This Week at Mt. Olive ELCA

This Week with Mt. Olive Evangelical Lutheran Church

2780 N. Center St. Hickory, NC 28601. (828)-324-6198

Sunday Worship Times: 8:30AM. 10:45AM. 5:13PM.

Sunday School: 9:30-10:30AM.

 

www.mtolutheran.org

 

Sunday, February 12: Guest Preacher, the Rev. George T. Moore

 

LUTHERAN SERVICES FOR THE AGING Pledge Sunday for their Keeping the Promise Capital Campaign. Mt. Olive’s Goal: $30,000 to be used for rooms at the new Lutheran Home West and at Lutheran Home East. Pray about how much you are able to help LSA with their ministry, then make your pledge on Sunday!

Watch these LSA videos! www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_TV2-D8w_0

Here’s the link to the 2nd one. After connecting to the LSA website, look on the right side for the Video and click on it. www.lsakeepingthepromise.org

 

12 Noon – Malaysia Ministry Team meeting

6PM Congregation Council Meeting

 

Tuesday Mornings, 11AM, Reading and discussing “The Acts of the Apostles.” Come join us. For more information contact Susan Petersen or Pastor Dave.

 

Some of our Prayer Concerns – Lord, in your mercy…

+ Margaret Fry, Glenn Arndt, Mary Gregory, Weyburn Seabock, Ruth Seabock,

Kathy Houk, Randy Ingold, Patty Mesuch, Geoff Yount

+ Lutheran Services for the Aging (including Hickory’s Lutheran Homes)

+ visitors to Mt. Olive that they may find a home here

+ military members: Christopher Metcalf, Chris Atwater, Adam Moose

+ lepers and all those with skin conditions

+ those who struggle with prayer

+ Jeff & Amanda Fu expecting baby on February 10

+ valentines, spouses, engaged couples, children, people, “love one another” 1 John 3:11

+ our heavy reliance on oil for transportation, containers, heat, manufactured products

+ sunrise (Psalm 30:5 joy comes with the morning) 

Thought for the Week:

The Psalm for Sunday – Psalm 30 is a prayer that is wholly praise, and praise that comes out of prayer. In fact, praising God is the basis and the goal of the prayer. Someone told me once they referred to this Psalm as the Psalm “from the mire to the choir” (based on verse 3 – to the mire – and verse 4 – to the choir. It is printed at the bottom of this page.

 

Read through this psalm slowly. Pick a different verse to ponder each day. For example, in verse 9 – the Psalmist asks God: if I die, who or what will take my place praising you O God? Think about how you praise God each day? Are you vocal about it? How can you be? Should you be? What do you have to praise God, thank God, celebrate God, love God for? Do you share God’s praise with other people, telling them how, when, where, you have seen God’s action and why you are praising God? (I was sick yesterday but thanks to that antibiotic, the doctor, grandma’s chicken soup, and God’s help, I feel great today! You gotta love medicine, doctors, grandmas, and especially God who made it all possible!)

 

Begin your bedtime prayer tonite with “I will extol you, O Lord, for you have……” and fill in what and how God has done for you this day (have fed me, forgiven me, helped me deal with….); or what God has done for you this month, this year, and in your life.

 

Psalm 30 (NRSV)

1 I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me.

2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.

3 O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.

4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.

5 For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

6 As for me, I said in my prosperity, "I shall never be moved."

7 By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed.

8 To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication:

9 "What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?

10 "Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!"

11 You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

12 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give

thanks to you for ever. 

 

This Week with Mt. Olive Evangelical Lutheran Church
2780 N. Center St. Hickory, NC 28601. (828)-324-6198
Sunday Worship Times: 8:30AM. 10:45AM. 5:13PM.
Sunday School: 9:30-10:30AM.
 
 

Notes from the Pastor - December 30, 2011

Sunday, January 1 – Happy New Year!

Worship in the Fellowship Hall at 8:30AM, 10:45AM and 5:13PM Worship Times.
(due to the HVAC being replaced in the Sanctuary)
Holy Communion at both morning worship times.
Sunday school at 9:30am.

