At Grace, we are called by God to be in the city for good! For those interested in volunteering this summer, we invite you to attend the orientation held in the North Room of Hope Hall on June 9th from 11:30a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Lunch will be served. Please RSVP at outreach@graceinthecity.com or call Clottee Hammons at 602-817-8996 if you plan to attend. View PDF flyer.
At the center of our religion, love. What heals us, love. What heals our communities, love. Also, the stated motive of most religious people, regardless of actual outcomes, love. I agree with the Beatles: “All you need is love.”
As we expectantly wait for Christmas, one persona dominates the church world, another persona our culture at large. These two prominent figures both speak of how we should act, what we should do—and the consequences if we do not. The persona of our culture at large? Who can we find everywhere at malls and on cards and sung about in songs during the month of December? Santa Claus.
How about the persona of the church world? Who is it who dominates our Advent stories? Right. John the Baptist.
During September, our Wilbur emphasis is GLOW (Grace Lutheran on Wednesdays). Begun in 2001, GLOW is a meal and study program that runs on Wednesdays, 5:15-7:15 pm. All are welcome to participate in and/or volunteer with this ministry! We can always use help preparing the meal during the day on Wednesdays, help serving the meal at about 5:30 pm, or help with the programming.
September 23 (Lectionary 25)
Read from the Revised Common Lectionary
First Reading: Jeremiah 11:18-20
Psalm: Psalm 54
Gospel: Mark 9:30-37
For three years, Jean Vanier has echoed in my head. Vanier founded l’Arche, a global network of homes shared by people with developmental disabilities and people without developmental disabilities. While many adults with developmental disabilities live in group homes where staff work an eight-hour shift and then go home, in l’Arche homes, the resident assistants work their shift but then live in that same home. L’Arche stands out as a unique vision of community where people truly share the joys and sorrows, idiosyncrasies and pains of everyone in the community.
The church as we know it, including Grace, is changing. With a focus less on the institution of church and more on Christian community, our community building goal for September is to see how people help us and thank them every time—whether here at church or in other aspects of our lives. This intentional practice of gratitude may reshape how we see the world.
I had always imagined these passages where Jesus and the Pharisees spar as similar to what I imagine the WWF is. “And here comes Jesus, wise rabbi, God’s son, coolest kid in town. He’s so wise the Pharisees won’t know what hit them!” Screaming crowds, fancy outfits, and consummate professionals almost dancing through an exploration of God’s law, complete with swagger and showboating. Silly me.
It’s not your imagination. We really have been reading through John chapter six for the last six weeks, a passage in scripture dubbed The Bread of Life Discourse. In these six weeks, we have heard the story of the feeding of the 5,000 followed by four weeks of Jesus teaching: I am the bread of life. I am the living bread. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day. This final week, we hear the disciples, and they’re complaining. “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” Indeed, Jesus’ teaching is difficult. He teaches the people to eat his flesh and drink his blood. He teaches the people that he came down from heaven. He teaches the people that, if they eat of this bread and believe in him, they will never be hungry or thirsty again.
We are in the final phase of Heat Respite 2018, but we are still going strong! Nothing, not even the heat or monsoon, can stop us or our volunteers or ministry partners! Our ministry partners supplied us with so much water, we are overstocked. That enables us to provide water for other hydration stations in the valley. We already donated 4 pallets to Saint Mary’s Food Bank, 1 pallet to Bible Baptist Church, and 2 pallets to House of Hope. Thank you!
On August 17 we had 32 foreign exchange students from all over the world helping in the kitchen, the Grace Room, and in Hope Hall. They are studying at the Scottsdale Community College and are part of a state funded exchange program. Thanks for helping and good luck with your studies.
We are planning to have another raffle for our participants on August 31, the last day of Heat Respite. We still need more prizes. We have Starbucks gift cards and are looking for giftcards for stores in our neighborhood, like Safeway, Circle K, McDonalds, etc. They should be maximum $10. If you have an extra backpack or duffel bag that you don’t use, please consider donating it for the raffle (it would be our grand prize!).
On September 2 we will have our Volunteer & Donor Appreciation. If you volunteered with or donated towards the Heat Respite this year, you are invited to the Volunteer & Donor Appreciation event.
If you have any questions about the raffle and when/where to drop items off, or to RSVP for the Appreciation event, please contact Sven at (602) 551-9234 or email at outreach@graceinthecity.com.
Last Sunday I went to New Covenant Lutheran Church In Scottsdale. They are our biggest donor of water this year. Even with a relatively small number of active members (just about 300), they manageged to donate 600 cases (24,000 bottles) of water so far and raised already enough money to be able to donate another 98 cases every Friday until the end of August. And, to top it all off, they already started a designated fund for Heat Respite 2019! What an amazing congregation! Thank you so much!! Everyone I met was very appreciative and supportive of our mission to provide our less fortunate neighbors with a safe place during the day, water and food!
