September 12, 2023
Dear Friends,
Things are now officially in full swing for the Fall at Concordia!
* Sunday School (through 5th grade) kicked off this Sunday with new materials from Concordia Publishing House. Learning the Bible Stories well is a foundational part of learning the faith as a child! The kiddos are also working on learning Luke 2 by heart in preparation for Christmas this year.
* Sunday Bible Study (6th grade through adulthood) is making its way toward the end of the Acts of the Apostles. Acts 18 is up next week. Once we’re done with Acts, our next study will take up the book of Revelation. Stay tuned for more info!
* Family Night kicks off this week – starting with Pizza at 5:30pm on Wednesday. The Lord’s Supper is the topic for this year, and we’ll come at it by learning about food and meals throughout the Bible.
* Wednesday Morning Bible Study continues to work its way through the Old Testament. We began in Genesis when I arrived back in October 2019, and we’re about half-way through 1 Samuel right now.
* Wednesday Evening Vespers at 7pm is a nice midweek service to keep you focused on God’s Word through the last half of the week! We’re hearing from Paul’s 2nd letter to the Corinthians right now.
* Circuit News: Let me first explain what the Circuit is. The congregations of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod are divided up into districts throughout the United States. We’re in the Minnesota North District. The District is then further subdivided into Circuits. Our Circuit is the St. Cloud Circuit, and it consists of these 9 congregations besides ours:
SonRise, Avon
Trinity, Clear Lake
St. Paul’s, Eden Valley
Immanuel, Farming Twp. (Albany) – (celebrated their 150th anniversary on Sunday!)
St. John’s, Kimball
Faith, St. Cloud
Holy Cross, St. Cloud
Love of Christ, St. Cloud
Redeemer, St. Cloud
They’re our nearest neighbors, or at least the neighbors we do church business with and the pastors that I meet with regularly. We have monthly meetings, and we work together to be devoted to God’s Word and faithful ministry in our congregations.
We’re working on doing a better job of communicating between congregations, so Pastor Reber (he serves a dual parish: Trinity in Clear Lake and Faith in St. Cloud) has started up a bi-monthly circuit newsletter. You can find the first issue here: https://www.concordialcms.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/The-Cloud-Sep-2023.pdf, and I’ll print out some copies at church. Feel free to send Pr. Reber an e-mail with any input!
God bless and keep you,
Pr. Buchs
COMING EVENTS:
Wednesday, September 13 @ 5:30-7pm – Family Night
Thursday, September 14 @ 6/7pm – Elders’/Council Meeting
Wednesday, September 20 @ 6pm – Small Catechism Class
Saturday, September 23 – Pork Chop Dinner