OUR SAVIOUR'S LUTHERAN CHURCH

September 2017

4900 Kinsey Drive Phone: 903-561-1865

Tyler, Texas 75703 Email: oslc@oslctyler.org

Website: oslctyler.org

Bringing Christ to the people...the people to Christ”

Dear Friends in Christ, I’m just back from sabbatical and Debbie tells me I have time to add a quick note to the newsletter before it goes to publication. First and foremost, thank you again for the gift of the sabbatical! It was a marvelous time of renewal, exploring, praying, studying and growing in faith. Thank you for this opportunity. And thank you to all who stepped up and helped out at the church. It is a joy to see things running so smoothly. I look forward to sharing with you all that I’ve learned and discovered.

I’m excited also as we move into our fall activities. There are many things soon to start, many activities to share. Please do read through this entire newsletter and note all that is coming.

Thank you again. May our Lord lead us into this fall with joy and excitement!

God Bless, Pastor Mark

Kick-Off Sunday – September 10 On Sunday, September 10 we will kick off our fall activities. We will, appropriately enough, do so with a

Football Skills Clinic! This is for all of the boys and girls in Sunday School, and for all adults who would like to share in the fun. (We will also have some arts and crafts activities for those who aren’t football fans.) We are going to start the fall on a great note.

Regular Sunday School classes will begin on Sunday, Sept. 17.

Adult Sunday School We are looking forward to our adult Sunday School class again this year. We meet at 10:00, during the

regular Sunday School hour. This year we are watching a DVD series entitled Why I Am a Lutheran. It is a great look at what Lutherans believe. We meet in the Conference Room, beginning Sept. 10. Come and join us!

Confirmation Our Confirmation program for our 7th and 8th grade students begins on Wednesday, Sept 13 at 7:00 p.m.

Classes will meet on Wednesday evenings through the school year. For the first meeting, we ask that the stu-dent and at least one parent attend.

4th Grade Bibles We will give our Bibles to our 4th grade students on Sunday, September 24 at both of our worship services.

Prayer Time On Sunday, September 3 at 9:30 we will have a time for congregational prayer in the conference room.

We are looking forward to a busy and special fall; we need to take time together for prayer to support all of this. Please come as we undergird our ministries with prayer!

Daily Devotions We have a daily devotional that is quite wonderful. The NALC is sharing devotions under the title of “The

Daily Lectionary”. You can access this by going to our congregation’s website – www.oslctyler.org When the page comes up, there is an article on the daily devotions. Just click on the link to the NALC’s site.

Prayer Chain We have an email prayer chain that works wonderfully. Thank you to all who share in this special ministry.

If you are not presently on the prayer chain and would like to be, please call or email the church office and we will be sure you are added.

BYOB

Just a reminder, we say that our worship services are BYOB. What we mean by that is “bring your own

Bible”! We want our members faithfully using their bibles, please bring yours to worship with you and use it

during worship. If you should forget, there are always extra Bibles available in the narthex.

Church Website Have you checked out our church website lately? If not, please do. It is a great website and we continue to

update it and develop it. It is a great source of information for our members, and a great introduction for new members. It has our bulletin on it by Thursday, so those of you who like to know what is planned for our Worship Service on Sunday can see this online. Our website is to be found at www.oslctyler.org Also, Our Saviour's is on Facebook. Check us out!

Reminder – Cleaning Up Just a reminder to all of our groups – when you have an activity that uses the church kitchen, please bring

out the garbage to the dumpster as you clean up. We depend on our members and groups to do this as we keep our kitchen clean. Thank you!

Also, if your group is the last group in the building, please be sure you turn off the coffee pots and lock the doors as you leave. We have had number of groups forget that lately.

Quilters: A Request, A Prayer, A Gift The Quilters recently placed a quilt in the Narthex in honor of one of our members who was seriously ill. They invited members of the congregation to “Tie A Knot, Say A Prayer”. The completed quilt was given to him and his family. Quilters want to continue this practice and would like to be notified when a member has a serious illness or accident.

From Your Church Council Regarding Our Fall Schedule The church council has recommended that we continue with one worship service this fall. Sunday school will be at 9:00, followed by one blended worship service at 10:00. Our worship committee will continue to have a mix of traditional music and liturgy, blended with praise music. The council believes that our combined service, involving the entire congregation, will be worshipful and energetic. We've had a great summer of worship and we can continue our momentum this fall. While this may not be choice of every member, we are asking for your cooperation to all work together to make one service a great opportunity to worship God together as one body in Christ. Sunday School will begin on September 10.

