Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. ~ Hebrews 10:23-25

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." So begins Charles Dickens' classic, A Tale of Two Cities. That phrase could easily sum up the past two years as well. It was two years ago that, after having studied and debated and deliberated, the Board of Church Life and I made the decision to bring the Sunday School out from under the Divine Service, to reduce the number of services on Sunday to two, and allow time for an adult study to be conducted as well. For many reasons, this has been a rather ideal arrangement. Families have the opportunity to worship together and study together. Attendance at both services on Sunday became more consistent and more musical options were available to the congregation, especially those who partake of the very early service customarily. We began to see more children in church, rather than just running about in the gym. As we got underway, it seemed as though we were becoming more and more the family of St. John's our mission statement claims we desire to be. However, not all people embraced this new model. Some tried and gave up. Some tried and figured it out and stuck with it. Some continued to put their hour in on Sunday which sometimes meant only doing the 9 o'clock hour and never being in service, or vice versa. And, some did none of that, feeling put out by the new arrangement. In that regard, it was not the best of times. Change is hard and we have been accustomed to how things used to be that it is hard to adapt to something different. Some of the negatives were due to the societal pressures we face to have kids involved in activities which now, unfortunately, begin earlier and earlier on Sunday morning. However, some of the negatives were the result of a matter of priorities and where the Church fits into that list. Over the past few weeks I have heard from a number of people, inquiring about the possibility of returning to the old schedule. The Board of Church Life agreed that we would revisit this annually to see how things were going and whether what we were doing was accomplishing the goals that we had originally set out for. The Board met once more in early April to discuss this very issue. We came at it from all angles, exploring the reasons why things are what they are now, considering a few new alternatives, and weighing the advantages and disadvantages of keeping things the same or returning back to what we once had. After about two and half hours of discussion there, and days of emails back and forth in the two weeks since, it was decided that we will return to the old schedule beginning in August. Thus, starting on August 10-11, our service times will return to 6:30pm on Saturday evening, 7:45am, 9am, and 11am on Sunday morning. Certainly we will announce this more and more as the time draws closer for the change so that all are aware, and we will also include reminders in the mailing we do to the Sunday School families over the summer in advance of Rally Day. The reason for the seemingly odd start date is that our hope, at the time of this writing, is that we will have been assigned another vicar for the coming year, and hopefully being installed on that weekend. This way, he will not know any different scenario, only that schedule that we will be going back to. It also allows a few weeks of introduction and reminder for everyone before Rally Day when many return to church from summer break. With this decision in hand, there are two main things I would like to emphasize. The first of which is that no one on the Board of Church Life sees what we have been doing for the past almost two years as a failure. I have, over that time, heard many positives from a lot of people. The decision to go back was not made in haste, but only after carefully weighing all the options. This is not the proverbial throwing in of the towel because we might as well be down and out. That is not the case at all. The second thing that I want to emphasize is that the reasons why we made the change are still valid. I cannot tell you how many times that I have heard that we are losing the children and the children are the future of our church. This thought is flawed in a couple of ways. First it assumes that the children are not currently a part of our church. The reality is that by nature of their baptism, they are the present Church. And if we actually believe the words of Jesus, they have more of a claim to the title of Church than we adults do (see Matthew 18). The second reason that this idea is flawed relates to what we do with our children. One of the reasons we made the change was to allow for parents and children to be together in church, for parents to find the joy in teaching their children about the faith from the pew and reinforce why we do what we do and why we go to church. If going back to the old schedule gives you parents a sigh of relief that you can once again come to church while your kids are in Sunday School and you don't have to deal with them, then you do not actually believe that the children are the future of the Church they are not being shown what it really means to be part of the Church. We do not go to Sunday School all our life, but we do go to the Divine Service. If a child is never brought to church except on Christmas and Easter until they reach confirmation age and are required to go, it is hard for them to see the need to be there, and even harder to have them embrace being there regularly post-confirmation. This is, I believe, why so many do not return to church after confirmation it was not a pattern of their life in the elementary years and it is not then something they embrace in the middle school years. After all, they haven't been going to church for years, and things are fine. Why go now? So, even though we are going back to the old schedule, I would strongly encourage families to figure out a way to be in church together so that our youth learn the beauty of the Divine Service, to know the joy in receiving God's gifts on a weekly basis, to meet together as the author of Hebrews states, so that we may encourage one another in faith toward lives of love and good works. It is only in this way that our church will have a future by allowing the youth be part of the