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Bouquets and Kudos: to Tim Harvey and Craig Kaschube for chaperoning our youth during the recent confirmation retreat. We also thank Joe & Heather Daniels, Tim Harvey, Joe & Susan LaLonde, David Krohn and Pastor Haupt for driving. …Thanks to everyone at St. John's for the warm welcome for Angela Josephine and the Hearts for Healing Benefit Concert and special music at our church. The family of Donald and Shaelin especially appreciated the incredible show of support for their family during this very difficult time. Special thanks also to Scott Liggett for all the work he put into setting up, promoting and pulling off the benefit concert for Donald & Shaelin Hase. …many, many thanks to all who helped make possible the recent trip to Trinity Lutheran Church in Utica, MI, to deliver donations to help Detroit’s homeless. Judy Talarico for her many hours spent sorting the donations; our Quilters who gave us 44 quilts; to Craig Kaschube and our St. John's Youth and Rich & Arna Robinson for helping load the trailer that was borrowed from Love INC (thanks, Eric Morgan!); special thanks to Jim & Kelley Hargrave for the use of their truck! The trailer was 2/3 full of donations of books, clothing, blankets, pillows and health and beauty products. Once arriving, some of the warm blankets, pillows, and socks were given to a family who was headed out to the NSO from Trinity Lutheran to directly hand out donations to people living on the streets of Detroit. The NSO is the only 24 hour shelter in Detroit that allows the homeless to come in off the streets any time of the day or night. The return trip did not include coming back with an empty trailer - some toys and rice donations from a ministry in Detroit were delivered to Grand Rapids for eventual shipment to Haiti. …to Coach Todd Lange for all his efforts with this year’s boys’ basketball team! Todd spent many volunteer hours with these boys during practices and game times. We are sincerely thankful for his involvement. More than Ten “Suggestions” Seventh and Eight Grade Confirmation students at St. John’s are half-way through their study of the Ten Commandments. During March they will focus on the commandments dealing with adultery, stealing, false witness, and coveting. Pastor Haupt, Craig Kaschube, and Eileen Ritter will teach the first and third lessons at church; the students and their parents will study the second and fourth lessons together at home. More than 3,000 years ago the Children of Israel were wandering in a foreign land filled with all kinds of dangers. Powerful enemies waited to crush them; strange cults and religious groups required child sacrifice and used temple prostitutes to coax their gods to do their bidding. God gave His people the Ten Commandments as a gift of love, saying, “Do this, and you will live.” As our students and their families today wander through this strange land called the New Millennium, God’s gift of the Ten Commandments still applies. It is a gift for your life.
The Truth Project
Pastoral Prayer Team It is our desire to “surround” our pastor with prayer guarding him from spiritual attacks and supporting him in spiritual warfare. Seeking to support him in being the best pastor he can possibly be. Thank you to the twenty-five people who signed up to pray for our pastor (many of them multiple times) during the month of February. Your prayer support means so much. We know there were many who undertook this task during January as well and we thank you! Please sign up for March and April on the Prayer Calendars posted on the Elders’ bulletin board in the church narthex. Thank you again for all of your prayers. It is also our desire to hold others and their ministries up before the Lord. If you have any prayer thoughts and concerns, anything that the Lord has laid on your heart to share with this group, please use the form below, filling it out and signing it, and placing it in the “Faith at Home” Church at the Welcome Center. We will have additional forms available by this receptacle.
Serving Others One method of leading others to Christ is by example. Serving others is a great way to develop relationships, help others, and maybe lead someone to Christ (that’s Evangelism!). Therefore, the Board of Evangelism has created a notebook of local organizations you could get involved in. The notebook is titled “Suggestions For Serving Others In Our Community. It has been placed in the church library in the Social Hall near the library check-out. The opportunities to serve are many and varied. If you have other suggestions for local organizations to be included, please contact Roxana Taylor at (616) 844-4181. This month we would like to highlight volunteer opportunities with North Ottawa Community Health System. This includes the hospital (NOCH), Hospice House, North Ottawa Care Center, and In-Home Care Nursing. There are many and varied opportunities to help out here. Here is a list only a few:
If you think you would like to volunteer with the North Ottawa Community Health System, the contact person is Kristyn Ireland, Manager, at (616) 847-5215.
Is Salvation Really Free? Over and over we emphasize that salvation is God’s free gift to us, apart from anything we are or do. Ephesians 2:8-9 makes this fact abundantly clear: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” Some time or other, we have given gifts purely out of love, expecting no reciprocation, not even thanks or appreciation. That gift is free to the recipient, but it still costs the giver, doesn’t it? So it is with God’s gift of salvation. Free to us, but costly to Him, the giver. What did it cost Him? In 1 Peter 1:18-19 we have our answer. The apostle tells us the price for our souls was not paid in silver or gold, but “with the precious blood of Christ.” Christ left the glories of Heaven for the squalor of Earth in order to become one of us. Perfection is required of us in order to live with God, or even to look at Him, so Christ, knowing we could never live perfect lives, lived the perfect life in our place. He emptied Himself of His divinity, Paul tells us in Philippians 2, and became a servant for us, humbling Himself even to an ignominious death on a cross. All the gold and silver in the world cannot compare with the price He paid to make us His own. Christ expects us to pay a price, too, as we pick up the crosses He gives us. He said, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26). It is not with a sigh and a groan, however, that we pick up our crosses. Like Him, “Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross,” we joyfully “fix our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2) as we live lives to His glory and honor. During this season of Lent, let us focus on Christ and His sacrifice and the joy with which He made that sacrifice. Let us remember how dearly He paid for our salvation, and let us respond in thanks and praise and acts of service and giving to others in His name.
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