THE MESSENGER St. John

Wood River, Illinois

& 2014

Special Events Coming Up

August 15: Making dinner for families staying at the Park Ave.

Ronald McDonald House. Leave church at 3pm.

August 17: Listening Post after worship.

August 23: Budget Hearing—all Team Leaders and Members are

invited to discuss the budget for next year. 9:30am in Fellowship

Hall.

August 24: Blessing of the Backpacks during worship. Bring your

school backpacks for a special blessing, receive an ID tag and

parents receive encouraging cards to slip into the backpacks in the

days ahead.

5pm: Youth Group meeting at church.

September 14: Rally Day!!! Bible Presentation Sunday for our 5th

and 6th graders during worship.

2-5pm: Hosting Conference Regions 3, 4 & 5 pre-annual

meeting gathering

September 18: Salad Luncheon, 11am-2pm

September 21: New Members’ Class & Lunch, after worship and

coffee fellowship.

September 28: Outdoor service with Blessing of the Animals.

Bring your leashed or crated pets for our annual blessing service.

What’s

Inside

Prayer list

Kids Klips

Calendars

Birthdays

From the Pastor

New Members

If you are interested

in joining St. John

UCC as a voting

member, you are

invited to a class after

worship on Sunday,

Sept. 28 after the

Blessing of the

Animals. It will last

about 2½ hours and

include lunch.

Please see Pastor

Mike to sign up for

the class.

Eden Seminary Professor Emeritus the Rev.

Dr. Lowell Zuck died quietly in his home in Webster

Groves on July 30. Lowell was the Professor of

Church History and Historical Theology for

generations of ministers, many still

serving in UCC, Methodist and other

churches.

He was my faculty adviser

for my first two years at seminary

until he retired at the end of my

“middler year.” For the past 20

years in his retirement, Dr. Zuck

continued to serve as the archivist for the Evangelical

Church Archives, offering wonderful extravagant

hospitality to countless confirmation class tours of the

archives. He vividly

described life of the early

German settlers, yellow

fever epidemics and the

bold vision and humble

beginnings of the diaconal

ministries that still serve

the needs of so many

people today.

Lowell had a quip

for just about every

movement in church history and current situation you

could name. Given the nature of some points in

church history, some of his quips are not suitable for

publication in a church newsletter.

If any of them sound cynical taken out of

context, they are not. Lowell was one of the most

hope-filled people I have ever known. He was

wonderfully amused by our absurdities in the church

and our own lack of knowledge about all the

arguments the church has had in the past. He yearned

for peace, peace among nations and peace among all

peoples.

Aware of his coming retirement, a few of us

decided to take class notes on the right side of our

paper and jot down his quips on the left side. We

wanted the development office to publish a Daily

Zuckism Calendar for alumni to purchase but they

never did. But for all of you, here is some of the wit

and wisdom of a faithful servant and educator of

Christ’s church. Enjoy.

Carl Schneider was my predecessor in this chair. Only

it wasn’t a chair then, more of a stool.

They are replacing me with 2 associate professors or

guest lecturers. Makes me think I’ve been underpaid.

Fortunately I enjoy shaping the young minds of new

ministers and sending you out to serve the Lord. Only

you second career students aren’t so young. I guess I

should have asked for more money.

Poor Wycliffe, they dug up his bones and burned

them. Of course, they burned Huss while he was still

using his. That’s why we burn you while we have you

here in the seminary. We’re not stupid, we know it’s

more painful that way.

I do apologize. I didn’t have much content for our

time today so I had to preach instead.

I just came from the chapel, where I did not see most

of you. Tell me, though, Hale is teaching you the

difference between preaching about eternity and

exemplifying it, isn’t he?

Andover Newton was organized when Harvard bit the

dust and went Unitarian.

Now this is a wonderful book. It covers church

thought from Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey.

How’s that for apostolic succession?

Jonathan Edwards, his sermons were long and

thoughtful and on “justification by faith,” a

combination which can be deadly.

We have declared ourselves a “Peace Church”—and I

think we mean it, although it is very vague what it

means exactly.

I try to live a peaceful life. The church seems to

interfere with that more than anything else.

If the missionaries couldn’t convert them and open up

the trade routes, we sent in the Navy.

We all know our culture is not dedicated to poverty.

As clergy we may be entering it but we’re not

dedicated to it.

The Orthodox Church has come into the Protestant

ecumenical movement. They’re still a bit leery of the

Catholics but they know there is no way they will ever

agree with us theologically so it is probably safe to

have lunch together once-in-a-while.

Powerlessness has a tendency to keep you ethical.

One could say, it is one of the gifts of being exiled or

in prison.

Barth wrote this massive systematic work bringing us

into the new age of theological diarrhea.

Then he wrote a 7 volume history, which is boring on

a bigger scale.

You don’t remember Nestorious and the monophysite

controversy? You took a test on that last semester.

You have to remember it all to get into heaven, you

know.

Virginia was a colony of the most dangerous form of

life: young single males in their twenties. They don’t

know how to take care of themselves so they either die

or kill each other. Or in this case, they imported

women just in the nick of time.

In the sixties and seventies we didn’t burn up the

whole planet. That fact I regard as a major success.

I’m from Pennsylvania, the place of all those

quarrelling sectarian groups, utopian communities and

upstart cults, the California of colonial America.

I would call the “new morality” simply the old

immorality. It’s as if teen-agers have taken over the

moral compass of the nation. Come to think of it, they

didn’t need to take over, we gave it to them. It’s sort

of fun to live in a country where the leaders think with

every part of their body but their head.

