Peace Talk August 2012

August 2012

Peace Talk

Peace Lutheran Church

570-343-9828

www.yourpeace.org

Desert Journey VBS a Thriller!

AMY BETTS SHARES: I had the privilege to host the Opening and Closing Oasis for VBS, as well as my favorite station - The Interactive Bible Story Station. What a fabulous group of children we had come through this week. Some had a knowledge of the bible stories and yet others did not.

Each age group that visited the Bible Story tent had lots of energy, excitement, and many many faithbuilding questions. It is my hope that each child increased their bible knowledge, love and longing for Jesus, and their connection to a body of Christian believers. If I could make next year even better, I would love to see MORE adults pledge their time to help make our VBS Outreach go smoothly and give these children greater access to positive faith rolemodels.

Through the desert of life we know JESUS is leading us HOME! The 2012 Peace VBS was blessed incredibly this year with almost 50 registered kids and a high attendance of 40 kids on Thursday!

below: Amy Betts with her visiting niece Kate Peters sharing Good News!!

VBS QUOTE TO REMEMBER: Question from one of the VBSers: "Why did Jesus have to die on a cross?"

ANSWER: "So that we don't have to!"

- by SANDRA GOBLE!!!!

An A p o st o lic Mission C o n gregat ion of The Lut heran Church Missouri S y nod

THE LUTHERAN ACADEMY AND IMMANUEL PRESCHOOL NEWS!!!

CHECK OUT THE NEW ACADEMY WEBSITE! www.thelutheranacademyscranton.org and www.leccs.org You will notice that the Immanuel Preschool and The Academy are trying to work together more and more!

We are presenting ourselves as: Lutheran Elementary Childhood Center, Scranton Our offering to the community is substantial! Together we offer:

- Before and After School care (from 7am - 6pm)

PLEASE pray this month for all the planning and preparations that have to be in place before the opening of the school year! Please pray for a student body of 15!!!

- Preschool and Kindergarten - Elementary grades 1-6

Share the news!

- Summer Discovery Camp

ASSOCIATION OF LUTHERAN FRIENDS RANSOM VALLEY LUTHERAN CHURCH FELLOWSHIP AND PICNIC!

Sunday, August 12, 3:30pm Please consider yourself invited out to Ransom for this special family event on Sunday, August 12th!

The Theme of the Day will be "Creation Care" and the picnic will be generously sponsored by Audrey Russell! Let's fill that church van!!!! Directions to the church can be had by calling Pastor Bjornstad at 343-9828!

"For this is what the Lord says— he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited — he says: “I am the Lord, and there is no other." - Isaiah 45:18

PEACE NEWS AND NOTES TRANSITIONS IN OUR CONGREGATION: KEVIN AND MEREDITH WOOLVERTON AS WELL AS GEORGE AND DEBRA PRICE will be having to say goodbye to regular church membership here at Peace. Kevin, our church president and his wife Meredith (church secretary!) have already moved to Mechanichsburg.

Up until recently Kevin has been doing a great job as President even from 2.5 hours away, but he finally found a job, works the third shift, and will be unable to make our worship services. He and Meredith have been so very faithful to our congregation and we are very sad to see them go. But the congregation in Mechanicsburgh is very happy to see them!

July 24th, Kevin Winters, up unil last George and Deb have been equally year our organist for over 10 years, faithful for SO many years in service to passed away in the Wilkes Barre the Lord here at Peace, but they are General Hospital. He had been sick, moving to Dover, Deleware! They are but he was taken to the hospital the looking forward to a beautiful city and week before with a failing liver and their son Steve, his wife Kathy and their two children who live there. They will was soon on life support. His also look forward to the better weather viewing was Thursday the 26th and the local LCMS church there which between 6 and 9pm at H. Merritt has a school as well!

Hughes Funeral Home in Wilkes Barre. There were about a dozen of We WILL be finding some special ways to express our thanksgiving for these congregational members who beautiful friends of ours. And we will be attended it and extended condolences sure to see them again as they come visit to Ed and his whole family. The their families regularly! family was VERY appreciative of our THE BLESSINGS: We say goodbye to presence. We pray especially for his the Prices and Woolvertons, but we say two adopted boys Justin and David. HELLO to NEW faces and hands and feet to do the work of God in this WE PRAISE GOD for his gifts which Kevin shared with our church. We will beautiful congregation! Time for remember him well! At the time of this everyone to step up to the plate! :) printing there is some confusion over an RACHELLE and MIKE PAULUCCI address where we can send our are preparing for the birth of their son condolences. Please call ANY DAY NOW! Please pray for the the office for the address. safety of both mother and child!

