February 2019

News From The Pews

Shepherd of the Lake Lutheran Church—ELCA 143 Chota Center, Loudon, TN 37774

www.shepherdofthelaketn.org (865) 816-4756

Ingrid J Schalk, Pastor

Sunday Worship

9:00 a.m.

On the website:

Sermons Pastor’s Blog

Announcements Newsletters Calendar

Church Council

Tom Schemberger President

Jeff Svoboda Vice President

Elaine Nevin Secretary

Jim Newman Treasurer

Carolyn Hudspeth Bob Panozzo

Members-at-large

Office Administrator

Sandy Hagan sheplakelutheran-sec@hotmail.com

A Christian community sharing God’s love with the world.

From the Pastor’s Desk

Page 2

The Gift of Baptism….

During her recent sermon on the Baptism of Jesus, Diana Butler Bass shared a personal story about her own baptism. As a teenager, her family moved from the Chesapeake Bay area to Arizona; she also made a spiritual move - she chose to leave her childhood upbringing in the Methodist church, and claimed to be a born-again Christian. Her new church friends began to pressure her to be baptized. That just didn’t make sense to her - why should she do that? She told them, “But I was baptized when I was a baby.” They insisted that it didn’t count. She tried to reason with them, “My parents gave me that gift - isn’t it mean to give it back?” At the age of 15, Diana communicated to her peers that baptism is a gift - and that being baptized a second time was essentially rejecting a gift that she had already received. They stopped bothering her - she had just won her first theological debate. (I would clarify that baptism is a gift from God; her parents presented her to receive the gift.)

Occasionally I am asked by a potential member, “If I become a member of your congregation, do I need to be baptized again?” The answer is no; Lutherans baptize only once. Our guiding document in the ELCA, The Use of the Means of Grace, A Statement on the Practice of Word and Sacrament, states:

BAPTISM IS ONCE FOR ALL

- A person is baptized once. Because of the unfailing nature of God's promise, and because of God's once-for-all action in Christ, Baptism is not repeated .

- Baptism is a sign and testimony of God 's grace, awakening and creating faith. The faith of the one being baptized "does not constitute Baptism but receives it. . . "Everything depends upon the Word and commandment of God . . . ."

However, Lutherans DO…..

• remember our baptism and are encouraged to do so daily as Martin Luther instructed. We do this in various ways - making the sign of the cross (when we get up in the morning or before going to bed at night; when we enter worship by dipping our fingers into the baptismal font); when we shower or bathe, or displaying a visible reminder of our baptism (a candle, baptism certificate, etc.).

• give thanks for baptism as we did during worship on January 13, the Baptism of Our Lord. We may also include Thanksgiving for Baptism at other times during the church year (Pentecost, All Saints, God’s Work. Our Hands.)

• affirm our baptism at various life passages. Confirmation students affirm their baptismal vows when their confirmation instruction is completed. We often welcome new members by affirmation of baptism, at which time the congregation affirms their baptism as well.

Baptism is indeed a gift… that we celebrate throughout the church year and throughout our lives. A gift that changes US so that we might change the world.

Pastor Ingrid Schalk

Anniversaries

2 Dan & Cheryl Mandro

Birthdays

2 Roger Madson 3 Barb Warfel 4 Mary Brown 7 Margie Sunner 10 Ben Ashby 25 Shari Lillestolen

February Birthdays & Anniversaries

A Letter to the Congregation from a Long-Time Member

Page 3

A solid reference point for us is Jesus’ “Great Commandment”: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

With Jesus’ guidance in mind, two thousand years ago the very early church members practiced communal living as sub-culture groups, sharing with and caring for each other, with all members sharing everything they had, contributing according to their unique personal abilities and blessings, for the overall welfare of their group and the people they served. (See Luke 2:43-47; 4:32-27)

I feel as if our Shepherd of the Lake family is in a similar situation today. We are a relatively small group compared to our larger church neighbors; but we surely do not lack in compassion, support and love for each other, as well as outreach to those with needs beyond our church family assembled here today. We share God’s love with others.

Just think of the blessings to others that each of us can contribute in both our fellowship and outreach services to friends, neighbors and others with needs, for whom we have the compassion and commitment to serve.

We have discerned our collective path forward for meeting facilities and service base with the recent decision to purchase “our building.”

Our immediate challenge is to raise enough funds to purchase the building and do some basic renovations. We need to secure financial commitments – both immediately and over the next couple years – to allow us to move forward.

So, the question before each of us is: “How and how much money can I contribute now, later this year and over the next two years?”

Whether from perspectives of financial resources or gifts of talents or the spirit, I think we all realize that within our larger church family, individual family resources cover the spectrum from limited to abundant. And as we all seem to have some type of cross to bear, some of our burdens today seem lighter than burdens of others.

