Faith Lutheran Church has a remarkable record of receiving worship guests. Virtually every weekend we have either first or second time guests with us for worship. There is a wonderful culture of welcome here that invites others into our community and makes them feel welcome. As the pastor for evangelism, let me just say THANK YOU for taking the time to meet and welcome others.
Over the summer months we've noticed a trend that caused us to re-visit an old idea with the Worship Committee, namely, continuation of our Saturday evening worship service year-round. It's a big step and a big commitment, but one that the folks on the committee and on the Witness Team, as well as the pastors feel is appropriate. First, to be clear, Sunday mornings will still be as they have been during the school year, and revert to a single service during the summer months. The addition of this new service, though it may meet the needs of some of our current members, is intended as an outreach, through worship, into our community.
Our goal is to provide an alternative to Sunday morning worship that maintains our Lutheran, liturgical identity. You may recall a recent Sunday when we used a new setting from Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Setting Eight, and that musically this setting was led by a group of musicians including piano, drums, guitars, oboe, and saxophone. We will use this group of musicians to help lead Setting Eight for worship on Saturday evenings. We will also need volunteers as greeters, ushers, communion assistants, acolytes, etc. We need more of our FLC members to step into these roles so that we can effectively serve all three worship services each weekend. Can you help? The more people we have volunteer, the easier it will be, and the time commitment is truly minimal.
How will this affect our education hour on Sunday morning? Our hope is that the education hour will be minimally impacted, remember, our goal is for outreach first. That doesn't mean that there won't be times when folks can only come on Saturday evening, thus missing Sunday morning. We are adding Thursday evening adult Bible study, Opening the Book of Faith, as well as Tuesday evening offerings like Financial Peace University and Spiritual Practices, and for kids we continue to offer Wednesday Night Live and youth group activities. We want every child in Sunday School and every adult involved in education, but for the times when Sunday morning isn't an option, we believe there are great ways to nurture faith.
Speaking of Sunday School, watch for a BIG kick-off on Rally Sunday in September! We're shifting to an exciting new rotational Sunday School model so that we can engage our kids in nurturing faith more effectively. More on that in our next SEED, for now, please pray for our new outreach worship service and about how God might be able to use your gifts in serving our worship community at FLC.
In Christ,
Pastor Paul :o)