THE ARCHANGEL St Michael Lutheran Church, Harrisburg, PA. Newsleer June 2015 Upcoming Events Synod Assembly June 5-7 Church Council June 8 Negley Park Worship/Picnic June 14 St. Barnabas Summer Camp June 15-19 Pastor’s Vacation June 21-July3 Loaves of Love Collection Thru July 4 OUTDOOR WORSHIP SERVICE AND PICNIC AT NEGLEY PARK Plan to enjoy our annual Sunday worship service at Negley Park in Lemoyne, next Sunday, June 14, at 10:00 a.m. It will take place in the lower pavilion with parking at that location. The service will be followed by a pot luck picnic. As usual, you are encouraged to bring a salad or dessert. The main dish will be provided. From the pastor… Why Go to Church? If you are reading this, chances are you face this question every Sunday morning. Maybe you are a regular church-goer and the question is just some fuzzy notion in the back of your head about how good it would feel just to roll over and go back to sleep on a Sunday morning. …Or maybe you hardly ever attend and the question is just a passing twinge of guilt before you change your focus to some other Sunday morning plan. (continued on back page…)
Transcript
THE ARCHANGEL
St Michael Lutheran Church, Harrisburg, PA. Newsletter June 2015
Upcoming Events
Synod Assembly
June 5-7
Church Council
June 8
Negley Park Worship/Picnic
June 14
St. Barnabas Summer Camp
June 15-19
Pastor’s Vacation
June 21-July3
Loaves of Love Collection
Thru July 4
OUTDOOR WORSHIP SERVICE AND PICNIC
AT NEGLEY PARK
Plan to enjoy our annual Sunday worship service at Negley Park in Lemoyne, next Sunday, June 14, at 10:00 a.m. It will take place in the lower pavilion with parking at that location. The service will be followed by a pot luck picnic. As usual, you are encouraged to bring a salad or dessert. The main dish will be provided.
From the pastor… Why Go to Church?
If you are reading this, chances are you face this question every Sunday morning.
Maybe you are a regular church-goer and the question is just some fuzzy notion in the back of your head about how good it would feel just to roll over and go back to sleep on a Sunday morning.
…Or maybe you hardly ever attend and the question is just a passing twinge of guilt before you change your focus to some other Sunday morning plan.
(continued on back page…)
SUMMER CAMP WEEK
St. Michael will again be participating in the St. Barnabas Summer Day Camp Program by providing
a week of nutritious breakfasts and lunches for 40 children and camp staff. As always we will share
our week of meals with St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. Our week begins on Monday, June 15 and
runs thru Friday, June 19. If you wish to volunteer please see the sign up sheet on the bulletin
board in Fellowship Hall or see any member of MTS.
St. Barnabas Summer Camp is an 8 week, all day program designed to engage children ages 7 - 12 on many different levels. Activities include swimming, computer and library time, Bible study, Zumba, crafts and educational field trips. The Camp counselors are college students and Harrisburg School District teachers. In an attempt to provide a safe environment for children and youth in Up-town Harrisburg, The St. Barnabas Center for Ministry was founded in 1993 as a joint effort be-
LOAVES OF LOVE
FOURTH OF JULY COLLECTION
This will be the fifth year for our Fourth of July special food collection of JELL-O to benefit Loaves of
Love. Last year's goal of 140, 3 oz. boxes of JELL-O, any flavor, no sugar free please, was easily
exceeded thanks to the generosity of the St. Michael congregation. Can we exceed that number this
year with the collection of 150 boxes? Collection will run through the month of June with the last
Sunday being June 28th. Look for the food cart in Fellowship Hall!
The Loaves of Love Ministry provides Harrisburg's HIV/AIDS community with supplemental food and foods that are not provided by the PA Food Bank. This ministry is located in the Harris Street Meth-odist Church, 1605 Susquehanna Street and is open for distribution every other Wednesday morn-ing beginning at 10:00. Visitors are welcome. For more information please see any member of MTS.