Worship and Music

Summer is over! Incredible, isn’t it. Our kids are back in school. Pastor Mark is home from his sabbatical. It’s still a little warm out…okay, this is Texas, it’s still VERY warm out, but every now and then there is a hint that cooler weather may be on its way. This month, Sunday School begins for the 2017-2018 year. Time has really flown by this year.

Fall Service is underway: At the meeting of the August Council, we decided to continue our one service format from the summer through the fall season of this year. We also elected to keep the worship service at 10:00 am to avoid any change to the schedule. So September through December our Sunday schedule will be:

9:00 am Sunday School (all ages) 10:00 am Worship Service

Just so you know what to expect, here is our plan for the Worship Service, and basically the differences from the summer services will be very minor. We want to continue enjoying a fully traditional liturgy, choir sup-port every week, and service music split evenly between hymns from the hymnals and contemporary music that the congregation is at ease singing like we tried to do this summer. We want to continue enjoying the various gifts of our members in special music. And we want to continue to enjoy Dr. Jae’s accompaniment from all of the instruments we have available to use. We hope that using all of the various components of worship available to us to use will continue to enrich our own worship and, more importantly, bring delight to our Lord, Jesus.

FYI: Halfway through the summer, Blaine had suggested that we do a little more formal Hymn of Praise/Gospel verse on alternate Sundays. That turned out to be especially meaningful to most of the members of the church, so we will continue that practice into the fall. On alternating Sundays we will sing a combination of “This Is The Feast”/”Alleluia, Lord” (pages 81 & 83 of the LBW), and a selected Song of Praise/”Thy Word” on the next Sunday.

We have had several requests to replace “Lord, Let My Heart Be Good Soil” as the Gospel verse. (Actually, responses have been all over the map for that particular Gospel verse song, it has been so interesting: we’ve had people that really liked it, some thought it was okay, some were “meh”, some moderately irritated, and some who did not like any of it. A surprising number of people have cared enough to respond. And, very sincerely, thank you for your responses!) Going into the fall, we thought we’d like to try replacing it with a short rendition of “Thy Word”. So we will return to that Gospel verse on alternating Sundays through December. Now, once again, please let us know what you think about it.

A special thank you to everyone who sent song requests during the summer. Believe it or not, EVERY song sung beginning about early July was requested by some member of the church. And we are not through with the list yet. If you have not heard your “special” song…keep listening. We have run a lovely gamut from old traditional songs, gospel songs, contemporary songs, Ylvislaker songs, and yes, Susan…we’ve sung “Earth and All Stars” TWICE and we will sing it again in the fall. God bless you each for every selection. Attached to the end of this report is another opportunity to influence the selections for the fall. Altar Guild: We simply could not have a better or more reliable group of people than we have working for Our Saviour’s on Altar Guild. Hugs to each and every A/G Dame or Dude.

Anyone Interested: If you are new to Our Saviour’s, this is written for you…would you like to help? We would love to have additions to the choir, additions to our Altar Guild, additions to our weekly worship servers (Lay Ministry Coordinators, Communion Assistants, Readers, Ushers). The good news is that we have enough people so that we are nicely staffed…which means you would NOT be “worked to death”; but we don’t have so many people working these jobs that one, or two, or more could not nicely slip into place and have a tidy little job once or twice a month. Okay…for choir, it’s weekly; but all the rest is less frequent. If this message speaks to you, contact Carol Lattier, Sherry Towns or Ed Lattier. We will make sure you get trained and in-the-loop. And, you know this is true, it is ALWAYS more fun and more meaningful when you are involved.

Love to all until next month, The Worship and Music Committee Minons.

Social Ministry The Social Ministry Committee follows the mandates of scripture to serve others, especially those who are ill, hun-gry, troubled, suffering injustice, or lacking basic needs. Each month, we will include a brief description of the organi-zation (s) that our donations target. July: Church Under the Bridge This is a church without walls where anyone is welcome. They encourage area ministries to engage alongside the homeless, poor and disenfranchised. They meet every Sunday under the Valentine Street bridge for Worship and Bible Study. Our Saviour’s makes a yearly contribution. August: Refuge of Life Mission: To provide a safe haven, redemptive rescue and restoration of female victims of domestic abuse and minor victims of sex trafficking. Services are provided through advocacy, awareness and holistic care. Our Saviour’s makes a yearly contribution. PATH (People Attempting to Help) PATH WEEK is the first week in September. This is a time to honor all the agencies in the Tyler Area that support PATH efforts to restore hope and empower our East Texas neighbors to thrive in our community. Our Saviour’s makes a yearly donation and supports various PATH projects and ongoing collections throughout the year. Shoebox Drive The Shoebox Drive continues through September. There is a table set up in the Narthex with the Shoeboxes. Take as many as you need. Please bring back any that you do not use. This year there have been some changes to the items you can pack: No toothpaste, candy of any kind, war related items such as toy guns, knives or military figures, no liquid, glue or paint sets. Here are a few suggested items: Stuffed animals, toy cars, yo-yos, jump rope,school supplies, tooth brushes, bar soap, combs, wash clothes, hair brushes, finger puppets, playing cards, and crafts. ALL Shoeboxes must be returned by SEPTEMBER 30TH. Thank you for your help with this project. Quilters The Quilters recently placed a quilt in the Narthex in honor of one of our members who was seriously ill. They invit-ed members of the congregation to “Tie A Knot, Say A Prayer”. The completed quilt was given to him and his family. Quilters want to continue this practice and would like to be notified when a member has a serious illness or accident.

Oktoberfest is Coming!! For: Our Saviour’s community wide Oktoberfest (in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation) When: Saturday October 28th from 4:00 – 9:00 p.m. Why: Celebrate with the local community with a mission to bring all people to Christ, and Christ to the peo-ple sharing in our Lutheran faith and Reformation knowledge.

Activities will include: Music with a DJ and Country & Western Band/with a little polka thrown in! Separate area and activities for the kids Weiner dog races Food vendors Pumpkin decorating contest Costume contest Quilt raffle Commemorative t-shirts

In order for this to be successful we will need help from all of you! There are sign-up sheets set up in the Narthex for volunteering for the event. There will be plenty to do and with the help of the entire con-gregation we can make this a successful event. We are hoping to do all volunteer shifts in one hour incre-ments so that you will also have time to enjoy the festival!

Ongoing right now is our quilt raffle! We have two beautiful quilts that we are raffling off the night of the Oktoberfest and tickets are now on sale. Tickets are one for $2.00 or five tickets for $10.00. What a deal!! The quilt raffle is set up in the Narthex on Sunday mornings and we will sell tickets all the way up to and during the Oktoberfest. The winning ticket will be drawn that evening and you do not need to be present to win!

Also, our commemorative t-shirts are completed and are also on sale in the Narthex on Sunday Morn-ings. T-shirts are $20.00 for adult sizes S-L and $22.00 for XXL and XXL. Children’s t-shirts will be available soon sizes S-L and are $15.00 each.

Men of the Congregation – September 30 at the Home Of Ken Pontious To the men of the congregation – On Saturday, September 30, at 4:00 p.m. we are again inviting all

the men together for fellowship, conversation, support, and fun. This month we are meeting at the home of Ken Pontious. Ken’s address is 14047 CR468, Tyler, TX. Ken’s phone number is 903-882-4063. Maps will be available. Our plan is to get our men together both in large and smaller gatherings. We are still in the process of developing all of this, but we are excited by the possibilities. Please plan to come. As you have questions or ideas, please call Bill Hebb or Blaine Davis.

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Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

4900 Kinsey Drive

Tyler, TX 75703

NON PROFIT ORG. US POSTAGE PAID

PERMIT #40 TYLER TX 75703

Address Service Requested

OUR SAVIOUR'S LUTHERAN CHURCH

Staff:

Senior Pastor………..…. …..Rev. Dr. Mark Braaten

Parish Administrator ……….Debbie Miller

Financial Administrator…….Carol Lattier

Organist/Keyboardist……….Dr. Jaeyong Lee

Mission Statement

“ Bringing Christ

To the people,

And the people

To Christ. “

Sunday Worship Schedule for Sept. 3

10:00 a.m. Combined Worship Schedule