empower · 2021. 1. 28. · empower . renee patterson senior pastor 651.288.2253...

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February 2021

EMPOWER

Renee Patterson Senior Pastor

651.288.2253 [email protected]

As Christians we believe that out of death comes Resurrection. However, even Christians would have been hard-pressed to believe that out of this terrible pandemic new life could arise for churches. Yet I believe that THAT is exactly what has happened. Stay with me here… what if COVID-19 is a hinge point for our church? Why a hinge point? On a door or gate, the hinge is two halves joined at the hinge point making the door useful to its purpose. The power of a hinge is at the connection point. Without the connection, the hinge doesn't work. I sometimes wonder if without COVID would we have put in the significant effort that we have, to reach people outside our walls? When in fact, reaching new people is what we have done, in and through multiple avenues as well (parking lot worship/on-line worship/daily prayers). Who could have imagined that this quagmire of a pandemic situation would result in us reaching people that we would never have reached pre-pandemic? Over and over again I hear stories about how people are sharing our daily prayers with friends and relatives in other states and even other countries. Many families were able to worship “together” on Christmas Eve through the marvel of technology, connecting people in imaginative and holy ways. One can only shout, “Praise God!” for how this vast empowerment has happened. Our church’s mission statement is to REACH, IGNITE and EMPOWER people for Jesus Christ. This pandemic has helped us in the execution of our mission as we had to figure out how to bring church outside our Shepherd walls, both literally and figuratively. When worship is not confined to the structure of a sanctuary, the dynamics of worship can organically morph. All of a sudden, it’s no longer the building that gives shape to worship, but the relationships and personal interactions. Worship can be far more interactive this way as people comment their “Amens!” in the Facebook chat section, something we would never do in person. Now is the time that we are all in the midst of amazing societal change. Now is the time for us to lean in with all our God-given creativity and courage as we live into the third action/motivating verb of our mission statement, as we are EMPOWER-ed to serve the One that saved us! Praise be to our Creative God! Pastor Renee

Could COVID-19 be an EMPOWERING hinge point for our church?

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]

Your Shepherd Governing Board, Dave Webb, Chair Deb Kohen, Vice Chair Elizabeth Kohen, Treasurer Maria Miller, Secretary Chriss Latterell Lynn Mears Lynette Palmgren Kristen Goligowski Pastor Renee Patterson

Shepherd ’s Governing Board

Love each other with genuine affection

and take delight in honoring each other.”

~Romans 12:10

Worship: As online worship continues, the Governing Board is keeping hopeful eyes on the infection rate. We look forward to the chance of worshiping in the sanctuary again soon. A reminder that KIDzone meets on Sundays at 10:30 online. Kids of all ages are welcome to connect with Pastor Brice and Jilene for some Sunday morning prayer, fun, and fellowship.

Annual Meeting: As this newsletter is being written, the Annual Meeting has not yet happened. Stay tuned for the March Governing Board newsletter with highlights of this meeting.

The Governing Board thanks the Welcoming Committee including, Anne Caldow, Ellen Holmgren, Kristen Goligowski, Allison Mears, and Arlene and Dannie Meyer for the huge undertaking of creating the Welcoming Statement that will be put forth to vote at the Annual Meeting. Your efforts to ensure that every person who walks through the doors of our church feels the warmth and welcoming arms of Christ and of this congregation ae deeply appreciated.

An Abundance of Gratitude! The Governing Board wishes to express deep gratitude to you for your generosity to Shepherd during this last year. Your generosity allows us to steward our church building with essential roof repair, much needed parking lot lighting updates, improvements to the HVAC system in the sanctuary, and replacement of the 30-year-old furnace in the preschool area as well as a broken drinking fountain. Thank you for helping us maintain this beautiful building. And there’s more! Living into God’s Call makes care for the ill, the elderly, the poor, and the lonely possible. At the end of 2020, the finance team conveyed to us the good news that we were able to share outreach funds to assist our ministry partners: Ralph Reeder Food Shelf, Open Hands Midway, Holy Hammers, and BegaKwaBega. We are blessed with a generous congregation that allows us to maintain our current budget as we continue to help our neighbors in need. And the attitude of gratitude continues! During the season of Advent, we designated our Advent offerings toward buying a family farm through the ELCA Good Gifts initiative (a.k.a. God’s Global Barnyard). Three families in the world now own their family farm thanks to the good people of Shepherd of the Hills in Shoreview, Minnesota! Thank you! Praise be to God for all His Goodness!