A big THANK YOU goes out to Bill Cope, who takes time out of his busy schedule running a small bussiness. Fridays is his only day off, yet, he still drives down from North Scottsdale to deliver the water to us.
During the last week we saw a rising number in attendance. We went from about 150 per day to nearly 200! That means our Grace Room is running out of supplies really fast! We need shorts, socks, underwear, tshirts, pants, small (travel size) hygiene items, bags (duffel bags, back packs), shoes, sandals, flip flops, belts. If you have anything extra, please consider danating to the Grace Room. Thank you.
Also, a big thank you to Jeff Jirele. He drives every Thursday to Midwest Food Bank in Gilbert to pick up supplies for our kitchen.
Not only do we have amazing ministry partners, but we also have an amazing staff at Grace. Here are just 2 examples.
Lester Andrews, the caretaker at Grace, is there whenever something is needed, whether something is broken, a whiteboard needs to be hung, we need a quick Costco run, or someone needs to pick up bus passes.
Adrienne Kaye, the office administrator, keeps all the paperwork in order, answers calls, and even takes in donations.
All together, the staff of Grace with Pastor Sarah Stadler in the lead, is supportive in every way they can be to make this programm run the way it’s supposed to. Thank you!!!!!!
On August 31, the last day of Heat Respite, we're having another raffle for our attending clients. We are asking for gift cards (maximum $10), bus passes, maybe even a backpack for a grand prize. If you want to donate something for the raffle, please drop it off at the office during bussiness hours, directly at Heat Respite at Hope Hall, or hand it to Pastor Sarah or Solveig Muus on Sundays after worship.
If you have any questions, need a special time to drop donations off, or want to volunteer at Heat Respite (we still have 4 weeks left), please contact me at (602) 551-9234 or email at outreach@graceinthecity.com.
Thank you and GOD bless,
Sven Lenkewitz
Heat Respite Coordinator
Consider for a moment all the ways we feed people at Grace: pancake breakfast and GLOW, heat respite and during Grace Room distribution, fellowship following traditional worship, stewardship brunches, past pig roasts and Oktoberfests, the Reformation and centennial celebrations, funeral lunches and WELCA Bible study goodies, snacks shared when hungry people appear at the office door, council snacks and occasional luncheons like the WELCA Christmas concert luncheon, not to mention all the other groups who serve food from Grace like Native American Urban Ministry, Trevor's Vision, Oasis Church, and anyone who holds their wedding reception or engagement party or renewal of vows reception here. At first glance, you'd think we were in the business of feeding people!
The volunteers said they would do it again in August. We can’t wait!
On July 25, 20 volunteers from Saint Mary’s Basilica prepared lunch. They made meatballs from scratch, cooked spaghetti, prepared garlic bread and salad. But if preparing wasn't enough, they also served the food! That is quite a difficult job, if you consider there were about 150 hungry stomachs waiting to be fed! But these good people were so amazing and managed it all! Thank you!
Not only do we get help from volunteers from outside of Grace, but also our own youth stepped up. We do have some amazing kids! These young adults just graduated from high school and are getting ready to go to college! But still they take time to serve our neighbors who experience homelessness! On July 26, six of our own recent high school graduates prepared a tasty lunch of hamburger, fruit and vegetables. Thank you Grace Youth, and supervisors Andrea Sigala and Marlene Haller.
During the last few weeks our attendance has been steady at approximately 175 people per day. While everyone comes for food and water (we use 20 cases, approx. 480 bottles per day), not everyone stays to enjoy the daily movie, or a relaxing afternoon in the cool, 76-degree atmosphere of Hope Hall.
Yes we feed, and we offer community, and a little entertainment in the cool, but that's not all. In our small way, we also are educators. Organizations like Terros visit regularly to perform free HIV tests. Our friend Vonda Bennett is here every Friday to provide resources on jobs, housing, medical, etc. Vonda shared with us that she was herself homeless in our neighborhood for two years, and made use of the resources the city had to offer... now she’s giving back to the community.
We are grateful to have received donations from all over the valley, from Gold Canyon to Sun City West. Thanks to all of our amazing ministry partners -- we can’t do it without you!!
On Sunday, July 8, Sven visited pastors Glenn Zorb, Annemarie Burke, and Chris Heller at Mountain View Lutheran Church in Ahwatukee, to thank them and their congregation for their unbelieveable contribution of water (400 cases!) and very generous cash donation. That is really a great accomplishment by one congregation! Everyone he met was so kind and encouraging of our ministry. Blessings to all our friends at MVLC!
Sven and Paul are also so very grateful for the amazing group of volunteers who donate between 6 and 12 hours every day to the summer's Heat Respite program. If you are interested in volunteereing or have questions about how or what to donate, please call the church office or email us.
UPCOMING EVENT: We are planning another raffle at the end of Heat Respite on August 31. We will raffle gift cards ($10 max, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Circle K, etc.), bus passes, etc. If you want to help with the raffle, please contact us.
