3          Orte Knight

4          Phillip Winter

5          Mark Callander

6          Glenn Campbell

8          BJ Rose

11        Aaron Walima

13        Wanda Collins

19        Zachary Leander

20        Deanna Major

20        Cassie McDonald

22        Torey’on Castle

21        Sandra Chartrand

25        Pam Webster

27        Alex Callander

28        Alonso Ayala

28        Ray Hinricks

28        Elaine Verbarg

Thank You To our Work Crew on our Work Day

Saturday April 1, 2006

Goldie Niehaus, Judy Vogt, Paul & Judy Carlson, Cookie Hood, Debby, Cory & Saul Wiedeman, Jack & Carol Bowyer, Stan Olson, Dawn & Parker Zimmermann, Elaine Verbarg & Denyse Curtright, TC Smith, Steve Baxter, Jeff Temple & Alonso Ayala, Mario Giacomotto, Pastor Robyn. A special thanks to Denyse & Dave for a wonderful breakfast.  Thanks to everyone. We had a good day and lots of stuff got done.

Invitation to Participate¼.submitted by Karen Idler

Your Church Council invites you to make a contribution to this year’s Synod Assembly designated offerings.  You may simply write your check to LCOR and on the memo line write Synod Assembly Offering.  One check from LCOR will then be placed in the offering by Pastor and our designated lay voting members, Mike and Karen Idler, who will be attending the May Synod Assembly in San Francisco.  Synod Assembly offerings are shared between one “local” and one national/international recipient.  The 2006 Assembly offerings have been designated for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services and a local (Peninsula) program, Shelter Network ELCA.  Congregations in the Peninsula Conference are active in this housing ministry.  Thank you in advance for supporting these two vital and life-giving ministries!

Seeking Summer Vacation Bible School Coordinating Partner

Are you interested in helping to coordinate an Intergenerational Vacation Bible School to take place on a summer weekend beginning Friday evening, continuing again on Saturday and culminating with participation in the Sunday worship service? Children and adults alike have enjoyed the faith enriching opportunity. Val Specht is willing to coordinate this event if she has a partner to coordinate it with her. If you are willing, please contact Val, Pastor Robyn or the church office!

Your congregational council enthusiastically invites you to

 join us for... 

A Congregational Retreat on Spiritual Gifts

at Gethsemane Lutheran Church

4607 Arden Way Corner of Mission and Arden

On Saturday, June 3   -   9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

The June 3 retreat will help you better identify our spiritual gifts and how God may be calling you to use those gifts in all areas of your life. Frederick Buechner observed that the definition of "call" is "the place where our deep gladness meets the world's great need." What is the unique purpose to which God calls you in life? What are the special gifts that you have been given to fulfill this purpose? Where are the places where you can exercise those gifts and make a difference in this congregation, in your work, in your family, in the larger world?

Also A Congregational Goal Setting Workshop  -  Location to be announced Saturday, September 16 -  9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Attending the September 16 workshop will offer you the opportunity to participate in the process of establishing priorities for our congregation, our council and our pastor and staff over the next three - five years. (It will have been three years since our leaders last engaged in this process.) Your input is very much desired and needed!

HEALTHY MINISTRY submitted by Karen Buxton

What is a pastor’s work week like? What stresses does a varied and demanding work schedule have on a pastor? On a congregation? Are physical and spiritual health related? Does the pastor’s well-being reflect a church’s health and happiness?

A recent study comparing the clergy of the 1950s with the clergy today (www.pulpitandpew.duke.edu/clergyhealth.html) found that clergy of the 1950s had lower rates of virtually every disease and lived longer and healthier lives than any other professional group. More recent studies have reversed those results, finding that the latest generation of clergy has one of the highest death rates from heart disease of any occupation, and that Protestant clergy, in particular, have the highest overall work-related stress of any religious professionals. The author, herself married to a Lutheran pastor, says she is not harkening back to a lost “Golden Age,” but simply describing changes that have occurred in the past half-century in society. With more two-income families, fewer stay-at-home spouses are available as volunteers to help carry out the day-to-day tasks of running a church. The dramatic increase in the role of counseling in modern ministry makes more demands on today’s pastors. And falling church attendance nationwide has reduced the resources for hiring additional staff and keeping clerical salaries in line with those of other professions. Another less quantifiable factor contributing to job stress is that the clergy nationwide is perhaps not as respected as it once was.

Mutual Ministry is not a committee whose purpose is to meet the pastor’s personal, psychological, or spiritual needs for support (nor a committee that filters complaints about the pastor). Instead, its task is more like that of a movie camera, repeatedly panning a scene. What is scanned is life within the congregation by means of Bible study (to gain a sense of where God might be leading us), attention to data as available, and –mostly—by paying attention to what’s going on. The mutual ministry committee urges that Pastor Robyn aim for a work week of no more than 50 hours a week and take the equivalent of a two day weekend each week, understanding that some times in the church year, such as Lent and Holy Week, may require more intense hours. How close does she come to this goal? (hint: at the moment, not very) We’ll take a look at how she spends her working days in next month’s Spirit.