WANTED:

New members on the Finance Team

If you know your way around a balance sheet, get excited about budgets and are looking for a way to serve the Lord with your knack for numbers… we have an opportunity for you! The Finance Committee is seeking members to join our team in 2021. The Finance Committee works in partnership with the Governing Board, Gift Team, and Church Management to help Shepherd be good stewards of our gifts. The team meets on the second Tuesday of every month for lively discussion of our monthly financial statements and our annual budget. If you are interested in learning more, please contact Miranda Oliver.

mailto:[email protected]?subject=Finance%20Committee

Hello Shepherd Folks,

So “Empower,” hmm. This year our congregational Star Word is empower, the third

action word in our Mission Statement, “To Reach, Ignite, and Empower people for Jesus

Christ.” It got me thinking, what does empower even mean and how does one empower

people for Jesus?”

Well, according to the Oxford Dictionary empower means: “To give (someone)

the authority or power to do something” and/or “to make (someone) stronger

and more confident.” With that I would interpret “Empower people for Jesus”

to mean reminding people of who they are as a child of God created in the

image of God, and that as a result they are the reflection of God in this world. That is a powerful thing! Nothing like

a little bit of pressure.

This looks like phone calls being made to every member of the congregation to check in. This looks like the work

we do on our Days of Service and the connection to one another and ministries those days provide. It looks like your

youth participating in local government. It looks like being kind to others around you at the grocery store. It looks

like stepping boldly into a statement of welcome and holding ourselves, as a community, accountable to learning

and growing and doing better than those that have come before us. It looks like the sermon on youth Sunday. It

looks like the promises being made by the congregation at a baptism. It looks like change, and love, and constant

reminders that when we get it wrong God’s grace is so great and so vast that we can start over and try again.

Dear siblings in Christ, we are already doing this “Empower” business, we just might not recognize it for what it is.

So this year, let’s point it out. Let’s point it out for ourselves, and one

another, for our neighbors, and strangers. I am looking forward to

seeing and pointing out the empowering each of you are doing

alongside me in this new year. May it bring us hope!

“See” you in church,

Sister Tashina

Sister Tashina Good Deacon


Photos from our 2019 Fall Day of Service


Brice Bloxham Associate Pastor


Matthew 28: 20a “Go therefore,” Jesus said, “make disciples of all nations, baptizing

them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them

to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

Beloveds, Did you know that for the last seven and a half months the preschool program has been operating a summer care and then a fall program for not only preschool (duh, because that’s what a preschool does) but also a school-aged care program for Kindergarten – 4th grade? These programs provide a much needed place for our youngest to receive not only a quality education but also provide a place that is safe and healthy. When the fall rolled around, we knew that kids going back to school in-person and full time was not in the cards. A hybrid model was to be adopted. Jilene Ylonen, our Preschool Director, and the preschool staff immediately rose to the task of creating a one room schoolhouse model with kids learning at their own table and laptops with a teacher roving the room to aid when needed. Space was modified, resources allocated, bandwidth was drastically increased, and facemasks were donned.

Miriam Webster defines “empower” as the act of granting power or authority to someone to go and do. This is no small feat. To empower, empowerment, empowering occurs in a myriad of ways. By a verbal declaration, written documents, non-verbal cues of an encouraging person urging forward and so on. One way that empowering does not occur is through the act of taking it. It must first be offered. I see empowered preschool and school-agers walking the halls of Shepherd of the Hills on a daily basis. Line leaders fiercely protecting their role, weather watchers reporting on their findings, deliveries of still-packaged food being sent from one room to another so the teacher can monitor their room and watch their students in these acts, school-aged readers, and older kid classroom helpers. No matter the role, one thing is evident: pride. These students walk a little taller, their smiles a little brighter, and their laughs are that much more infectious. We may see these as innocuous roles but to these students they bring life. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that this program existing allows dozens of parents to continue their own vocations. Without Shepherd and the role the preschool program plays, they would almost certainly be kept from doing the work they have been called to do, myself and my wife included. “Go therefore,” Jesus said, “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” The very last thing Jesus said to the disciples in Matthew was that of granting power. Authority. If we are to be honest with ourselves, we, in the eyes of Jesus, I suspect, are no different from those preschoolers. We are child-like, we are proud, we love being given important things to do, but we make mistakes. There is a striking similarity to how those preschoolers and we operate. I mean no disrespect as I am firmly entrenched in all this right next to you all, dear ones. Just when we think we’ve got it, the rug slips out from under us. If a similarity exists between us and our preschoolers, then it would stand to reason that there is a similarity existing between those saintly preschool teachers and that of our Savior. Have you ever seen the patience demonstrated by a preschool teacher when interacting with a child in their care? It’s nearly indescribable and unmatched EXCEPT when we think about how our God loves each one of us. We are an imperfect and flawed people; we are prideful and think we know better when in reality we really don’t. However, that did not and does not stop our Creator from calling to each of us, to go out, make disciples, and proclaim the good things that Jesus has done for me, for you, for the other. Rise up, dear ones, empowered because our God has granted us a great deal of responsibility and authority to share the good news. Found with you, in Christ. PB

