Pastor's Letter - November

Pastor’s Letter

Grace, Peace, and Mercy to you from our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!

I looked back, and just about every November newsletter has included a letter from me in which I talk about being thankful. It's obvious, it's the month that includes Thanksgiving.

But except to remind you that our Community Thanksgiving Service will take place on November 22nd at 7:00 PM at Hepler's Church of God, I'm not going to do that this year. I have something else on my mind that I want to talk to you about instead.

This year, just like we had in prior years before, we had assembled a Nominations Committee to
serve to look for people to serve one term on our Congregation Council. I was pretty surprised last month to hear that we are having more difficulty than ever to find people willing to serve on Council. We discussed reasons why, including the ever-more-busy schedules people find
themselves having, people already serving on one or more committee, and so on.

We will have our Annual Congregation Meeting this year, and at that meeting we will nominate five people to serve on Council. Even if the Nominations Committee does not have five names at that point, five people will be elected. We simply have to have that many to stay in line with our constitution and bylaws. I understand that some wonder why we have to have a 15 member council, and perhaps that is something we can look at for next year, but as of now, we have to be in accordance with the rules we have set up.

All of this is to say that we need a Council that is full. There is no "right" kind of person to serve on Council, you simply need to be a confirmed, communing, and contributing member. Communing means that you have received the sacrament of Holy Communion in the past year and Contributing means that you have given at least $1 to Trinity Lutheran Church in the past year. Those are not strict standards, and in fact are not meant to be so.

We will likely have people nominated at our Annual Congregation Meeting on November 19th
following our 10:30 Worship service. There may even be a nomination from the floor of that
meeting! There will be next year, however, and the year after, and the year after, and so on. You
are needed to serve on this Council. Regardless of whether you received the phone call, I implore you to consider serving in the future.

The same goes for all of our committees. We give thanks to God for the hard work all of our
committees do to provide for the church that God has formed through all of us here at Trinity! Each committee truly seeks, to the best of their ability, to discern what God is leading them to do. The same goes for our Council.

Peace,

Pastor Brian