“For as the rain
and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have
watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower
and bread to the eater, so shall my Word be that goes out from my mouth; it
shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and
succeed in the living for which I sent it.”
--
Isaiah 55:10
At a
worship service celebrating the installation of one of our new pastors here in
the Florida-Bahamas synod, our bishop began the service with a prayer of
thanksgiving for our baptism.
Then while
we sang the opening hymn, he
sprinkled
holy water from the baptismal font on the entire congregation.
The drops of water were a cool and sudden
reminder, falling
out of the blue,
that we belong to a gracious and generous God who “makes his sun rise on the
good and evil, and lets the rain fall on the just and unjust” (Matthew
5:45).
It’s true – we have his grace
without deserving it, without earning it, and without expecting it.
God’s love comes to us “out of the blue” and
drenches us with new possibilities.
We have
seen this happen over and over this year at Atonement.
Something happens that was talked about long
ago, or maybe just recently thought about, but was really considered a distant
dream.
Then God makes it happen.
That’s what it feels like as we look back at
the birth of our Hispanic mission,
Todos
Unidos en Cristo.
Now up and running
with their own website, Todos Unidos en Cristo (TUC) is the new stage of life
growing out of our Hispanic ministry and English as Second Language classes
started last year.
Now it has become a
bona fide Synodically Authorized Worshiping Community (SAWC) of the ELCA,
with permission to begin services, take in members, and do most of what any
congregation is expected to do.
With
20% of our community identified as Hispanic
or Latino, TUC is here to help us make sure we do not forget this part of
our own mission to share the love of Jesus.
As of February 2017, TUC is up and running
with
Esthel Kane as lay developer.
She is leading this new mission under my
supervision, with guidance and coaching from the Synod office and national ELCA
offices.
Not only is the mission
receiving thousands of dollars in support from the synod and national church,
Esthel is being trained to become a pastor in a unique new program that allows
us to stay with us here as she studies.
Esthel will soon be doing her “field work” part of this training, which
includes internship and clinical work at a nearby hospital.
With so
many people feeling stressed these days, our visitation team and myself are
stretched to the limit trying to provide care for our members.
For several years we have explored and
discussed becoming involved in the
Stephen
Ministry program.
This is a
well-known and interdenominational system of training and oversight for
caregivers in Christian congregations.
In January, Jan Buland, Chris Rymer and myself spent a week learning how
to get it going, and realized it was going to take months just to get set up
and ready to train caregivers.
By Fall
though, we had four people ready for training.
We did the training at double speed, which was a brutal pace but allowed
us to consecrate
our first Stephen Ministers
in November: Kathy Alvare, Vanessa Frost, Chris Rymer, and Bill Slippy.
These
four have committed to at least two years of ministry, each of them working with
one care receiver at a time.
They will
spend about an hour each week listening, praying, encouraging, and caring for
their care receiver, and 5 hours a month in supervisory discussions and
continuing education.
From here on out,
we hope to increase the number of Stephen Ministers, so that more and more
people will be able experience the special care they can give.
 |
| Stephen Ministry team members: Chris Rymer, Vanessa Frost, Bill Slippy, Kathy Alvare and Jan Buland |
If
anything made this year unique, it was the two big anniversaries we recognized:
the
500th anniversary of the
Lutheran Church along with the
30th
anniversary of Atonement.
We even
had a t-shirt made to commemorate them both.
The 500
th anniversary has been in the works around the world
for some time now.
When I was in Martin
Luther’s hometown of Wittenberg, Germany 3 years ago, they were already fixing
up the town and getting ready for a record number of visitors in 2017.
COMING
UP SATURDAY DEC. 16
Join us
for our Tampa conference God’s Work
Our Hands project, rescheduled because of Hurricane Irma. We will be gathering at 3pm at…
Pinellas HOPE
5726 126th Avenue North
Clearwater
We will
be taking a tour of the facilities, followed by a special Lutheran/Catholic
worship service remembering the residents who have died this past
year. At 5pm, we will share a meal
with our friends in Christ at Pinellas HOPE.