 

In the church year, January 1 is the Festival of The Name of Jesus.

Scripture Readings:

Numbers 6:22-27 (The Lord bless you and keep you…)

Psalm 8 (O Lord our Lord, how exalted is your name in all the world!)

Galatians 4:4-7 (God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts)

Luke 2:15-21 (After 8 days…he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb)

One of our hymns, the Gospel Acclamation, will be “Jesus, What a Wonderful Child.” Listen to John Legend sing it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT8CUf4Oxdc.

 

Some of our Prayer Concerns – Lord, in your mercy…

+ Ruth Seabock, Randy Ingold, Judy Ingold, Patty Mesuch, Jeannie Bost, Geoff Yount, Maxine Kirchin, Norris Hallman

+ The Old Year 2011 (memories, events, joys, sadnesses)

+ The New Year 2012 (hopes, plans, resolutions)

+ United States of America military personnel and their families including Christopher Todd Metcalf, Adam Moose, Chris Atwater, and James Yount  

 

Thought for the Week

A Prayer for a New Year

Gracious God, whose Spirit, in the beginning, hovered over a primordial lifeless void, whose Word, in the beginning, witnessed all creation and named it “Good,”

 

– we give you thanks today for the presence of your spirit and for the power of your word in this new beginning. For life and for new life, for creation and for recreation, for the enduring presence of One who is our Omega and our Alpha, hear now our gratitude. 

 

“As year succeeds to year,” and as we gather anticipating life in this new year, we now pray: revitalize your vision in our lives and sustain the life-giving potential of that vision throughout the year.

 

When, in this year, despair threatens to turn life into a mere struggle for survival, “Be Thou Our Vision,” and bring the expansiveness of your hope back into view.

 

When, in this year, purpose wanes and we wander about with no clear sense of where to go, “Be Thou Our Vision,” and refocus us on your purposes.

 

When, in this year, we flounder and fall, fail to be who we can be and to do what we can do, “Be Thou Our Vision,” and remind us of the sufficiency of your grace.

 

When, in this year, our sights become blurred by prejudice and animosity, by some myopic narrowness, “Be Thou Our Vision,” and help us also to see the goodness of all persons created in your image.

 

When, in this year, we cannot see beyond the smallness of our own world or the limitations of some immediate context, “Be Thou Our Vision,” and help us to perceive the entire created order in some new light.

 

And, when, in this new year, we encounter grief and loss, when life ebbs and for any whom we love, even then, we pray, “Be Thou Our Vision,” and comfort us with the faith that you are life beyond all of the life we now know.

 

Sovereign God, as in creation’s beginning, so now again, intermingle your spirit in all of the stuff of our lives. Throughout this year, give us both the courage to trust and the creativity to celebrate. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

           

- prayer by the Rev. James Leach

Thought for the Week - November 17

Thought for the Week – Thanksgiving
(excerpt from Chick Lane, Director of the Center for Stewardship Leaders at Luther Seminary)
Thanksgiving is the ultimate annual stewardship festival. Every year, God's people stop to give thanks to God for God's abundance. God is owner of all that is, and thanksgiving is our response to God's generosity.  

The first lesson for Thanksgiving can be the occasion for a call for such thanksgiving in a culture of considerable affluence. Deuteronomy 8 contains a portion of Moses' speech to the people as they prepare to enter the Promised Land. The verses are all about forgetting and remembering. Moses' fear is that when the people arrive in the Promised Land, and when they begin to thrive there, they will forget all that God has done for them, and will instead take credit for all that they have.  

These words become all the more powerful, according to numerous commentators, when we realize that they probably weren't written down until centuries later, when precisely what Moses warned against had happened. The people have done well in the land, and they have forgotten God, the source of all they are and all they have.

