Peace Lutheran Church
416 Wellham Ave.
Glen Burnie MD, 21061
Bringing Christ's love to all people and all people to Christ's love.
Deacon's Message
from Gail Wilson, OSSD
There seems to be an interesting underlying theme in our Spirit newsletter this month and it goes like this. There are not pastor candidates knocking down our door and surely the search and the wait for a new pastor is taking longer than any of us would like. My answer to those getting impatient is that I must trust that the Lord has a plan and we must simply wait to see what that plan is.
But the most wonderful thing that grabbed me as I wrote most of the articles in the newsletter is that we are still doing just fine as a church as far as worship, programming, study, ministry and outreach are concerned. The operative word here is “we”. We as a church, we as a team, we as a group of God's children are still growing spiritually. We are keeping traditions alive and believe it or not the Worship Planning Team has already been formulating Advent and Christmas worship plans.
We will continue with the Blessing of the Back Packs, have an Ice Cream Social, held a successful VBS, held Christmas in July, celebrated our 50th year of existence, kicked off Rally Day, elected and installed a new PPC and heard God's word each and every Sunday. We did it, yes WE did it. And as PPC President Patrick and others are saying, perhaps God's plan was to remind us that we could do it and should do it.
As many of you know I wear many hats at Peace and my administrator hat has been extremely frugal with spending as giving is down. I do urge you to give generously to Peace, catch up on your summer giving, give a little extra if you can. Despite the hard economic times giving to God's House should always be a priority. My Educator hat tells me that we must forge ahead with quality study of God's Word. We must be contemporary and challenging to incite new interest in Bible Study and Sunday School attendance. My Deacon hat knows that we are a church blessed and filled with the Holy Spirit and destined to spread the Word of God to many corners of our personal worlds.
As we come closer and closer to Rally Day and the Fall it is even more important that you take up the challenge I offered in my sermon a couple of weeks ago and call someone to invite them back to church or simply invite someone new to join in worship and praise with us.
During Vacation Bible School, while great ministry was going on, many growth lessons were also being taught and learned as people experienced the uniqueness that is working with a church family and they understood more about Spiritual Gifts and why God has given us each gifts that we often don't recognize and don't often use.
Church should be a place where you want to come, to celebrate, to practically scream out loud that the Lord is present in this place and has chosen you, yes each and everyone of you by name, to spread His Word and commanded that you call others as well.
We have the tools, we have the leaders, we have those who have knowledge and experience and yes, we even have those who are willing to learn to lead, but we need to remember to do it as a team. There is no “I” in church, rather a “ur” and with text messaging and the condensing of the English language the “ur” in the word church could easily remind us all that we are the church.
On August 3rd I will meet with Pastor Manuel and his wife Kristy, to discuss the future and direction of the Latino Outreach Ministry at Peace. Please keep us all in your prayers as we take a hard look at this ministry.
It is fast becoming the season for sign up sheets in the Gathering Area. Sign up for something, remember to tell Jack or Steve that you can help cut the grass or even shovel snow, plant seeds now to attend a Bible Study or Sunday School Class in the Fall and most of all, please give generously to God's House. You won't be sorry you did! Have a blest day each and every day.