church in the present, for that is where the Spirit works to connect us to Christ by his gifts and unite us as the Body of Christ the Lord has called his Church to be. Sunday School is good, don't get me wrong. It is important for our children to learn the stories of the Bible so that they come to embrace the Word of God as a living and active thing in their life. But head knowledge of Biblical stories is not faith. The devil knows all those stories too. Faith is lived out in receiving the gracious gifts of God in Word and Sacrament together with fellow Christians who confess the same Lord and faith. From the newborn infant to the elderly shut-in, the gifts given in the Church are what unite us, because those gifts are Christ himself. Just as the change we made two years ago caused some dissention, please be aware that going back to the old schedule will, and has already, caused some dissention too. Know that the Board of Church Life will continue to look into ways in which we can gather together to study God's Word that we may grow in our wisdom and understanding of it. I ask that you now come together as a congregation, helping one another along the way on our journey of faith, and that you pray for our Church that she may be faithful to the Word and the preaching and teaching of it. And, with all these new opportunities to come together in the Divine Service, now would be as good a time as any to call upon your friends in this congregation who have drifted away, and invite them to come back. Again, as the author of Hebrews says, God is faithful, and he alone can breathe life into his people, into the family of faith at St. John's, and into the Bride of Christ, the holy, catholic and apostolic Church. 1Lord this day we've come to worship; 2In the pow'r of resurrection 5Celebrate the resurrection Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, We have come to praise the Lord, In the church and sing His praise Grace us with Your blessed presence; Celebrate His blessed supper, Till we come to true perfection: Blessed Savior, be our host. And to learn His holy Word. Serve the Lord through all our days Refrain: Alleluia, alleluia, Alleluia, praise the Lord! Alleluia, alleluia, Alleluia, praise the Lord! (LSB #911) ~ Pastor Noack Thanks! A special thank you to all who helped with our Holy Week and Easter services. What another season of blessing our meditation and celebration of our Lord's Passion and Resurrection truly was! More Thanks! On behalf of my family we want to thank all of you for the lovely lunch and conversation time held on April 14th. We feel truly blessed to be here at St. John's and embrace each day among you as a true gift of God's grace. May the Lord continue to bless us all as we grow together. Save the date! June 2nd is our annual Fellowship Sunday. We will once again have just one service on that weekend with a picnic lunch to follow behind the houses. Please plan to join us for this special day of fellowship and fun. More details will be forthcoming. From The Vicar  In each of the gospels, the disciples fail to understand that Jesus is actually risen from the dead - at least when it's first reported to them. You heard on Easter Sunday that when the women came from the tomb to tell the disciples that Jesus' body wasn't where it had been laid, they considered the women's speech "an idle tale". So in each of the gospels Jesus appears to his disciples and clarifies for them the things they should already have known, the things that they know but that haven't really come home to them. He teaches them much about himself and much about what it is they will be doing when he ascends to his Father's right hand. Throughout the Easter season, the fifty days from the Lord's resurrection to Pentecost, we hear these gospel accounts and also we learn more about Jesus' teaching from before his ministry. We're in a constant process of remembrance so that we can learn afresh and learn deeply what it is our Lord has told us. We're never done learning from the Lord's teaching, whether in the gospels or anywhere else in the Scriptures, because he is never done teaching. Even after his resurrection he continues to show us the height and depth and riches of the wisdom of God. Without these riches we are easily impoverished, both collectively and individually. Collectively, a group of people congregated around Jesus without understanding his life and words is congregated around a stranger, which is an odd position to be in. We continue to gather to listen to a man whom few of us understand or know very well. It's both hard to know what he would have us do as a church and hard to get along as a church if we do not have his words, teachings, and life in common. That's the self-enforced poverty in which we so often put ourselves by neglecting collective study of God's Word, whether in Bible classes, Sunday school, or in meetings. It's not one of the things a church does: it's the main thing. So without a continually renewed look at the treasures of his Word, our individual lives are rudderless. We drift from this opinion to that opinion, based most often on our day-to-day feelings about things. We drift from this choice in life to its opposite, unable to make up our minds about what is worthwhile, what is important, what Christ would have us do. We're always learning, even if it's only learning what advertising firms want us to want. Since we won't actually stop learning, it would be better to learn the word of God which "endures forever" than anything that won't stand the test of eternity. The sadness of this self-enforced famine of God's Word is particularly evident as confirmation nears. People who now know so much about God's Word so often let this be the religious high-point of their lives, learning little or nothing in years to come. So while their minds and hearts continue to learn life's lessons, they're unable to see life in the light of God's Word. Without that light, we grope around in the dark and our eyes never adjust to see in the dark. But our Light has come, and our Life is risen from the tomb. So run to his Word and learn what he continues to teach you. Nothing else is more precious than to sit at his feet and hear his words of life and peace. He himself calls it "the one thing needful." Vicar Koontz