mailto:[email protected]

Dear friends, For this month’s newsletter, we as your staff tasked ourselves with writing about the third call-to-action verb in our mission statement: “to reach, ignite, and empower people for Jesus Christ.” I’m sure we can all think of many ways to empower others. Kind words. Supportive actions. Sharing the beauty we see in the world through God. There are many ways to empower others; where do we turn to empower ourselves? How do we fill ourselves up so that we are able to fill up others? I’m currently writing this on an airplane and the immediate phrase that comes to my mind is “put on your mask before helping those around you.” How can we be an empowering force in this world if we don’t know where to empower ourselves? For me, music has always been an empowering force. I’m sure that doesn’t come as a surprise. But in all honesty, it’s not the music itself. It’s the shared experiences found in favorite lyrics. It’s in the communal ways we come together to make music in times of joy and sorrow. It’s in the tactile sensation of moving your body, your breath, and your soul in new directions. It’s in these experiences that I find God empowering me. What empowers you? Where do you find God in the midst of a world that can feel chaotic and messy? My prayer for you is that in empowering others, you also find ways to empower yourself. Soli Deo Gloria, Joe

Joseph Trucano Director of Music and Worship



Jilene Ylonen Preschool Director


Jilene Ylonen Preschool Director


Our Preschool Mission Statement is “to Reach, Ignite, and Empower children for Jesus Christ.” When beginning to write this article I began thinking about how we empower our students each and every day. We encourage them to do activities on their own, we challenge them to do new things, and we offer them new opportunities. By providing these activities each day our students are able to learn life skills as they continue to grow. Below, you can see in preschool we practice positive reinforcement, to make their experience positive, we allow for creative expression, we give students time to talk, develop and explore their ideas through play. As we continue through this school year, we look forward to providing new activities for our students and empowering them to grow each and every day.


Miranda Oliver Director of Operations

651.288.2255 Operations

@shepherdshoreview.org

How can one support Shepherd financially?

Mail in your offertory envelopes Give online on our Giving Page Text To Give - Simply send a text with the word GIVE to 651-412-7495

with the amount you would like to contribute. List Shepherd as your beneficiary Transfer Stock to Shepherd

With any questions regarding giving, please contact Miranda.

We are moving to a new vendor for online/electronic giving. If you haven’t switched over, please contact me.

You can use the app to make donations. The app has the church directory where you can connect

with your fellow members. Tax contribution statements were mailed the end of

January.

Empowering You!

By now you have read the other staff’s articles about Empowering and how it relates to our mission statement. I would like to put out a challenge to you...get connected to Shepherd in a different way. We know through data metrics that at least half of you connect to our information on a mobile device (either smart tablet, cellular phone or iPad). We have a great App that you can add to your devices that has lots of information about Shepherd and is updated in real time. So, I am EMPOWERING you to connect with us in a New way that you might not have before by getting and using the App. It is free and does not collect any information from you. One hidden gem of the app is that you can connect with fellow members as our directory is listed on the App. For the time being, this is our way to be able to share that information with you, again in real time. The app will ask you to create an account, this ensures data privacy and security for our members. Each person will need their own login and you should use the email that the office has on file for you. So friends, I EMPOWER you to try out this new technology and reach out to myself or Michelle, if you have any questions.