In his commentary on Deuteronomy (p. 109), Walter Brueggemann has written, "The crisis reflected in the text, and in Israel's lived reality in the land, is that gifts given in abundance to the satiated do not finally eventuate in trusting gratitude, but in complacent self-congratulations. A gift kept long enough begins to seem like a possession. A gift kept long enough becomes separated in the memory from the giver, so that the giver is forgotten."

As we prepare to sing, "Now Thank We All Our God" in the richest land in the history of the world, Moses' words (and Brueggemann's) stand as a harsh challenge to us. How have we forgotten? How have we taken personal credit for that which God has entrusted to our care? How has this kept us from truly remembering the giver? What is the connection between remembering and thanking? And what is the connection between forgetting and self-congratulation?

The Thanksgiving festival holiday provides a powerful opportunity in the midst of unrivaled affluence to remember God, the source of all that is, and to remember to give thanks.



Thought for the Week - October 27, 2011

Parents & Grandparents, check out this Halloween story on Teaching Kids About Money from Luther Seminary’s Stewardship home. The video link below is excellent and lasts 5 minutes and 30 seconds.

Halloween edition: is teaching our kids about money too scary?

Rev. Tim Coltvet
Dorothy C. Bass and Craig Dykstra once unpacked the meaning of Christian practices. They write: "By Christian practices we mean things Christian people do together over time to address fundamental human needs in response to and in the light of God's active presence for the life of the world. Thinking of a way of life as made up of a constitutive set of practices breaks a way of life down into parts that are small enough to be amenable to analysis, both in relation to contemporary concerns and as historic, culture-spanning forms of Christian faith and life. At the same time, practices are not too small; each Christian practice is large enough to permit us to draw together the shards and pieces of particular understandings, beliefs, events, behaviors, actions, relationships, inquiries and skills into sets that are capacious and cohesive enough to show how they might guide one into a way of life." (Bass, Practicing our Faith, 1997)

As Bass and Dykstra speak of the connection between our behaviors and the larger aspects of living a Christian life, I begin to wonder about our practices with money, and in particular, our practices of talking about money with our children. Do we have tried and true practices that help us to bring about meaningful understandings and behaviors with regard to the gift of money? Is saving and sharing with others (say 10 percent) a regular part of our practice with our children, or do we fall prey to the cycles of greed and spend, spend, spend that seem to be lurking around every corner in a consumer-obsessed society?

Carrie Carroll and her daughter, Anna, have discovered a way of living into the Christian practice of tithing. In addition to giving money away to various charities and/or her local church each month, 11-year-old Anna is also learning to manage money that previously had been simply spent for her by her parents. Learn more about the innovative idea that Carrie and her husband have adopted as an effective way to teach their daughter about money—its challenges, joys and strong connections to impacting the world that God so loves—by watching a video of Carrie and Anna <http://www.luthersem.edu/stewardship/resource_detail.aspx?resource_id=1549> .

Teaching about tithing can happen at home, as the Carrolls have shown, and it can also be readily engaged in our congregations this time of year. As a parish pastor, I enjoyed watching children bring in 10 percent of their windfall of candy every Sunday after Halloween. Not only was this an opportunity to give some of those sweets to kids at homeless shelters—kids that don't have a neighborhood street to trick or treat at—it was also an opportunity to teach our kids about giving joyfully from that which they enjoy so much! I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, my bag of Halloween candy was something special. It was as close as I would ever get to stumbling upon a treasure chest.

Having some bearings for how to steward those resources might be the best teaching gift you can give to children in your congregation this year! Oh, don't be scared to talk about money this Halloween. Go forward boldly trusting that God will transform your teaching moments into the blossoming of generous hearts.

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline."
2 Timothy 1:7


Mt. Olive ELCA Weekly Updates & Thought for the Day - October 19, 2011

Wednesday's at Mt. Olive (WAMO) tonight: Come participate in a North Carolina Synod presentation from 6:15-7:00pm led by Pastor Andrew Miller.

