Messiah Weekly

August 10, 2020

Messiah Lutheran Church

Auburn, WA

"And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8b

Let’s Celebrate Traci!

Yesterday, we celebrated Traci Vatne's 30 years of ministry at Messiah Lutheran Church. It was a wonderful morning! We look forward to celebrating with Traci and Bruce and the entire congregation when the pandemic is over.

Here is a video tribute from some members of the congregation!

https://vimeo.com/446062774

Holy Communion

Messiah will be making Holy Communion a part of each Sunday worship service. Wherever you take part in these coming services, whether it is at home in Auburn, WA or at home anywhere around this amazing, beautiful planet, we will gather at one table, the Lord’s Table.

Prepare the place in which you dwell for Holy Communion. Set a table with a small cloth, place a candle upon it, and add perhaps a Bible or a small cross (both together are also good). Make the space sacred for you. Prepare some bread and wine (or grape juice if you choose) and appoint one person to be the host of your table. If it is just you, be both the host and the welcome guest, and know you are not alone. You are part of a much larger welcome place.

Be at peace with yourself. Be at peace with your neighbor. Know that we, through the bread and wine, all feast together on the amazing grace of our Lord Jesus. In the holy meal to come, all our individual tables, separated by city blocks or country miles, are really one, blessed, and holy communion.

Feminist Book Club

In August, the Feminist Book Club will be meeting Tuesday, August 18th from 6:30-7:30pm via Zoom. We will be reading and discussing the book Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women, and Queer Christians are Reclaiming Evangelicalism by Deborah Jian Lee.

Lastly, we will be taking the month of September off from the book club and will be starting up again in a slightly new way in October. The plan is for us to dig into topics a little deeper by reading about 3 books on each topic (2 non-fiction, 1 fiction). For our next meeting, bring with you some ideas on which topics you'd like to focus on (we will choose 3-4) and any book recommendations you have. Topics can be things we've focused on this year or topics we haven't approached yet.

After our next meeting, Savannah will put together a schedule for the next year and have it ready by mid-September for folks to sign up to lead discussions and to help in planning ahead / tracking down books.

Vacation Bible School was a hit!

Thanks again for joining us for this year's VBS! All of the videos will stay on our website, so if you didn't get the chance to watch the videos last week, you can still participate in VBS any time you'd like. Additionally, ELCA World Hunger loved our VBS and shared it on their page, so now we will have people all over the country joining in our programming!

Thanks again to all our incredible volunteers who helped make VBS happen, especially those who filmed videos; Anne Baunach, Jaymie Torres, Pastor Susan, Sarah Vatne, Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp, Lauren Mendez-Thomas, Kelly Mullin, Elisa Holman, Chuck Harris, Kam Chamberlain, Tara Phelan, Andrew Larsen, Traci Vatne, Emma Hammel, Laura Hammel, Sarah Cafoe, Pam Downing, Ryan Monsen, Laci Doman, Leah Downing, Melissa Barnard, Finnian Abraham, Atticus Abraham, Bruce Vatne, Seth Sundahl and Savannah Phelan.

Thank you to Mark and Suzie Sims!

Mark and Suzie Sims, along with their two children Brayden and Ryder, are Messiah Lutheran Church members. During this time of pandemic, Fikes (the Kent, WA company of which Mark is President), has provided incredible support to our (their) congregation. They are providing garbage bags, paper towels, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, hand soap, kitchen gloves, plastic utensils, plates, napkins, and so much more. These are items Fikes has provided for a number of years, and this generosity saves the congregation thousands of dollars. This provides us additional funds which we can put right into ministry.

Fikes has also provided (and Mark has personally applied!) an electrostatic sanitization of the building, which is allowing us to utilize our space to serve not only our congregation, but the community in need, during this difficult times. Again, this allows us to ensure that we are able to meet the needs of as many community members as possible.

Mark and Suzie, not only do we appreciate you and your family’s membership and participation in the life of Messiah Lutheran Church, we are truly grateful for all you do for our congregation. The church, along with the entire leadership council is so appreciative. Thank you for your continuing support.

Messiah Phased Re-Entry Plan

The following document is a chart for Messiah members and friends to refer to with reopening questions. Please contact a member of the staff if you have further questions. Thank you!

Lutheran World Relief School Kits

It is the time of year again to begin gathering supplies for the LWR school kits. Each kit contains 4-70 sheet notebooks, 1 centimeter ruler, 1 pencil sharpener, 1 pair of blunt scissors, 5 unsharpened #2 pencils with erasers, 5 black or blue ballpoint pens (no gel ink), 1 box of 16 or 24 crayons and a 2 ½” eraser. Due to COVID-19, please keep your donations at home until the church office is open. Thank you!

MLC Covid-19 Health and Safety Plan

Messiah’s Website now has an updated version of the MLC Covid-19 Health and Safety Response Plan posted. This update integrates Messiah’s response to Governor Inslee’s Phase 2 requirements for religious and faith-based organizations. Highlights include requirements for building use and presence, preventative measures, mitigation measures, and a post-exposure recovery plan.

Worship Bulletins

The worship bulletins that are sent out electronically on Saturday are printable from your home computers. When you receive the email, open it and press "ctrl p" on your keyboard and it will print.

On Thursday afternoons, we will place pre-printed bulletins in the Messiah Lending Library (the box pictured in this article). It is located on H street outside the kitchen. Please feel free to stop by and pick one up if you do not have a computer or printer at home.

Please contact Tia Monsen if you have any questions.

Little White Church in Elbe

The Little White Church is now holding live services at Elbe outdoors and on August 16th at 2:30pm Pastor Eric Wooldridge is speaking.

There are some restrictions so please check the website for all the details. www.ElbeHistoricChurch.com

Next month on Sept. 20th, Bishop Jaech is speaking with Communion. He will also follow the tradition of the Bishop riding a bicycle to church which began with the first Pastor Killian.

Messiah Staff Holds in Prayer

Requests for prayers: Marena Boman, Jan Campbell, Pierre Clement, Janice Davis, George Dolney, Mary Eastman, Erin Furnas, Dennis Gartner, Charlotte Graham, Cecil Greiner, Jaclynne Halverson, Bonita Hancock, Adam Hartong, Louise Johnson, Ray Keinholz, Blaine Leonard, Evelyn Miller, Grant Miller, David Monsen, Jane Nelson, Myrtle Peterson, Cindee Reamy, Dale Schossow, Doreen Shaver, Maxine Stehr, Mardy Stevens, Ed Swanlund, Carol Taylor;

Ongoing prayer concerns: Cindy Bottomley, Gavin Charbonneau, Joan Daugherty, Traci Donohue, Matt Gartner, Bea Girdler, Irene Gordon, Dottie Grebe, Gerry Gronewold, Martha Guerrero, Kay Gunderson, Bonnie Hagen, Whitney Hanson, Marc Harris, Betsy Henderson, Kris Knutson, Jimmie Kramlich, Don Minnick, Dick Ode, Elizabeth MaiLin Tran, Patty Unzen, Katie Walda, Erik and Nick Welch, Lori Wollum.

In the Military: Jeff Fitzmorris, Lucas Fitzmorris, Ray Hardaway, Sam Harris, Kenny Hendrickson, Daryl Johnson, Madeline Almodivar Sanabria, and J.R. Sawyer.

Every Tuesday, our staff prays for the persons listed above. If you would like to be included in our staff prayers, please contact the church office at 253.833.5280. Individuals will be in our prayers for four consecutive weeks. To be included after the four weeks, please call us again, let us know how you are doing, and we will continue to hold you in our ongoing prayers.