Just as with the early church, for those of us today who appear to be in a comfortable place financially to live out our retirement years, are we willing to share a significant amount of those funds with our Shepherd of the Lake church family at this time?

Realistically, many of us here are in the latter years of our lives; so, if not this opportunity, when will it be? Our lives are from dust to dust, and we can’t take anything with us. Why not use bountiful financial resources for a good purpose now?

Think about the blessings that can flow from owning our building. Pray about how you can support our capital campaign. Let’s come together enthusiastically to make this next step in our journey together a reality. Dick Sawinski

The following dates are

open to sign-up to place

flowers on the altar.

February 17

February 24

March 3

April 28

Flower Calendar

Our thanks to Lloyd Arrowood for being Santa Claus for the children at Kiddie Kingdom. Lloyd makes a great Santa Claus!

Page 4

Shepherd of the Lake at Tyson House (on UT campus) Sunday, February 10!

Dear Shepherd of the Lake Family, We're hosting a volunteer project, "College Partner Dinner". Shepherd of the Lake is teaming with Tyson House Campus ministry at the University of Tennessee to offer dinner at the February worship evening. Both college students and visiting high schoolers will participate. We could use all the prayer

and help we can get! Would you consider praying or joining us for this project? There is a sign-up sheet on the church bulletin board for food contributions and helpers. We also could use contributions for the community food pantry at Tyson House. They are in need of the following items:

canned meats (tuna, chicken, potted ham, etc), canned fruit,

Shampoo & conditioner, toothpaste (standard sized) and toothbrushes.

Deb Hatch

You can check out the project page here: https://thrivent.cotribute.co/events/221732/detail?src=f1/> Our project coordinator is Deb Hatch. PS: If you have any questions, I have added our Project Sup-port Team to the email thread.

The Shepherd’s Table

If you missed the January luncheon, it was

a GREAT time of fun and fellowship. The

food was awesome and the house was

packed with men and women playing

B-I-N-G-O!

We had some great

prizes for the

participants. We had

a great time and

laughed a lot!

Thought we might

need to separate the

Pastor and Sara.

Flower Delivery

If you have ever received flowers delivered to your door, you know how meaningful that special delivery can be - it is also a joy to deliver them.

If you would be willing to deliver flowers after worship on Sunday or Monday, please contact Sandy in the office or sign up in Fellowship Hall.

A recent delivery to The Neighborhood.

REFLECTIONS FROM THE DEAD SEA

Page 5

We stayed at the Kibbutz En Gedi Guest House overlooking the Dead Sea and date farms. The kibbutz was founded in1956. En Gedi means “Spring of the Kid” referring to the Ibex mountain goats that live in the area. We were surrounded by many beautiful plants and trees brought in from around the world. In the evenings Pastor Ingrid held devotions under a large African Baobab tree, de-scribed as Africa’s “Tree of Life”. The history surrounding this lake goes back thousands of years. Globs of asphalt floated up from the deep and was harvested by the Nabateans and sold to the Egyptians for embalming purposes. The Egyptians and Romans called it “The Lake of Asphalt”. History goes on with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra, David hiding out at En Gedi, the Fort of Masada, the Essenes of Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls) and other biblical references.

Being at the lowest place on earth (1400 feet below sea level), surrounded with biblical history, left me with a different perspective and appreciation for the struggle of life thousands of years ago.

John Baker

Over the next few months, we will be sharing some of the stories and photographs

from our church family that went to Israel, in December 2018.

This month we are featuring John Baker’s thoughts and photographs.

Charlie Shubeck in the woodshop Kibbuta

Page 6

Christian Calendar

Liturgical Year 2018-2019

Page 7

Blue: More recently, some traditions have begun using blue during the season of Advent. Blue is the color of hope.

Page 8

February 22

Deadline for March

“News from the Pews” articles!

Starting Sunday, February 10

Faith grows by reading and meditating upon the Word of God. Most of all, faith

thrives in an atmosphere of prayer. ~ E.M. Bounds

Please join us around the altar on Sunday evenings, at 7:00 pm,

as we lift the names of our Shepherd of the Lake members, family and

friends to the Lord.

Contact: Christine Elbert

“Let us pray for the whole people of God in Christ Jesus, and for all

people according to their needs.”

Prayer Request Date:__________

Pray for: ____________________________

Check ALL prayer ministry you are requesting:

___ “Let Us Pray” weekly prayer group to pray

___ list in Sunday bulletin for 4 weeks, whole congregation to pray

___ church to send a note letting the person know we prayed for them

___ pastoral contact

Give details that you are comfortable sharing:

Your Name____________________________

Relationship to you_____________________

Give person’s address & contact information: