We collected 75 empty stockings and filled  each of them with item items requested by the Columbia Family Shelter: 

 

Thanks to everyone who donated, to Levi and Mikita who fielded Amazon boxes, to Gloria Preslar for the Thrivent Grant that covered all the items we did not collect, to Ronn/Tim/Marshall/Lindsay/Harry for hours of sorting/counting/inventorying, and to Pam Wise for hauling everything over to the Family Shelter on Monday morning. 

 

It was a team effort. Until next year! 

-Submitted by Nell O rscheln

Thanks to the many people who helped make 2018 Sights and Sounds successful. Here are few quick notes submitted by Dot Jeffcoat.

We reached at least 250 people. People contributed about $325 for PAALS and training of service dogs for veterans. At least 200 people attending were non-members. We added streaming capability to church resources. At least 50 members from RLC helped in some way with the event with 20 or more doing volunteer tasks each day and or in advance. WIS-TV helped promote the event on palmetto weekend.com and on news broadcasts. People from seven other Lutheran churches in the area and the SC Synod Bishop and staff shared nativities. Members requested and received Thrivent Financial Action Team funds to help support the event. Three people, non-members, at the event expressed interest in including sets for display in 2019. Music, displays and ambiance, refreshments and goodies were all wonderful. Although it was a free event, several attendees made generous contributions to Reformation Church. Thanks again to everyone.

Special thanks to:

I'm sending out this message to see if we can have a youth meeting Sunday, January 13th after church @ 11:30. I know the youth ministry has been fallow this past fall, but I want to reestablish it and plan out the year. No, I'm not expecting to fill every detail, but I'm hoping to put down major events and monthly activities. We will start with a once a month meetings & activities such as bowling, movies (in church and at theaters), games, dinners, camping, service projects, etc... 

 

Pastor Eric will be with us, as a member of Reformation, but also as a representative of Lutheran Youth of South Carolina. They are our Synodical youth group, and I believe it will strengthen our activities statewide. This will also help us with service projects, and connect us to other youth groups to see what they're up to. Nothing spurs growth like broadening our horizons.

 

On the 13th we will meet right after worship. Luke Young and I will cook a meal, and then our discussions will begin. Bring your ideas, visions, and hopes. I'm excited about what we can create and accomplish. I'm hopping we will be able to complete our planning out the year by 3:30. If we finish earlier that would be great, but I want everyone to be heard.

 

Peace,

By the time you read this, we will almost be into 2019. Since the totals for 2018 are not available yet, I will report them in the February newsletter.

First, I want to thank all of you that have responded so generously to the "Deficit Reduction Campaign." This campaign will continue until Jan 10. We hold our books open for all 2018 contributions until January 10, 2019, so that you will have time to get in any contribution you would like included on your 2018 giving statement for tax purposes.

I would like to highlight a few things that we have already talked about in congregational meetings, council meetings, or communicated to you through the many social media campaigns. These are mostly things we need to do THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE YEAR starting in 2019.  

  The year 2019 is a new start for RLC in many ways. Our worship time is all together as one now, we have many new members to include in all the things we do, and we welcome many visitors almost every Sunday. Let's add to that by learning to be financially aware within our church family and look at how we can as individuals financially support RLC.

-Submitted by Sam Ruff

Volunteers Needed!  Immediately following the Epiphany service on January 6th, volunteers are needed to take down the decorations inside and outside the church, pack them, and store them away until next year.  Many hands make easy work!

Topic: 2019 SC Legislative Update regarding LGBTQ issues

Speaker: Jeff Ayers, Executive Director of SC Equality

Location: Reformation Lutheran Church

Time and Date: January 22, 6:00 p.m., Dinner. 6:30 p.m., Program.

Nativities On the Border:

While preparing to celebrate the birth of the Christ child, I cannot help but think of those children at the southern border of this so called "Christian" nation, and how certain church branches can support or be so silent as children are separated from their parents, tear gassed, and recently one child died while in the custody of our boarder agency. As I prepare to preach about the Christmas story from Luke, and Luke's emphasis on hospitality or the lack-there-of, in some cases, what we are experiencing at those ports of entry, hangs over my preparations like a haunting storm cloud.

 

Luke juxtaposed hospitality and inhospitality throughout his gospel and his book of Acts. Hospitality reveals the righteousness God yearns us to live out with each other, our neighbors, even our enemies, while inhospitality is a blasphemy against God's will. But, what is God's will? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his Ethiks gives insight how one may determine God's will.

 

The point of departure for Christian ethics is not the reality of one's own self, or the reality of the world; nor is it the reality of standards and values. It is the reality of God as God is revealed in Jesus Christ. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethiks, p. 195

 

So, what does this Christ Child reveal to us about hospitality and the will of God? The will of God was so focused on hospitality that even when there was no room for the messiah, God humbled God's self and manifested Emmanuel, "God is with us", in a family's stable. The God of the Universe permitted all to sleep in the warmth of shelter, while the Righteous One was birthed in the open, exposed to the elements. That's divine hospitality. That's agape, selfless love. Christ sacrificed for us at the very beginning of his life on earth, and set the precedence from the beginning. Luther saw the connection.

 

As I have frequently stated, the suffering and work of Christ is to be viewed in two lights: First, as grace bestowed on us, as a blessing conferred, requiring the exercise of faith on our part and our acceptance of the salvation offered. Second, we are to regard it as an example for us to follow; we are to offer up ourselves for our neighbors' benefit and for the honor of God. This offering is the exercise of our love-distributing our works for the benefit of our neighbors. He who does so is a Christian. He becomes one with Christ, and the offering of his body is identical with the offering of Christ's body. (The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. IV, "First Sunday after Epiphany," p. 9)

 

Bonhoeffer, in his "Ethiks" paper, also saw that Christianity is not a place of privileged piety, sheltered in our religiosity, insulated from the rest of the world. It's a call to witness to Jesus by our words and actions.

 

The hungry need bread and the homeless need a roof; the dispossessed need justice and the lonely need fellowship; ... the slave need freedom. To allow the hungry to remain hungry would be blasphemy against God and one's neighbor, for what is nearest to God is precisely the need of one's neighbor. It is for the love of Christ, which belongs as much to the hungry as to myself, that I share my bread with them and I share my dwelling with the homeless. Bonhoeffer's Ehtiks pp. 135-137

 

So, who are the homeless? Who are the dispossessed? Who are the slaves? So please, to us pastor types, if we support our nation's recent behavior at our southern border, we shouldn't mention Jesus this Christmas. Are we putting the Manger in a cage, or tear gassing it, or permitting the babe to die from exposure? If not, please put away those nativities. It is a betrayal of the Christ child's hospitality and the will of God's love has been blasphemed.

Pastor Tim