Greetings

I wanted to share an experience from my workplace. As many of you know, I work for the Federal Government (as a scientist in the FDA) and this is not always an environment that is conducive to having religious (especially Christian conversations).

One of my work colleagues, and a friend, challenged me with a question the other day. As background, she knows that I am a Christian; she has a background in both the Lutheran and Catholic Church, and is enduring a number of spiritual struggles (which I will allude to later). So she stopped by one day and let me know that she is watching the A.D., The Bible Continues TV series, which she is really enjoying, and she asked me “Do you truly believe in the resurrection?” Without giving me time to answer she went into some work related conversations. Before she left, I took our conversation back to her first question. I let her know that yes, I truly believe that Jesus rose from the dead. And she asked “As a scientist, don’t you struggle with this?” And I told her that as a scientist, I struggle with many of the topics in the Bible, but I confirmed to her that I do believe. Was this the best answer I could give? Looking back, probably not, but it lays the ground work for additional conversation.

As I mentioned, my friend has been struggling with many spiritual issues over the last few years. In no particular order, she has been struggling with her faith, having fallen away from routine church attendance. She has two young daughters that have not been baptized. Her husband is a vocal atheist. And a little over a year ago, she almost lost her mother to an unexpected illness.

She finds herself pulled in many directions, as many of us do. Her mother is “pressuring her” to go back to church, as she sees the serious medical event and her recovery as a miracle and a sign from God. Her husband is resisting, and unhappy, with her decision to start instruction to have their two daughters baptized. And overall, she is truly struggling with believing the Gospel message, but is open to re-building her faith. With God’s help, I will try my best to be ready to share what and why I believe, when given the opportunity.

I am sure that many of you have friends or family members that are going through similar experiences. We have opportunities every day to exhibit our hope in God’s promise revealed to us in Jesus’ death and resurrection (and unlike our Christian brothers and sisters throughout the world, we likely won’t be martyred for espousing our faith). I pray that we can all be ready when called upon and that we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us.

Your Brother in Christ.

Bob Iser

Council President

“…but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,…” 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)

Greetings

We held our first Host/Usher Retreat on March 14th. Although we talked about the roles and duties of greeters and ushers, the real focus of the retreat was to allow for an open sharing of ideas and experiences.  The 24 attendees were very engaged and we captured enough evangelism, outreach and spiritual growth ideas, to keep everyone busy for quite a while.  A few highlights that I would like to share:

• We discussed the role of a greeter with many of ideas about best practices for welcoming worshipers and sharing God’s Love through our greeter role.
• We talked about how best to follow-up with guests and engaging visitors to Messiah in different ways, whether it is visiting their home, providing a gift, sharing opportunities and activities available to them at Messiah, or pairing them with members that have common interests.
• We shared ideas of what our ushers could do better as an additional layer of greeters and with respect to their duties as a resource to worshipers. We also talked about ways that we could provide more people usher experience.
• We also talked a great deal about close communion and what we believe as LCMS Lutherans; and what our role is in informing guests about communion preparation.

I really appreciated the level of engagement of all the attendees.  We really shared a lot of great ideas for not only ushers and greeters, but for all of us at Messiah,  I also want to give special thanks to Lauryn Keeler and Michelle Iser for putting the program together, to Ed Keeler for fixing us breakfast, and to Paige, the Menningen’s granddaughter, for watching our kids.

If you have any questions about what was discussed or have additional ideas (or would like copies of the slides), please feel free to contact Michelle Iser (michelle_iser@yahoo.com) or Lauryn Keeler (larkeeler@yahoo.com).

Last, but not least, Thanks be to God for all of your service and support to Messiah and our mission to be God’s messengers of the Gospel in our neighborhoods and communities.

Your Brother in Christ.

Bob Iser   

Council President

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Hebrews 13:1-2 (ESV)