In church, we have two kinds of music: special music and hymns. Special music is offered as part of worship by people who are specially gifted with talents for music. Our organists, our worship band, our youth band, our choir – these musicians have received musical gifts from God, and they share those gifts to lead and beautify worship. We all know that God has gifted each of us differently. Where God has given us more, He asks us to use that gift more. These musically gifted people do that in the special music.

But there are also things that God expects each of us to do, whether we are especially gifted or not. Hymns are like that. This joyful expression by the whole congregation is part of the wonder of our communion as the Body of Christ. Most of us are familiar with the King James translation of several Psalms, which encourage us to “Make a Joyful Noise” to the Lord. It doesn’t matter whether the joy you show sounds like the choir of angels, or more like a concrete mixer or whistling teapot, God wants your joyful sounds.

The hymns, then, are analogous to how God expects us to treat the stewardship of our worldly goods. He wants a joyful gift from each and every one of us. This gift, this tithe, is to be the first and best of what he has given us. We are to joyfully give. Whether God has blessed us with a lot or a little, He still wants something – something that shows our appreciation for everything in our lives, since it all comes to us from Him. This kind of giving is like the melody of a song, or the hymns in our service. It is the core music of our stewardship.

Yet, while all of us give something, there are some in the congregation who have been specially gifted – with unusually large measures of generosity, with an abundance of material goods, or with a strong desire to help others by sharing what we have. You might be one of them. Those people are the “choir of givers”. They are the harmony of our stewardship, for it is they who step up and encourage the entire congregation’s generosity by giving above and beyond their tithe so that the work of the congregation can grow.

Melody and harmony; hymns and special music – both exist to glorify God and make our worship meaningful. We can’t and shouldn’t count on the choir and organist to provide all the music in a worship service. If we did, it would be like hearing that organ music without the melody. God’s work thrives when the whole of His people participate, so the congregation needs to sing the hymns, to provide the melody. In the same way, it is important for each of us to do our joyful regular stewardship, and be thankful for the “choir” of givers who encourage us by giving offerings to bless God’s work. If we do, the blessings on our congregation will overflow onto others as our music blesses those who are with us in worship, whether they are members or visitors.

So remember, make a joyful noise – with your voices and with your giving.

Brochures and registration forms are available at Church in the Narthex.

Information or questions? Contact Christine Howard or send email to education from the contact page.

A soldier comes into a village, needing a place to stay and food to eat. The villagers are frightened of the soldier, because he is a stranger, so they lock themselves in their houses. The soldier, very hungry but having no food of his own, starts making Stone Soup in the center of the village. He takes a stone out of his backpack and proclaims loudly that this is a special stone that makes the most wonderful stone soup in the world. He gets a pot of water boiling and puts the stone in and after it simmers a while, tastes it and says “Oh, this is delicious, but it would be even better with a few potatoes.” The wary villagers are curious, and one of them dares to bring some potatoes to the soldier, who thanks his benefactor and cuts the potatoes into the soup. Again, tasting it, he praises the soup and says it would be even better with some carrots. And someone brings him carrots. And so on. Before long, a wonderful soup has been created because all of the villagers have contributed, and the soup is enough to feed the soldier and his new friends.

In some ways, this is very much like what we do here at Grace frequently – the Stone Soup meal is really a potluck! No one person brings an entire meal, but with all of us contributing a little, we have more than enough for a meal for everyone.

Just before Easter, we started a special project at Grace. We needed to raise $40,000 by the middle to end of May in order to reach our goal of being able to pre-pay our commitment to our school ministry, while still maintaining all of our other bills and commitments. In the bulletin today you can see how far along we are in reaching that goal. When we started, the pot of soup had nothing but a special stone – the promise of results when all of us get involved. Today we have some potatoes and carrots. Over the next few weeks, we can continue to make a very special soup, a potluck. When we kicked off this special project, I remarked that this congregation is very generous when it comes to special projects, such as the roof repair or the sprinklers or sending the Youth to National Gatherings. Another thing at which this congregation excels is potlucks!

You can continue to give to the special project by putting an offering – a monetary gift above and beyond your normal weekly tithe – in an envelope marked “RCLS Commitment” and putting your envelope number on it. In this way, you can help our Stone Soup, our Grace Potluck, become a most pleasing feast for God’s work here at Grace.

And so, today, we begin with a message we call “Let Me Put it This Way.”

When Pastor Heidorn has collected the offering each week, he speaks these words that are so familiar to us now: “We give Thee but Thine own, whate’er the gift might be. All we have is Thine alone, a trust, O Lord, from Thee.” I really like those words. They’re very poetic, memorable and meaningful.

Sometimes, words we hear over and over get lost, though, as they become routine. So, to help us focus on their meanings, I offer a few new ways to say much the same thing.

• Hey, God, I know you gave this to me, but I’m sure you can use it better than I can. Don’t worry, I have enough for me.
• Wow, thanks for giving me all this, God! Here! I brought you a gift to show you my thanks. Use it however you think best.
• God, you promised me my daily bread, and you gave me that and more! Let me give some back so other people can learn to be as thankful as I am.
• Father, I know you gave me this, but some of my brothers could really use it. Would you mind getting it to them?
• God, you trusted me to hold onto this for a while. With what you gave me, I was able to make even more, and I want you to have some of it.