CHILDRENS’ CHURCH
Our program resumes on Sunday September 13, 2015. St. Michael's support of this ministry is ap-preciated.
A special word of thanks is due to our teachers Nancy Eberly, Clair Gunnet Jr, Guy Kehler, Shirley Kramer, Caitlin Hawkins, and Sonya Mink.
Special recognition is extended to the children and their parents for their generous support. See you in September.
HELPING HANDS
IS SEEKING CONTRIBUTIONS
Kathleen Sculkins, the director of Helping Hands Ministries of Harrisburg will be doing mission work in Haiti during the month of June. In order to contin-ue feeding the homeless in her absence we will be preparing about half of the meals. If you would like to contribute a large casserole of a kettle of soup please contact Lindsay Mills ([email protected]). Cash to help buy groceries is also appreciated.
Ladies of St. Michael working in the kitchen, but not
on the soup and bake sale for primary election day
2015. Can you name these ladies from our history?
ELECTION DAY SOUP AND BAKE
SALE IS A SUCCESS
Even though voter turnout was much lower than usual we managed to sell almost $700 worth of donated soups and pastries.
Many thanks to those who participated espe-cially Guy Kehler, Nancy and Floyd Eberly, Louise Palmer and Mike Ennis. Thanks also to Chris Persson, Susan Wesley, Bob Ger-berich, Sarah Miller, and Shirley Kramer for their contributions.
We will repeat this sale in November at the General Election. Please consider getting in-volved. Even the smallest contribution is ap-preciated.
717-234-0092 Follow us on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/o4xo2qe
…Or maybe you are a parent and deep inside you think church is a good idea ~for the kids~ but it is your one morning to rest and you feel you need that down time more than you need to sing a hymn or hear the scrip-tures read aloud or listen to a sermon.
Many times, in many different ways, I find myself in conversations where people end up telling me why they have chosen not to come to church. Often, those conversations have an awkward air about them. Almost always I get the sense that for whatever reason they have brought the subject up my response to their com-ments never feels satisfying to me.
My response never feels right because so many things about Church attendance get left unsaid. Those awk-ward conversations usually deal more with the lives and feelings of the ones who have been absent and the conversation hardly ever turns to the reason it is good to be in church on a Sunday morning.
The life situation of people who do not come to church is as varied as the number of absent people; and, some of those who stay home have good and legitimate reasons for doing so. Those with good reasons for not attending would be those whose health prohibits their attendance, for example.
And then there are those who say they believe in God, but at the same time offer a wide variety of excuses/reasons for staying away from church. You have probably heard their rationales:
There are too many hypocrites that go to church. Church is boring. Someone at church said something unkind that I can not forgive. I can worship just as well at home… …in the woods …in my car I don’t need to go to church to pray, praise, worship, etc.etc. I like the preacher on TV, and I can get just as much out of that service. Those of us who attend church should listen to these critiques and with God’s help, seriously consider what they say and amend our ways where we have erred and commit ourselves to walking more faithfully in the paths God would have us walk.
I would also want to say that these reasons for staying home completely miss the mark of what church at-tendance is all about. A worship service is at its core, not about what we do for God. At the center of our Sunday meeting is not our praise, or our words to God, or our blessing.
The central things of the gathering of the faithful on the Lord’s Day are God’s action for us. We attend a wor-ship service because it is where God has promised to come to us in blessing. And God has made that prom-ise to the gathered community, God has promised that where two or three are gathered in God’s name that God will be there also.
And so, we come to worship because at the center of the Lord’s Day meeting, in the middle of all the hypo-crites and critics, in the middle of our brokenness and sinful ways is the Mercy Seat where God has promised to be present. It is there that God is present to speak to us a word that will renew our faith, to begin to wipe away the tears of those who grieve, to feed us with God’s very own presence in bread and wine, to teach us how to live in community with all the other sinners God loves.
Why go to church? We go to church to be in the gathering and in the presence of the One who has promised to be present to us, to bless us, and to surround us with a love that never ends..
