FROM THE PASTOR'S PEN... February 2011

St. Paul's Lutheran Church's Vision for 2011:

"Go Out To The Groves With HIS Fishes and Loaves"
Biblical Foundation: John 6:1-15
Our Mind Set Change: "Multiply" Rather than Add
The Primary Three Legged Stool of Our Vision
1st Leg: Children/Youth Ministry
2nd Leg: Closing the Back Door/Spiritual Intimacy
3rd Leg: People Flow Events/Activities
(Bridge Building Across our Moat)

The Council has declared that April 3, 2011 is the Sunday in which we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of St. Paul's Lutheran Church. Pat Ballington and Committee has gotten things going in preparing for this monumental event in the life of our church and Mary Stratton is taking over to lead that same committee to fill in the blanks of the what's and how's of our celebration. I really like their choice of theme underlying the celebration which is "40 Years of Mission". Jesus Christ proclaimed in Luke 19: 10 that His mission was to come down from Heaven to "seek and save the lost". He gave all followers of His what is called The Great Commission ( or we could say Jesus' Great mission for all of us) found in Matthew 28: 19 - 20 " Go out, make disciples, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teach them to obey everything I've taught you , and lo I will be with you to the ends of the earth."

As this committee is already looking back into the archives of pictures and writings and other historical data to present to all of us on April 3, I am interested in discovering the people, their approach to following Christ's mission, and finding out how God lead our church family for those forty initial years. I am also thinking some crazy thoughts about what a similar committee will find when they are preparing for our 80th, or maybe even 50th or 100th Anniversary celebration of St. Paul's Lutheran Church. Some things will have different values or peak different interests than other data they will highlight. Some of those planners of future St. Paul's anniversary planning committees might get a laugh or two at some of the mistakes we might have made along the way, or at the same time be very impressed at the attempts we made to stay faithful to The Word of God, especially as interpreted by our Protestant founding Father, the good Dr. Martin Luther. Even though we are imperfect, Rom. 8:28 tells us that "All things work together for good(I would interject-not for everyone) to those who love The Lord and are called according to His Purpose". So as long as we remain sincerely faithful to following His will, even our mistakes will be used by Him to accomplish his purposes. When they do look back (unless God providentially decides to return first and create His New Jerusalem) I am hoping that they will find our humble attempt to discern God's hand on this current church family, of marching orders which are soundly faithful to His Mission for us in 2011, and a vision as clearly stated and understandable as possible.

Our 2011 vision of fulfilling His mission for us in 2011 is "Go out in the groves with His fishes and loaves". Based on John 6:1-15, we are at a point in the 40th year of our existence, that we hopefully have discerned faithfully God's call as members of St. Paul's to actually go out from the comfort of our routine and even some of our past methods (many which resulted in great effectiveness in our first 40 years) and consider ourselves as the actual fishes and loaves that Jesus multiplied, so we could feed our love for Jesus to a multiple number of those people God puts in our paths. All the sermons for the month of January 2011 have focused on our 2011 vision, with an overemphasis on Proverbs 29:18 in the Old Testament to underscore our need to 'Multiply' rather than just add to our spiritual intimacy with God and each other as John 6:1-15 is stressing in different ways. Without it, the people perish.

Our three primary strategies to accomplish our vision, are all calling us to make a bridge over the figurative moat surrounding our church so that we can march out into the groves surrounding us and give the love of our Lord( His fishes and loaves) to people in such a way that they will follow us
( due to our own personal intimate love for Jesus Christ) back over that same bridge into our church family's Castle made of solid bricks of the love of our Lord. We have exact strategies to accomplish this vision we are attempting to put into place this year. May we seek to stay Biblically faithful to having lots of 80th Anniversary fodder for their planning and celebration also.

Sincerely...In His Grip,        

Soli Deo Gloria               
Pastor Bucky