815/223-1144
8:30am - Noon
1pm - 3pm
Saturday Worship/Communion 5:30pm
Sunday Worship/Communion 9am (Summer Schedule)
Sunday June 17 is Food Pantry Sunday. Make yourself a note on shopping day to pick up a few extra items for the pantry. The pantry can always use Mac & Cheese, peanut butter, tuna fish, instant potatoes, canned fruit, canned vegetables, spaghetti sauce, Hamburger Helper, cereal, soup, noodles, rice, Jell-O, sugar, flour, coffee and large paper bags.
A reminder—If you or a family member enter the hospital and you’d like Pastor Kenyon to visit, please call the church office 815-223-1144.
PASTORS NOTES
The 31st Annual Synod Assembly of the Northern Illinois Synod/ELCA will be held on Friday and Saturday, June 15 and 16, at Augustana College in Rock Island. I always look forward to this event as over 100 congregations’s voting members, visitors, and guests gather for two days to conduct business and hear reports of how Christ’s church is at work through your synod. However, at the very heart of the gathering it is Bible study, worship, and Christian fellowship which I find so greatly invigorating.
This year’s theme is “VIM, VIGOR, VITALITY - In Christ a New Creation.” Bishop Jeffrey Clements shares with us in his report: “Our church is already beginning to look different than it has in the past few generations. And we, as a synod, are trying to encourage congregations that are feeling stressed about their current ministry and their future. I love Thomas Edison’s words. ‘I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.’ I do not want you to be afraid to experiment. You may find some things that do not work for your congregation, but you will not fail.”
Our hope and strength is in Christ. On Friday people will have the opportunity to attend an evening session at First Lutheran Church, Moline. Introduction of those who are new to our synod, new seminary graduates assigned to our synod, will be introduced; recognitions of those rostered ministers with ordination and consecration anniversaries and congregation with major anniversaries; retiring Synod council members; rostered ministers who have retired in the last year will be recognized. The evening will close with Evening Prayer and a Remembrance Service of our Departed Saints. Our congregational voting members are Gregg and Sue Flaherty. We thank them for serving in this way.
God’s Word of life is Jesus. In Christ we are new creatures. In Isaiah 55 we read that as the Word is cast like seed….it will not return empty. That’s a promise, sure and certain. We rejoice that the barren ground in winter has now given way to lush green grass. Seeds planted for the purpose of harvest are now growing vigorously that they may produce food/fruit for all who are hungry. Likewise, by the power of the Holy Spirit we are given faith to live in the lush new growth as members of the body of Christ. Through faithful worship, generous offering, and service to others we receive Vim, Vigor, and Vitality, in Christ who makes all people new.
In Christ, Pastor Kenyon
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