mailto:[email protected]://www.shepherdshoreview.org/giving.htmlmailto:[email protected]?subject=Givingmailto:[email protected]?subject=App%20helpmailto:[email protected]?subject=App%20help%20needed

Youth Ministry @Shepherd

CONFIRMATION IN FEBRUARY Wednesday Evenings FOCUS: Prophets! 6:30PM—7:30PM Confirmation 7:30PM—8PM Optional Game Time Fun

6th—Lesson—Large group via zoom 13th—Small Group Time—via zoom 20th—Individual Project Week 27th—Project Presentation Week—Small groups via zoom

ReFUEL IN FEBRUARY February 7th we will be hosting our 3rd Party Package evening with Bob Ross in a Box! Youth and Friends can sign-up to receive a package via our website. Be on the lookout for more information via: Instagram: @youthshepherd Website: shepherdshoreview.org/high-school-youth-ministry.html Via your emails and via Remind texting

All February Adult Ed Events are subject to change. Please pay attention to weekly eNews for up-to-date information

Weekly Bible Study: Wednesdays throughout February at 1pm and 6:30pm via Zoom. Join us to discuss the upcoming scripture text and learn together.

Virtual Donut Time: Join us each Sunday in February for our Virtual Donut Time from 10:00-11:00am. Note the time change to 10am! This is a BYOD (Bring Your Own Donut). We will have time for casual check in, as well as, intentional conversation around the Gospel text for that day. Also, you will get to learn fun facts about your staff members so be sure to check in!

Spring Book Study: Join us beginning on February 24/25 for our Spring Book Study on ’One Coin Found’ by Emmy Kegler. Check out our Adult Faith Formation page on Shepherd’s Website for more information.

https://www.instagram.com/youthshepherd/shepherdshoreview.org/high-school-youth-ministry.htmlshepherdshoreview.org/high-school-youth-ministry.html

Update 2.01.2021 Appreciating our time together, no matter how it may be… Being able to come together, however it may be, and share our faith as something that together we can all be grateful for. As the times change, so does our church, as we come together in how we serve the greater community. Here are the recent changes that Shepherd has adopted in these changing times. Our worship: Starting February 7, Indoor Worship and Online Worship! We have been waiting a less elevated infection rate for us to resume our in-sanctuary worship option. The guidelines for our in-sanctuary worship are the same as they were back in November. If anyone is uncomfortable with the guidelines, or chooses not to follow them, we ask you to please consider protecting the congregation by worshiping at home; as we will continue to livestream our services. Also, if you are in a high-risk category (and for your own safety) please join us via our livestreaming of the service. Our goal as a congregation is to protect each other from contracting COVID-19. We need to be willing to take precautions to protect each other, the community and ourselves. These guidelines can be found on our website under sohsv.org/RSVP. Worshiping on-site is a decision you and your family will need to prayerfully make. Some of you will decide to return to the sanctuary for worship, and some of you will choose to remain at home for worship. Either way you choose, God is still speaking among us. Be well and know that you are greatly loved! Our building: We have made some changes to our heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems (HVAC). We have added an ionizer onto our sanctuary system that will continuously be helping to provide cleaner air for all of those using that space. We have also installed many touchless hand sanitizer stations throughout the building and floor decals reminding all to stay at safely socially distant. Our (other) gatherings: Beginning AFTER February 7, we will be allowing our groups to gather at church once again. But there are guidelines surrounding this, please contact Miranda for more details. Our Wednesday 1:00 Bible Study will move to the narthex. Please enter in Door A and as a friendly reminder, masks are required. Our Wed 6:30 pm Bible study will still be available on Zoom each week. Book Studies are also on Zoom and information is on our website under Adult Faith Formation. Coffee & Donuts is also continuing and will be offered on Zoom, but will move to a NEW TIME of 10:00AM. See the eNews for information on this. As always, we appreciate all of your flexibility in the continuous changes and supporting each other in being the church.

In God’s Peace, Your Shepherd Staff Pr. Renee, Jilene, Pr. Brice, Joe, Sr. Tashina, Miranda, and Michelle


Office Hours Monday - Friday: 9:00am - 4:00pm

Connect with Us Website: sohsv.org Phone: 651.483.5419 Email: [email protected]

empower · 2021. 1. 28. · empower . renee patterson senior pastor 651.288.2253...

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