01 january 2017

Centennial Evangelical Lutheran Church 3558 S. 24th Street Milwaukee, WI 53221 414-281-2280| www.centennialwels.org

GREG PUFAHL, PASTOR ROBERT GARBE, STAFF MINISTER LIN KANITZ, ADMIN ASSISTANT JENNY PUFAHL, SUNDAY SCHOOL RICH KANITZ, PRESIDENT JOHN NOLTE, TREASURER DAVE ROCHESTER, PROPERTY MANAGER YOUTH GROUP MEN’S MINISTRIES WOMEN’S MINISTRIES MINISTRIES FOR SENIORS INTERNET MINISTRY GLOBAL OUTREACH MISSIONS MUSIC MINISTRIES SPECIAL NEEDS

Please join us for worship on Thursday nights at 6:30 pm and Sunday mornings at 9:30 am. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” Numbers 6:24-26

Thanks again to everyone who helped out with the Sunday School Christmas program. We had 100% attendance for our Saturday practice and for the Christmas service. If you were unable to attend this special service, it is on our church's website under the sermon videos for December 18th. The Sunday School will take part in the upcoming Palm Sunday service. Sunday School starts back up on Sunday, January 8th at 8:15 am. During the month of January, the children will be going to SonWorld Adventure Park, learning about the Blind Man, the 10 Sick Men, the Paralyzed Man, and the Rich Young Ruler. They will be playing carnival games and eating carnival snacks each week. Please come and bring a friend!!

NEW EMAIL ADDRESS TO COMMUNICATE PRAYERS Personal requests for special prayers are not uncommon however, it can be difficult to make sure all members prayer requests are heard and responded to. To save you time in tracking down church goers who desire prayer, and to make it easier for them to do so, we have created a new email address to better facilitate communication of your requests and to ensure everyone’s requests are being heard. The email address is easy to remember and is check many times during the week by Pastor Pufahl directly. We ask that you use this email for your non-emergency prayer requests whenever possible. Thanks.

prayers@centennialwels.org VOLUNTEERS NEEDED In this newsletter, you will find a listing of Volunteer Opportunities at Centennial. As many of you know, there are many things that need to be taken care of behind the scenes at Centennial so that we can keep our doors open and remain focused on reaching the lost for Christ. We are in desperate need of assistance in many areas of the church. We would love to be able to come up to you individually and personally ask each one of you to become involved but due to the amount of volunteers needed and the existing commitments of the church leadership, that is just not possible. Please consider this to be your personal invitation. In this newsletter, you will find areas in Centennial that are in desperate need of your assistance. Please examine these opportunities and pray about where you can best serve. Please contact the person listed to ask more questions or to express your interest in serving in a particular area. We will post these on the kiosk in the church lobby as well and including them in our upcoming service folders. As the old African proverb says, “Many hands make light work.” Can you help share the burden of responsibilities in God’s house? Can you please consider helping us? May God bless us all as we continue to serve Him.

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF CENTENNIAL EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN JANUARY 2017 – VOL. II ISSUE I

Peace in the New Year The Lord blesses his people with peace. (Psalm 29:11) Well, the Christmas season is finally over. No longer do we have to worry about buying presents or putting up lights or trimming trees. That is all over. No more worries or pressures or deadlines. No more stress or commercialism slamming us in the face. Of course you know that is not true. First of all Christmas is a joyous time when we get to spend time with family and friends to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus. And just because that busy time is over for another year, does not mean that we do not have stress or worries or pressures or deadlines. It all begins again in the New Year. Every year when the New Year comes rolling around, people make new resolutions. I am going to lose wait this year! I am going to spend less and save more! I am going to spend more time with my family and less time with work. And we fill our lives up with goals - some times stressful goals - we want to reach by the end of 2017. All this does is show us that stress can happen any time of the year. You

see, no matter what time of year we enter, there is stress. Stress at the beginning of the New Year to change our lives with resolutions. Stress during the year to try to keep those resolutions. And stress at the end of the year when we realize that we did not keep those resolutions. But New Years’ Resolutions are not the only cause for stress this year. We look at our portfolios and see that maybe our net worth is not as high as it was at the end last year. We begin to worry about this coming year to see if we will have a job or not. We wonder if the house we bought is going to gain or lose value during 2017. The New Year is supposed to bring change, but it seems like we are entering into it with much of the same from the previous year. And along with the changing of the calendar, we bring stress to 2017 from 2016. I will not claim to know what the New Year has to offer for you, but I can make one promise with you that I know will come true; a promise that God makes with his people. Ready?

The Lord blesses his people with PEACE. (Psalm 29:11). How does that sound to you? You have the only True God promising to give you peace. No, we may not have true peace in this world. We may not find comfort for all the stresses that our lives bring year in and year out. But the greatest stress in our lives comes from our sin. It comes from the memories of past wrongs we committed. It comes from the hurt we caused in our lives to others and to ourselves. Now that you are thinking of those things, you may want to ask me: Where is the comfort then? How can I have comfort knowing those wrongs? Continued on pg. 2

The LORD is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation; This is my God, and I will praise Him; my father's God, and I will extol Him ... Exodus 15:2