Donations welcome:
|
The ELCA has been
preparing by coming together with our Roman Catholic friends and taking a hard
look at how far we’ve come these past 500 years.
We have tried not to make the marking of this
occasion a “celebration” in light of the pain that the Reformation caused
through the division of the body of Christ.
Our synods committed to engaging with Roman Catholics in 3 particular
ways this year:
study, worship, and
service.
Earlier this year our ELCA
pastors and Catholic priests spent a day together at a retreat center in Lutz
studying the doctrinal discussions and ecumenical dialog that has taken place
between our church bodies.
This January
we worshiped together at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Largo, using the
Common Prayer service developed for this anniversary year.
Esthel and I both had speaking parts in this
service.
Later
this month, we will participate in the third part of our Lutheran/Roman
Catholic commemoration of the Reformation – a service project at a Catholic
homeless shelter.
As dean of the Tampa
conference, I took the lead in organizing this as a conference-wide God’s Work,
Our Hands project slated for September.
I was originally hoping to find a project that could involve our
Lutheran Social Services agency along with Catholic Social Services, but communication
back and forth wasn’t happening.
With
time getting short and no luck on the phone, I went down to St. Petersburg to
meet with the Vicar General and the head of Catholic Charities in person, and
we decided we would put together a project at
Pinellas HOPE.
Pinellas HOPE
is a homeless shelter with temporary and permanent housing, including food,
medical and support services, developed by the Catholic Diocese of St.
Petersburg.
It’s an innovative model of
its kind, and they are looking to duplicate it in Hillsborough and Pasco
counties.
We could sure use something
like it in our area.
Our own
plans at Atonement started taking shape with the creation of a planning
team.
Ideas began to percolate for
special decorations, a mass mailing inviting the community, a 7 week study on
Luther’s Catechism, a puppet show, an outdoor meal including German and
Hispanic favorites, and an evening showing of the Luther movie.
17 year-old
Nick Trejo, who has been serving as youth council member this year,
surprised us by asking if he could lead the planning group.
He was looking for a project to complete his
Eagle Scout badge, and we were delighted to put him at the helm.
Nick’s calm leadership proved how valuable
the gifts and talents of our young members can be.
Also
surprising us was the news that Matthew Cox, Atonement’s founding pastor, was
going to fly down from Ohio to attend our
30th
anniversary dinner.
All seemed to be
going well with the dinner planned at Cody’s Roadhouse, across the street from
what had been the location of Hunt’s Restaurant, where Atonement worshippers
first met.
Then out of the blue came
word that Cody’s had closed.
Cotta
Ungerer relayed the news that thanks to her negotiating skills she was able to
convince them to open up one more time just for us!
It turned into a fine and memorable evening,
with Pastor Matt sharing tales and memories of Atonement’s early days and getting
his picture taken with members who around in those days.
We were also blessed to have interim pastor
Dave Kruger with us at the Sunday celebration that week, and Pastor Jim Horn
was planning to attend, but health issues intervened.
 |
| Pastor Matthew Cox speaking at the 30th anniversary dinner at Cody's Roadhouse |
Other
assorted surprises have fallen on us out of the blue this year.
New members of the
choir and praise band have brought new skills and richness of sound
to these groups.
The
“God squad” prayer group has been
faithfully providing prayer after the 10am services to all who need it.
Some of them also take part in the Friday
afternoon
“Drive-Thru Prayer” ministry,
which is just what it sounds like.
People pull in under the portico in front of the church, can stay right
in their car and have a prayer led by our volunteers. Also, the Kostialik
family gave us a great head start on developing our
outdoor chapel, building an altar and a cross in the back of the
property as part of the triplets’ confirmation project.
Some of
2017’s surprises involved
real
challenges and changes.
We said
goodbye to the Martin family as they moved to Arizona early this year, thanking
Terry for his great work moving us forward.
Detlev Aeppel stepped up to the plate and became the new leader of the
building team.
With $300,000 in funds
for
a new building already raised
through a capital campaign, it was starting to look like we might have to raise
more funds.