REMEMBERING KEVIN WINTERS

++++++++++++++++

Mark and Brenda Vaccaro are ADOPTING two small children (they do Grace and peace be yours in have names - just none that come to abundance through the knowledge of Pastor's mind at 1am!!!) They came to church last Sunday and they were good God and of Jesus our Lord. - 2 Peter 1:2 as gold! Lillian gets grandchildren! Yay!

Bjornstad Vacation Report The Bjornstads had a glorious vacation in MN and were successful in snagging their dear daughter Hannah away from the Lutheran Summer Music Academy in Iowa. It is GOOD to have her home and playing her piano again! Thank you for all your support for her. She will be sharing her experiences with you soon!

This last month the LWML Mite offering was $200! As well, it should be reported that a total of $1489 was raised for the Breadbasket of NEPA at the Chili Cook off this past May. Many thanks to The Association of Lutheran Friends and Thrivent Financial for sponsoring this event with significant funding!

ELECTRICIANS are trying to finish replacing original wiring and installing new lighting in the Sacristy. VERY difficult job but hopefully it will be complete soon.

THANKS to Jim Calpin for installing a new ceiling and walls in the parsonage basement guest room!

He has also been VERY busy at several congregational homes doing his best to make everyone happy. It is a very tough job! :)

JILL TRAPANE HAS BIG PLANS FOR CHOIR THIS FALL! WE NEED YOUR VOICE! Our first rehearsal is going to be Friday, Sept. 7th at 7pm! If you can play an instrument of any kind we would love to have you join our Family of God liturgy band as well! Please email Jill if you can join the team!

WORSHIP AND SPIRITUAL LIFE at Peace Lutheran Church SUMMER WORSHIP IS AT 9:30 AM ON SUNDAY MORNINGS! Featuring: Praise songs beginning at 9:20 (come a bit early!)

Holy Communion every Sunday!

Introducing "THE STORY"!

THE NEW BIBLES AND CURRICULUM FOR SEPTEMBER LAUNCH HAVE ARRIVED! You can actually pick YOUR Bible up at church and get a head start in reading it if you wish! There are 31 chapters - one chapter for each week for the 31 weeks following Sept. 9th! THIS SPECIAL edition Bible is Chronologically ordered and is intended to give you a fabulous sweep through the (REAL) "Story" of Salvation. The good news is that the parts of the Bible which have a tendency to "bog" a person down (like genealogies) have been excised out for your reading pleasure! The further good news is that all our Bible Studies and Sunday School Lessons and Sermons will have as their subjects the very chapters that everyone will be reading!

RD O W 'S D GO

E! F I L IS

LE T TO 'S LO O TH READ K FO RO RW U ING IN AR SE GH B IT D PT E GIN EM BE R!! NING

WORSHIP THEMES YET THIS SUMMER: August 5:Â The Bread of Heaven August 12: The Holy Scripture: Law and Gospel August 19: The Holy Scripture: Wisdom for Life August 26: The Holy Scripture: Adding To and Taking Away September 2: The Holy Scripture: The Sword of The Spirit

D IS E! R O 'S W D ACTIV D O G AN G N I V LI

FAMILY TRIP TO KNOBLE’S ON WED. AUG. 8!

All our VBS and church families are invited to come down with us, share a picnic and enjoy the rides at Knoble’s Amusement Park. We are providing free transportation and the picnic lunch! Please call 343-9828 to let us know you are coming!

WE WILL LEAVE AT 10 am from here at Peace Lutheran and be back before 8pm.

NOTE: We cannot be responsible for the children.

An adult MUST accompany your children!

ALSO: Please call if you need to be picked up.

RIGHT: Hannah Bjornstad and her piano teacher at the Lutheran Summer Music Academy in Iowa where she studied music intensively for a month. It was, as she put it… "THE most amazing experience in my life!" Thank you for your support!

Protect your family against the unexpected Too often, people work hard to build their assets, then fail to protect them. Without proper protection, the money you’re working so hard to save could be lost if you were to die or suffer an illness or injury. Are you protected?

•

Bulletin covers by Ky Betts, one of our church elders! He makes them EVERY Saturday for us!