SUNDAY SCHOOL UPDATE

Continued from pg. 1

Well, do you remember Christmas? Christmas meant so much more than the perfect presents under the tree. It meant so much more than the right tree or the most decorative lights. It meant so much more than making cookies and hosting parties. Christmas means peace. You see, the perfect present was wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. The perfect present was a little baby named Jesus, born in Bethlehem. The perfect present, this baby, this Savior, brought you peace, because this perfect present came to this earth for a reason. Jesus came here to bring you peace by taking all those wrongs away. He came here to this earth to bring you love from God by showing you that God was willing to go to the greatest lengths to save you – even the greatest length of letting his Son Jesus die on the cross so that in the end, you will have peace – peace of knowing that your sins, your wrongs, are gone. And this perfect present you can take with you into 2017 and beyond. For all people, the New Year means different things. For some, it means just taking down the old calendar and putting the new one up. For others, it means one more year closer to turning 30, or 40, or 50!!! For still others, the New Year is just another day they have off from work. No matter what the New Year means for you, you can be sure that in Jesus, this New Year will bring you peace. The New Year means so much more than just taking down the old calendar to put up a new calendar. The New Year contains a promise, a promise from God. Listen again to our text again: The Lord blesses his people with peace. (Psalm 29:11).

STAFF MINISTER’S REPORT

Don't Like How Your Church is Changing? This Is For You.

As Missionaries of Christ, we bring everyone we come in contact with closer to the Savior.

(Excerpts from article by Karl Vaters)

Gifts for Kids Program Up-Date: As of the writing of this article we are still collecting gifts. The deadline was Sunday, December, 18th. We have had requests of gifts for 30 children and at the time of this writing we had only 19 gifts given. Because of the need to try to fill all the needs, our Evangelism Committee decided to email our members to encourage them to purchase another gift or to give another monetary donation. We have received $190.00 in monetary gifts which will be used to purchase gift cards at Walmart to help families. Thank you again for helping to make Christmas a little bit better for the children of the community and some of our members. Christmas for Kids Re-Cap: Our December 3rd event was again successful. The Lord blessed us with 30 children, about 10 parents of these children, and about 20 volunteers. Even though the numbers were down from two years ago, we were able to engage the gifts of our members to use their time, talents, and treasure. We even had some prospects on our prospect list who came and volunteered their time and talents as well. What a blessing to see them participate and help out! FYI - Area Block Watch Coming to Centennial: Our church will be hosting an area wide Block Watch on Wednesday, February 22nd at 6:30pm. This is somewhat different than our regular Block Watch because it includes people from other areas of The Garden Community (that’s what our District 6 is referred to). Usually, Alderman Terry Witkowski attends and sometimes the mayor as well. So mark your calendar and come and help us PR this event. FYI - Our New Committee Chairman: Just wanted to mention that our committee has a newly elected Chairman, Jeremy Nolte. He has already participated in several of our meetings and will be soon chairing our monthly meetings. We welcome his insights and any new ideas he may have on how to best reach the unchurched in our community. We are also looking forward to having a Hispanic Outreach Pastor (when the Lord wills it) on board where our ministry focus might change somewhat.

If you’re a long-time, faithful church member who doesn’t like the way your church is changing, I have one thing to say to you. Thank you. For what? We’ll get to that soon. But first I want to tell you a short story.

Trying to Keep Up “What happened to the clapping?” The man who asked me that question has been a member of our church since it was founded in 1961. I didn’t understand his question, so I asked him to clarify. “Well,” he stammered, “it, uh, seems like the way we clap along to the faster songs has changed in the last several years. And I always get it wrong.” Now I understood. I explained to him how, when he was younger, we clapped to the on-beat, whereas with newer music we always clap to the off-beat. He had no idea what that meant, so I tried to illustrate. It didn’t work. (If you don’t know what that means either, don’t worry about it. Or ask your music director.) After my failed explanation, he smiled, shrugged his shoulders and told me one of the best things I will ever hear from a long-time church member. “I don’t understand a lot of what’s happening at this church any more, but I do know this. You’re preaching the gospel, the place is filling with young people, and we’re reaching out to the community. That’s good enough for me.” I smile every time I think about it. Thank you, Eldon.

When Everything But the Message Is Changing It’s tough when you’ve been in a church for a long time and things start to change. Soon, the church you love may feel like it doesn’t even exist anymore. It’s tough when you’ve been in a church for a long time and things start to change. But you’ve hung on. Why? Because, like my friend Eldon, you’ve seen that the changes are surface. The methods and styles are different, but the gospel message is the same. So, for every long-time church member who's staying and contributing, even while your church goes through changes you don’t understand, this is my tribute to you. Change Is Hard – Thanks For Staying.. Thank you for staying in a church whose  Music  Clothes  Liturgy  Building  Service order  Preaching style  Sanctuary  or something else has changed into something you don’t recognize any more.

Bob Garbe - Minister of Evangelism & Outreach

May God give you the peace of knowing that you are his child and that he loves you with a love which drove him to send Jesus to save you! Happy New Year to you all!

Thank you for the heritage you passed on to us that gives us the courage to try new, even stupid things to see if they work. Thank you for how much you pray for us. Thank you for reminding us that the methods can change as long as the message doesn’t. Thank you for keeping the ship steady when people like me want to rock the boat. Thank you for the times you want to speak up, but decide it might be best to pray about it for now. Thank you for the times you need to speak up, and you do. Thank you for the times you express your concerns in private, so you can stand with us in public. Thank you for forgiving us when we blow it. Thank you for letting us reach higher, because we’re standing on your shoulders. Thank you for catching us when we fall. Thank you for doing all of this without getting anything close to the credit you deserve. For these, and so many other blessings that no article will ever be long enough for, we thank you.

Amen

We can’t do it without you. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6:10