After bids for the building came
in closer to $600,000, we began looking instead at new options such as an
addition to our current building.
That
looked great until we found that we’d be required to install a sprinkler system
in the rest of the building, which the ceilings just weren’t designed to
handle.
Between the fire marshal and our
contractors at Final Touch Construction, a new idea emerged to build a free-standing annex 10 feet away from
the eastern front of our current building.
This would give us a room twice the size of our current fellowship hall,
accessible just outside our current space.
Entrance doors on both buildings would face each other, so that going
back and forth would be as easy as possible.
This, our latest and most workable plan yet, is literally “Plan F,” the
sixth separate plan for this project.
Though it does not provide the new kitchen some were hoping for and
leaves the old building with some needed improvements, it will definitely be a
big help at this moment where multiple ministries are in need of more space.
In
addition to the new building, our contractors helped us acquire a new freezer/cooler for the food
pantry. This too has been a great
challenge. We had problems from the
get-go with the delivery of the panels, many of which were damaged and had to
be sent back. Since then, a series of
problems with the freezer side of the unit has brought consistent
frustration. Our contractors have been
back time and time again (at their own expense) trying to fix problems with
condensation and freezing door locks.
The manufacturer’s indifference has not helped either. People have suggested we should have done an
exorcism instead of a general blessing when it was installed!
This
year,
hurricanes presented
challenges we’ll not soon forget.
Irma
could have been an utterly devastating event to the entire Florida peninsula,
but God’s grace was evident in the relatively minor effect it had in our area.
Then again, the Virgin Islands and Puerto
Rico are still reeling from hits they took from Irma and Marie, and recovery
work from Harvey will be taking place in Houston and south Texas for
years.
Atonement had a couple minor
leaks, but a few of our synod churches had significant damage.
Office volunteers called through the
directory that week to make sure our members and friends were alright.
Irma struck on a Sunday morning, but we were
able to move our worship to Saturday that weekend.
We did have to reschedule our service project
at Pinellas HOPE, which will be taking place later this month (see p. 2).
Never been to a
bishop’s installation? Well, here’s your chance! Bishop
Suarez will be installed just a few miles from us, in New Tampa!
Please join Bishop Lohrmann and myself for the installation
of Bishop-elect Pedro Suarez
on Saturday, January
20, 2018 at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church in New Tampa, beginning at noon.
Presiding
Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, along with several other
bishops and special guests, will preside. The service will be live
streamed.
There is no cost,
but please register your intention to attend (especially the reception
following the service) to help in planning. You can register at
|
Perhaps the most
unexpected event of the year was the resignation
of our Bishop, Robert Schaefer.
Atonement was blessed to have a visit from Bishop Bob (and his traveling
companion, “Mini-Bishop”) last year, and many took note of his sense of humor
and relatability. Bishop Schaefer had
been in prayer for a while, trying to discern if the call to be bishop was
truly one he could manage in a way that keeps his family and spiritual life intact. Ultimately, he felt that he could not
continue, and the synod office was once again in a state of transition. Synod staff which a bishop has hired, in this
case his assistants Jim Graeser and Jaime Dubon, are also expected to step
aside when a bishop leaves. Jim has
taken on a call as a pastor in Texas, and Jaime is now working with mission
staff in Chicago. They both returned to
be with us at the synod assembly in October.
Bishop
Bob’s surprising exit did give us the opportunity to meet
Bishop Marcus Lohrmann, from Toledo, Ohio.
Bishop Lohrmann was the much-beloved bishop
of the Northwest Ohio synod for 18 years, and had retired 6 months and 2 days
before getting called to serve as our interim bishop.
He had told people to give him at least 6 months
before they called him with any such request, so you could say he was given a
2-day bonus.
As the Tampa conference
dean, I found Bishop Lohrmann very approachable and spiritually
well-grounded.
I asked for his presence
at two of our conference meetings, and he showed up both times to give us
advice in preparing for the upcoming bishop’s election.
What’s more, he came and spent a morning with
us at Atonement, getting to know some of our clients and helping take their bags
out to their cars.
