Michael Stadtmueller's blog

I’m very excited about a new program that we are introducing to the church next month called “Together in Faith”. It will help equip parents to be better teachers of faith, while helping the entire congregation to support our younger members in learning more about God. Each grade will meet for several weeks with parents and teachers on Sunday Mornings and in most cases there will then be a celebration in worship about what they have learned together. Next month you can look for the brochure that should tell you when each of these celebrations occur. Parents will be asked to join their children for their scheduled events. I also want to encourage the other generations of the church to get involved in the teaching of one or more of these events.

There's always somebody needing help. And we do a tremendous job as a congregation of helping out. We raised over $700 for Catholic Charities on the last weekend of April. We had over $6,000 come from our congregation for the earthquakes in Haiti. We regularly step up and give.

As we begin the new year, I encourage you to consider reading upon an issue that affects us all.
Six new Books centering on the struggles in Israel and Palestine for peace have been added to our
Library and are available to be checked out. The titles of these books are:

• Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict by Phyllis Bennis
• Witnessing for Peace by Munib Younan
• Occupied with Nonviolence by Jean Zaru
• And Christians and a Land Called Holy by Charles Lutz and Robert Smith

It was a difficult weekend. Jim Rasmussen who has been the pastor at Trinity, passed
away. The congregation not to mention his family was caught completely off-guard. Please put
their congregation in your prayers.
I had the privilege of proclaiming the promise of Christ Jesus in the midst of this crisis .
Due to the short-term circumstance of his passing (he died Friday night), and being the only ELCA
congregation with 2 pastors, I was asked to help the congregation through this difficult time.