program the following Sunday in which 170 people were present for worship. We wish to thank all our parents, teachers, volunteers, kitchen help, and last but not least Penny Andresen who made the robots for the kids. Thank you also to all the kids who came out for VBS we enjoyed them all!

DORCAS SOCIETY

The Dorcas Society will meet on Wednesday, September 2nd, for a 11:30 am. dinner at the Hungry Hunter with a meeting to follow.

LWML

The LWML will meet on Thursday September 10th, 1:30pm. Marge Aufdemberge was our delegate to the LWML Convention in Portland, OR this year. We want to thank Marge for her service and we look forward to hearing about her trip.

PASTOR’S PAGE

Dear Members, family, and friends;

I want to thank you once again for calling me to be your pastor. We are truly blessed and thankful to be here at St. John’s and serving Trinity and St. Paul’s as well. We pray we will be a blessing to you as well. We are enjoying the Parsonage and have put out a garden to the Southwest of the house. It's hard to believe I will celebrate my first year of Ordination but time flies when you're having fun!

Worship

We have made some subtle changes in Week-day School and Confirmation classes in order to facilitate our teachers. We have begun to do memory work in the classrooms instead of pulling the kids aside. Also we have made some changes in worship. St. John is holding Communion services twice a month. In addition to this we have changed our church time to 11:00am so that I can teach the Adult Bible Class on Sunday mornings before worship. Trinity Lutheran, Hunter and St. John have decided to hold joint worship services once a quarter and we held our second service on May 17 with 125 attending. A potluck meal followed the church service. Lenten services began on Feb. 25th with our Ash Wed. service at St. John 7:30pm. We alternated Lenten services with St. Paul's, which was well attended at both churches. As part of our Lenten worship we handed out refrigerator magnets, which then formed a cross with pictures and scripture verses on them. We also did the imposition of Ashes on Ash Wednesday reminding us of our sinful condition, we then kept the Palms from Palm Sunday and will burn them for next years Ash Wednesday Service. On Maundy Thursday we held a re-enactment of the Lord's Supper by baking unleavened bread and holding communion on a table in front of the Altar the common cup was also offered, this went over very well and we look forward to doing this again. We held our Good Friday service at St. Paul's and offered the nailing to the cross where anyone who wishes to come forward can pound a nail into the wooden cross reminding us that it was in fact our sins that nailed Christ to the cross.

I will continue to spend Monday afternoons in Hunter as that is the best day to hold meetings because several of the council members and voters are teachers. Most other evenings are occupied by school and sports events. I will continue to hold the 10:00am. Thursday Bible study at the Highrise. I spend Monday mornings at St. John’s as more people frequent the church at that time and its nice to be available to them. I also spend all day Wednesday at St. John as well as either Tuesdays, Fridays, or Saturdays depending on which day I take off for farm work in Osborne county. I keep this somewhat fluid depending on what arises at St. John or on the farm I feel I have to be flexible. However, I have published my cell phone number and can always be reached.

3 Churches?

Now that I am ordained and installed at St. John’s I have been serving 3 churches. I have renewed the contract for pastoral services with Trinity Lutheran in Hunter as has been our practice for more than 15 years. St. Paul's has received a Vicar, his name is Timothy Frank from a farm in Minnesota. Timothy is 24 years old and is attending Concordia Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Timothy and Sandra Gale were married this summer, July 18th and they will then move to the St. Paul's Parsonage and begin the Vicarage on August 2nd. The Installation service for Timothy will be held on Sunday Aug 2nd at 4:00pm with a potluck and grocery shower to follow. We give thanks to God for Vicar-elect Timothy and Sandra and pray God's blessing on them and the vicarage. I will be overseeing the vicarage, which is required. Timothy will be of help at St. John for our Weekday School and Vacation Bible School, as well as helping visit our shut-in members. All would be valuable teaching opportunities. We will continue to teach bible class at the Highrise in Lincoln. Bible study at the Church will start again this fall at 8:00pm. Both classes are well attended and bring about great discussions. Please consider joining us! Also as part of the vicarage preparation St. Paul's has new carpet in the parsonage as well as furnishing the home for Timothy and Sandra.