We are grateful to
Bishop Lohrmann for his tremendous help in this year full of surprises.
Another
one of those surprises was the bishop’s election itself.
Our synod assembly was moved from June to
October to give us time to make the transition.
Esthel Kane, Marcia Weil, and Rebecca Parker accompanied me, along with
our youth delegate Nick Trejo.
One
wonderful surprise of the assembly was seeing Nick, along with the other youth
there, getting up and speaking in front of the 500 people gathered there.
The other big surprise was the winner of the
election –
Pastor Pedro Suarez of
Pompano Beach won out in the final ballot.
Pedro was the interim Director for Evangelical Mission who was supposed
to serve as one of Esthel’s supervisors after Jaime Dubon left the synod.
A fine pastor with a heart for mission and
evangelism, I’m sure we will find our synod has gained a wonderful new bishop
in Pastor Suarez, but Esthel will be needing a new supervisor.
My work
as
Tampa conference dean came to an
end this September, as I completed a two year term (in addition to the 6 months
I served after being appointed by Bishop Schaefer).
Of course, dealing with the change of bishops,
activities surrounding the 500
th anniversary of the Reformation (see
pg. 2), and the effects of hurricane Irma brought extra challenges to the role
of dean.
I had new experiences in my
role as dean, such as helping to install new pastors, attending the first
national pastor’s gathering in Atlanta, Georgia, and being one of the
conference clergy present at a Tampa rally for peace and justice in the wake of
violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. In addition to representing our bishop,
providing pastoral care to other pastors, and conducting regular meetings for
clergy and lay members of the conference, the deans (along with synod staff)
also work with congregations in transition to help them find their next
pastor.
When I began, 5 of the 10
parishes in our conference faced pastoral vacancies.
I was delighted to be able to say that I left
the position with a full slate of pastors in our conference.
It is a real joy to see the very talented new
pastor Joshua Gyson (from All Saints’ in Lutz) taking over our conference
leadership.
This
year also brought these significant ministry milestones:
·
The Sean Bartell memorial scholarship was passed
into the hands of the newly-formed
Bartell
foundation.
This 501c3 organization
is now raising money and managing the scholarship independently of Atonement,
as well as doing more varied community work in memory of Sean.
·
Last year, we reported over 700 families in our
community were signed up to receive food at our Helping hands Food Pantry.
This year, that number is over 1000.
·
This year we participated in Stepping Stone, the
first annual community resource fair at A Helping Rock, transitional housing
for the homeless in Zephyrhills.
We did
valuable networking on behalf of our Caring ministry, food pantry and Hispanic
ministry, and Cherie Hatlem came to help do research for our
Community Resource Guide.
Cherie is continuing to help compile and
update this guide, which is kept in the office and distributed to people who
come to Atonement with various needs.
Our Stephen Ministry is also involved in researching and connecting with
community resources.
“Behold, I am doing
a new thing! Now it springs forth – do
you not perceive it? I will make a way
in the wilderness and rivers in the desert!”
-- Isaiah
43:19
November 26, 2017 HOME FOR THANKSGIVING
Atonement “family portrait”
Looking
forward to 2018, we anticipate new growth happening from the seeds we’ve been
planting the last few years. The new building should be under
construction starting in January, with a completion date in early May. This will give us space for larger fellowship
gatherings, multiple meeting spaces (including a large space available during
times the food pantry is setting up and distributing), and possibly space for
new worship services or Bible study classes.
We are
also looking forward to a new
Saturday
evening service beginning on January 6.
This service will run from 5-6pm, leaving people time to go out to
dinner and other evening activities Saturday night.
We are trying to make it very different from
our Sunday services to appeal to people who are not currently worshiping with
us.
We have warned people: if you like
our Sunday services, don’t expect to like the Saturday service.
My son Brian will be putting together a
worship band, and we expect that the music will be very contemporary.
We are also expecting to have options
available for people who would like to stay after the service, for communion,
prayer, or additional conversation.