I’m sure there are many more ways we could rephrase that meaningful prayer. I thought about trying to do it in different dialects. You know, Surfer Dude (Whoa! Awesome!), Five-year-old (Thanks, Daddy), or Rocky Balboa (Yo, Adrian, um, I mean, Holy Father) but I’m not a Surfer Dude, or a Five-year-old, or Rocky, and I don’t think many of you are, so I hope you get the point and I hope one of those helps you focus on the meaning of “We Give Thee but Thine Own…”

We’ve all been given so much, but it is, after all, God’s. He owns it all. As good stewards of His things, it’s important to realize it, and give Him thanks, however we say it.

On Sunday, May 4th, 2008 from 6:30-7:30pm at Grace, we will be discussing the book:

What’s so Amazing about Grace by Philip Yancey

Grace is the church’s great distinctive. It’s the one thing the world cannot duplicate, and the one thing it craves above all else for only grace can bring hope and transformation to a jaded world.

In What’s So Amazing About Grace?, award-winning author Philip Yancey explores grace at street level. What is grace? If grace is God’s love for the undeserving, then what does it look like in action? If Christians are its sole dispensers, how are we doing at lavishing grace on a world that knows far more of cruelty and unforgiveness than it does of mercy? In his most personal and provocative book ever, Yancey offers compelling, true portraits of grace’s life-changing power. He searches for its presence in his own life and in the church. He challenges us to become living answers to a world that desperately wants to know What’s So Amazing About Grace?

If you have questions about book club, please contact Tracy Grove.

Pontius Pilot by Paul L. Maier

If you need a new perspective on Lent, walk in Pilot’s shoes. Books are available to purchase at church for $15.

If you have questions, please contact Tracy Grove.

Order subs for yourself or to be donated to families at the Ronald McDonald House or Hope Lodge. These sandwiches are delicious fresh and may also be frozen.

Links for the daily readings can be found here.

Click on the verse to be taken to that day’s reading on bible.gospelcom.net. When you’ve finished reading, just use the “Back” button on browser to return to GraceByTheLake.

The Christmas tree actually does have something to do with that, but in a most remarkable way.

The story, and I have no reason to doubt it, goes like this: An English monk by the name of Winfrid went to the pagan Germans to try to convert them to Christ. His monk name was Boniface.

He was horrified by their practice of human sacrifice, so he chopped down the most special oak tree, the one named Yggsdrassil, that they called the world-tree and believed held the heavens up above the Earth.

For some reason, this made the Germans very angry. I can’t imagine why They gathered in a mob and were about to kill him, even as he started preaching to them, with his back to the felled oak.

As they gathered and were about to kill him, they stopped in amazement. Behind him, unbeknownst to Winfrid, a fir tree miraculously sprung up from the stump (or beside the stump) of the pagan tree. As the sun set, and Winfrid/Boniface started to have trouble reading his text, so his disciples held candles up beside him so that he could see. To the Germans, it was as if the candles were in the tree. This last part might be legend, but the story as a whole, I believe. Miracles do accompany missions to unreached peoples, from time to time.

It was this fir tree that Martin Luther revived as part of Christmas celebrations for the Lutherans. The candles in the tree (we use safer electric lights) represent the Light of the World who was born that Christmas Day in the wee hours of the morning, our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was a Lutheran pastor who introduced the practice to America. America’s culture comes mostly from England and the British Isles, as do most of our Christmas traditions. But this one a Lutheran pastor brought us, at first shocking the English Americans around him, but it was rapidly picked up. Why just have evergreen garlands when you can also have a tree?

When I was a little boy, my Dad made me a very accurate toy barn, to the scale of toy tractors. I’ve always thought that a nativity scene made that nicely could be put under the tree, so that the presents would be placed around the baby Jesus, as it were, to remind us of what it is really all about. The tree would have to be up higher on a box or something, (allowing a smaller, cheaper Christmas tree ;-). I understand that some people already do this.

In the week before Christmas, Mom would make several batches of different kinds of Christmas cookies and bars. My sister and I would decorate the cutout sugar cookies. On Christmas Eve, my maternal grandparents, the Freiberg’s would drive up from Storm Lake, bringing traditional German Christmas cookies. My Grandpa Freiberg was the youngest, and only one born in America in his family. His first language was Plattsdeutsch.

On Christmas eve we always went to church, which often had a live nativity scene for the service, and then Dad would drive us around our town of 2,000 people to see the Christmas lights on the houses. There were a couple of old Victorians that had their bric-a-brac highlighted with light strings. Someone always had St. Nicolas and his reindeer touching down on their roof, and one house on the north side of town had, and still has, home-made silhouettes of the Christmas story surrounding the house. They are very nicely done. When my grandparents were still alive, we would then after church, go to my Schaper grandparents home down the gravel road, sometimes along with the aunts,uncles and cousins from Colorado, and read Christmas stories to each other.

Once we visited the life-size nativity scene in neighboring Algona, Iowa, that was built by German P.O.W.s during the war (WWII). They had been ‘farmed out’ to farm families in the area to work as hired hands, replacing the men who had gone off to war, and they were very well-treated by the host families. In return, they built the Nativity scene as a gift. If you are ever that way during Advent, you should stop and see it. In later years, some of them would fly all the way from Germany to visit their host families.