Confirmation

We currently have fifteen 7th and 8th grade students in our confirmation class. Five students, Colin Harlow, Alex Jackson, Larissa Liggett, Kyle Breneman, and Travis Weinenger, and one adult, Pray Ann Meirer, were confirmed on April 5th, which was Palm Sunday. Two adults were then confirmed on Sunday July 5th, Ginny Buttenhoff and Robin Lehman, we want to welcome them all into our church family. Our confirmation students students this year will once again concentrate on memorizing the 10 Commandments in order, the Lord's Prayer and Apostles Creed by heart. They were all able to pass a written test on the Commandments as well as recite the Creed and Lord's Prayer, which are fundamental to our worship service. In addition to this they are learning the fundamentals of the Christian faith and Lutheran doctrine as well as the Sacraments as taught by Luther in the 6 chief parts of Christian doctrine. Questioning will take place on April 4th where the students will answer some doctrinal questions and present their papers on their personal walk of faith. We thank God for our young people and look forward to bringing them into communicant membership at St. John Lutheran.

Renovations!

We have received a generous inflow of memorial money for replacing the carpet in the education wing. The trustees have obtained bids for carpet and installation with the intent of completing the project in August before WDS begins. Also paint has been purchased for painting the parsonage this fall. A work day will be planned for this fall when temperatures cool a bit. The basement Sunday school rooms are in need of an updating. The church had a garage sale at Lincoln Park Manor in May, to raise funds for supplies. We will have more fundraisers for this project.

Heinze Memorial Plaque

The Richard Heinze family has purchased a memorial plaque in the education wing. Anyone who wishes to include a loved one's name on the plaque may contact pastor Schneider. The cost is $3:00. Thank you again to the Heinze family for the beautiful plaque.

Processional Cross

A processional cross has been purchased by Harold and Lorene Buttenhoff in honor of their 63rd wedding anniversary. The cross will stand on the altar and be used in special services throughout the church year. We want to thank Harold and Lorene and their family for this wonderful gift.

Mothers' Morning Out

Mothers' Morning Out was held on Thursday mornings throughout July. We had a great time! We read exciting stories about Jesus and the art projects were also a tool in learning about Jesus. It was fun at recreation time and of course, the snacks were always a favorite time of the morning. Many thanks to Tyler and Kyle Breneman and Courtney Wolting for assisting this year. A huge thank you to Sidona Obermueller who took over for Sonja when she was in Wichita! Thank you to all who participated in "Mothers' Morning Out'! The kids were a joy and we all had a really fun time. Another opportunity to teach about our Loving Savior too! How great!

Thank You

Many thanks to everyone for their care, concern, thoughts, prayers, cards and calls after my accident. I am doing better and am home after being in the hospital and rehab center. I will be doing exercises at home for a month giving all the broken bones a chance to heal. Then I will return to Wichita the first week of September for further evaluation. Hopefully, I will be able to do the physical therapy needed here. I appreciate all the care you showed to me. Thanks, Kourt Kobbeman (I thank you all too! Again, your support and love in so many ways was a great comfort and help to us in a time of need. Thank you, Sonja)

Pastor’s Family

Lana continues to work as an RN at the Salina Hospital. She has been working odd and all hours this summer to accommodate Jessica's schedule and still be able to watch Izaac. Lana also taught a Ladies Bible Study both in the morning and evening until summer started. This fall the Bible Study will continue again, only with a change in topic. The new study is called "Bad Girls of the Bible". Sound interesting?? Plan to attend. Times and dates will be in the bulleting later in August. Morgan will be entering her third year at Fort Hays University where she is studying to become a history teacher. She still works part-time at Roof Tops, a nice restaurant in down town Hays, and at H&R Block. Tips have been slower this summer with the economy, so she is looking for another job to supplement. Oh the life of a poor college student. Jessica our middle daughter will be a Senior in High School this year and will be done in December. She plans to work and take college classes until the summer and then move to Hays with Morgan and attend Nursing school. She has been working full time this summer at the Lincoln Hospital and really like it. Leah, our youngest, will be in 8th grade this fall and will play volley ball and basketball again. She is also very dedicated to the violin and has been taking lessons at Salina this spring and summer. She was lucky to have had Suzuki method of violin in grade school when we were in St. Louis. We purchased a violin before moving, and she sounds wonderful. She has also been a great help with Izaac who continues to grow and our love for him grows as well. Izaac will be a year old on August 26th, he is able to stand and take a few steps, but he'd much rather crawl. Last I heard we were planning a joint one year birthday and ordination party on Aug. 22nd. open to everyone, stay tuned! With that I will close and wish God’s blessing be on everyone. I look forward to meeting many people and working with all of you in your personal walk with Christ.

Yours in Christ

Pastor Matt