As we
have anticipated over the last few years, our church has outgrown the current
office staffing situation, and we are in need of a
secretary/office administrator who will be there every
weekday.
Our 2017 budget includes
compensation for this person working part-time, 10am to 3pm daily throughout
the year.
A group is now in place to
begin the planning and interviewing to find this new staff person.
We are looking for a non-member who is
comfortable with multiple types of computer software, and who can help us keep
up to date with social media and our web presence.
They will be working with Kay and the office
volunteers, but their job descriptions will be changing depending on what will
work best with this new individual.
2018
will be a year of
planning and
organizing as we look at ways we can streamline our ministry groups,
improve our facility, and prepare new ways of reaching out.
A couple years ago we created the Vision 2015
Document with goals and guidelines for ministries.
We have made progress and even completed some
of the goals, and as we hoped, many of our ministries have interacted more with
the community.
More recently, Paul
Bartell and others have helped develop a “master plan” for the use of our
facility.
Ideas for moving the pantry,
building an outdoor pavilion, and designating and designing a playground have
all been incorporated into this plan.
Placement of garden areas, and auto access to the columbarium have also
been included.
We will
also be working on improving our
social
media and web presence.
We are
presently compiling information from various ministries to include on the
website.
The Live Stream continues to be
used every week, and I’m always hearing comments and compliments from people
who “tune in” to our services when they are away.
We would also like to find ways to increase
our “hits” from search engines, and make our web site as useful, informative
and attractive as possible to potential visitors and people in the community.
Coming
in January is a special series we are putting on in partnership with the
Florida Hospital system.
Creation Health will be an 8-week
informational class on ways to improve the health of your body, mind, and
spirit.
We will talk about the choices
you make, how you strengthen your body, the role that relationships play in
health, creating a healthy environment, and many other topics.
Health care workers from the hospital will be
helping with the classes, which will be offered Mondays from 1-2:30pm,
beginning Jan. 22.
The last
few years, our praise team has been blessed with the guidance of
Ken Watts, a local bandleader, trumpet
player, and all-around nice guy.
Ken
comes from the Episcopal tradition, and also serves as choir director at a Roman
Catholic parish in Tampa.
With his
experience and skills, he brought new music, creative arrangements and quality
leadership to the group.
I believe he
took on the task more for the service of God and opportunity to share
fellowship with us than for any monetary compensation the position
offered.
Ken has been a joy to work
with, and he and his wife Janet will be missed from our early services.
As he takes on a new position to lead the
praise band at First Presbyterian Church in Brandon, we wish him the best and
are grateful that he promises to not be a stranger in the coming years.
Finally,
on behalf of my family and myself I
want
to thank each one of you for your love and support.
We cherish this church family that we’ve now
been with for eleven years.
To all of
you who work so hard and give so much, I want to know we brag about you and are
tremendously grateful for your love of our Lord Jesus.
We see it every day in the dedication and
care you show to each other and the needy people in the community.
Despite the surprises and challenges of
ministry, the load is light to bear because of your faith and witness to the
life-changing power of the Gospel.
At the
beginning of this report I mentioned an installation service where the bishop
sprinkled us with holy water.
After
feeling those drops rain down on us in that surprising
reminder of our baptism as disciples of Jesus, I knew I wanted to
bring this same gift to Atonement.
I
asked Pat Weil to find us a little whisk broom I could use, and began this new
tradition at the 10am services.
So now
on the days of special festivals, we start that service with a thanksgiving for
baptism, and I bless the congregation with a small shower to remind us all of
God’s grace.
I pray that this blessing
follows you every day and reminds you that God is constantly showering his
gracious gifts on you day by day throughout your life, as they come to us “out
of the blue.”
Peace,
Pastor Scott
This baby
will become a refugee from his homeland, will be accused of being a menace to
society, will become a condemned and crucified criminal. But God’s Christmas ways are also God’s
Easter ways, so He never ceases to surprise us by bringing life out of
death. This season we remember God came
to us as a baby, so open to the world, so vulnerable, so totally accepting, so
small and everyday but still such a miracle.