(NO KINDERCHOR REHEARSAL TONIGHT)

 WAMO next week (10/26): Presentation from the Family Care Center of Catawba Valley led by Pastor Scott Bollinger. http://www.familycare-center.com

Sunday, October 23

 Bread for the World Sunday (see below at Thought for the Week for info about Bread for the World)

 8:30 and 10:45AM Worship with Holy Communion

Matthew 22:34-40 What is the Greatest Commandment?

9:30AM Sunday school

NOON: Youth Group to the Amazing Maize Maze

Located near Charlotte, AMM is one of the largest corn mazes in the Southeast, with 1.25 miles of interconnecting path.

Pack or bring a lunch and comfy clothes. We'll leave shortly after the 10:45

service ends and return to Mt. Olive by 5pm. Contact Eric Griggs.

2:30pm Chrismon Workshop in the Fellowship Hall

5:13pm Worship and Praise in the Fellowship Hall

 

Faith Out Loud’s Contemporary Worship and Praise Service is back!

Sundays, 5:13pm, in the Fellowship Hall.

Bring your Bible. Bring your voice. Bring a neighbor. Bring your heart.

6-Week Message - “God Working in You” - based on the oldest letter in the New Testament, First Thessalonians.

Thursday, October 27, 7:00PM SpiriTed in Concert at Mt. Olive!

Invite a friend. Freewill offering to be collected.

- The SpiriTed duo of Jonathan Richard Cring and Janet Clazzy recently completed a 297-day tour of the United States in 261 cities, 30 states, and 249 performances!

- SpiriTed has appeared in over 1000 ELCA Congregations!

- The duo is responsible for 13 feature length films, 16 CD’s and 11 books.

- Janet Clazzy was the first female symphony conductor in Tenneessee.

- Jonathan Richard Cring is the author of “Mountain” – the Sermon on the Mount set to music, an off-Broadway show recently revived.

- Janet Clazzy plays the oboe, English horn, and the WX-5 Wind Machine which has 250 different instrument sounds.

- Jonathan Richard Cring’s movies have won awards at 32 film festivals. 

 

Some of our Prayer Concerns – Lord, in your mercy…

+ Bread for the World organization

+ the hungry

+ bread-makers and bread-sharers

+ those who work in cafeterias, restaurants, and bars

+ Weyburn Seabock, Ian Smail

+ The Work and Workers on Mt. Olive’s Sanctuary

+ military personnel and their families including Christopher Todd Metcalf, Adam Moose, and Chris Atwater

 

Thought for the Week
www.bread.org

Remember Vicar Jillian’s Sunday school class based on the book “Exodus from Hunger”? It was written by the Rev. David Beckmann, current President of Bread for the World. Bread was started in 1972 by Lutheran pastor, Arthur “Art” Simon, brother of deceased U.S. Senator Paul Simon.

Bread for the World encourages congregations to renew their commitment to ending hunger and poverty on World Food Day (10/16) by participating in Bread for the World Sunday. Thousands of congregations nationwide will recommit themselves to the fight against hunger and poverty in the United States and around the world.

“From the Horn of Africa to many places across the United States, nearly 1 billion people around the world are hungry,” said Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. “What better way to observe World Food Day than to take action—especially at a time when our voices are most needed to influence lawmakers.”

As the congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (or Super Committee) works to identify $1.2 trillion in federal funds to help reduce the deficit, many programs that support hungry and poor people are in danger of being cut. Internationally, proposed cuts would take food aid away from about 14 million of the hungriest people in the world. The cuts would also reduce agricultural development assistance in places such as the Horn of Africa, where recurring famine could threaten the livelihoods of millions for years to come.

In the United States, Congress is considering devastating cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps). If passed, these cuts could remove 1 million recipients from the rolls and leave 200,000 children without school lunches at a time when U.S. poverty and food insecurity rates are the highest on record. By participating in Bread for the World Sunday, congregations will learn about these issues, pray for hungry people, and be empowered to lift their voices on behalf of vulnerable people.

“Churches have enormous influence in their communities, and they can play a tremendous role in changing history for hungry people,” added Beckmann. “I challenge congregations and organizations to participate in this event and learn how to use their influence in the fight for justice.”