In the sixties they said God was dead, even made the

cover of Time. The one thing we learned after all that

is that God, apparently, does not read Time magazine.

Then in the seventies it was the death of

denominationalism. Sociologists always seem to

underestimate the power of momentum—and vested

pension plans—and the Holy Spirit. Hopefully not in

that order.

If a Congregationalist ever tells you they don’t have

and never had a creed, buy them a copy of Walker’s

book and hit them over the head with it. It’s

paperback so it won’t knock them out but it will shut

them up, which in the case of a preacher is just as

worthwhile.

Rest in Peace, Lowell. Well done, good and

faithful servant.

Your forever grateful student,

Pastor Mike Southcombe

August 1 - Beth Helmkamp

2 - Kori Baron, Freda Frizzell

3 - Destini Lednicky

4 - Judy Crowder, Athana

Tomlanovich

7 - Dustin Wiegand, Nathan

Pavish, Tracy Butler

9 - Jared Faulkner

10 - Dale Noble, Stacey Noble

11 - Abigail Wiegand, Lucy

Lednicky, Auden Hill

12 - Elizabeth Shewmake, Allie Hosto

14 - Kyle Bassett

15 - John Gebelein, Luke Lednicky

16 - Alyssa Niehaus, Royce Tucker

18 - Leigh-Ellen Kichline

19 - Benjamin Farrell

20 - Tena Cotton, Jeremy Crockett

21 - Lyndon Thies

22 - Vicki Roberts

24 - LeAnn Hartwick

25 - Margaret Hinkle

27 - Samantha Kichline

28 - Christine Weller

September 1 - Linda Votaw

5 - Carter Burk

6 - Holly Sadowski, Jean Brave

7 - Hunter Counton

8 - Karissa Burk, Harold Heideman, Charlie Tweedy

9 - Tanner Fink

10 - Melissa Crockett

12 - Brior Wiegand, Noah Hanfelder, Bill Hartman

14 – Dennis Johnson

15 - Ramona Determan

17 – Richard Hosto

20 – Jay Collins

21 - Ted Gowin

22 - Nathaniel Butler, Nathan Dykes, Michelle Pulaski

23 - Sydney Berthlett

24 - Bea Doerr, Cory Frye

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If

you want to be happy, practice compassion.

– The Dalai Lama

Hospitalized or Health Concerns since the last Messenger: Bev Thomas Dr. David Beebe Vickie Roberts

Staying Close to Home/ Chronic Health Concerns Lucille Aubin Eleanor Kohlmiller Freda Frizzell Margaret Rowden Darleen Gowin Betty Wiegand Ed Hamlin Bob Hall

In Nursing Homes John Niehaus, Jerseyville Manor Margaret Hinkle, Hitz Memorial N.H. Brad Bailey, Edwardsville Nursing & Rehab

Serving in the Military Dustin & Ashley Richards, Caleb Roberts, Blake Sabolo, Brandon Sabolo and Brandon Southcombe

Overseas Teacher/Diplomatic: Leigh-Ellen Kichline Amy Tohill-Stull

The sages of the general store were discussing the

veracity of old Si Perkins when Uncle Bill Abbott

ambled in.

“What do you think about it, Uncle Bill?” they

asked him. “Would you call Si Perkins a liar?”

“Well,” answered Uncle Bill slowly, as he

thoughtfully studied the ceiling, “I don’t know as I’d

go so far as to call him a liar exactly, but I do know

this much: when feedin’ time comes, in order to get

any response from his hogs, he has to get somebody

else to call ’em for him.”

Blessing of the Backpacks

Sunday, August 24

During Worship Bring your school backpacks

For a time of prayers and blessings,

Tags for the backpacks,

Cards for parents to tuck into the backpacks

when they want to send a note of

encouragement or love.

September 14

Bible Presentation Sunday Decorate the Sunday School Rooms

Special surprises!!

Remember confirmation class?

Think you might have gotten more out of it if you

knew then what you know now?

Come to Confirmation Class Revisited

Wednesdays at 7pm.

Beginning Sept. 10. Old Testament—New Testament

Sacraments—Church

Salvation—Sin—Grace

What does the Bible say?

What does church tradition say?

What do you believe?

Open, honest conversation.

Movie Nights

Third Fridays, 6pm

Begin Sept. 19

Enjoy a movie and a BRIEF discussion about it

afterwards. If folks want to discuss it some more,

we can set a time for after church

or the next Friday evening.

Annual

Salad Luncheon

September 18

11am-2pm

In Fellowship Hall

Set up on the 17th

See Janet Shewmake to sign up to help

Please bring any of the following items to Berry Parlor by October 19 and we will present them to Kindercottage at

the Conference Annual Meeting on October 24.

The Messenger is a monthly publication of St. John United Church of Christ, 228 N. Sixth St.,

Wood River, IL 62095; phone 618 254-6682. E-mail @sjucc@sbcglobal.net

Access our home page at www.stjohnucc.net. Worship is at 9:30 a.m. Sunday school is during

worship. Our Pastor is Rev. Mike Southcombe, cell phone (618) 558-5014

The Messenger editorial staff includes, Evalena O’dell and Marlene O’dell.

All guests are welcome.

“always caring, always sharing”

St. John United Church of Christ 228 N. Sixth St. Wood River, IL 62095 Return Service Requested

Mission Statement for St. John UCC

St. John United Church of Christ, Wood River, Illinois is a Christian Community:

Worshiping the Triune God

Claiming the historic faith of the church

Sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ

Nurturing for Christian discipleship

Ministering to one another through fellowship and caring

Serving our community and the world

Connecting with other Christian for witness and service