Life insurance: One in four Americans dies before he or she retires.1 Premature death can undermine a family’s financial health, now and in the future. Having adequate life insurance can help ensure your family continues to live at home, your children go to college and your spouse

VISITING OUR NEW CHURCH - by Meredith Woolverton I just wanted to share an experience that Kevin and I had when attending the Lutheran Church in our new neighborhood for the first time. First, I would like to start out by saying that Peace has been our home for the past 16 years. It has been such a strong pull for us to stay with Peace so much so that we travel back and forth most Sundays to attend church. Kevin and I realize that this is not going to be the case for us forever, so we have started to look for a good church in our area. So the first week we attended Calvery Lutheran Church in Mechanicsburg, we were a little nervous. We were not quite sure where to go in or how the service would be. We were immediately approached by a parishioner who welcomed us to the church and started to fill us in immediately of where to sign in and asked us questions about us and why we were visiting. She was thrilled to find out that we were looking for a church in the area and started to introduce us to some of the council members of the church, who brought us to the ktichen for coffee, that was soo nice and invited us to stay for a B B Q after church. People helped us get situated in our seats and showed us how their services work. What a great way to help us feel comfortable with a new church service for us. After the service we were invited to the Congregational meeting since the council knew that we are actively involved in our church to see how their congragational meetings are. Everyone attended and participated. It was great to see how involved so many people are. Then we went to the pic nic area and everyone took time to speak to us and make us feel welcome. It was almost like they held the pic nic just for us. I want to share this because Peace is such a great church but when new people arrive we could be a little more attentive to the new comers. I love Peace and everyone there but this attention we received by the congregation was so above and beyond our expectations.

Wouldn't it be nice to have new people feel the same about our home church? I would like to finish by letting everyone know how nice it was to meet so many people and then to find out that two of the council members were married by Pastor Kerns and the connection to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area was even more conforting to us. Thank you for letting me share and I will always hold a special place in my heart for Peace. Thank you.

PASTOR BJORNSTAD'S BLOG POST ON Penn State: (see more at www.yourpeace.org) Even though I have lived now in PA for almost a dozen years, I have yet to get caught up in Penn State football mania. My interest in sports has greatly diminished over the years and I just can’t get excited about it any more.

But I DO still like watching whatever good college football game is on Saturday afternoon. It is fun to watch – and there isn’t anything wrong with having some fun!

But it is difficult to not get caught up in all the events surrounding the recent Sandusky convictions and the terrible drama sweeping through the Penn State institution. It certainly is extremely sad.

But, as I keep telling everyone, it certainly isn’t shocking. People are bad. What is new about that? If priests can do terrible things, why not jocks? Even “Happy Valley” jocks, who are supposed to be standing for all things “good” and noble and sportsmanlike, are still prone to every vice and sin that everyone else has – perhaps more-so!

A few thoughts: + Perhaps we need to rethink our priorities if a football team (a FOOTBALL team!) so dominates an “educational” institution that when it gets taken away or crippled the whole school (and the whole state!) reels in despair. + The general rule of thumb is not to make anyone your hero until after they die – as they will surely disappoint you. The NEXT rule of thumb that we are learning is that it is even dangerous to have a dead hero. Even dead ones can disappoint! It is MUCH better to stick with keeping our eyes and affections on Jesus Christ. To put any stock in ANY man is folly. + At first I was quite taken aback by the NCAA sanctions on the Penn State. I wasn’t really sure it was “fair” that the rest of the university had to suffer so much for the sins of so few people. But on further reflection I am not quite so dismayed.

Not very many things in life are “fair” from our self centered perspective. Take original sin and our natural human condition. Is it “fair” that we suffer for the sins of Adam and Eve? How about the sins of our father and mother? We all suffer the sins of our politicians as well! The list goes on and on. And certainly we cringe at the thought that our own temporal sins (no matter how minor) have eternal consequences! And then how fair is it that Christ bore, in himself, our sin? The sinless son of God “became sin for us”, taking upon himself our eternal suffering and death!!!! In the end, when you think about it, the NCAA punishments certainly weren’t fair. The punishment should have been much greater! But the judgement of man pales in the face of God’s judgement. We will have to wait for judgement day for the final accounting.

This debacle is also demonstrating for us much about corporate sin. The reality is that Joe Pa and those few administrators that “actually” sinned (sins of omission) reflected the corporate sin of the university and society as a whole: you and I together! We ALL have a measure of responsibility for their sins… in the face of evil WE lie silent… WE do not teach our children well the ways of the Lord… etc.! You could say that WE, in a sense, put so much pressure on the administrators to “succeed” that they felt they had no other choice but to keep silent. We are all in this together – no doubt about it!

Finally, I am slightly hopeful that these sanctions might JUST be enough to ACTUALLY convince whoever else is doing wrong in the college football world that it really IS more beneficial to do the right thing instead of the wrong. I think it has just been way to easy for these sports programs to cheat and do wrong – and suffer some minor consequences when they get caught – than do the right thing. You want to think that carrots are enough to keep people in line. Maybe we need sticks. Or a club.